Last night in Woods Hole, MA, I heard former ambassador George Lane, a career foreign service guy who was our top envoy to Yemen, speak about the U.S. role in the Middle East. Lane looks to be in his 70s, a big guy with a strong nose and an aw-shucks delivery that belies his depth of knowledge (a historian's son, he's taught at Clark and Holy Cross). Andrea Rugh, the scholar who introduced him, noted that Lane's wife Betsy is the daughter of missionaries who set up a boys' school in Tripoli, Lebanon. Good humble values.
Lane's speech contained one blinding insight. "The great battle of the 20th century" was between communism and nationalism. Nationalism won. Now the great battle is between nationalism and religion. This is the test that Iraq faces. If the Shi'a consider themselves Arab, they will resist Iranian domination. If they consider themselves more Shi'a than Arab, they won't resist. "That's the open question." Smart.
I of course was there to hear anything the ambassador had so say re Israel/Palestine, and I wasn't disappointed. While his subject was the entire Middle East, which he defined as Libya-to-Iran-less-Turkey-and-Sudan, he visited I/P often. Here are a few of his nutshells:
After '67, France backed away from Israel because its aid to Israel, including the French planes that knocked out the Egyptian and Syrian air force (and Lane didn't say, helping Israel get nukes), had blackened its rep in the Arab world. "The U.S. became almost the sole supporter of Israel politically and militarily." UN 242 then set the basic parameters for the peace process. There have been spasms of peacemaking since then, leading up to Camp David 2000, "which was not well-prepared, and which failed," and Annapolis, when for the first time the two-state solution was adopted by all parties.
Lane then made a point I arrived at on my own just the other day: There is "not a lot to show for 40 years work" by the U.S. And his conclusion was the same: "Friends don't let friends drive drunk. Well, the United States has let Israel drive drunk." Has allowed it to believe it can "have its cake and eat it too," that it can "have all that land and have a Jewish democracy" too. So today it is "extremely difficult to see how things will work out." And where has the U.S. been? Israel should have recognized the PLO sooner, shouldn't have built all those settlements. We gave 'em the keys to the car.
"You've got to admit that the situation is bleak." Neither side has strong leadership, and will Israel be willing to give up enough land to satisfy Palestinian leadership? "I find that hard to imagine." It used to be that the Israelis would say, we can't talk to the Palestinians because we have no "valid interlocutor." Well now the Palestinians can say the same thing. And what will one state look like? Will the U.S. support "transfer" of Arabs–translation, Ethnic Cleansing– which some Israelis favor?
I can be too penny-ante, and in the Q-and-A, I landed on this point. I said, You can't be serious, that the U.S. would favor transfer. He said, No, I don't think the U.S. would. Nor would Israel. "I think most Israelis would see that as an abomination."
Two other people had better questions. A woman who I want to say is Arab pointed out that the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon in '82, which Lane had described in his speech as the work of Christian militias, had been enabled by the Israeli occupiers of Lebanon and General Ariel Sharon, who "sealed" the camps. Then a British guy said that Europeans felt hoodwinked by the U.S., which had justified the Iraq war in Europe by citing "WMD–full stop." Now Europe is absolutely determined to resolve the Israel Palestine issue and is dismayed by Washington's passivity.
Lane responded that there were a lot of reasons for the Iraq invasion that were unstated. One of them was that Paul Wolfowitz "felt very guilty" that he hadn't gotten Saddam back when he was #3 at the Pentagon in the first Gulf War. This was actually the second time Lane made this psychological point. He had earlier said that Wolfie, Cheney and Powell "felt that they failed in the first Bush administration… [because] they hadn't gotten that SOB."
After the lecture I got on line, with a bone to pick. My wife was ahead of me in the line and she said: "Why doesn't anyone talk about how much the oil companies and Cheney are making off the Iraq war…" Etc. I must say I felt a little crestfallen when I heard her saying this. Here she is sharing my bed and table, being indoctrinated by me night after night about Israel's security as a neoconservative motivation for the Iraq war, and what does she come out with when she's face to face with an ambassador? The facile Upper-West-Side war-for-oil line. Hon, we need to talk.
Then I got my chance. "You're doing a lot of mindreading on Paul Wolfowitz. It's interesting to me that you don't even mention the neoconservatives and Israel's-security motivation for the war that many others think was there. I gather you don't agree with that theory." Lane said actually he did agree with that theory, it was a real factor, the idea of "taking the pressure off Israel." He said he should have mentioned it, he didn't. As it is, he has a bugaboo about his We-didn't-get-Saddam theory.
I left impressed by the ambassador's mind, but also struck by the fact that he had censored himself. And why? He is a genial diplomatic guy; and in polite society, i.e., elite circles, it is still as acceptable to say that war-for-Israel was any part of the motivation as it is to fart loudly when you're reaching for your fingerbowl. I have arguments with my own family about this specific question. A couple of them were in attendance that night. It would have been nice to have the ambassador on my side. Walt and Mearsheimer (and probably Joe Klein too) have had precisely this experience. A lot of smart people privately agree, but don't look for them on the hustings!
P.S. A month ago I blogged about Rami Khouri's appearance before the same group, the Ad Hoc Committee for Peace & Justice in the Middle East, and called Woods Hole a "privileged resort." Well it's also a scientific community and home year round to a lot of people unassociated with tourism.
Funny bit about your wife. :)
OT: Israel backed down and let the Free Gaza ships through–
link to theage.com.au
It's not so much between nationalism and religion…more between transnational corporatism and cross-border tribalism.
Your wife was right.
"Lane then made a point I arrived at on my own just the other day: There is "not a lot to show for 40 years work" by the U.S. And his conclusion was the same: "Friends don't let friends drive drunk. Well, the United States has let Israel drive drunk." Has allowed it to believe it can "have its cake and eat it too," that it can "have all that land and have a Jewish democracy" too. "
This is absolutely true.
I disagree about Wolfowitz' psychology being as important a factor as Bush's psychology. Why didn't the ambassador mention that?
Both the free market and communism are cosmopolitan ideologies. I think both communism and nationalism lost, in favor of commercialism.
Well if the battle is between nationalism and religion, then why are we supporting a state devoted to the interests of a single religion? Shouldn't we be encouraging all our allies to look beyond sectarian and religious divisions among the people who reside within their borders? Shouldn't we be encouraging all our allies to live by the non-confessional, non-sectarian model of our own Constitution?
Isn't time to insist on one state for all the people living within the borders of Israel/Palestine?
(Rhetorical question).
I say that in the battle between nationalism and religion, religion has already won a pyrrhic victory in the Middle East. Nationalism is finished. It was dead back in the early 80s when I went to Cairo. No Arabs in Cairo except for a few dead-ender lefty academics gave a rat's *ss for Arab nationalism. Islamists were on the rise then.
I say the next battle is something else. I'm just not ready to proclaim who the opposing players are yet. I believe the real battle will be to save humanity from our own foolish behavior. Global warming will fry all our Semitic tucheses, whatever our religion. The Middle East is extremely vulnerable to climate change and is already teetering on the edge of water and food catastrophes. Questions of nation and religion won't matter so much when people start dying by the tens of millions.
I have to assume that Lane simply is not studying the writings of Arab and Iranian shiites.
They are looking for a modus vivendi within some sort of greater Islamic association.
The Iranians tend to support strongly causes that resonate among all Muslims.
Khomeini and his successors have tended to adapt Shiite religious interpretations to those of Sunni Muslims — although I have not seen explicit statements on this point.
Iranian and Arab Shiites would probably be more than happy with acceptance of the Jaafari school of Islamic jurisprudence (the Shiite version) as the fifth madhhab.
Polling data suggests that the Iranians have been quite successful with this project.
While Arab leaders tend to express suspicion or alienation toward Iran, in general most Arabs seem supportive of Iranian goals.
Lane may be expressing wishful thinking.
If there is any place where nationalism is still of significance, its in the middle east.
Israel is certainly nationalistic. Palestine (both Hamas and Fatah flavors) are nationalistic. Lebanon certainly is.
The one-state solution would be a cosmopolitan solution, and only practical if the majority of residents considered cosmopolitan civilism as more relevant than either national nationalism or religious nationalism.
I don't see it. I do see some cosmopolitans among Israelis that would primarily orient as civilist, or labor.
I don't know Palestinian attitudes well enough to know if Palestinians would PREFER multi-ethnic civil parties to dominate or national Palestinian.
It seems like a great divide now, that suggests that partition is a far more just solution, as far as sovereignty is concerned.
If the two states were good neighbors, maybe they'd choose to federate. Or maybe Palestine would federate with Jordan, or maybe Jordan, Palestine and Israel would federate.
Maybe they'd be just good neighbors.
If Lebanon were interested in nationalism it wouldn't be having all the trouble it does. The various sect leaders are willing to tear the country apart to further their own narrowly perceived ends. Please pay attention, Richard, Lebanon is not "nationalist." Not Arab nationalist, not Lebanese nationalist.
The Palestinians are flirting with civil war. You've heard, perchance, of Fatah's fight with Hamas? That's not sectarian/confessional but they sure aren't putting Palestinian national purpose ahead of their party goals, are they?
Tribes and sects and religious sub-categories are the ones driving the fights in Lebanon and Palestine these days. And then there's Iraq….
Richard, I went to Cairo 1983 as a naive young American-Arab with "Arab nationalist" ideas learned from my father the emigre. People laughed at me. Egyptians said I was a Lebanese Christian and didn't want to hear that I was/am an Arab. Even though I was raised utterly secular in the USA, everybody pinned my father's religion-of-origin on me. My protestations just made me sound like a dupe of has-been Nasserite propaganda. I might as well have been a Maoist.
Young women from the best, most elite and secular (Muslim) families were donning headscarves – Hermes, but still – to drive their parents crazy and to assert their allegiance to the Islamist sentiments fermenting. Arab nationalism died in Egypt before I got there in 1983.
And if Israel is a nation, then who are the non-Jews living within its borders (include the West Bank please, I know you don't draw Israel's borders at the 1967 line). Are they nationals of Israel? There are 3 million people inside the post '67 borders of Israel who do not have citizenship or any legal rights as Israelis. How can you have a nation when such a huge number of its residents are not nationals, citizens?
Yes, this question applies to Lebanon, too, which still refuses citizenship to Palestinians, Kurds, Asian guestworkers and others born and raised on Lebanese soil.
Leila, how can you say that "Questions of nation and religion won't matter" because food and water are more important. You must be aware that Israel controls the water rights to the West Bank and that the settlers there are entitled to 20 times as much water per person as the Palestinians. Israel will not relinquish control over those rights. Surely you must see that. Israel proper has been overpumping its ground water for the last 50 years and is experiencing salination problems.
How is it possible to separate zionist ideology from the practical requirements for water and farm land?
I definitely see the stresses there. Its a very small country. To have that much conflict with such immediate neighbors must be very upsetting.
Its definitely not simple.
Both Hamas and Fatah site Palestinian nationalist focus. When asked Hamas does not respond, "we are pan-Islamic". They clearly say we are a uniquely Palestinian party.
I thought there was a strong national sentiment in Lebanon as well, that people from all factions, feel a strong affinity with the land and the heritage.
Both religion and nation are dividers. My sympathies are not limited to those that are on my side of either, Jewish or American.
I would prefer if borders could be as separable as language. Language is a very ecological phenomena. It maps communities (not states) and the interactions between communities. It resembles the flight pathof birds, not of mountains.
In Europe and the mideast, many speak multiple languages. My cousins in Arad all spoke Yiddish, Hebrew, English German, and Arabic.
When I visited Cairo, outside of the tourist areas, I communicated with people on the street by speaking English to my Danish friend, who translated into German to someone who translated into Arabic. We were able to though.
Wonderful, simply wonderful. ;) :)
My wife was ahead of me in the line and she said: "Why doesn't anyone talk about how much the oil companies and Cheney are making off the Iraq war…" Etc. I must say I felt a little crestfallen when I heard her saying this. Here she is sharing my bed and table, being indoctrinated by me night after night about Israel's security as a neoconservative motivation for the Iraq war, and what does she come out with when she's face to face with an ambassador? The facile Upper-West-Side war-for-oil line. Hon, we need to talk.
What has happened in Iraq is so momentus, so huge, that it will not die down. And certainly not by intellectual questioning. The ramifications are already felt in a losing Afghanistan and an absent support for Georgia. The real questions will likely arise with the realization of a bankrupt US and calls from The Hague.Islam and the Arabs separately have calls for trans national nations, and certainly the Shias do, and that was what Baathism stood for. I glanced at your November 07 archive and the first entry (with 182 comments) was about Sharia law. One trans national peaceful nation, I beleive.
Wrt the role of oil as a motivating factor in starting the Iraq war, more attention must be paid to current and historical Zionist petropolitics.
Here is a short note on the topic.
It's Always Been About Oil
by Joachim Martillo (ThorsProvoni@aol.com)
Zionists and oil have been a major headline topic from [WSJ] Perle Linked to Kurdish Oil Plan* at the end of July to the Russian intervention in the formally (or formerly) Georgian regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Many commentators like the Jewish Zionist Neocon Krauthammer have discussed Russian desire to control the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. Of course, such analysts refrain from mentioning the equally strong intent of Zionists to gain control of oil resources throughout the world in order both to profit from them and also to guarantee that they cannot be used against Israel as happened in 1973.**
[Click here to read entire article!]
Well syvenen I am not arguing against your pov. I think to limit the conflict to "nationalism vs. religion" is simplistic.
Yes water issues etc. are crucial and Israeli actions against Lebanon and the Palestinians are driven by their need for water and determination to secure as much of it as they can.
My point is – Israelis are not actually "nationalists" if you define the nation by geography. They are a religious group that has gained a foothold in an area containing many religions and sects. The Israelis have defined their nation based on religious affiliation. Therefore in their case, religion has won out over nationalism. You don't see Israelis defining their nation to include all the Arabs, Muslims or Christian, who live inside the post '67 borders of the Israeli state.
So in the case of water rights etc., a religious group in the area is trying to protect the people of its faith by grabbing water from other people who live in the area but do not share that faith. Religion beats nationalism.
Re: Palestinian factions – sure they all talk about nationalism but they are tearing themselves apart. We can talk about why that might be happening but we cannot say that Palestinian nationalism or Arab nationalism has succeeded here.
Leila
As painful as it must be for you to watch division within Palestine, I am afraid it is not completely irrational. I supported the Oslo process at the time. What I did not appreciate was that the PLO had given away the store without really getting anything in return. I, and probably most people who sincerely wanted peace, were not fully aware that Israel was using to process as a cover to expand its settlements in the West Bank. That is continuing. The PA is simply giving Israel time to complete its expansion into the West Bank. The PA leaders will individually become wealthy from this process, but they and any rational observer must realize, that a state for the Palestinian people is not in the cards. Hamas fully realizes what game is being played. Since they seem to be incorruptible they are not playing it.
It is unfortunate, but bribery from the west has driven this wedge.
"They are a religious group that has gained a foothold in an area containing many religions and sects. The Israelis have defined their nation based on religious affiliation. Therefore in their case, religion has won out over nationalism. "
Israel is not defined religiously. It is defined socially of which religion is one of many ways to form association.
It is an interesting question if non-ethnically Jewish individuals defined themselves assertively as Israelis (rather than Palestinians or Arabs), what would happen to the nature of the "Jewish state".
That doesn't happen. Most Israeli Arabs that I've met do define themselves as Israeli citizens, but definitely not part of the Jewish nation, and feel alien to the extent that that is defining.
Jews, having been denied a geography for thousands of years, have a different basis of identity than geography.
Now, that geography is a component of identity it is confusing.
I don't believe that anti-Zionism is the path to post-Zionism.
I think your native predisposition to sympathy is the path to breaking prejudices.
To the extent that those activists that experience sympathy can retain it, rather than going to war, they may succeed at transformation (at about the same likelihood as Hamas accepting Israel at 67 borders).
The facile Upper-West-Side war-for-oil line.
Snap!
… it is still as acceptable to say that war-for-Israel was any part of the motivation as it is to fart loudly when you're reaching for your fingerbowl.
First laugh of the day. Thx.
Uninvited comment: I have reached the point where I can recognise a witty comment within 2 to 3 sentences. There is a sudden reversal, one's train of thought is jarred. It is quite sophisticated and reminds me of modern culture, loud music, splashy Ads, as if it is all designed to break concentration. Of course hurdles are to be welcomed. And likely be it, his faithful commenting inspires more viewers. It also gives substance to the belief we degenerate every generation, and God is great. It proves we humans can get the jist, but not the whole. And that we are all sharing the same space. Anyway the intellectual caliber of the commenters here is very high. There is also a lot of free thinking that is not in a chain of command. Maybe Witty will perfect commenting to a Buddhist standard, where the reader fills in the missing pieces. There was a Buddhist sage that said it is better not to finish one's sentence. This has been an impetious comment based on a realization. ……. And to be On Topic: syvanen – I agree
Richard Witty,
"Israel is not defined religiously. It is defined socially of which religion is one of many ways to form association."
Funny, I seem to recall that the government of Israel refuses to allow the marriage of Jews to people of other religions.
Is this one of the many ways they form associations? Is this free association?
Please respond.
Funny, I seem to recall that the government of Israel grants immediate citizenship through "Right of return" to any Jew living anywhere in the world.
Is this one of the many ways they form associations? Is this free association?
Please respond.
Funny, I seem to recall that the government of Israel denies Palestinians who were dispossessed of their land and driven out of their homeland "Right of return", contrary to all norms of accepted international law. And somehow you still wonder with a straight face why the remaining Arabs in Israel don't consider themselves Israeli. Please respond.
If you do care to respond Richard, please respond to the points that I have brought up. I send you my gratitude in advance for not setting up a smoke screen of distracting parables that serve only to obfuscate the issues.
Morris,
When Witty perfects commenting to the Buddhist standard where the reader completes the comment, no doubt he will be thrilled by our thundering Zen standing ovation, as we all applaud him… with one hand.
PM
Richard and the rest of you missed my point about the citizenship and nationality of all people living inside the post 1967 borders of Israel. Look at the map.
I heard an Israeli sociologist say this in 2002 in Berkeley. He had observed the elections in Palestine in 1996 and had been excited about the possibilities at that time. By 2002 he was deeply pessimistic. He said (my paraphrase):
"Ask any Israeli how many people live in Israel, and they will say about 6 and a half million.* Then ask them to define the borders of Israel and they will draw a picture that includes the whole of the West Bank. Now two million* Arabs live in the West Bank. They are not included in that number of six and a half million people. If you counted all of the people living inside the boundaries which most Israelis define as Israel, you will get eight and a half or nine million people. What happened to those two million? Are they people? Don't they live in Israel?"
*Census figures for Israel (not including Arabs on West Bank) now seem to be about 7 million; also Wikipedia reports wildly differing numbers for Palestinians on the West Bank, from 1.5 to 2.5 million, depending on who's counting and how.
Regardless of the number, you have more than a million Arabs, Palestinians, who don't count as citizens, who don't have the right of movement, who don't control their own water supplies, who lose land and property to Jewish settlers every year. And I'm not even adding in Gaza, which is under a siege that is perfectly illegal by any standard of international law.
Richard, I fear you are still completely blind to the reality of the state which you support so ardently. It is a state set up for the benefit of one religious group. It is a state which actively denies the basic human rights of people living inside its region of control, based on their religion. I am not talking about Israeli Arabs with Israeli passports, Richard. I am talking about Palestinians in occupied Palestine.
This state is not an example of the success of nationalism, because this state refuses nationality to large numbers of people within its borders, because of their religion.
Not an American value, Richard. Not a democratic value, either.
You can argue all you want about why this situation is justified in your opinion, but you cannot argue that those two million people on the West Bank are citizens of the state of Israel, participants in the nation of Israel. They are subjects of an occupying power which is trying to expel them and take the rest of their land.
A map circa 2002 of Israeli control of West Bank territory. link to mideastweb.org
Leila,
I think you also miss my assumptions.
I assume that the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are Palestinians, not Israelis. I think their numbers are higher than your summary though.
If you are concluding that I consider the current status as just, then you are reading my habitual critics misrepresentation of me, but not me.
Further, I assume that the Jewish residents of within the greenline are more relevantly Palestinians, not Israelis.
And, that puts me off the reservation in ways as well.
The definition of nation is a foggy one. Many Armenians, Kurds, Lapps, Lakota, describe themselves as peoples. They don't describe themselves as their nation by their geographic jurisdiction.
Its a perpetual conflict for any community that identifies as a community. Some use language as the nation-describer, rather than geography, rather than blood, rather than ideology.
That there are MULTIPLE ways that nation is described in the world, makes any situation of great change confusing. How consent occurs is important.
In the world, consent does not emerge from the silhouette of "no's". It emerges from affirmation of "I accept". And, to get to consent, there must be some affirmative description. "Blessed are the peaceMAKERS".
In situations in civil war, it is often constructed by force. It has in the spread of both Christianity and Islam. The mideast was prior dominated by Arab nationalism partially through force and prohibition against Jewish settlement.
There is no "we were always there".
I consider the two-state solution to be the least violent of any options that I've heard of, short of wishful thinking about a single-state in the present or foreseeable context.
The issues include issues of sovereignty (what is the jurisdiction of law and governance?) and of title (who owns this piece of land?). They are different questions, and must be, to incorporate justice into either state under any form.
I was reading Washington Report of Middle East Affairs (I think thats the title) and saw a post of Phil's there. (So, this blog is getting him paid work, I assume. An artists portfolio.)
In another article, I think of Ilan Pappe, he repeated the oft-repeated assertion that in 1948, Jews had only purchased 7% of the land, and only held that title on that basis. When people hear that they often assume that the remaining 93% must have been "Palestinians'" land, and that they all held title by purchase, so constitutes an injustice.
That is an example of false propaganda, as a majority of Palestinians' claims to land was not by purchase either, and a great deal of the land was vacant, open to settlement by residence.
If in a Palestinian community, there is unused land next a Palestinians' family, and the new family of the children plant olive trees there, is the unused land the children's property, or is it in some other status?
I don't have a clue what the exact numbers are, but a reasonable person compares apples to apples, and doesn't ask to be spoonfed "baby food" and calls it "apple sauce".
Its the significance of law in determining title to land. Acquisition of land by "squatting" has merit but it is imperfected. Acquisition of land by force has merit, but is imperfected.
To determine confident title requires court adjudication, and action that brings the standard of "who owns this land?" to the level of consent by a "reasonable man".
In communities with conflicting law, the law between the communities needs to be reconciled in some way.
If a larger federation can successfully reconcile the conflicts in law, then that becomes consented. If it can't, then partition is far better.
If religion is only one defining factor in Israel, why the resistance to a binational state with democratic rights for all?
The chorus I always read is that Israelis believe Israel must remain a Jewish state.
"If religion is only one defining factor in Israel, why the resistance to a binational state with democratic rights for all?"
The rational fear of terror and suppression, given the recent and distant history.
A Jewish state because anti-semitism still exists in people's memory, and the degree of historical suppression of Jews is profound.
Jews desire to self-govern, rather than be hounded.
Thanks once again for confirming the truth that zionism is a fascist movement, Mr.Witty.
A liberation in fact.
How are the plans for aliyah going Richard? Picked out the settlement yet?
You don't want to spend your retirement years hounded by the goyim.
Live and let live.
Never again (live) to anyone and not by my hand (let live).
Try it "curious".
i couldn't follow that. Does that mean you've scheduled the movers?