September 11, Crisis Resolution

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Time to Call A Spade a Spade
in the Middle East
(Especially After 11 September 2001)

By Dennis J.D. Sandole
ICAR Professor

The philosopher of science Sir Karl Popper observed years ago that the solution to any problem creates new problems. And so it is with the State of Israel. Created a few years after the end of one of the most horrific catastrophes in Jewish and world history, Israel was meant to provide a safe, secure home for the survivors of the Holocaust and for Jews worldwide. That the new State displaced the indigenous population of the area was not really an issue at the time as the resulting conflict was seen as an "Arab-Israeli" one, with Israel a Jewish island in a hostile Arab sea. Under the circumstances, it was easy for the Western world -- itself a repository of significant anti-Jewish sentiments but also guilt that those sentiments had helped bring about the Holocaust -- to be supportive of the Israelis fighting for their very survival against Arabs, against whom the West was also prejudiced.

Why should "those people" stand in the way of the survivors of Hitler's reign of terror having a safe space in a part of the world where historically there had been a Jewish homeland, especially given that the "local Arabs" could easily be absorbed by the surrounding Arab communities? And here we have Popper's "new" problem: the "local Arabs" see themselves as Palestinians, the great majority of whom have lived in refugee camps in the region or under more favorable conditions elsewhere since the founding of the new State, with the remainder living under tacit or active Israeli military occupation, or in the State of Israel itself as Israeli (albeit, second-class) citizens. In other words, the conceptualization of the conflict has shifted, almost imperceptibly, from the simplistic "Arab-Israeli" image to a more complex model, inclusive of the original conflict but also an "Israeli-Palestinian" dimension, with the Israelis defending an oppressive status quo at the expense of the Palestinians who are now popularly portrayed in Israel and elsewhere as fanatical terrorists.

There is no denying that the actions of an Islamic Jihad suicide bomber in a pizzeria or that of a Hamas suicide bomber in a discotheque queue are reprehensible acts of terrorism, and the world should rightly condemn them as such, but the actions of Israeli F-16 fighter aircraft, tanks, and helicopter gunships are not viewed by the West as acts of state terrorism against its occupied peoples, but instead as the justifiable actions of the Israeli State defending its territorial integrity -- indeed, its sheer survival -- against terrorists.

We in the West have not yet "gotten it": Israel is a modern state with all the trappings of a state, including firepower (even nuclear weapons which fortunately have not yet been used) and the moral support of the Western world which has been complicit in the development and maintenance of anti-Jewish sentiments, culminating in the Holocaust. Israel uses that firepower and support against the indigenous population who are surrounded and cut off from the outside world by the Israelis themselves.

In one of the most bizarre role-reversals in human history, David and Goliath have been transposed, with the West condemning the violence of the Palestinians, indeed blaming them for the collapse of the Oslo peace process, but "understanding" the Israeli right to defend itself against "terrorists" (but, to be fair, also calling upon the Israelis to "show restraint"). In other words, the Israelis are the sensible ones -- like "us" -- while the Palestinians are "them": the fanatics.

Until the perception of the conflict catches up with the reality, to take stock of the massive power asymmetry between the Israeli State and the Israeli-occupied Palestinians, to understand the power of territorially- and historically-based identity for the Palestinians as well as for the Israelis, the West will continue to be complicit in the tragedies visited upon the Jewish People and on their Palestinian fellow-victims. The time has surely come for the West, not to assign blame "more equitably," but to reframe its image of the conflict -- away from the simplistic "Arab-Israeli" model to the more complex one inclusive of the "Israeli-Palestinian" dimension. Doing so could help to stop the reciprocally suicidal violence, not as an end unto itself, as often seems to be the case, but as a basis for dealing with the profound historical inequities in the region and the larger conflict. As Ziad Asali stated in The Washington Post (23 August 2001, p. A25): "Israel will never make peace with its hostile neighbors until it makes peace with the Palestinians. Without peace with the Palestinians, Israelis will never truly be safe."

If all we do is (help to) "fight fire with fire," as Charles Krauthammer, among others, has recommended (Washington Post, 16 Aug 2001, p. A25), the fire may become worse. Under the circumstances, the resulting conflagration and calls only to end the violence would merely obscure and further prolong the more deeply-rooted conflict. The dynamic of the violent conflict spiral itself would also be reinforced, making it more genocidal, certainly for the Palestinians, and in the "end," the ultimate role-reversal for Jews worldwide.

The violent conflict spiral would also reinforce the rage of Muslims, Arabs, and others worldwide who are continuously frustrated by U.S. policies towards the Middle East, e.g., the 19 men who attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon on 11 September 2001, slaughtering some 5000 people and themselves in the process. The motivation here for the U.S. to be more evenhanded in its approach to the Middle East should be to do the right thing for all the parties concerned, and not to be cowed by the fear of being attacked again by people who hate the U.S.