December 3, 2005

(The first part of this essay appeared in the November 19 issue of Encounter. Following is the concluding part)

THE creation of Israel had thrown a spanner in the wheel of Islamic history. In the aftermath of the First World War, the western powers had dismantled the most powerful Islamic state — indeed the Core Islamic state — by instigating and supporting the still marginal forces of Arab nationalism. At the same time, even as they were using Arab nationalist feelings, they had made plans to fracture Arab unity by creating a multiplicity of Arab fiefdoms, each of them subject to western powers.

Adding insult to injury, the western powers also worked with the Jews to establish a Jewish state in a segment of the Islamic heartland. This restructuring of the Islamic world, imposed by western powers, would not be easily swept under the rug of time. Indeed, the creation of Israel alone was pregnant with consequences, much of it yet to unfold.

Quite apart from Israeli ambitions in the region, the logic of the Israeli state would almost inevitably propel it to rapid demographic growth, military dominance and expansionism. At the time of its founding in 1949, Israel contained only 5.6 per cent of the world’s Jewish population. In order to justify its creation as the world’s only Jewish state, Israel would have to attract more Jews, perhaps even a majority of the world’s Jews. Israel’s small population — relative to that of its Arab neighbours - also called for a rapid influx of Jewish settlers.

Then there were the temptations of success: imagine what we can do if we brought a third or a half of the world’s Jewish population into the region. The first large influx of Jews, doubling Israel’s population over the next five years, came from the Arab countries. In large part, this was inevitable. The Arab Jews were migrating to greener pastures; Arab defeat in 1948 and the expulsion of Palestinians from their lands provoked hostility towards Jews in Arab countries; and Israel encouraged and facilitated their departure.

In addition, given the very high educational levels of Jewish settlers (especially those drawn from Europe and the United States), the reparations from Germany, the financial contributions of world Jewry, and grants and loans from western countries, Israel would soon acquire the characteristics of a developed country whose capabilities in science and technology would rival the best in the world.

In itself, this enormous disparity between an advanced Israel and mostly backward Arab countries would tempt Israel to seek military solutions to its conflict with its Arab neighbours. Indeed, Israel had within a decade built a military capability that could defeat any combination of Arab states. Finally, Israel had acquired a nuclear arsenal by the late 1960s — with French technology — thus securing the Samson option against any potential Arab threat to its security.

At the same time, Israel would face hostility from Arab states that had gained independence under the aegis of Arab nationalism. This was inevitable. The creation of Israel was an affront to Islamic peoples, in particular to Arabs. In Israel’s victory, the Muslims had lost lands that had been Islamic since the first century of Islam. Further, the Arabs feared that if allowed to consolidate itself, Israel, with western support, would seek to dominate the region with new rounds of expansionary wars.

In the climate of the Cold War, the Arab nationalist states had reasons to believe that they had a chance to roll back the insertion of Israel into Arab lands. In other words, the creation of Israel also charted, inevitably, a history of hostility between this state and its neighbours.

Whether in response to this Arab hostility or using it as an excuse — as some would argue — for deepening its assault on the Arabs, Israel would seek a new ‘mother country’ to replace Britain. This time, it would turn to the United States. It was a natural choice, given the preeminence of the United States, and its large and influential Jewish population.

It would appear that American commitment to Israel was not strong at first, if measured by the volume of its military and economic assistance to Israel. Israel sought to change this by demonstrating its strategic value to the United States. This happened in 1967, when in a pre-emptive war it simultaneously defeated Egypt, Syria and Jordan. The defeat of Egypt and Syria, the two leading Arab nationalist states, both allied to the Soviet Union, persuaded the US to enter into a deeper partnership with Israel, one that would only grow with time, as Israel acquired greater influence over decision-making in the United States, and as US backing for Israel would create Islamic hostility against the US.

Just as importantly, this second military defeat of the Arabs produced a new Israel. This was Israel, Mark II, now in occupation of 100 per cent of the former British mandate of Palestine; this included the new territories of Gaza and the West Bank with 1.1 million Palestinians. Inevitably, Israeli ambitions rose to match the new opportunities created by the war of 1967. Immediately, plans were set in motion to make the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza permanent. Israel began to appropriate Palestinian lands in the occupied territories. It established fortified settlements all over the territories, in control of the main water reservoirs, and sitting on hilltops overlooking Palestinian villages.

After facing yet another defeat in 1973, Egypt broke ranks with the Arab states and recognized Israel in exchange for the return of the Sinai and an annual American subsidy. This capitulation of the core Arab country sounded the death knell of Arab nationalism; it was also the signal for Israel to expand its military operations. In June 1981 Israeli jets destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor under construction in Osirak. A year later, it invaded Lebanon, occupied western Beirut, laid siege to Palestinian refugee camps, and forced the exit of the Palestinian resistance from Lebanon. During the Israeli siege, the Phalangists, a Lebanese Christian militia allied to Israel, massacred 3000 Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla.

At around the same time, in 1982, the World Zionist Organization, published a report in its official organ, Kivunin, urging Israel to annex the West Bank and Gaza, reoccupy Sinai, convert Jordan into a Palestinian state, expel all Palestinians west of the River Jordan, and split up the Arab states into ethnic and religious micro-states. In order to dominate and control these micro-states, Israel would build garrisons on their borders, military outposts for projecting their power over these states.

In addition, these states would be policed by local militias drawn from ethnic minorities in their population — like the Christian militia created by Israel in Southern Lebanon. Once executed, this plan would establish Israel as the dominant power in the Middle East, independent of the United States. What this plan reveals is the reach of the dialectic inaugurated by the creation of Israel in 1948. In the 1980s, the World Zionist Organization was urging Israel to take steps to dominate the region on its own.

The attacks of 9-11, the American invasion of Iraq, Israeli/American plans for attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, and American plans for restructuring the region, suggest that the dialectic that began with the rise of political Zionism may have entered a new, perhaps final phase.

There are several forces operating behind these developments, whose provenance — in various degrees — can be traced back to the pressures and inducements engendered by political Zionism. At many different levels, 9-11 is a riposte to political Zionism and its chief accomplice over the past 60 years, the United States.

Islamic anger over the insertion of a Jewish state in Islamic lands, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, Palestinian suffering under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, Arab humiliation over repeated defeats at the hands of Israel, the dismantling of Arab nationalism following these defeats, western support for repressive Arab states, the sanctions against Iraq, the stationing of American troops in the Arabian peninsula after the Gulf war, and the invasion of Iraq: each of these have contributed to the radicalization of a small segment of the Islamic world, who, frustrated by the inertia of Islamic populations, have adopted terrorist tactics; they see this as the only effective way in which they can leverage their small numbers into a visible force.

Apart from America’s strategic interest in the Middle East’s oil — always a backdrop to US policies in the region — the recent evolution of this policy towards a massive programme for restructuring the Middle East owes much to two forces long in the making but which gained centre stage with the election of George W. Bush. On the one hand, these are the forces of Christian evangelists in the United States, who have derived strength from the creation of Israel and its victories over the Arabs, which they see as a necessary prelude to the Second Coming. As the largest voting bloc in the Republic Party, they are now the most powerful American supporters of Israeli Likudniks, seeking the expulsion of Palestinians from all of Israel. The Zionists have not only welcomed this support but worked to deepen their alliance with the Evangelists.

The second group of actors — small but influential — are the neoconservatives in the Bush administration who have for long, but especially since the early 1990s, urged the United States to use its military dominance to prevent the emergence of a rival power. Many of the most influential neoconservatives, both inside and outside the Bush administration, are Jews (but so are many of the most articulate members of the left in America) who have been involved with right-wing Zionist think tanks in the United States and Israel.

Some of these neoconservatives were advising the Netanyahu government in 1996 to make “a clean break” from the Oslo Agreement. After 9-11, the neoconservatives became the principal intellectual backers of America’s invasion of Iraq and the larger plan to restructure the Middle East. Could it be that this represents the belated unfolding of the Kivunin plan, with the dismemberment of Iraq an imminent possibility now? There is one difference, however. At least for now, Israel is taking a back seat.

The attacks of September 11, 2001, like the decision of the Young Turks in October 1914 to enter the First World War against the Allied Powers, mark a new historical turning point for the relations between the West and the Islamic world. The Turkish entry in the war offered Britain the opportunity to settle the age-old Middle Eastern question. It invaded the Middle East to dismantle the Ottoman Empire, and laid the foundations of a Jewish state and a system of colonies and client states in the region. Now, after 9-11, the United States enters the region, in strategic partnership with Israel, to restructure the region. This is a pre-emptive restructuring before the anti-imperialist forces in the region gain ascendancy.

At this point, there are few who are predicting with any confidence what will be the benefits and costs of this attempted restructuring: or what will be its unintended outcomes. The law of unintended consequences works surreptitiously, always hidden from the gaze of the stronger parties in a conflict whose power and hubris blind them to the resilience and force of the human spirit.

It is unlikely that even the most prescient Zionists had foreseen in 1948 — after they had created a Jewish state with a 90 per cent Jewish population — that the Palestinians would still be around some 57 years later, causing existential anxiety, and still raising questions about the legitimacy of Israel as it is presently constituted. Incidentally, Israel too was an unintended consequence of Hitler’s plan to exterminate the Jews. There would have been no Israel without the Jews who fled the anti-Semitic horrors unleashed by the Nazis in Europe.

In mounting their terrorist attack on the United States, most likely the Islamist radicals were not expecting this to sting the United States into a hasty revision of its policies towards the Islamic world. It seems more likely that what the United States did was what these Islamists wanted it to do — to invade the Islamic heartlands.

The Islamists expect to turn this into a broader war against the United States to be fought on Islamic territory. It is likely that the United States will deliver this too with an attack on Syria or Iran. Prodded by its neoconservative ideologues, the Bush administration is eager to take on this challenge. They expect to use the ‘war against terrorism’ to restructure the Islamic world, modernize (read: neutralize) Islam, defeat the Islamists, and create a new and deeper system of clientage. The Islamists expect to defeat the United States on their home turf, as the Vietnamese had done a generation before. At this point, it is hard to predict where the chips will fall — or what unintended consequences this will produce for the United States, Israel and the Islamic world.

The writer teaches economics at a university in Boston, US.

E-mail: alqalam02760@yahoo.com

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