Globalaffairs

Issue 20/April-June 2010
By Glen Ruffle

The situation in the Middle East is, as ever, moving from one crisis to another. With America annoyed at Israel, increasing tension in Gaza, and the general malaise over land, there remain few solutions to the problems that will stop the violence.

Israel and the US - a lovers tiff

There has been much fuss about a falling-out and serious breach in the relationship between America and Israel [1]. This is, of course, simply journalists trying to make a story. Whilst the announcement of new building for settlers in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want to make their future capital, prompted anger and outrage from them, and the withdrawal of their delegation from US-managed peace talks [2], the truth is that Israeli-US relations remain strong.

Israel has a fundamentally large support base across the US, from the Jewish and Christian populations. Obama will not want to alienate these large and powerful groups, especially after winning his controversial health service reforms.

Obama also knows that America is no longer the one superpower in a world full of minnows. The US has competition from China, Russia, India, the EU, and, more generally, Asia. Yet Israel remains a loyal friend and client, buying much of its weaponry from US firms [3].

And particularly now, the US needs a loyal friend in the Middle East. With the almost failed-state status’s of Iraq and Lebanon, the unclear motives of Syria, the vast oil reserves of Saudi Arabia, and of course the radical anti-Semitism of Iran, the Middle East remains the most likely source of a serious conflict in the world.

It is not a one-way street. Israel needs America for the same reasons. Despite the fact that the Israeli defence wall, or separation barrier has reduced the number of suicide bombing attacks on innocent people by 99% [4], it was only a US veto at the United Nation that stopped a resolution condemning Israel on the matter [5]. And the supply of world-beating US military hardware helps Israel maintain its cutting edge in a hostile environment.

Undue criticism

Israel has made mistakes, but much criticism of Israel is undue. The recent strikes against Gaza were; a.) Because rockets were being launched against innocent people in Israel (remember, an innocent worker from Thailand was killed in one attack [6]), and b.) Preceded by warnings that they would come [7], to help avoid civilian casualties.

Gaza’s government is run by Hamas, a group dedicated to the destruction of Israel [8]. Hamas has been losing its ability to control Gaza completely recently, hence the rise in attacks on Israel [9]. Had the attacks occurred in Northern Ireland, or the Basque region of Spain, or anywhere else in Europe, people would clearly understand that the retaliation would be that of a state seeking to defend its citizens.

Israeli attacks have caused innocent civilian deaths, but Israel does not target civilians. Israel targets rocket factories and terrorists [10]. Innocent people die because of the culture and communal arrangements of society, where people live closely together, around and inside the rooms used in the manufacturing of bombs [11]. In such circumstances, injuries and deaths are almost inevitable, and it should call into question why the terrorists care so little for their own people that they manufacture bombs in homes with children, rather than elsewhere. The easy way to stop Israel striking into Gaza is to stop threatening Israel from Gaza.

Products of history

It is a strange notion that a state, which won in victory land it historically has a claim on, must give back the land after the fight. Yet this is the situation Israel has persistently found itself in. After the two-states were first created by the UN in 1948, the Arabs refused to accept Israel at all, and started the first war [12].

Israel won, and in 1967, another war, instigated by Nasser’s Egypt, resulted in Israel gaining all of the land, and more, of the ancient kingdom of David. The 1973 Yom Kippur war did little to change things, though the Golan Heights eventually went back to Syria.

Despite winning the wars and a deep historical attachment to the land, Israel has had to watch as Yasser Arafat’s Fatah terrorist group took control of the West Bank, whilst the terrorists of Hamas took Gaza, and then used the areas to launch strikes on Israel.

Those hoping for a two-state solution, like former US President, Bill Clinton, must thus try and convince Israel to release the land it has conquered to full Palestinian control, in the face of the knowledge that terrorists already control the area, whilst asking Israel to give Jerusalem over to international control, to avoid one religion ‘winning’ over another [13]. This is highly unlikely.

Manufacturing terrorists

It is clearly known that terrorists are often motivated by poverty and poor conditions. The hardship of Gaza, under economic blockade and flattened by an Israeli operation in 2009, is a good breeding-ground for future terrorists. And as the bombings in Moscow on 29th March 2010 so clearly showed, with every assassination of one terrorist, a new one is created. In that situation it was the terrorists’ widows [14].

Yet Osama Bin Laden is not a poor man living under persecution. The September 11th terrorists were not ill-educated paupers [15]. The London bombings of 7th July 2005 were not carried out by oppressed, poverty stricken Muslims [16]. There is another motive at work.

Ideology is just as powerful as poverty. Beliefs have consequences. Much of the Islamic world is producing a certain type of Islam that helps breed violence. Over a thousand years ago, reason and rationality were beaten down in the internal workings of Islam and power was given victory. The idea that the Koran was written, that people could understand God’s world, was subsumed to the idea that it was never created, and all of life is simply submitted to God’s unknowable will. Every second is a miracle; life could end in the next second; we cannot predict cause and effect, because everything is submitted to God’s will. The Koran cannot be questioned or interpreted, simply obeyed [17].

This breeds fatalism, rather than responsibility. Instead of being responsible for making peace, and controlling your actions, you are inclined to follow your instincts, and take revenge. Instead of asking ‘what are the right choices for me to make’, you can follow a path that says ‘God has allowed me to feel angry, and he has allowed me to make a bomb, so it must be His will.’

Thus even if Israel stopped attacking terrorists, terrorists would still attack Israel. Hatred does not need external conditions to grow in. The real place to start disarming terrorists is in the theological departments of Mosques, where the idea that Islamic rule must be now, and must be enforced, can be replaced with the notion that Islam can be studied in its historical contexts, and may have variations.

Little optimism

With such roots, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has little hope of resolution. All Israel can do is to maintain high security, in the full knowledge that rich or poor, terrorists will keep coming, and Israel will remain a target for them.

But by investing in Islamic education and reaffirming rationality, it is possible over a long time to change a culture of hopelessness into one which becomes more reasoned. Israel is not blameless, but many of the problems come from inside the Islamic world and by engaging in the ideological debate, where ideas change people, it is possible to shape the future.

Glen Ruffle
Worked in British politics and achieved a Masters degree from the University of Southampton.

Bibliography and Sources
[1] Simon Tisdall (2010) Israel impasse gives US much to ponder, The Guardian, 12th April 2010, at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/12/israel-peace-plan-barack-obama

And;
The Economist (2010) A wall of suspicion, 25th March 2010, at:
http://www.economist.com/world/middle-east/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15770905

And:
Adrian Blomfield (2010) Pressure builds on Benjamin Netanyahu to end US-Israel dispute, The Daily Telegraph, 28th March 2010, at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/7532839/Pressure-builds-on-Benjamin-Netanyahu-to-end-US-Israel-dispute.html

[2] Murray Wardrop (2010) Britain urges restraint after Israel launches air strikes on Gaza Strip, The Daily Telegraph, 2nd April 2010, at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/7547474/Britain-urges-restraint-after-Israel-launches-air-strikes-on-Gaza-Strip.html

[3] Frida Berrigan and William D. Hartung (2006) Who’s arming Israel? Foreign Policy in Focus, 26th July 2006, at:
http://www.fpif.org/articles/whos_arming_israel

[4] Andrew Roberts (2010) ‘Israel is no more rogue than Russia’, page 8 of The Moscow Times, 4/03/2010, no. 4343.

[5] The St Petersburg Times (2003) U.S. Vetoes UN resolution on Israeli wall, 15th October 2003, at:
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/10/15/Worldandnation/US_vetoes_UN_resoluti.shtml

[6] Daily Telegraph (2010) Israel targeted by Gaza rockets as Ashton visits, 18th March 2010, at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/7472253/Israel-targeted-by-Gaza-rockets-as-Ashton-visits.html

[7] Rory McCarthy (2010) Britain calls for peace as violence escalates in Gaza, The Guardian, 2nd April 2010, at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/02/israel-air-strikes-gaza1

[8] BBC News (2009) Who Are Hamas?, 4th January 2009, at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/1654510.stm

[9] The Economist (2010) Hamas hangs on, in The Economist, 31st May 2010, at:
http://www.economist.com/world/middle-east/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15824034

[10] Murray Wardrop (2010) Israel carries out wave of air strikes on targets in Gaza strip, The Daily Telegraph, 2nd April 2010, at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/7546927/Israel-carries-out-wave-of-air-strikes-on-targets-in-Gaza-Strip.html

[11] Mohammed Mar’i (2008) Hamas bomb factory found in Hebron, 12th October 2008, Arab News, at:
http://archive.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=115346&d=12&m=10&y=2008

and;
Beyond Images (2002) Casualty figures: Why are there more Palestinian than Israeli victims of the conflict?, 23rd August 2002, at:
http://www.beyondimages.info/011.html

[12] Ahron Bregman and Jihan El-Tahri (1998) The Fifty Years War: Israel and the Arabs, BBC Books, Penguin book.

[13] Carlo Strenger (2010) Obama’s theological Israel mission, The Guardian, 15th April 2010, at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/apr/15/obama-israel-theological-mission-jerusalem

[14] Miriam Elder (2010) Moscow bombings blamed on Chechnya’s Black Widows, The Guardian, 29th March 2010, at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/29/black-widows-women-moscow-bombings

[15] Robert R. Reilly (2008) Roots of Terrorism and the Source of Freedom, Catholic Online, 23rd April 2008, at:
http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=27681&page=1

and;
Biography of Mohamed Atta, at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Atta
Biography of Ziad Jarah, at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziad_Jarrah

[16] BBC News (2008) London Attacks , 7th July 2005. At: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2005/london_explosions/default.stm

[17] Robert R. Reilly (2006) The roots of Islamist ideology, CRCE Briefing Paper, February 2006, published by the Centre for Research into Post Communist Economies.

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