From Israel: Insights

Arlene Kushner
Arlene from Israel
27 February '11

Bernard Lewis, dean of Islamic scholars, is something of a favorite of mine. At 94 he's still offering sharp analyses from an historical perspective -- with a tad of humor thrown in from time to time.

On Friday, JPost editor David Horovitz ran an interview with Lewis, and I would like to share some of what he said:

"The Arab masses certainly want change. And they want improvement. But when you say do they want democracy, that’s a more difficult question to answer. What does 'democracy' mean? It’s a word that’s used with very different meanings, even in different parts of the Western world. And it’s a political concept that has no history, no record whatever in the Arab, Islamic world. (Emphasis added)

"In the West, we tend to get excessively concerned with elections, regarding the holding of elections as the purest expression of democracy, as the climax of the process of democratization. Well, the second may be true – the climax of the process. But the process can be a long and difficult one. Consider, for example, that democracy was fairly new in Germany in the inter-war period and Hitler came to power in a free and fair election.

"We, in the Western world particularly, tend to think of democracy in our own terms...to mean periodic elections in our style. But I think it’s a great mistake to try and think of the Middle East in those terms and that can only lead to disastrous results, as you’ve already seen in various places. They are simply not ready for free and fair elections.

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"...I would view that [elections in September] with mistrust and apprehension. If there’s a genuinely free election – assuming that such a thing could happen – the religious parties have an immediate advantage. First, they have a network of communication through the preacher and the mosque which no other political tendency can hope to equal. Second, they use familiar language. The language of Western democracy is for the most part newly translated and not intelligible to the great masses. (Emphasis added)

"In genuinely fair and free elections, [the Muslim parties] are very likely to win and I think that would be a disaster. A much better course would be a gradual development of democracy, not through general elections, but rather through local self-governing institutions. For that, there is a real tradition in the region.

"If you look at the history of the Middle East in the Islamic period, and if you look at their own political literature, it is totally against authoritarian or absolutist rule. The word they always insist on is consultation.

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"...You have this traditional system of consultation with groups which are not democratic as we use that word in the Western world, but which have a source of authority other than the state – authority which derives from within the group, whether it be the landed gentry or the civil service, or the scribes or whatever. That’s very important. And that form of consultation could be a much better basis for the development of free and civilized government.

"...[The West] should not be pressing for elections...I think we should let them do it their way by consultative groups. There are various kinds. There are all sorts of possibilities.

"...To say that [the Muslim Brotherhood is] secular would show an astonishing ignorance of the English lexicon. I don’t think [the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt] is in any sense benign. I think it is a very dangerous, radical Islamic movement. If they obtain power, the consequences would be disastrous for Egypt.

"I’m an historian...But I can imagine a situation in which the Muslim Brotherhood and other organizations of the same kind obtain control of much of the Arab world...I wouldn’t say it’s likely, but it’s not unlikely.

"And if that happens, they would gradually sink back into medieval squalor...

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"...There’s a common theme [in the region] of anger and resentment. And the anger and resentment are universal and well-grounded. They come from a number of things. First of all, there’s the obvious one – the greater awareness that they have, thanks to modern media and modern communications, of the difference between their situation and the situation in other parts of the world. I mean, being abjectly poor is bad enough. But when everybody else around you is pretty far from abjectly poor, then it becomes pretty intolerable.

"Another thing is the sexual aspect of it. One has to remember that in the Muslim world, casual sex, Western-style, doesn’t exist. If a young man wants sex, there are only two possibilities – marriage and the brothel. You have these vast numbers of young men growing up without the money, either for the brothel or the brideprice, with raging sexual desire. On the one hand, it can lead to the suicide bomber, who is attracted by the virgins of paradise – the only ones available to him. On the other hand, sheer frustration.

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"...It’s not easy to define what they are for. It’s much easier to define what they are against. They are against the present tyrannies, which as they see it, not only oppress them, but dishonor their name, their religion, their nationality. They want to see something better in its place. Now what that something better would be is differently defined. They are not usually talking in terms of parliamentary democracy and free elections and so on. That’s not part of the common discourse. For different groups it means different things. But usually, it’s religiously defined. That doesn’t necessarily mean the Muslim Brothers’ type of religion. There is also an Islamic tradition which is not like that – as I referred to earlier, the tradition of consultation. It is a form of government.

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"There are other trends within the Islamic world which look back to their own glorious paths and think in other terms. There is a great deal of talk nowadays about consultation. That is very much part of the tradition.

"The sort of authoritarian, even dictatorial regimes, that rule most of the countries in the modern Islamic Middle East, are a modern creation. They are a result of modernization. The pre-modern regimes were much more open, much more tolerant. You can see this from a number of contemporary descriptions. And the memory of that is still living.

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How Our Muslim Allies Understand the "Crisis" Between the US and Israel

Harold Rhode
Hudson New York
17 March '10

Given the so-called crisis between the US Administration and Israel, it is important to keep in mind the context of how our Muslim friends’ view this. Our Arab friends in the Gulf see us as abandoning our closest ally. From a Muslim point of view, all Muslims are brothers in Islam. They also see the non-Muslims as one (united) group. Israel and America (and for that matter Christian Europe) are therefore seen as one block.

If the US abandons Israel -- such a close friend, ally and in some deep way family to the US -- our Muslim allies reason that the US would surely do the same to them --who are not part of the non-Muslim world, and by definition, "not part of the non-Muslim family/brotherhood." This indicates to them that if our friends in the Gulf cannot trust the US to stand by them, outsiders will not fare better.

This means to our Arab friends and allies in the Gulf that they must look elsewhere for protection - maybe China or Russia - or even try to appease Iran, their hated/mortal enemy, to the fullest extent they can - which does NOT bode well for America.

Probably the best way to explain what the Muslims expect in this situation is to quote, a classic Muslim scholar, ibn Hazmm on the concept of friendship, enmity, and war.

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Islamic Imperialism: The Ongoing Tragedy of the Middle East

Thomas O. Hecht
BESA Perspectives 97
25 November 09

Samuel Huntington predicted that only the Islamic civilization would re-emerge as the nemesis to the West. Recently, there is a rebirth of the Islamic struggle to reassert control over parts of the world, with jihad, or its modern manifestation – international terrorism – as its tool. The US is losing its dominance in the Middle East and is gradually being replaced by Iran. The Western world is in urgent need of a leader who will powerfully defend Western values against the growing influence of radical Islam.

Samuel Huntington remains relevant as ever. His book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (1996), presented a thesis that ran counter to the zeitgeist euphoria over globalization and a borderless world after the end of the Cold War.

Huntington unequivocally stated that the end of the Cold War would bring about a clash of civilizations. He inferred that soil, ethno-cultural devotion, and religion-based energy would claim and define the world in conflict. Huntington also drew a map of the world which can be described as "The West and The Rest." He recognized other less challenging civilizations – Hindu, African, Buddhist – but to him in the post-Cold War world, only the Islamic civilization would re-emerge as the nemesis to the West. According to Huntington, "The twentieth century conflict between liberal democracy and Marxist Leninism was only a fleeting and superficial historical phenomenon compared to the continuing and deeply conflicting relations between Islam and Christianity." Unfortunately, the West displays weakness and lack of courageous leadership.

Islamic History

A review of the onslaught of Islam, from its foundation in the seventh century to its current attempts to dominate the world, elucidates the gravity of the challenge currently faced by the West. Bernard Lewis has noted that since its birth, Islam has sought to merge religion and state authority, and to expand its influence. Christian awareness of the new competing Islamic faith began almost immediately after its advent with the triumphant emergence of the new religion from its Arabian homeland and its spread eastward to the borders of India and China, and westward across North Africa and the Mediterranean Islands into Europe. Islamic penetration of Western Europe ended with the Christian re-conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in 1492. The struggle lasted eight centuries.

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Pressuring Israel To Sign A Peace Agreement Will Not Bring Peace To The Middle East

Alex Grobman
UCI Exclusive
29 October 2009

The failure to find a solution to the Arab/Israeli conflict has lead to a number of questionable conclusions about what a peace agreement might achieve. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who served as envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East on behalf of the U.N., the European Union, the U.S. and Russia, believes that many of the problems facing the West today are a direct result of the inability to resolve this dispute.

"How can we bring peace to the Middle East unless we resolve the question of Israel and Palestine," he asked. A peace settlement would provide clear confirmation that different faiths and cultures can be accommodated in the region, and "would not only silence reactionary Islam's most effective rallying call but fatally undermine its basic ideology."1

Solving the Arab/Israeli conflict will not bring the Middle East closer to resolving their fundamental problems notes the American Jewish Committee's David Harris. If the Jewish state did not exist, would the Iranians and the Iraqis have fought an eight-year war in which a million people were killed? Would it have precluded the Iraqis from invading Kuwait in 1990? Would the Iraqis have refrained from using chemical weapons against Iran and the Kurds?2

Without Israel would the Saudis have ceased promoting their Wahhabi form of Islam that regards non-Muslims as infidels? Did al-Qaida attack the U.S. in 2001 because of Israel? Osama bin Laden did not even mention the issue in his primary complaints against the West. Would the Shi'a/ Sunni conflict that began with the creation of Islam completely vanish? Would the Sudanese halt the murder and plundering in Darfur?3

The Arab/Israeli conflict centers on three basic questions: Does Israel have the right to exist? If she does, then where should the borders be? And what would be on the other side of the borders? The Arab refugee problem is among the most conspicuous and strident problems in the Middle East.

As Middle East expert Bernard Lewis explains, their suffering is real and heart wrenching, but in comparison with the millions of other refugees who escaped or were driven from their homes in Europe, Asia, Central America, Africa and other places and who have no representation, no backing and no support, they are more fortunate.4

Yet even if a solution could be found for the Arab refugees and Israel managed to establish a serviceable relationship with the Arab states, the major problems in the region would remain unresolved. There are religious and economic human rights issues that need to be addressed, democratic institutions and an independent judiciary that have to be established, social justice needs to be promoted, and rampant corruption, nepotism, intolerance, terrorism and religious fanaticism has to cease or at least be tempered.5

Regional cooperation will not be possible as long as tension exists between Iran and the majority of the other Arab states. Iran is a "classic imperial power," with the determination and ability to reshape the area to its wishes.6

Iraq is no longer a major power center in the Middle East, and will not be one until a strong central government is re-established, the society becomes united, and sectarian violence comes to an end. A full-scale civil war involving other Arab countries is a worst-case scenario.7

Few countries in the area produce goods and services that would interest others to buy in significant quantities, so that sophisticated manufactured goods have to be imported from outside the region. Until these factors change, the Arabs will not reap the benefits of integrating into the global economy.8

Of the 22 members of The League of Arab States, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Morocco, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia-are "traditional monarchies." Algeria, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan and Tunisia are "Authoritarian Regimes." Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, and Somalia are amongst the "world's most repressive regimes."9

There are 330 million Muslims in the Middle East, yet only 486,530 living under Arab regimes are under democratic rule. This is 0.15 per cent of the total.10

Under repressive Arab regimes, there is extensive poverty, illness and illiteracy. The UN reports that 25 percent of their populations cannot read or write. Imam Ali Ibn Ali Taleb, an Islamic leader and fourth Caliph (head of state), said, "If God were to humiliate a human being HE would deny him knowledge."11

Free political expression is prohibited, access to information and knowledge is limited, and women are disenfranchised. From the time they gained independence in the past century, a number of families and Army officers have governed these countries whether it is the Al Sabah's in Kuwait, the Al Saud's in Saudi Arabia, the Al Qaddafi's in Libya or the Hashemites in Jordan. They do not share power, have created police states to maintain their positions, and earn billions in commissions purchasing vast quantities of weapons.12

In contrast to the Arab states, Israel is the only parliamentary democracy in the Middle East where there is universal suffrage with numerous political parties and candidates competing in highly spirited elections. Seventy-six percent of more than Israel's six million citizens are Jewish and 23 percent are non-Jews-mostly Arabs. Israel has six universities rated among the top in the world with The Hebrew University is in the leading 100. The country spends $110 a year per person on scientific research while the Arabs spend $2.13

The world's largest producer of antibiotics is Israel's Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, which is in the top 20 pharmaceutical companies and among the largest generic pharmaceutical companies in the world.14

Israel is a major contributor in technology, heath-care and medicine, the environment, and security and the war on terrorism.15

Compelling Israel to make futile concessions will not produce peace with the Arabs and will not solve the problems with Arab states. They are separate issues. Middle East veterans Dennis Ross and David Makovsky found that for the most part, Arab regimes develop their foreign policy based on their own primary concerns that are not connected with the U.S., Israel or the Arab/Israeli conflict. Such linkage has "misled" the U.S., and produced "counterproductive" policies. American diplomatic efforts in the Middle East will continue to fail as long they maintain this fiction that these two conflicts are connected. 16

1. Tony Blair, "A Battle for Global Values," Foreign Affairs, January/February 2007. Blair is not the first to articulate such views. See also James A. Baker and Lee H. Hamilton, "The Iraq Study Group Report," The Baker Institute, (December 6, 2006): 39; Brent Scowcroft, "Getting the Middle East Back on Our Side, New York Times, (January 4, 2007) : Jimmy Carter, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), 12-13); Shlomo Ben-Ami, Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy. (Oxford University Press, 2006), 316-332; Richard W. Tucker, "Our Obsolete Middle East Policy," Commentary (May 1983): 21-27; Herb Keinon, "Israel-Palestinian conflict is key," The Jerusalem Post (January 2, 2007); Dennis Ross and David Makovsky, Myths, Illusions & Peace: Finding A new Direction in the Middle East. (New York: Viking, 2009), 6-7, 12-30.

2. David A. Harris, "It not about Israel," The Jerusalem Post (December 30, 2006).

3. Ibid; for an analysis of the conflict between the Shi'a and the Sunni, please see Bernard Lewis, "The Shi'a," in From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East. (New York: Oxford University Press), 290-298.

4. Bernard Lewis, "The Other Middle East Problems," in Middle East Lectures Number On, Martin Kramer, ed. (Tel-Aviv: The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle East Studies of Tel Aviv University, 1995): 45-46.

5. Sami Alrabaa, " A Guide to the Mideast Tinderbox," Kuwait Times News (January 3, 2007); Youssef Ibrahim, "Who's Your First," The New York Sun (January 11, 2007); Richard N. Haass, "The New Middle East," Foreign Affairs (November/December 2006); Toby Dodge, Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003; Mshari Al-Zaydi, "Who Is the Master of the Middle East?" Asharq Alawsat (December 12, 2006); Uriya Shavit, "The Road to Democracy," Azure No. 26 (Autumn 2006); "Renowned Syrian Poet "Adonis': We in Arab Society, Do Not Understand The Meaning of Freedom," MEMRI Special Dispatch Series-Number 1393 (December 14, 2006); Benjamin Balint and Daniel Doneson, "Israel and the Arab Spring," Azure No. 22, (Autumn 2005).

6. Haass, op.cit.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Farrukh Saleem, "Arab vs. Israel," The International News (January 4, 2007); freedomhouse.org; "A special report to the 59th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights;"Youssef Ibrahim, "Who's Your First," The New York Sun, (January 11, 2007).

10. Farrukh Saleem, "Arab vs. Israel," op.cit. ; freedomhouse.org; "A special report to the 59th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights," op.cit..; Youssef Ibrahim, op.cit.

11. Saleem, op.cit.

12. "Arab Human Development Report 2005: Empowerment of Arab Women," Online; "Arab Human Development Report 2003: Building a Knowledge Society"; Harris, op.cit; Sami Alrabaa, "Only Flies Are Free In Arab World," Kuwait Times News, (September 6, 2006); Youssef Ibrahim, op.cit.

13. Saleem, op.cit.

14. Teva, Online.

15. Israel21c.org.

16. Dennis Ross and David Makovsky, Myths, Illusions & Peace: Finding A new Direction in the Middle East. (New York: Viking, 2009), 15.

Dr. Grobman is a Hebrew University trained historian. His is the author of a number of books, including Nations United: How The U.N. Undermines Israel and The West, Denying History: Who Says The Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? and a forthcoming book on Israel's moral and legal right to exist as a Jewish State to be published by Balfour Books.
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