Matthew Yglesias (September 03, 2007) - Questions and Answers (Foreign Policy)

"Why is the existence of Israel such a big deal, not just for the Arabs, but for gullible and guilt-ridden Westerners who insist that the Palestinian issue must be solved before any other Middle Eastern problem can be tackled?"

Why is the existence of Israel such a big deal for Americans like Kirchick who insist that the issue must be pre-eminent over all other American foreign policy issues?

Posted by Petey | September 3, 2007 10:06 AM

I don't think friends of Israel do themselves any favors by refusing to recognize these basic facts.

You can't support Israel without denying basic facts. For example, where is the Naqba in this little narrative?

Posted by Psyduck | September 3, 2007 10:18 AM

jamie kirchick calling other people gullible: now that's rich.

Posted by howard | September 3, 2007 10:37 AM

Jesus, doesn't our $1 TRILLION/YEAR educational system teach anybody to look at a globe anymore?

Israel is the chokepoint which connects two major subareas of the Islamic world -- North Africa and Egypt with Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia,points East , etc.
That is why it has been trampled over by foreign armies for thousands of years. Why the hell do you think Rome went there?

To the East/Southeast of Israel lies arid desert. Want to run transport corridors (railroads, highways,etc) across that? How do you have waystations if there's no water to drink??

Israel also can bomb and sink anything in the Suez canal and hence block the canal at will.

Open to invasion from the sea, Palestine has always been the Islamic world's carotid artery. Control of it by the West splits the Islamic world in two, prevents unification (by trade, mutual defense,etc.) and ensures Islamic nations will remain the bitches of the West for decades --certainly until the looted oil runs out.

Imagine there was only ONE Bridge across the Mississippi River. Now imagine someone grabbed that bridge and declared it a separate country. What would the Eastern and Western states do?

Posted by Don Williams | September 3, 2007 10:39 AM

kirchik also pulls a really slimey move in implying that anyone who thinks "that the Palestinian issue must be solved" is ipso facto someone who thinks that "the existence of Israel such a big deal."

look: i have no problem with the existence of israel, and never have. i think it should exist, and has a right to exist.

i *also* think the palestinian issue must be solved.

kirchik is following the peretz line in pretending that any solution to the palestinian issue is an existential threat to israel. that's a blunder.

he is also following the peretz line in pretending that anyone who wants to see the palestinian issue resolved is opposed to the existence of israel.

that's more than a blunder. that's a slander.

Posted by kid bitzer | September 3, 2007 10:45 AM

Is Kirchick suggesting that the existence of Israel is in fact, no big deal? Anti-semite.

Posted by William Burns | September 3, 2007 10:54 AM

"The world would have been a much better place had the Arab states accepted the UN partition plan."

Okay, but if it wasn't politically possible how was it possible at all?

The Arab regimes needed Israel a half century ago the same way they need Israel today: to gloss over their corruption, authoritarianism, and general lack of interest in developing a decent, democratic, and middle class society within their own borders.

They knew what they were doing.

Posted by Linus | September 3, 2007 10:55 AM

"kirchik is following the peretz line in pretending that any solution to the palestinian issue is an existential threat to israel. that's a blunder."

Blunder or design?

Any solution to the palestinian issue is indeed an existential threat to Greater Israel aspirations.

Posted by Petey | September 3, 2007 11:04 AM

Linus, that is a silly argument. The Palestinians were mostly a peasant people who had been promised the VERY SAME LAND by the British. For many of these people, one day, they woke up and were ordered to leave their homes (where they'd lived for generations) because of geopolitical develops far away to which they'd had no voice.

The problem wasn't the creation of Israel per se, it was the way it was created - giving no political rights to the people who actually lived there. The manta had been a land with no people for a people with no land, but it wasn't true - there were people there. Recognizing these basic facts would certainly go a long way toward solving the issue.

Posted by szr | September 3, 2007 11:05 AM

"The manta had been a land with no people for a people with no land"

moral: never trust mantas.
like most cartilaginous fish, they will never keep a bargain.
and if you try to get chummy with them, it only gets worse.

Posted by kid bitzer | September 3, 2007 11:22 AM

The creation of Israel is just another example of settler colonialism organised by and through the British government. It's just madness to think that the indigenous population of Palestine would have accepted it.

It's not just a matter of two people being promised the very same land: it's basically the fact that the British promised the land to a lot of people who weren't already living there, and kept the indigenous inhabitants under imperial control while they changed the population.

Posted by otto | September 3, 2007 11:25 AM

Kid Bitzer, I salute your "manta" comment. Also, I'm jealous I didn't think of it first.

Posted by James Gary | September 3, 2007 11:38 AM

The Palestinians were mostly a peasant people who had been promised the VERY SAME LAND by the British.

Indeedy. The Balfour Declaration wasn't an isolated moment of imperial bestowal. And if you limit your perspective to that particular reason, the perception is a simple one: that terrorism works.

Let's just note, for the record, that for most Americans, particularly FoIs, the historical narrative begins in 1947 or thereabouts. If there's any sense of the previous half-century, then it's a Whiggish pseudo-narrative of inevitability. Let's just say that I don't think Kirchick could pass a pop-quiz on the history of Mandate Palestine.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | September 3, 2007 11:38 AM

The problem with the notion that solving the Israeli/Palestinian problem will solve all the problems in the Middle East is piffle. Is there anybody who can argue that the Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds in Iraq would suddenly start getting along with each other if Israelis and Palestinians started getting along with each other?

Re otto

The creation of the United States is just another example of settler colonialism organized by and through the British Government. The difference between the creation of the Unites States and the creation of Israel is that in the former, the indigenous population was virtually annihilated.

Posted by SLC | September 3, 2007 11:40 AM

Indeedy. The Balfour Declaration wasn't an isolated moment of imperial bestowal. And if you limit your perspective to that particular reason, the perception is a simple one: that terrorism works.

I notice with fascination that the Balfour Declaration was in 1917 and that the Irgun didn't start operations until 1931. Causes normally precede effects.

Posted by ajay | September 3, 2007 11:46 AM

You can't support Israel without denying basic facts. For example, where is the Naqba in this little narrative?

The equal but opposite argument of the notion that you can't support the Palestinians without supporting terrorism.

Posted by SoCalJustice | September 3, 2007 11:48 AM

The problem with the notion that solving the Israeli/Palestinian problem will solve all the problems of the Middle East is that nobody actually supports it except straw men.

Fourteenth post? You're slowing down, SLC.

Posted by William Burns | September 3, 2007 11:48 AM

It is worth considering how the Middle East might have evolved had Arab rulers accepted the partition of Palestine

Would illegal settlements play a role in this counterfactual? If Arabs had been more accomodating, wouldn't right-wing Israeli demand for Greater Israel be all the stronger?

That aside, surely the peaceful partition counterfactual wouldn't be as good for Arabs as never having created Israel in the first place.

There may be a core point here that sometimes it's better to just accept an injustice (such as the creation of a new state in your backyard) and move on with your life. Palestinians, being human beings like the rest of us, can't really be expected to see that anymore better than any of us would if we were unjustly forced to abandon our homes.

Like Matt points out, Westerners, guilt-ridden or otherwise, can't simply deny that Arabs feel that way if they expect to have a coherent policy.

Posted by Consumatopia | September 3, 2007 11:56 AM

but for gullible and guilt-ridden Westerners who insist that the Palestinian issue must be solved before any other Middle Eastern problem can be tackled?

I don't consider myself a gullible and/or guilt-ridden Westerner. I'm heading to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan at the end of next week, in fact.

And while I wouldn't put it in exactly those words, that the "Palestinian issue must be solved before...," (only because I wouldn't want to put all other issues on hold while the world tries to hammer out a solution to a 60 year + conflict that has only fleetingly come close to being solved once or twice), but I would say it's clearly by far the most important in the region (with the possible exception of our newly created "own goal" in Iraq), and arguably the world, and the U.S. policy must have at the top of its agenda attempting to tackle the I/P problem first and foremost. It's bad for everyone - including Israelis - when we don't.

And that should be the "pro-Israel" position, as most Israelis don't need armchair Americans keeping them further enmeshed in conflict with half-baked notions like, for example, the I/P conflict is not such a big deal.

Posted by SoCalJustice | September 3, 2007 11:57 AM

If Arabs had been more accomodating, wouldn't right-wing Israeli demand for Greater Israel be all the stronger?

Perhaps, but more likely right-wing Israeli demands would not have been able to come to fruition without pre-67 Nasserite warmongering and post-67 Kharthoum conference intransigence.

Posted by SoCalJustice | September 3, 2007 12:00 PM

The primary objective of the 1947 partition plan was not to create a reasonable division of Palestine. Its primary objective was to get rid of the last Jews in Europe. The Western powers that dominated the United Nations were run by a bunch of anti-Semites, and they wanted their Jewish populations to get out and go to Palestine once and for all.

It shouldn't be surprising the plan did not, in fact, create a reasonable division of Palestine. While Arab Palestinians outnumbered Jews two to one, Palestinian territory was to be split 55-45% in favor of the Jews. At independence, the partition's Jewish state would have contained 500,000 Jews and 400,000 Arabs, whereas the Arab state would have contained 750,000 Arabs and 10,000 Jews. Palestine was to be gerrymandered in order to give the Jews control over as much of Arab Palestine as possible--including a full third of the Arab Palestinian population.

The partition plan wasn't about creating a homeland for Jews who lived in Palestine. It was about creating a homeland a homeland for all the Jews that Western leaders hoped would leave for Palestine. It did not reflect the situation on the ground as it existed in 1947; rather, it reflected the situation as the Western powers hoped it would exist in 1950, with a vastly larger Jewish population leaving Palestine's old Arab majority cut up and marginalized.

If you had been an Arab, you would have rejected it too.

Posted by ML | September 3, 2007 12:06 PM

"The creation of the United States is just another example of settler colonialism organized by and through the British Government. The difference between the creation of the Unites States and the creation of Israel is that in the former, the indigenous population was virtually annihilated."

That's more or less true. But it's no permission slip for Israeli chauvinism. Many - maybe most? - pregnancies in history were the result of rape, but arguing that that creates a license for rape today is bigotry - as per SLC's post.

Posted by otto | September 3, 2007 12:11 PM

otto,

I'm curious, do you think, for example, that the fact that the major regional international organization in the area is based on ethnicity (rather than geography, as it is in most of the rest of the world) and is called "The Arab League" rather than "The Middle East League" - which would better correspond with other similar organizations such as the European Union (based on geography), the Organization of American States (based on geography), the African Union (based on geography), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (based on geography), etc... etc... - is that an example of "Arab chauvinism?"

Posted by SoCalJustice | September 3, 2007 12:34 PM

Re William Burns

1. "The problem with the notion that solving the Israeli/Palestinian problem will solve all the problems of the Middle East is that nobody actually supports it except straw men."

It's a straw man only in the imagination of Mr. Burns. The implication in this thread and in others on this blog is that somehow solving the Israeli/Palestinian problem is the key to pacifying the Middle East.

2. "Fourteenth post? You're slowing down, SLC."

The kettle calling the pot black.

Re otto

My position is very simple. European Americans are in no position to criticize Israel given our history vis a vis native Americans.

Posted by SLC | September 3, 2007 12:46 PM

SLC,

Saying that solving the Israel-Palestine problem is key to pacifying the ME isn't the same as saying it will solve all the problems of the ME. I believe you have claimed to be a scientist? Surely you know the difference between a necessary and a sufficient condition?

I'm flattered by your pot-kettle remark, but I'm no challenge to you as an obsessive commenter.

If we Euroamericans don't have the right to criticize Israel due to our historical record, how do we have the right to criticize Palestinians?

Posted by William Burns | September 3, 2007 12:52 PM

The world would have been a much better place had the Arab states accepted the UN partition plan.

Israel could have enforced the plan by retreating to the UN lines from the green line after winning the '48 war, but didn't. Doesn't this also amount to refusal of the partition plan?

Posted by fluxisrad | September 3, 2007 1:25 PM

"The establishment of Israel was a big deal to the Arabs because of the legacy of imperialism."

What legacy? At the time of the establishment of Israel, Arabs had been under League of Nations-mandated European administration for less than thirty years. Europeans were horrible enough to show some Arabs how to extract oil from their lands and become unbelievably rich. This followed four hundred years of benevolent autonomy under the Ottoman Empire. As history goes, Arabs had less right to complain about imperialism than most other peoples.

It's also hard to see how the establishment of a tiny country by a marginal group of refugees could be considered imperialism. Had the Arabs any spine they would have drove the Jews into the sea then, when they were at their weakest.

Posted by Juan | September 3, 2007 1:31 PM

RE SLC's comment "My position is very simple. European Americans are in no position to criticize Israel given our history vis a vis native Americans "
-----------
We are in a position to criticize Israel -- to do much more than just criticize actually -- because Israel would not exist if not for our past aid: $91+ Billion past aid, at least $3Billion/year in on-going aid, massive transfers of advanced weapons like F16 fighters, UN Vetos, US military protection, tolerance of Israeli development of nuclear weapons,etc.

All of which, unfortunately, makes us responsible when Israel engages in unwarrented aggression. Like Sharon bombing apartment buildings in Gaza in the middle of the night with US-supplied F16s and US-supplied bombs. It also, unfortunately, makes us responsible for millions of Palestinian refugees.

Maybe SLC can explain to us exactly why we should have done so much for Israel while we get nothing in return.
Except for the 3000 dead and $1 Trillion lost in the Sept 11 attack -- which Bin Laden said was provoked in part by our support for Israeli aggression.

Maybe SLC can explain to us exactly why he thinks that his relentless, unquestioning advocacy of Israel is consistent with the loyalty he owes to his fellow Americans.

Maybe he can explain Why he thinks he is justified in sacrificing the lives of our children --and $Trillions of our tax dollars badly needed for health care,etc -- for the sake of a foreign country on the other side of the world. Why he thinks he is justified in dragging us into a quarrel which is not ours -- and where we have nothing to gain.

Posted by Don Williams | September 3, 2007 1:32 PM

"My position is very simple. European Americans are in no position to criticize Israel given our history vis a vis native Americans."

SLC is always looking for a permission-slip for contemporary Jewish colonial chauvinism in the historical chauvinism of others, but as I said above, it is like looking for the permission slip for rape today in the historical prevalence of rape.

I also look forward to SLC's claim that European Americans are in no position to criticise Arabs given our history vis-a-vis the native Americans. But somehow the logic never runs that way...

Posted by otto | September 3, 2007 1:43 PM

My position is very simple. European Americans are in no position to criticize Israel given our history vis a vis native Americans.

This only works under the following assumptions:

(1) That blame for historical misdeeds ought to be distributed - not only collectively among people - but throughout generations of people, too. (Incidentally, this reminds one of the Catholic "Christ killing" charge against Jews)

(2) That it is a higher moral offense to commit hypocrisy than to be idle and silent during an injustice.

Needless to say, i don't really see this as a great position to take. But I do understand it and - in a limited way - sympathize with it. Jewish-Zionists who see the actions/statements of a European country with an ugly anti-semitic past - such as, say, Spain for instance - have a certain right to be insulted.

However, at the very very most, this rule ought to only apply to governments. (even then I dont agree with it; but it is a much more honorable position) I think we can safely say that none of us participated in wounded knee, and we might suppose that we wouldn't have done so.

Posted by Neal Murray | September 3, 2007 1:53 PM

SoCalJustice,
I hope you will have the opportunity to report back to us you re life on the wrong side of the Wall.

I do assume you will visiting!

Bon Viaggio!

Posted by jp | September 3, 2007 2:10 PM

slightly more coherently...

SoCalJustice,
I hope you will have the opportunity to report back to us you re life on the wrong side of the Wall.

I do assume you will visiting: you owe to yourself if you care as much about Israel as you seem to.

Bon Viaggio!

Posted by jp | September 3, 2007 2:20 PM

Re Jp's comment "I do assume you will visiting: you owe to yourself "
---------
Does anyone have the address/email for the Palestinians' Department of Tourism??

Where are the good resorts on the West Bank and in Gaza? Does one need to dress for dinner in the restaurants or will business casual do for most places? I realize we Americans are sometimes a little too informal and I wouldn't want to offend the local people.

Also, I checked my Michelins but I seem to be missing a page or two. Can anyone supply the names/addresses of the three and four star dining
places?

Also, where is the international airport? Will the International Motor license suffice for driving around Gaza and the West Bank?

Are there any crime areas one should avoid?

Any local customs I should know about?

Posted by Don Williams | September 3, 2007 2:36 PM

"My position is very simple. European Americans are in no position to criticize Israel given our history vis a vis native Americans."

Well, my dad's side of the family came to America to escape the Irish potato famine and my mom's side is Indian, yet you pull out the bullshit line of me being an "Israel basher" anytime I have the audacity to point out that several Israeli policies or self-defeating and/or immoral. So even though my family has no real connection to the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans, I somehow can't by your logic criticize Israeli policy. You're just a tribalist who latches onto whatever excuse to allow the Israeli government to follow self-defeating policies just as long as those policies lead to more dead Arabs. Also, most liberal Americans, including European Americans, criticize the genocide against Native Americans as well. This is a stupid position, that because one's ancestors might have sinned, one then cannot criticize similar actions when they occur today? By that logic, a Turk during the Holocaust could not criticize Germany for the Holocaust.

"What legacy? At the time of the establishment of Israel, Arabs had been under League of Nations-mandated European administration for less than thirty years. Europeans were horrible enough to show some Arabs how to extract oil from their lands and become unbelievably rich. This followed four hundred years of benevolent autonomy under the Ottoman Empire. As history goes, Arabs had less right to complain about imperialism than most other peoples.

It's also hard to see how the establishment of a tiny country by a marginal group of refugees could be considered imperialism. Had the Arabs any spine they would have drove the Jews into the sea then, when they were at their weakest."

How many years did it take for the likes of George Washington to go from calling himself an Englishman to considering London to be a seat of unjust imperial power? Imperialism is inherently evil in its nature. Apologists for imperialism forget the very essence of humiliation that is part of being the colonial subject. Considering how the American right cannot get over losing Vietnam, one can understand why people in the Middle East might not be fans of their history of European and Ottoman imperialism. The expulsion of Arabs from the Mandate of Palestine was done with UN backing because Europeans wanted to shut Jews up and get rid of their own Jewish populations. Churchill, for one, was such an anti-Semite he believed in the existence of the international Jewish conspiracy.

Posted by Reality Man | September 3, 2007 2:44 PM

@ Kid Bitzer: Kirchick slanders about as often as we regular folks, say, piss or breathe. Pay no mind.

Posted by Greg Greene | September 3, 2007 2:47 PM

Interestingly, Ruth Wisse is the "Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature" at Harvard; Kirchick is Marty Peretz's "assistant to the editor in chief," (handpicked by Marty to carry on his tradition of anti-Palestinian slander and bigotry.) Thus, both Kirchick and Wisse are, much like Peretz himself, beneficiaries of Marty's wife's largesse.

Posted by M. Duss | September 3, 2007 3:04 PM

jp,

I was in the West Bank (Ramallah and Bethlehem) this past April, and the situation was very interesting and mixed.

I'm going back to Ramallah because a friend's family just opened a restaurant this month (in time for the Ramadan dinner rush). But like I say, it's mixed.

Some days Ramallah is like many other Arab towns in the Middle East, except that it's next to the Qalandia refugee camp, which is next to a very high section of the wall. And protests erupt with decent frequency both there and in Bil'in, also near to Ramllah.

But like any location, sometimes you have to be in the thick of things to see them. I imagine for the most part, for many in Ramallah, those events can go completely unnoticed - and there are very well off sections, middle class sections, Bir Zeit university, etc...

I'm sure the experience is much different/worse in places like Nablus/Balata, Jenin, Tulkarem, etc... and obviously Gaza.

Posted by SoCalJustice | September 3, 2007 3:13 PM

it is amazing to me that supporters of israel remain so blind to the realities of the mideast.
the creation of the israeli state not a big deal?
you mean the displacing of thousands and thousands of people is not a big deal?
a group of powerful nations deciding that a new country will exist, right in the middle of someone else's land...
that is not a big deal?
i am just now doing the kind of reading and research i need to do in order to learn about the history of israel and that part of the world - like most americans, i never learned the true history in school - and the more i learn, the more shocked i am. and the easier it is to understand why palestinians feel so aggrieved.
americans and israelis are alike in many ways. they share this very important, common trait: the need to ignore certain unpleasant but crucial parts of their respective histories.
for americans, slavery and the genocide of native americans remain the thorny little problems that should be buried and not spoken of.
for israelis, the creation of the state and the fate of the people who had previously occupied that space is an unpleasant reality that has to be ignored and/or glossed over in order for the nation to move forward.
no wonder our countries get along so well.

Posted by frankie d | September 3, 2007 3:22 PM

Don,

Here's the website of the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism:

http://www.visit-palestine.com/

I take it you're being facetious, but there are some really nice restaurants in several West Bank cities - and even in Gaza.

Posted by SoCalJustice | September 3, 2007 3:22 PM

Perhaps it would've been easier for the Arab states and their rulers to accept the partition of Palestine if Zionist extremists didn't start ethnic cleansing in Palestine as soon as they got a chance. Deir Yassin massacre, for example, predates the 1948 invasion; by the time war started ethnic cleansing was already in full swing, with quarter of a million Palestinian refugees already created. How do you accept something like that?

Posted by abb1 | September 3, 2007 3:23 PM

Re frankie's comment "i am just now doing the kind of reading and research i need to do in order to learn about the history of israel and that part of the world "
-------------
Like most Americans, I myself use the works of Leon Uris to tell me anything I need to know about the Middle East.
That is how I came to know that the Israelis are peace-loving, benevolent higher beings -- like the Vulcans but without the pointed ears.

I still don't quite understand how they came to acquire Palestine. The best I can figure out is that the founders of Israel waited until all of the natives went on summer holiday in the cool forests and lake resorts of the West Bank -- then the Israelis snuck in and grabbed the country. Kinda like obtaining a rent-controlled apartment in Manhatten.

Plus, As we all know from the Hollywood movies, the Arabs are psychotic as hell but comically inept. See,e.g, Arnold Schwartznegger's movie titled ..er.. "True Lies".

Posted by Don Williams | September 3, 2007 3:48 PM

Don,

I see you're in the midst of another comedy routine.

It's a huge improvement that you've managed to keep any references to the blood libel out this time.

Congrats on that.

But why don't you just go there?

It might dispel some of your myths and preconceptions - even small ones like the condescending notion that there are no nice hotels and restaurants owned by Palestinians.

And it might reinforce some of your preconceptions as well.

But it's kind of a shame that you're such an online activist on the matter, but have never had the pleasure of any Palestinian hospitality. Great food, great nargila, super nice people.

You have a passport, right?

Posted by SoCalJustice | September 3, 2007 3:59 PM

abb1,

The violence started with the Arab riots of 1920. As the then-Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill wrote of these incidents:

The racial strife was begun by the Arabs, and rapidly developed into a conflict of great violence between Arabs and Jews, in which the Arab majority, who were generally the aggressors, inflicted most of the casualties.

The instigator of these pograms, the religious leader of the Arabs of Palestine (they wouldn't call themselves "Palestinians" for decades), Haj Amin al-Husseini, would later go on to spend World War II recruiting Muslim SS battalions for Hitler in Europe.

That the origins of Palestinian self-consciousness were inextricably linked with Nazism is often overlooked today.

Posted by Slade | September 3, 2007 4:22 PM

Re SoCalJustice's comment "You have a passport, right?"
--------
Yep. But the muscular Neocons at the State Department say that they're too chickenshit to come help me if I get in a drunken bar fight.

An extract from

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_922.html
"In addition, the Department of State urges U.S. citizens to defer travel to the West Bank and to avoid all travel to the Gaza Strip. This warning supersedes the Travel Warning issued January 17, 2007.

American citizens in the Gaza Strip should depart immediately, a recommendation that the State Department has maintained and renewed since the deadly roadside bombing of a U.S. Embassy convoy in Gaza on October 15, 2003. This recommendation applies to all Americans, including journalists and aid workers.

...
...As a consequence of the current limitations on official travel to the West Bank, and the prohibition on travel by U.S. Government employees to the Gaza Strip, the ability of consular staff to offer timely assistance to U.S. citizens is extremely limited, particularly in the Gaza Strip. "

ha ha ha Sounds like Tijuana. Where are the good bars?

Posted by Don Williams | September 3, 2007 4:25 PM

Kirchick - Why is the existence of Israel such a big deal, not just for the Arabs, but for gullible and guilt-ridden Westerners who insist that the Palestinian issue must be solved before any other Middle Eastern problem can be tackled?

Matt - The establishment of Israel was a big deal to the Arabs because of the legacy of imperialism.

Some other reasons:

1. Don Williams pointed out the biggest - it was put right in the heart of the Ummah, dividing it in half. Civilizations can accept loss of territory at the periphery, because gains may come elsewhere on the periphery. they cannot accept a foreign people invading and holding their Heartland. That is why Israel is likely doomed in the long haul. If they were just some island off Turkey or a remote chunk of the Moroccan Coast, it would not be a big deal.

2. The Brits promised the Arabs, betrayed them.

3. Same land, same holy places the Ummah fought all of Christianity for for 250 years.

4. The Zionist invasion was not on empty land or the taking of mostly unused arable land from a thinly habited by primitive people situation. It was invading and troubling a civilized people that wanted nothing to do with them, had no fault in the Zionists being so disliked in other nations.

5. They found the Jews to be a cunning people that had enormous clout and influence elsewhere that negated the Muslim advantage in numbers and in claim to the land for two thousand years. First with Rothschild and the bankers that had kept Britain solvent during WWI, then with the Soviet Union, then France as a patron while Germany was sending billions a year in reparations, then to it's Big Daddy champion, the USA. Along the way, by Muslim thinking, great humiliations were inflicted on them not by just the Jews but infidels they controlled - that Islam requires to be avenged.

Posted by Chris Ford | September 3, 2007 4:28 PM

I notice with fascination that the Balfour Declaration was in 1917 and that the Irgun didn't start operations until 1931. Causes normally precede effects.

Uh-huh. You do realise that other stuff happened between 1917 and 1931, don't you?

But thanks for proving my point: the standard narrative of Israel's foundation is as problematic as the myth of American independence spoonfed to elementary school kids.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | September 3, 2007 4:30 PM

There's a great line in "Malcom X"-- "we didn't land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us!".

That's essentially what happened in Palestine. The Zionist movement inspired millions of Jews to dream of a state in Biblical Israel (which also happened to be holy to Muslims, as well as being home to quite a few of them). Jews-- many of whom were victims of tremendous persecution where they lived-- moved there for a fresh start, but also to seed the population so as to make a Jewish state possible. This went on for several decades, and then the Holocaust made creating a homeland for Jews a moral imperative, so they divided up the land to create one, at the expense of Arab Muslims, some of whom fled (understandably perceiving the new state as hostile to their interests) and some of whom were driven out of their homes.

In other words, Israel was born in a state of original sin. That doesn't make Israel's existence wrong. I would argue that all other things being equal, it should have been placed somewhere else, as the proximity to Jerusalem and the Biblical tales of greater Israel have created an irresistable temptation to expand the state. But the Holocaust taught us that anti-semitism is alive and well, it is virulent and dangerous, and the existence of Israel is a safety valve. And Israelis have lived there for 60 years and planted their own roots there.

But none of that means that Plymouth Rock didn't land on the Arab Muslim families who were living there before. And I think a lot of the more forceful advocates of Likud-type policies have probably never considered what it must be like for some Muslim family who was driven out of their home, where their ancestors had lived for a century or so, and knowing that for the past 60 years someone else has lived there, because of the decisions made by colonial powers who seemed expert at dividing up the world without the input of the locals.

Posted by Dilan Esper | September 3, 2007 4:32 PM

Don,

"In addition, the Department of State urges U.S. citizens to defer travel to the West Bank and to avoid all travel to the Gaza Strip.

Oh well, I'll be there next week, travel restriction or not. I ignored it the last time I was there.

I imagine you think you're tougher than me, right?

You're really going to let a State Department travel warning stop you?

ha ha ha Sounds like Tijuana. Where are the good bars?

First the restaurants/hotels crack, now this?

You know Muslims don't drink, right?

There are Palestinian Christians who own restaurants in the West Bank that serve beer and alcohol though.

You should go. Missing out on some famous hospitality.

Posted by SoCalJustice | September 3, 2007 4:34 PM

Uhh....it might have occurred to the original poster and at least one on you learned fellows that the Partition of India managed to happen at roughly the same time. As hard as one event would be to accept, both would be intolerable to any culture-group. Don't have to be a surrender monkey to see how the perception of a beseiged 'Uhmma' got lodged in the Islamic world.

Posted by JohnMcC | September 3, 2007 4:34 PM

JohnMcC,

I'm not much of an India/Pakistan expert, but was it not the Muslims who were in favor of that partition?

I don't think it's considered another Islamic naqba, let alone something Muslims had to "accept" or was "intolerable."

Muhammad Jinnah had been calling for the creation of a separate Islamic state on the subcontinent for years, I believe.

Posted by SoCalJustice | September 3, 2007 4:41 PM

Does the Dome of the Rock really look like the third-holiest site in Islam in this photograph from the 19th Century? There are weeds growing in front of it.

The truth is that what is now Israel was mostly a wasteland of swamps and deserts after hundreds of years of Ottoman and Arab neglect, before the arrival of the Zionists. Its Arab population didn't grow beyond a few hundred thousand until Zionist- and British-build infrastructure attracted Arab immigrants from neighboring countries.

Posted by Slade | September 3, 2007 4:51 PM

"Muhammad Jinnah had been calling for the creation of a separate Islamic state on the subcontinent for years, I believe."

It's starting to become the CW that Jinnah was using the threat of an independent Pakistan as a gambit to ensure the protection of Muslim rights in a future independent India rather than a serious wish for independence.

Posted by Reality Man | September 3, 2007 4:57 PM

SLC - The creation of the United States is just another example of settler colonialism organized by and through the British Government. The difference between the creation of the Unites States and the creation of Israel is that in the former, the indigenous population was virtually annihilated.

No, SLC forgets modern societal laws and sensibilities evolve and the stuff the Spaniards, Brits, Bantus, Japanese, and Han Chinese did in settling lands occupied by thin populations of primitive peoples or lest robust civilizations was normal and accepted by all as the way things were 300 years ago, or 2,000 years ago. Few berate the Chinese for pushing out the Thai and Laotians and in turn they pushing the Malays southward - because it happened so long ago when that was the way things were done. Those who try, as Lefties or Zionists to ignore the passage of time and civilization's advance and apply today's laws and morals to - to establish a false "moral equivalency - and pillory the way things were centuries ago are ignorant people pissing into the wind.

It is the stupid "moral equivalency" argument that is applied to individuals out of historical context by - the usual suspects - as well. Thomas Jefferson was evil because he had slaves, because a person owning slaves today would be considered evil. Julius Caesar was a bad guy because he ignored the Geneva Convention that didn't exist 2,000 years ago. Suttee in India 400 years ago was as "really bad", as Hindus wishing to do it today..And Jews wiping out Canaanites was "every bit as bad as what the Nazis did".
Wrong. Different times, different rules and customs.

Modern warfare became deadly enough that new norms began to be forged in the 17th Century, reaching the general acceptance of most by the end of the 19th Century.
Jews and Nazis waited too long.
If the Germans had tried in 1200 AD, warred successfully with the Slavs to take back the Ostlands the Teutonics had lost 1,000 years earlier - no one would have bitched or considered their actions "bad aggression" and unacceptable to the standards of civilization at the time. But they tried to get back "the 2,000 year long lost Germanic lands" in the 20th century over long settled down Slavs for their "lebensraum", and paid for it.

Similarly, if the Jews had joined with other ethnicities and carved out a new homeland for themselves in a remote locale back in 400AD, or had gone enmass to settle a portion of Africa or the New World inhabited by marginal people...they would have had their homeland. But they waited too long, shunning "peasant work", content to be stateless and prosperous as other nations "Middlemen". Then tried to grab land in the twilight of colonial imperialism.

Posted by Chris Ford | September 3, 2007 4:58 PM

The violence started with the Arab riots of 1920.

The violence of 1947/48 started with the Arab riots of 1920? Seriously? Why not pick any other date; 63 BC, for example, or 1099 AD? Enlighten me, Slade.

Posted by abb1 | September 3, 2007 4:58 PM

Reality Man,

Either way, you wouldn't say that the India/Pakistan partition is considered a negative (let alone an unacceptable, intolerable naqba) in the Muslim consciousness, would you?

Posted by SoCalJustice | September 3, 2007 5:00 PM

"It's starting to become the CW that Jinnah was using the threat of an independent Pakistan as a gambit to ensure the protection of Muslim rights in a future independent India rather than a serious wish for independence."

Sounds like some bullshit CW. Nehru and Gandhi bent over backwards to meet Muslim concerns about this.

It's also noteworthy that much of what is now Pakistan wasn't unoccupied land when these Muslims moved there; they displaced and colonized land belonging to other peoples -- peoples who, perhaps not coincidentally, became quite receptive to the teachings of Al Qaeda and other Salafist groups.

Posted by Ganesh | September 3, 2007 5:02 PM

"But they waited too long, shunning "peasant work", content to be stateless and prosperous as other nations "Middlemen". Then tried to grab land in the twilight of colonial imperialism."

1) Jews in Europe didn't "shun peasant work"; in some places they were peasants. In others they weren't allowed to farm and were forced into other occupations.

2) Most Jews weren't prosperous for most of the history after the Romans crushed their national home in Israel. Few Jews in Europe prospered before major European countries emancipated Jews in the 19th Century.

3) Zionism was spurred not by a desire to "grab land" but by a realization after the Dreyfus Affair that most European countries would never treat them fairly, no matter how well they assimilated and how patriotic they were.

Posted by Slade | September 3, 2007 5:15 PM

Re Slade's comment "Does the Dome of the Rock really look like the third-holiest site in Islam in this photograph from the 19th Century? There are weeds growing in front of it. "
---------
There are sometimes weeds growing in front of my house when I get behind on mowing the lawn. But I don't suggest you try to seize my house.

I mean, really, what is the point here?

LOOK at the Al Aqsa Mosque. It is huge, ornate, and cost a lot of time/money to build -- and a lot of effort to preserve over the centuries.
It is cited in the Quran.

Yet several posters here have tried to imply it was of no importance. The equivalent of a roadside truck stop -- places where pilgrims merely stopped to grab a bagel and take a leak before continuing the long trip to Mecca.

Didn't G--D ever tell the Chosen People not to lie? Or to steal?

Posted by Don Williams | September 3, 2007 5:28 PM

The appropriate descriptive term for Mr. Kirchik is "concern troll." His real agenda is a little too obvious.

Posted by Marc Valdez | September 3, 2007 6:01 PM

Slade - Zionism was spurred not by a desire to "grab land" but by a realization after the Dreyfus Affair that most European countries would never treat them fairly, no matter how well they assimilated and how patriotic they were.

A circular argument. Europeans followed many other peoples in the past Jews had major frictions with. So they needed a homeland. So they bribed or induced other Europe-based colonialists into letting them have their desire to grab Arab land.

Also, the Ottoman Census of 1896 belies Zionist claims the land was empty. As does the 1922 Bitish Mandate Census. Nor were Jews begging for Arabs to come on in and do the jobs Jews didn't want to do. The clashes started almost immediately over Jews buying up lands from Ottoman sellers then evicting Arabs because the Brits were telling them that Jewish immigration was to be strictly limited because of the land's inability to sustain workers. To the Zionists, every Fedayeen retained as a worker on "redeemed for Zion" land meant one less Jewish family would be permitted in.
As for the old Zionist, made the (empty) land bloom claim - yes they did on the Coastal Plain that had resisted other settlement attempts in ancient and historical times. The Jews did the same wells others did, but deeper with new technology. Unfortunately they soon realized the same dilemma as other wannabe settlers had - that the coastal acquifer recharges from the highlands where the bulk of the rain falls and where the bulk of Palestinians live - and if it fails to recharge, saline water from the Med comes in and all that "desert the Jews made bloom" goes back to what it always was = desert.

To stop that, the Israelis must limit water use on the Coast, but also control each drop the Palestinians up in the Hill lands use. Which they do - so ruthlessly the WHO says Palestinians now get only about a 1/3rd of water the Palestinians got in the 1940s.

Posted by Chris Ford | September 3, 2007 6:38 PM

"The difference between the creation of the Unites States and the creation of Israel is that in the former, the indigenous population was virtually annihilated."

No, there is no difference. It's just that the annihilation of the Palestinians has taken more than fifty years. It's ongoing and very slowly.

In fact, it's never likely to succeed given the reality of the demographics. Palestinians and Israeli Arabs will outnumber Jews within a couple decades. In fact, given the accelerated emigration of Jews from Israel disgusted with the state there, it may happen even sooner.

But the intention is still there.

As Nir Rosen states in his interview with Democracy Now a while back, the single-state solution is inevitable - that or the utter destruction of Israel. There is no third alternative except perhaps the genocidal extermination of all Palestinians by the Israelis in a manner virtually identical to the Holocaust.

And THAT would result in the destruction of Israel by somebody.

So the Zionists better get used to the idea - a single-state is coming. It may take another two, three, five decades. But it will happen.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 3, 2007 7:22 PM

"Had the Arabs any spine they would have drove the Jews into the sea then, when they were at their weakest."

With what military? The Arab military forces were actually outnumbered, and, contrary to movie depictions, had inferior weaponry to the Zionist armies. And while the Zionists had training and motivation, everybody knows Arab armies can't fight worth a crap because they have neither.

Arabs are good guerrilla fighters and lousy soldiers.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 3, 2007 7:27 PM

et tu, Matt?

How could you have wandered into another Kirchick cul-de-sac?

Posted by Amicus | September 3, 2007 7:32 PM

The big problem with the notion that had the Arabs not attacked the Israelis in 1948 things would be better is that it ignores the solidly documented fact that the Zionists had no intentions of limiting their occupation of Palestine to the percentage given them by the UN.

It has been clearly stated by the Zionist leaders at the time that their intention was eventually to drive out the Palestinians and seize the entire territory.

You could argue that they only came to this conclusion based on the violence between the Zionists and the Palestinians in the years between 1920 and the 1940's. Your argument is undoubtedly wrong.

Nonetheless, even if your argument was correct, this merely reverts the discussion back to the fact that the Zionist notion never made any sense in the first place.

The only way the Zionist notion might have made sense is if they came in and not only bought the land in question from the original inhabitants, but ALSO organized those inhabitants to construct what is now called the "single-state solution" - one country uniting Jews and Palestinians.

But as Avram Burg pointed out, as soon as Theodore Hertzl took over the movement, that was out the window. It was back to the use of force, paranoia, and terrorism.

Which makes Israel an illegal, rogue, terrorist state that should be brought down by any means necessary, and the original Palestinian Mandate redone to establish Palestine as a single state with any Palestinians or Israelis or anybody else who wants to live there.

Unfortunately that won't happen - so Israel as a state is doomed. Whether the Palestinians as a people will be genocidally killed by Israel first depends on circumstances. But Israel per se as a state is doomed.

The problem for everybody else is how long that will take and how much more trouble will Israel and the US stir up in the Middle East before that occurs.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 3, 2007 7:43 PM

"The problem wasn't the creation of Israel per se, it was the way it was created - giving no political rights to the people who actually lived there."

Oh yes the noble peasant proletariat: Rousseau meets Arabia, the honest, sun-bleached faces of Thomas Hart Benton in the Holy Land, hummus, spices, delicious flat breads.

I prefer Paul Bowles' orientalism to late workers' realism myself. In his best stories they cut off the peckers of naive Americans.

Posted by Linus | September 3, 2007 7:43 PM

"Zionism was spurred not by a desire to "grab land" but by a realization after the Dreyfus Affair that most European countries would never treat them fairly, no matter how well they assimilated and how patriotic they were."

My understanding is that Zionism existed a few decades before the Dreyfuss Affair, often dating to the mid, not late, 19th century. For instance, Zionist groups in the mid-19th century lobbied unsuccessfully to get the US to invade what is now Ghana, kick out the locals and create a Zionist state. The Dreyfuss Affair and the Holocaust caused the demand for a Zionist state to grow louder, but they were not the birthing events of Zionism.

Posted by Reality Man | September 3, 2007 7:45 PM

Richard,

Have you ever been there?

Don't you want to visit before it's destroyed?

Posted by SoCalJustice | September 3, 2007 7:47 PM

"With what military?"

The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia that invaded in 1948. Jordan's army had been armed and trained by the British and even led by a British officer.

Posted by Slade | September 3, 2007 8:14 PM

Muhammad Jinnah had been calling for the creation of a separate Islamic state on the subcontinent for years, I believe.

Muslim, not Islamic. Blame Zia in the 1970's, not Jinnah in the 1940's, for the concept of Pakistan as an "Islamic" state.

Posted by Dilan Esper | September 3, 2007 8:17 PM

Does the Dome of the Rock really look like the third-holiest site in Islam in this photograph from the 19th Century? There are weeds growing in front of it.

I think Jews are rightly be very offended when Muslims claim that Jews had no historical connection to Palestine, Jerusalem, or the Temple Mount. Not only because it misstates history, but because those things are kind of central to Judaism as a religion (at least in certain forms).

Well, the same goes for Jews who presume to tell Muslims what is and isn't holy in Islam. Tradition says that Muhammed rose to heaven on his steed from the Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. (By the way, the Dome of the Rock is not nearly as important, so even if those photos really showed it to be in disrepair-- which they don't-- that wouldn't prove that Muslims don't consider Al Aqsa holy.) If a Jew (or any other non-Muslim) wants to convert to Islam and THEN tell us what is and isn't holy in Islam, that's one thing, but I tend to take the word of adherents of the religion as to what thei religious beliefs are.

Posted by Dilan Esper | September 3, 2007 8:22 PM

The truth is that what is now Israel was mostly a wasteland of swamps and deserts after hundreds of years of Ottoman and Arab neglect, before the arrival of the Zionists. Its Arab population didn't grow beyond a few hundred thousand until Zionist- and British-build infrastructure attracted Arab immigrants from neighboring countries.

A few hundred thousand is a lot of people, especially during the 19th and early 20th century. That's certainly a lot of Arabs who lost their homes because someone else came in and plopped down in their territory, declared a state based on a competing religion and ethnic heritage, and drove at least some of them out. Again, what I don't see from the Likudnik position is any understanding of what it must have been like for those families.

Posted by Dilan Esper | September 3, 2007 8:25 PM

I don't doubt Gandhi (not Nehru) recognized the Muslims' concerns. But the past 60 years have, despite the problems in Pakistan, clearly proven Jinnah was right that the Muslims would have been a persecuted minority in India. Like everywhere else, India has fundamentalists that belong to the majority religion (Hinduism, in its case), and there is a lot of anti-Muslim bigotry which manifests itself in various ways. India's inexcusable behavior with respect to Kashmir is also an indicator. Further, to this day, many Indians and fans of India still do not recognize Pakistan's right to exist.

Jinnah saved the Muslims of India by his action.

Posted by Dilan Esper | September 3, 2007 8:33 PM

That last post was in response to "Nehru and Gandhi bent over backwards to meet Muslim concerns about this."

Posted by Dilan Esper | September 3, 2007 8:34 PM

Re William Burns

I'm not sure that I ever claimed to be a scientist. I have a PhD in elementary particle physics but have not been active in that area for a very long time.

Re SoCalJustice

As I previously stated, Mr. Hack is obviously a Mossad agent who contributes his crap on this blog for the purpose of discrediting the anti-Zionist position. Heck of a job Dick.

Mr.
Re Reality Man

1. My antecedents were back in Russia while the Native Americans were being eliminated. So I guess by Mr. Reality Mans' logic, I'm innocent too. However, the fact remains that both of us and every non-Native American is living on stolen land which rightly belongs to the Native Americans. My point is that the current Jewish inhabitants should return the land of Israel to the former inhabitants when Mr. Reality Man, Mr. Don Williams, Mr. otto, Mr. abb1, Mr. ML and myself return the land on which we reside to its original owners, the Native Americans. This will happen when Mr. Reality Man sees the back of his own ear.

2. The notion that Churchill was an anti-semite is based on a letter which he supposedly wrote some time in the 1930s. His biographer, Martin Gilbert has thoroughly investigated the letter and has concluded that it was not written by Churchill but by an aide. It is not even clear that Churchill even saw the letter. Other then this letter of very dubious origin, there is not a shred of evidence that Churchill was an anti-semite. See the following web site.

http://winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=1107

Re frankie d

Mr. frankie d is partly correct. However, more important is the fact that both Israel and the United States are composed of people who have immigrated from almost every nation in the world. Hitler considered the fact that the US was a polygot nation to be its fatal weakness. He sure missed that one.

Re Don Williams

"Didn't G--D ever tell the Chosen People not to lie? Or to steal?"

Maybe its the bad example that Mr. Williams provides with his quote mining of Bin Ladens speeches to prove that the latter consider the Israeli/Palestinian issue to be one of the reasons for 9/11. Isn't it amazing that neither Hamas or Fatah want anything to do with Bin Laden or Al Qaeda, despite his alleged claims of eternal fellowship with the Palestinians. In fact, the current Hamas leadership appears to be more concerned with Al Qaeda infiltration in Gaza then they are with the IDF. Maybe its the bad example that Mr. Williams provides with his refusal to return the property on which he resides to its rightful owners, the Native Americans.

Posted by SLC | September 3, 2007 8:46 PM

This debate spins its wheels on the Internet, while the facts on the ground have moved beyond it.

One of these facts is that the intensity of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has varied inversely with the general economic prospects for Arabs. As long as jobs are scarce and there are few opportunities for upward mobility, stoking the embers of the conflict serves a useful purpose for various Arab governments and the media outlets they control. On this score, there have been some positive developments over the last few years that have gotten relatively little attention: the evolution of a sort of capitalism in places like Dubai and Egypt, leading to rapid economic growth in those countries. When prosperity is shared more broadly, there will be less Orwellian need to stoke conflict and peace will be more readily achievable.

Another fact on the ground is the increased diffusion of Palestinian militant groups and their aims. After the death of Arafat, the split of Fatah and Hamas, the Islamic radicalization of the Fatah branch in Lebanon (which was just defeated by the Lebanese government in a three-month campaign), there is no unified Palestinian movement, and some of the offshoots are as scary to Arab governments as they are to Israel. That's why they are all happy to make the current group of Fatah leaders, however uninspired, "business class revolutionaries" again. Fatah will get money, a little of this will trickle down to boost living standards for average Palestinians, and ideologically difficult negotiations will be postponed until temperatures cool.

A third fact on the ground is the increased economic orientation of Israel, post-Intifada, to the West. With Warren Buffett making his first purchase of a foreign operating company in Israel (Iscar), dozens of Israeli companies listed on Nasdaq, Intel, Microsoft and other companies establishing campuses in Israel, and Israel cutting back on Palestinian day laborers, the Arabs' economic leverage over Israel with their boycott has become negligible.

Peace will come eventually, but grand negotiations are meaningless at this point. Israel has given up Gaza and will give up most of the West Bank once it has developed a technological solution to the rocket threat. In the meantime, the business class revolutionaries will get billions of dollars from the world to improve the lot of Palestinians in the West Bank. Perhaps this time they will. Perhaps also, the government of Lebanon will allow its Palestinians to leave their squalid refugee camps, apply for jobs, go to school and start businesses, and otherwise live normal lives.

Posted by Slade | September 3, 2007 8:46 PM

"The problem wasn't the creation of Israel per se, it was the way it was created - giving no political rights to the people who actually lived there."

Or whatever.

Lots of Palestinians suffer fairly extreme hardships on a regular basis. They're more well educated than most peoples. They're no beter or worse than any other people.

I don't trust the people elected to represent the interests of the people of Israel. I trust the people elected to represent the interests of the Palestinians even less.

Posted by Linus | September 3, 2007 8:47 PM

Re Linus

"I don't trust the people elected to represent the interests of the people of Israel. I trust the people elected to represent the interests of the Palestinians even less."

I have to agree with Mr. Linus on this one. What we have is a series of meeting between two walking corpses, Olmert and Abbas who will soon be meeting with another walking corpse, G. W. Bush. Given Mr. Bushes' abysmal failure in Iraq, Mr. Olmerts only slightly less abysmal failure in Lebanon last Summer and Mr. Abbas' abysmal failure in Gaza this Summer, these clowns have about as much chance of agreeing on a peace settlement and making it stick as I have to win the Tour de France next June.

Posted by SLC | September 3, 2007 9:06 PM<

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