Challenge # 71
January 2002

Editorial

Winner Lose All

In the short run, Osama Bin Laden has furthered the interests of Israel. He has transformed militant Islam, formerly America's ally against the Soviet Union, into America's enemy. Israel emerges as Washington's most stable partner in the Middle East. In the last few weeks, the US has allowed this country much more leeway than ever before in its war against the Palestinians.
Yet what is the long-term significance of the rise in America's graces? Will it enable Israel to force Palestinian acceptance of the Oslo agreement (plus or minus)? Will Washington's embrace help Israel to normalize relations with the Arab world? Do we stand before a second edition of the "new world order" that followed the Gulf War?
The answer is No. The reasons extend beyond the domains of Israel's influence.

America's Problem

In 1990-91, George Bush Senior made sure to get his war with Saddam Hussein. Although he presented the action as a response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, Bush wanted "Desert Storm" in order to defeat the forces of opposition in the Arab world. Washington worked hard to place its ally, Saudi Arabia, atop the Arab pyramid. The Afghan war, in contrast, as part of a wider war against the Islamic jihad, was not on Bush Junior's agenda. The attacks of September 11 thrust it on him. He'd have preferred to use American might to thwart big-power ambitions on the part of Russia.
The Americans, then, have been forced to take a detour. The Bin Laden affair has opened an Islamic hornets' nest, which fills the political, economic and ideological vacuum in the Arab world. It is a new jihad. The word means "striving": the Koran commands the Muslim to strive to spread Islam through the world. How has the new jihad developed so quickly? The answer lies in the political program that has formed the basis for US involvement in the Middle East. This has been the Oslo agreement and its economic counterpart, globalization.
This program suited the interests of Israel. Politically, it did not have to give up anything it didn't want to get rid of. Economically, as a rising high-tech power, it was in a position to prosper both from foreign investment and from the influx of third-world labor. Israelis also built factories in labor-cheap Jordan and Egypt.

In the view of the Arab world, however, the combination of Oslo and globalization seemed lethal. There were high hopes in globalization. Increased foreign investment would give a strong boost, it was thought, to Arab markets. The hopes were dashed. As for Oslo, Israel's arrogant negotiating posture evoked new hatred. This was accompanied by hostility toward America, which clearly favored Israel - and which refused to relax its murderous sanctions on Iraq. This was the soil in which the new jihad developed. With the Soviet infidel gone, the enemy became America. The US has won in Afghanistan, it would seem. But we shouldn't be deceived by the apparent ease of the victory. Why did the Taliban fold so quickly, considering that their forebears had successfully resisted the Soviet Union in the eighties? Unlike the communists, America posed no threat to Afghanistan's tribal identities and feudal structures. The easy win, however, won't help Washington solve its problem in the Middle East. In order to attain stability here, it would have to offer an economic alternative for the Arab world's hungry millions. Bombs won't feed them. America lacks both the tools and the will to meet this challenge.

The problem of the Arab regimes

The Arab regimes have not adapted to the new international situation that followed the Soviet collapse. Democratization and modernization would threaten them, shaking up the state apparatus and exposing its endemic corruption. The free market, with a concomitant growth of fresh political forces, would undermine the hierarchy that Arab dictators depend on. With one group, however, these regimes have been able to live in symbiosis: the militant Islamists. These have functioned as a safety valve for the state, providing charity and education, offering full bellies in paradise, and enabling people to blow off steam in the mosques. The state permits their activities, and in return, the Islamists have aimed their barbs elsewhere. This unholy alliance is the basis for the stability of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. Even Syria, which refuses to tolerate radical Islam on its own turf, has found an efficient ally in the Lebanese Hizballah.
In the late nineties, however, the symbiosis began to get expensive. Extremism was on the rise. The regimes felt forced to speak out strongly against the US and Israel. That is why, at Camp David in July 2000, PA Chairperson Yasser Arafat received no backing from the Arab world to accept the proposals of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

The fulcrum of American Middle East policy has been Saudi Arabia. Washington's bear hug, however, is proving too much for the fragile kingdom. Its royal family would like to pose as the patron of the Islamic nation, but the presence on its soil of American troops makes mockery of such a pretense. The Saudi regime sinks ever deeper into schizophrenia: on the one hand, a kingdom suffused with corruption and dependent on America for its defense, on the other, one of three nations in the world that base their legal systems on Shari' a (Koranic law) and support Islamist movements.
Amid rising criticism of its ties to Washington, the kingdom has had to keep arm's length from American policy. During the Camp David talks, the Saudis used their influential newspaper Al-Hayat (funded by the royal family) to vent vehement opposition to the agreement. They could not afford the appearance of approving an accord whose chief beneficiary would be Israel.
Since September 11, however, the US has insisted that the Arab regimes break their symbiosis with radical Islam. This break could spell their doom. The rage that now goes out toward Israel and America could turn against them. By piling on the pressure, Washington risks losing all.

Arafat's Problem

In September 2000, Yasser Arafat suddenly found himself at the head of an Intifada. He didn't choose it, he was dragged into it. If the matter had been up to him, he would have accepted what was offered at Camp David. By that time, however, Arab public opinion had turned sour on an agreement with Israel. As Arafat told Clinton, if he accepted such proposals, they would likely cost him his head.
The resulting political vacuum has spawned a war without purpose or prospect. Israel's military supremacy remains beyond question: viz., the ease with which its tanks roll into and out of the Palestinian areas. Politically, the leaders of the Intifada have failed to define its purpose - and not by chance. To posit goals beyond those stated in the Oslo Accords would make Arafat persona non grata in the international community. He achieved his current status, we mustn't forget, by means of a deal: he agreed to crush the Palestinian opposition in order to sell his people on Oslo.
Yet the main problem is a moral one. The Intifada has been doomed from the start by the people's lack of trust in its leaders. Although various organizations succeeded in causing pain to Israelis, included the hated settlers, the Intifada never caught fire with the people. Seven years of indifference to the fate of the Palestinian citizen have created this lack of trust. At a time, therefore, when rage against Israel has reached its peak, the leaders are unable to channel it.

In this situation, chaos is prevented only by the fear of civil war, or to put it in Arafat's positive phrase: "national unity". Like other dictatorial Arab regimes, the PA relies on a shaky modus vivendi with the Islamists. This leaves Palestinians without any organized opposition through which to challenge the regime. Yet America's war against militant Islam would deprive Arafat of this last buffer. It is a price he cannot afford to pay.
Arafat's December pact with the Islamist factions suspends suicide bombings inside Israel while allowing attacks on settlers and soldiers. This merely buys time. It suits Arab public opinion, which considers the bombings detrimental to the Palestinian image. In the new reality, however, neither America nor Israel will accede to such a compromise. That leaves Arafat stuck in his basic dilemma. If he wants to be relevant for Israel, he has to become a collaborator, fighting the Islamists. If he wants to be relevant to his people, he must refrain from aiming his weapons at fellow Palestinians. Since America has nothing to offer him, and since he has nothing to offer his people, the situation in the Territories remains explosive and hopeless.

Israel's Problem

Since the Afghan war did not arouse revolt in the Arab world, the US has been able to come out openly in Israel's favor. Yet American support won't help this country to normalize relations with its neighbors. Israel's colonialist origins, and its present existence as a military and nuclear power, work against its acceptance as a legitimate state in the Middle East.
The Intifada exacts a heavy price from all. Israel does not want to re-conquer areas containing dense populations. It needs to find, therefore, a Palestinian partner who will be willing to administer the Territories for it. The Oslo experiment has shown how impossible this aim is: no Palestinian leader can serve the security and economic interests of Israel and stay in good standing with his own people. Israel's policy alternates between the stick of Ariel Sharon and the carrot of Shimon Peres. The carrot, however, is shriveled. The idea of declaring a Palestinian state on 42% of the Territories will not fly with a people that has passed through fourteen months of hell - and has learned, in the last seven years, what declarations are worth.
In the aftermath of September 11, militant Islam has received a mortal blow, but the US and Israel are hardly better off. The jihad may lower its profile, or disappear, but the basic problems of the region will remain. The notion of Islamic supremacy may be mad, but no more so than that of American supremacy. There are no shortcuts to peace. The Middle East, along with impoverished areas elsewhere, must find an alternative social system, one that provides security, including economic security, to all.