August
22, 2001
Middle East Status is Quo
Most Americans
have still not gotten beyond the end of the Cold War and associated
changes in the nature of the world when it comes to thinking about
the Middle East. For decades, both before and after the formation
of Israel, the United States has believed it has had a special relationship
with the area to some extent inherited from the British and to
some extent as a result of the evolving understanding of the American
place in the world and to some extent as a result of the influence
of Jewish-Americans in the political process. Beyond the emotional
identification, however, there were reasonably legitimate geopolitical
reasons (depending on your view of the proper role of the United
States in the world) for the situation in the Middle
East to loom large in American calculations.
When the Soviet Union was alive and active, the Middle East
was one of the key stages on which the bipolar great power competition
was played out. The oil in the Middle East, the ancient desire of
Russian rulers to have access to a warm-water
port, and the special position of Israel in the American psyche
and as a western-oriented democracy, all made the Middle East genuinely
important in the struggle for world domination/influence/whatever.
American news media often covered Middle Eastern issues and even
internal Israeli politics better than certain US states were covered
(which is not, necessarily, to say that they were covered all that
well).
It is always useful to talk to Leon Hadar, former UN correspondent
for the Jerusalem Post and a research fellow at the libertarian
Cato Institute, to get a little
perspective on Middle Eastern politics. Leon, for some years, has
been pointing out that with the end of the Soviet Union and the
geopolitics its ambitions helped to shape, with no real oil crisis
and with no concerted threat to Israel's very existence, the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict has become more of a localized ethnic conflict than a conflict
with the potential to create global conflagration (though it could
escalate into a thoroughly nasty regional conflict or even a war).
This doesn't mean the United States doesn't still have some
interests in the region, but they are driven more by habit, quasi-humanitarian
or globalist-imperialist impulses, or personal religious/ethnic
identification than by concrete or material US interests or concerns.
Indeed, the most concrete US interests in the region have to do
with access to oil, most of which is controlled by Arab countries.
So the United States has always had to balance ideological/geopolitical
affinity with Israel against the need to be at least on a cordialenough
buyer-seller relationship with the
Arab countries (which we therefore conveniently define as "moderate")
that the flow of oil is not seriously hampered.
This necessity to perform a constant balancing act between
Israeli and Arab interests continues. In some ways, it occurs within
the mind of George W. Bush. As a relatively evangelical Christian
and as a Republican, most of whose friends are fairly conservative,
he seems to have a special feeling for Israel as a state. As a former
oil man from Texas from a family involved in the oil business, with
old friends and acquaintances like James
Baker, there is also that oil connection, often buttressed by
business dealings and personal relationships, with Arab countries
(especially Saudi Arabia) and leaders.
Leon Hadar had just returned from Israel when I talked with
him last week. Like most people with actual experience, he is less
interested in or eager to make predictions than some people with
less knowledge or experience. He noted that in most parts of Israel
proper, despite some heightened fears and concerns, life goes on
and people still live relatively normal lives (insofar as life in
Israel has ever been normal). They go to work and school, and take
vacations. From the Israeli perspective, then, the present situation
relatively low-level conflict with occasional incidents, but
no escalation beyond occasional Israeli military incursions into
the
West Bank and Gaza, and occasional Palestinian incursions into
Israeli cities can probably continue for a long time, perhaps
even for several years.
A possible worst-case scenario might be for some freelance
Israeli terrorist to bomb or to do serious damage to the mosque
located at the
Temple Mount site in Jerusalem. This could harden attitudes
on both sides, especially on the Palestinian side, and lead to a
larger conflict, or even to a regional war.
Mr. Hadar says there is fairly serious sentiment in Israel,
surprisingly
strong across the political spectrum, for Israel to withdraw
unilaterally from the West Bank and Gaza and, in effect, put up
fences that effectively separate Israel from Palestinian territories
and keep the movement of peoples back and forth across the newly-fortified
borders to an absolute minimum. That would reduce the economic potential
of Israel and might well tend toward economic disaster in Palestinian
regions or possibly to more effective Palestinian independence
and economic development eventually. I'm inclined to think such
a situation would be inherently unstable, although one might point
to a place like Cyprus
as an example of a physical partition that, while far short of utopian,
has provided a measure of stability.
Mr. Hadar believes that while there is a certain amount of
sentiment within Israel for a relatively large-scale military action
to eliminate the Palestinian Authority as an effective organization
once and for all - that Ariel
Sharon understands the dangers to Israel that such an operation
would entail. There would be house-to-house fighting and bloodshed
on television, beamed around the world. There would be refugees,
who could destabilize Jordan, and perhaps even Syria and Lebanon.
None of these outcomes would be helpful to Israel over the long
run.
One last thought: it is typical, around the world, for the
weaker party in an ethnic/regional conflict to call for international
intervention. This is so in Cyprus, where the Greeks typically want
intervention, and in Kashmir, where the Pakistanis tend to want
outside help. In the Middle East the Palestinians are the weaker
party and tend to want outside forces to intervene.
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