The Clash of Ignorance

Edward W. Said, The Nation, 22.10.01. [...] In this [ Samuel Huntington's article "The Clash of Civilizations?] belligerent kind of thought, he relies heavily on a 1990 article by the veteran Orientalist Bernard Lewis, whose ideological colors are manifest in its title, "The Roots of Muslim Rage." In both articles, the personification of enormous entities called "the West" and "Islam" is recklessly affirmed, as if hugely complicated matters like identity and culture existed in a cartoonlike world where Popeye and Bluto bash each other mercilessly, with one always more virtuous pugilist getting the upper hand over his adversary. Certainly neither Huntington nor Lewis has much time to spare for the internal dynamics and plurality of every civilization, or for the fact that the major contest in most modern cultures concerns the definition or interpretation of each culture, or for the unattractive possibility that a great deal of demagogy and downright ignorance is involved in presuming to speak for a whole religion or civilization. No, the West is the West, and Islam Islam. [...] [none of the major planners of this [Iraq's] war, certainly not the so-called experts like Bernard Lewis and Fouad, neither of whom has so much as lived in or come near the Arab world in decades, nor the military and political people like Powell, Rice, Cheney, or the great god Bush himself, know anything about the Muslim or Arab worlds beyond what they see through Israeli or oil company or military lenses, and therefore have no idea what a war of this magnitude against Iraq will produce for the people actually living there.Who's In Charge? A Tiny, Unelected Group, Backed by Powerful Unrepresentative Interests, Counterpunch, 8.03.03] The basic paradigm of West versus the rest (the cold war opposition reformulated) remained untouched, and this is what has persisted, often insidiously and implicitly, in discussion since the terrible events of September 11. The carefully planned and horrendous, pathologically motivated suicide attack and mass slaughter by a small group of deranged militants has been turned into proof of Huntington's thesis. Instead of seeing it for what it is--the capture of big ideas (I use the word loosely) by a tiny band of crazed fanatics for criminal purposes--international luminaries from former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi have pontificated about Islam's troubles, and in the latter's case have used Huntington's ideas to rant on about the West's superiority, how "we" have Mozart and Michelangelo and they don't. (Berlusconi has since made a halfhearted apology for his insult to "Islam.") [...] In a remarkable series of three articles published between January and March 1999 in Dawn, Pakistan's most respected weekly, the late Eqbal Ahmad, writing for a Muslim audience [...] concluded, " The modern Islamists are concerned with power, not with the soul; with the mobilization of people for political purposes rather than with sharing and alleviating their sufferings and aspirations. Theirs is a very limited and time-bound political agenda." What has made matters worse is that similar distortions and zealotry occur in the "Jewish" and "Christian" universes of discourse.

It was Conrad, more powerfully than any of his readers at the end of the nineteenth century could have imagined, who understood that the distinctions between civilized London and "the heart of darkness" quickly collapsed in extreme situations, and that the heights of European civilization could instantaneously fall into the most barbarous practices without preparation or transition. And it was Conrad also, in The Secret Agent (1907), who described terrorism's affinity for abstractions like "pure science" (and by extension for "Islam" or "the West"), as well as the terrorist's ultimate moral degradation. [...] we are all swimming in those waters, Westerners and Muslims and others alike. And since the waters are part of the ocean of history, trying to plow or divide them with barriers is futile. These are tense times, but it is better to think in terms of powerful and powerless communities, the secular politics of reason and ignorance, and universal principles of justice and injustice, than to wander off in search of vast abstractions that may give momentary satisfaction but little self-knowledge or informed analysis. "The Clash of Civilizations" thesis is a gimmick like "The War of the Worlds," better for reinforcing defensive self-pride than for critical understanding of the bewildering interdependence of our time.

Liberiamoli o ci distruggeranno”. Lewis e i regimi islamici

Giulio Meotti, Il Foglio, 12.12.07. I Fratelli musulmani in Egitto, che hanno tradotto in arabo uno dei suoi libri, lo hanno definito “un nemico onesto”. E in questa veste di grande vecchio innamorato del mondo islamico, di perfido vate dell’arabistica neoconservatrice che ripone speranza nelle shure e negli hadith, Bernard Lewis ha partecipato a Roma al convegno sulla “Battaglia della democrazia nel mondo islamico”, organizzato da fondazioni italiane e israeliane a favore della dissidenza islamica. Scrittore eccelso e infaticabile, Lewis ha raccontato come pochi altri la Cordova dei mori, la Baghdad degli abbasidi e la Istanbul degli ottomani. E’ l’ultimo grande “orientalista”. Londinese classe 1916, fra i più grandi esperti del mondo islamico, professore emerito all’Università di Princeton, a proprio agio con l’arabo, il turco e il farsi, Lewis ha sempre rifiutato l’assunto razzista secondo cui gli arabi sarebbero incapaci di darsi un governo democratico, la democrazia sarebbe una creazione esclusivamente occidentale e che stabilire un sistema democratico in un paese come l’Iraq fosse una pericolosa fantasmagoria. Lewis dice che, se la democrazia è un’idea dell’occidente, tale è anche la dittatura. La dittatura nel medio oriente è un’invenzione moderna, seguita alla modernizzazione ispirata dall’occidente. Lewis è stato il primo a riconoscere che è proprio questa una ragione dell’ostilità araba nei confronti dell’occidente. “Perché allora penso che ci siano ancora delle speranze?” chiedeva nella primavera del 2003, quando i fanti americani si preparavano a entrare nella capitale del califfato mesopotamico. “Innanzitutto perché nel mondo islamico ci sono queste tradizioni più antiche, non di governo democratico ma di governo sottoposto alla legge, esercitato sulla base del consenso e fondato su un patto sociale. La visione islamica tradizionale del governo è impostata sull’idea del patto sociale e del consenso. Ed è questo, io credo, che dà speranze per il futuro”. Lewis non pensa che soltanto classi dirigenti laicizzate possano governare democraticamente un paese musulmano. Ha piena fiducia che la democrazia possa trovar casa nell’islam delle moschee e piantare radici nella stessa fede coranica. Nel 1998 su Foreign Affairs fu il primo a “leggere” profeticamente che cosa bisognava attendersi da Osama bin Laden. Per far fronte alla visione liberticida egemonica nelle università americane, Lewis ha dato vita a una nuova Associazione per gli studi sul medio oriente. Sarà inaugurata la primavera prossima a Washington. Ne fa parte Fouad Ajami, arabista di fama e decano alla Johns Hopkins University. Bernard Lewis chiede di distinguere “l’islam come civiltà e l’islam come religione. E’ una distinzione molto importante. Le dittature in medio oriente sono creature europee importate nel mondo arabo. Nel XIX secolo il mondo arabo ha cercato di imitare il mondo occidentale per non perdere la corsa alla modernità”. Negli anni Trenta ci fu “una nazificazione del medio oriente” e gli attuali regimi islamici sono “una perversione mostruosa” esattamente come lo fu il nazismo. “L’attuale modello arabo-totalitario è un’esportazione europea che non trova corrispondenza nella storia islamica”. Nell’islam ci sono due tradizioni politiche. “La Mecca e Medina, Maometto che è stato prima resistente e poi autorità. Nell’islam si parla sempre di ‘autorità limitata’. Noi usiamo dire diritto alla disobbedienza, nell’islam si parla del dovere alla disobbedienza. Nell’islam c’è anche un continuo riferimento al ‘consulto’, la shura. La tirannia nell’islam è dunque un’aberrazione. L’islam ha una tradizione protodemocratica”. Lewis spiega che “in epoca ottomana il sultano doveva consultarsi con tutti i dignitari” e, al momento della salita al trono, era salutato dalla folla con la frase “Allah è più grande di te”. Venendo alla minaccia nichilista e negazionista che ammorba la civiltà coranica dopo l’11 settembre, secondo Lewis “un nuovo movimento nell’islam è emerso grazie a una combinazione politica ed economica. E’ un pericolo che ricorda il nazismo. La Germania aveva dato un grande contributo alla civiltà e il nazismo fu una mostruosità tedesca. Oggi vediamo una simile perversione nell’islam. E’ una minaccia per tutto il mondo”. Sebbene il contributo attivo dell’occidente sia in qualche modo limitato (“i veri cambiamenti possono essere raggiunti soltanto dai musulmani”), il sublime arabista avverte: “Abbiamo soltanto una scelta: aiutiamoli a liberarsi o ci distruggeranno”.

A crack in the wall

Miko Peled, The Electronic Intifada, Oct 1, 2007

Palestinians demonstrate against an Israeli closure near the West Bank city of Qalqilia, August 2007. (Khaleel Reash/MaanImages)

"Getting inside the official Israeli mind is a worthwhile, if lurid, experience," the late Edward Said wrote in his article "Dignity, Solidarity and the Penal Colony." This is what it feels like when one is trying to understand the Middle East peace process that never seems to lead to anything. Observing this never ending saga, one can hardly help reaching the realization that peace is not a priority for Israel, and indeed Israeli governments have made no secret of the fact that a peace that precludes Israel's complete control over historic Palestine is of no interest to them. There is not a shred of evidence that can support Israeli claims of wanting to achieve peace based on the division of historic Israel/Palestine into two independent states. Israel has skillfully used the last 40 years to strengthen its hold on the areas occupied in 1967 and create a de facto apartheid state in all of Israel/Palestine. Consecutive Israeli governments bluntly use the so-called peace process to cover up expansion into the West Bank and execution of what has been called the slow genocide of the Palestinian people. The Israeli military is plagued by a severe lack of motivation among young recruits and increased numbers of young people avoiding the otherwise mandatory draft; according to recent stories in the Israeli press drug abuse [James D. Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank for 10 years (1995-2005), for 11 months the Middle East envoy of the Quartet: "Israeli youth finish high school and spend two-three years in the army, and then go to Thailand and other places and smoke pot to get over it, then come back and start their lives when they're 24. I don't think that's an ideal way for the next generation of Israel to live their lives.". Haaretz, 21.07.07] is rampant everywhere in the army and particularly among Israel's combat "elite" units. While the drug problem is not new (drugs were rampant in the IDF even 20 years ago) its use among combat units involved in daily operations is reported to have dramatically increased. This is hardly surprising if we consider the fact that "combat" is another word for abuse, murder and displacement of unarmed civilians.

The decision by the Israeli Supreme Court to move the separation barrier and return land back to the people of Bil'in brought a sense that justice was carried out. Indeed this decision may constitute the first crack in the separation wall, and even to an extent a crack in the armor of the almighty Israeli "defense" forces. The leaders of the struggle held fast and did not compromise their objectives or their integrity and they have much of which they can proud. However, it is unlikely that the barrier will be moved or the land returned.

For the last 60 years Israel has been intent on "The obliteration of an entire people by slow systematic methods of suffocation, outright murder and the stifling of everyday life" to use the words Edward Said. No branch of the Israeli government will admit to the illegitimacy of the occupation of Palestine; they will never admit to crimes they committed like the theft of land or the murder of innocent civilians and consequently, the "Defense" Department will not be bound by a Supreme Court's decision that goes against its intent.

At the same time it is important to note that this behemoth of a system called the Israeli "Defense" Forces is showing signs of crumbling. The Israeli military of today is not unlike the Red Army during the final years of the Soviet Union, where all that was left was the appearance of a superpower. The Israeli military is plagued by a severe lack of motivation among young recruits and increased numbers of young people avoiding the otherwise mandatory draft; according to recent stories in the Israeli press drug abuse [James D. Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank for 10 years (1995-2005), for 11 months the Middle East envoy of the Quartet: "Israeli youth finish high school and spend two-three years in the army, and then go to Thailand and other places and smoke pot to get over it, then come back and start their lives when they're 24. I don't think that's an ideal way for the next generation of Israel to live their lives.". Haaretz, 21.07.07] is rampant everywhere in the army and particularly among Israel's combat "elite" units. While the drug problem is not new (drugs were rampant in the IDF even 20 years ago) its use among combat units involved in daily operations is reported to have dramatically increased. This is hardly surprising if we consider the fact that "combat" is another word for abuse, murder and displacement of unarmed civilians.

To compound this, the IDF was severely defeated last summer during its assault on Lebanon. It was a military as well as a moral defeat, and Israel's commanders were totally humiliated by Hizballah. In Gaza the military has also proven to be inept. Even with massive use of force the IDF cannot stop the rockets launched from Gaza into Israel. Only recently several dozen new army recruits were injured by a rocket that fell in a large army base near Zikkim, just north of Gaza. And finally, with all of their intelligence the IDF is incapable of finding the soldier Gilad Shalit who is being held captive in Gaza. In light of all this, can there be any wonder that Israeli officers find diversion in drugs?

Edward Said refers to the Israeli military as "brigades of willing executioners," and frankly, one cannot blame him. In a recent story in the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot a young tank commander describes a "battle" against three suspected "gunmen" near the wall that imprisons Gaza: "the first one was caught in the chains of my tank (and crushed to death), the second we nailed and the others escaped." The young lieutenant is congratulated by his commanding officer for courage and resourcefulness but warned that a tank should shoot from 1.5 km and not at close range. "This was practically hand-to-hand combat," says the commander.

One has to wonder, if these "gunmen" were only suspects why they were executed. If indeed they were armed, how was it that the tank managed to get so close? But the larger question answered in this particular report is this: Why are Israeli tanks still in Gaza? According this report, Israel claims 300 meters inside Gaza as a security zone (on the Gaza side of the wall) and will not permit anyone to come near.

As we engage in this lurid experience of trying to understand Israel we cannot escape the conclusion that Israel has no intention to end the occupation. There is no plan to release Palestinians from their bondage or allow the emergence of a democracy that includes Palestinian freedom. The joint, nonviolent struggle must therefore continue until full equal rights for both people are achieved in all of Israel/Palestine. It will be an uphill battle. Just they did in Bil'in, the savage beast that is the Israeli military will react to nonviolence with as much violence as it possibly can.

Miko Peled is an Israeli peace activist and writer living in the US. He is co-founder of the Elbanna Peled Foundation in memory of Smadar Elhanan and Abir Aramin. Peled is the son of the late Israeli General Matti Peled.

Rashid Khalidi on International Law

Jane Adas. Washinton Report on Middle East Affairs. July 2007. "The U.S. bears special responsibility. Despite its mainly unilateral efforts following the 1967 war—Henry Kissinger’s shuttle diplomacy, President Jimmy Carter at Camp David, and Secretary of State James Baker’s Madrid peace conference—the U.S. has never supported self-determination for the Palestinians. President George Bush’s 2005 comment in support of Palestinian statehood was rendered irrelevant, Khalidi asserted, by his April 2004 letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon supporting the annexation of Jewish settlement blocs ["In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers"] and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to Israel ["The United States is strongly committed to Israel's security and well-being as a Jewish state. It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel".] —both in contradiction to many U.N. resolutions Washington formerly had supported. Khalidi accused the U.S., like Great Britain earlier, of being driven by domestic concerns and great power strategies rather than abiding by the principles of international laws".

Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies and director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University, discussed “International Law, Legitimacy and the Palestinian Question” in Princeton on April 21. The event was sponsored by the New Jersey Division of the United Nations Association of the United States, an organization Khalidi regards as important because it counters the trends toward unilateralism and increasing contempt for the U.N. and international law.

Khalidi has long considered the question of why the Palestinian people, despite having a well-developed national identity, have been unsuccessful in achieving independence and statehood. While his most recent book, The Iron Cage, focuses on internal Palestinian causes, there also have been externally imposed constraints, he said, the most important emanating from the two pillars of modern international law and legitimacy: the League of Nations and the United Nations. The issue of Palestine, he argued, shows the limits of those institutions and the long-term perils of great powers following short-sighted policies not based on their professed principles.

Because of Britain’s difficulties during WWI, Khalidi noted, Palestine became the “thrice-promised land.” In the Hussein-McMahon correspondence of 1915-16, Britain made vague promises to the Arabs about independence in order to persuade them to revolt against the Ottomans on the eastern front. At about the same time, Britain and France signed the Sykes-Picot agreement, secretly dividing between themselves Arab lands under the Ottomans as a sort of colonial compensation for their huge losses on the western front. In November 1917, Britain agreed to the Balfour Declaration, promising European Zionists a “Jewish national home” in Palestine.

For the same reasons, Khalidi continued, Britain for the first time was dependent on the U.S. and was therefore obliged to accept Washington’s war aims as put forward by President Woodrow Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” of December 1917—including the principle of self-determination and the creation of a world body to regulate international affairs. This led to the League of Nations and the Mandate system, behind which Britain and France were obliged to mask their territorial ambitions. Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations designated Arab areas of the former Ottoman Empire as Class A Mandates, meaning they had reached a state of development whereby their existence as independent nations could be provisionally recognized, subject to the “rendering of administrative assistance and advice” through the mandatory power.

The terms of Britain’s Mandate for Palestine, which Khalidi described as the governing document from 1922 until WWII, adopted the language of the Balfour declaration, according to which Palestinians were the “non-Jewish communities.” Jews, by contrast, who constituted 10 percent of Palestine’s population at the time, were a “people” with “national rights” for whom the mandatory power was enjoined to support the creation of Jewish national institutions and facilitate Jewish immigration. In this way, Khalidi asserted, Britain and the League of Nations helped to produce an intractable conflict.

Palestine was one of the first issues brought before the newly established United Nations, Khalidi pointed out. General Assembly Resolution 181 of Nov. 29, 1947 went farther than the League of Nations Mandate by acknowledging that there was an Arab people in Palestine deserving of statehood. Nevertheless it assigned 55 percent of the land to the Jews, at that time only one-third of the population. Khalidi attributed this to the fact that World War II had seen a new level of inhumanity, and it was the unlucky fate of Palestinians to be in conflict with the primary victims of the worst crimes. He charged the international community with acquiescing in the extinction of the Arab state, noting that the U.N. sent no peacekeeping forces and provided no mechanism to regulate the conflict it had created.

The U.S. bears special responsibility, Khalidi said. Despite its mainly unilateral efforts following the 1967 war—Henry Kissinger’s shuttle diplomacy, President Jimmy Carter at Camp David, and Secretary of State James Baker’s Madrid peace conference—the U.S. has never supported self-determination for the Palestinians. President George Bush’s 2005 comment in support of Palestinian statehood was rendered irrelevant, Khalidi asserted, by his April 2004 letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon supporting the annexation of Jewish settlement blocs and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to Israel—both in contradiction to many U.N. resolutions Washington formerly had supported. Khalidi accused the U.S., like Great Britain earlier, of being driven by domestic concerns and great power strategies rather than abiding by the principles of international laws.

http://www.wrmea.com/archives/July_2007/0707038.html