Solving the Middle East’s Problems. By Mordechai Kedar. Arutz Sheva 7, September 13, 2015.
Small Homogeneous States Only Solution for Middle East. By Mordechai Kedar. IMRA, April 1, 2011.
The Middle East’s Tribal DNA. By Carl Philip Salzman. NJBR, November 5, 2013.
Israel and the Palestinians: An Existential War of Blood and Faith. By Michael Kaplan. NJBR, July 20, 2015. (incomplete draft)
Kedar:
Does anyone remember the gushing words
about the “Arab Spring?”
Three
months from now, in December, it will be the fifth anniversary of the
transmogrification known – in its early stages - as the “Arab Spring.” When it
began, in 2010, the entire world applauded the street heroes, the giants that
arose from the ranks of the common man, those who single-handedly drove Ben Ali
from Tunisia, put Mubarak on the dock in Egypt, rebelled against the bloodthirsty
Libyan ruler Qaddafi, went out to the streets against Assad in Syria, protested
loudly against President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen and held an anti-regime
sit-in in the town square of Bahrain.
The
entire world held its breath hoping that a new chapter was being written in the
annals of Middle Eastern history, one that meant an end to dictatorships and
the rise of democracies, an end to violent regimes amid the blossoming of the
rights of man and civil liberties, the disappearance of corruption and the start
of transparent government.
The
unbelievable sights at Tahrir Square in Cairo were followed by the first
democratic elections ever held in Egypt, a coalition in Tunisia, political
parties in Morocco, an independent parliament in Kuwait, protests for political
liberty in Syria and Muslim women who left the kitchen to demand their rights.
This was the dream we were shown through the rose-colored glasses of romantic
journalists as they fell into the trap of their own hopes for a new reality in
the region.
Today,
five years after the “great light” burst forth, the Arab world is fumbling
along in a dark tunnel, forlorn and depressed, without even a sliver of light
at the end of it or anywhere along its length. Syria, Iraq, Libya and Egypt are
all battlefields where the victims are civilians, a revolt in Egypt deposed the
president elected in pseudo-democratic elections and Sisi is bringing the level
of civil rights in Egypt back to the dark days of Gamal Abdel Nasser.
The
world keeps asking itself why the Arab Spring was such a dismal failure, trying
to get to the source of the region’s problems. The answer to this question is
complex, because it includes different factors that influenced events at
different periods and in different ways.
Still,
one can say with certainty that the main source of all the troubles is the
cornerstone of Middle Eastern culture, tribal loyalties, once necessary for
survival in a vast dry and arid desert area spanning the Sahara in North
Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Sinai Desert, and also the deserts of
Syria, Iraq and Jordan. In the desert man must be part of a tribe in order to
protect his water sources from other tribes who are also in need of water. That
fact turns the “other” into an enemy, a threatening figure who is against “us”
because he is not one of “us.”
It is
always “us” and “them”, our group against all the others, every man loyal to
his tribe to the death, to its customs and traditions and not to a state or the
state’s laws and institutions. It is called “tribalism” and the Arab world still
lives under the influence of this way of life.
The
second problem, spawned by tribalism, is violence. Middle Eastern culture says
that since the other is an enemy, he may try to kill me as soon as he gets near
enough to take my water sources, so I have to get him before he gets me.
It
follows that the first reaction to any problem that arises in the Middle East
is violence, violence aimed to kill.
The
third problem evolving from the ancient tribal culture is the Middle Eastern
concept of honor. No Muslim will accept humiliation, and he who is humiliated
will seek revenge against those who caused him shame – and that revenge means
murder. A person is willing to murder members of his own household, his sister
and even his mother, if they have brought shame upon him by acting too freely.
Honor takes first place in relations between politicians and nations, is
sometimes more important that development, economics and health.
The
fourth problem, also a result of tribalism, is corruption. Appointing relatives
to positions in a regime – nepotism - is considered a serious problem in the
West, and there are laws, rules and bureaucratic procedures that are supposed
to prevent its occurrence. In Middle Eastern culture, nepotism is the name of
the game, both in the political and public spheres, because anyone in power has
a basic distrust of anyone from another group. A leader will appoint his
family, or members of another family with whom he has a pact of loyalty, to the
positions under his patronage and if the relations between the families
deteriorate, he will either fire them or make sure they resign.
The
fifth problem is economic corruption. A government official feels beholden
financially to his family and tribe, not to the state and certainly not to
other population groups in the country, so he allocates funds for investment in
infrastructure in the area his tribe resides in or areas filled with his
supporters. He does not allocate funds to groups that did not support him. As
far as he is concerned, they can go to hell – or Europe – as they wish.
The
sixth problem is the existence of a large number of ethnic groups in the Middle
East: Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Berbers, Jews, Arameans, Persians, and more. Often
the groups live in a state of ongoing friction, their relations marked by
hostility rather than tranquility. As a rule, they do not intermarry, and each
group fiercely guards its dialect, customs and traditions. Each group
delineates itself by defining its enemies. That is the source of the violence
between the Arabs and the Kurds, the Turks and the Kurds, the Arabs and the
Berbers – and let’s face it, the Arabs and everyone else.
The
seventh problem is religion. Islam is the main religion of the Middle East, and
Islamist extremists see members of other religions who live in their proximity
as infidels deserving of death. This is the cause of the horrific violence of
Islamists against Christians, Yazidis, Jews, Alawites, Zoroastrians, Bahais,
Mandeans, Shabakists, Druze and atheists.
The
eighth problem is the internecine sectarian conflict within Islam. In the
middle of the seventh century, Islam split into two parts, the Sunnis and the
Shiites. Their struggle is really about wresting control over Islam, but over
time the struggle has assumed a religious cast with each side making use of
Allah, the Qur'an, the Hadiths (Oral Law), Sharia, history and theology for its
own ends, so that Sunni Islam is now quite different from Shia islam. There is
a case for claiming that, similarities notwithstanding, they are two distinct
religions. The two groups have spent the
centuries since the split massacring one another, with millions sacrificed in
this endless struggle, not a few during the 1980s war between Shiite Iran and
Iraq, headed by a Sunni, Saddam Hussein.
The
ninth problem is the prevailing culture. Schematically, the Middle East’s
population is made up of three cultural groups: the desert-dwellers, or
Bedouin, the falakhim – farmers who live in villages – and the urban population
dwelling in cities. These groups differ in many ways from one another and each
is prone to stereotyping the others to the point where there is no way to get
around their mutual preconceptions. The falakh hates the Bedouin for stealing
the agricultural produce he reaps by the sweat of his brow. The Bedouin
considers the falakhs and city dwellers inferior to him for giving up the
original Arab desert way of life and becoming weak and lily-livered in mind and
body. The city dwellers consider the Bedouin primitive desert people. Marriages
between the groups are rare.
The
tenth problem can be laid at the door of British, French and Italian
colonialism. These powers drew borders that suited their interests but had no
bearing on the sociological zones of the Middle East. This is how countries
were formed with populations of all kinds of ethnic groups, tribes, religions
and sects who had never had any connection with one another and certainly never
saw themselves as members of the same nation. Although Syria has existed for
decades (that verb should be in past tense) there was no national Syrian
consciousness uniting its citizens. They remained Arabs, Kurds, Turkmans,
Muslims, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Shia, Sunni, et al. Iraq also did not
succeed in creating an Iraqi people despite great efforts expended on the part
of the regime, and its citizens defined themselves as Kurds, Sunni, Christians,
Yazidi, etc. The colonialists actually created what their citizens considered
illegitimate countries foreign entities forced upon them by Christian European
strangers who understood absolutely nothing about the Middle East.
The
eleventh problem is the modern Arab regime. In each Arab country a minority
group has gained control of the entire country and preserves its power by using
a “mighty hand and an outstretched arm,” a drawn sword – and subterranean
torture chambers. The Alawite minority in Syria, the Qaddafi tribe in Libya and
the Hashemites of Jordan are all examples of small groups that control others
with little legitimacy, if any.
The
twelfth problem is Israel, a small country that was established as a result of
the fall of the Ottoman Empire in WWI and the end of British colonialism, two
world developments that made it possible for the Jews to return to the
historical land of their birth after two thousand years of exile.
In
general, Arabs and Muslims do not recognize the right of the Jewish people to
its land, do not recognize Judaism as a living religion, and view the Jews as a
collection of communities belonging to whatever country they are in and not as
a people. The very existence of the state of Israel infuriates them, no matter
what its size.
The
rulers of the modern Arab states, with both ruler and state lacking legitimacy,
were in dire need of an external enemy that would enable them to silence
internal opposition and unite the people as one under their fraudulent flag.
Israel was a unifying factor, an external enemy that served as the scapegoat
upon which the masses could vent their rage. That is what is behind the
constant hostility of the Arab media regarding Israel, and three generations of
Arabs have been raised on this propaganda machine aimed solely at Israel. Their
approach to Jews and Israelis is a direct consequence of this inciteful
propaganda.
The
thirteenth problem is oil. This important resource turned the Arab countries in
the gulf to societies that sell a commodity, do not work, purchase but do not
create, societies whose every possession stems not from ability, studying or
work, but from what others – the Americans and the Europeans – found under their
earth. The biggest effort the men of the Gulf have to expend is the walk to the
bank to deposit their checks. Easy money created a materialistic, hedonist
society, busy with itself and with having fun, buying luxury cars, houses that
strike you blind, designer clothing, watches that cost millions and designer jewelry,
showing off in the media and buying every gadget that reaches the stores. Just
opposite their palatial homes are tens of millions of Egyptians and other Arabs
living in abject poverty, in unplanned neighborhoods, filled with the ignorant,
unemployed and despairing poor. The gap between the wealth of the Gulf and the
poverty in the Arab street is mind-boggling.
The
fourteenth problem is the West’s meddling in Middle Eastern affairs, not in
order to solve the region’s problems, but in order to promote its own
interests. Oil, gas, arms sales, development contracts, purchases and trade,
all are intended to take advantage of the natural resources of the Middle East
and of the cheap labor it offers in order to advance western economies. The
countries of the West, the USSR and today’s Russia and China, protected and
still protect non-legitimate Arab rulers, keeping them dependent on the West
and the economic agreements signed with them.
Anyone
who signs any kind of contract with an Arab ruler knows full well that this
contract will be carried out at the price of the people who live – if you can
call it living – under a cruel regime, but that doesn’t stop the money hungry
Western countries. Since when did moral considerations ever move them?
The
fifteenth problem is the existence of al
Jazeera, the Jihad website and network run by a terror state, Qatar. From
the first day it hit the air in November 1996, al Jazeera spends its time unrestrainedly inciting against
dictators, Israel, against the West and against the Western culture slowly
finding its way into the airspace of Islamic countries.
Al Jazeera’s
stated objective is to destroy the modern Arab state and hand over the rule to
the Muslim Brotherhood. This mixed salad of messages is wrapped in attractive
clichés such as “opinion and other opinion” and is covered with a mask of
openness and video editing. This channel brought the angry people out into the
streets at the end of 2010 and all through 2011, setting the Arab world ablaze,
but it does not know how to put out the fire. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and
other social networks played an instrumental role that helped the public
organize demonstrations, but the motivation came from al Jazeera’s incitement.
The
seething mass of problems that plague the Middle East have destroyed the region’s
social, economic, political and normative infrastructure, leading to the waves
of emigration to Europe that we are now witnessing. During the twentieth
century, Europe tried to solve the myriad cultural problems that beset the
Middle East by creating the Modern Arab State, cloning the Nation-State it had
invented and that suited Europe’s cultural needs. The European-style Modern
Arab State is a colossal failure, because the Arab population has a Middle
Eastern culture, with problems that Europe knows nothing about – tribalism on
the one hand, and violence, extremism and a lack of national consciousness on
the other.
A
striking example of an egregiously mistaken belief held by the West is the
naïve and unfounded faith that democracy can flourish in the Middle East.
Western democracy is based on a social order stemming from European culture:
the belief in equality for all religions and ethnic groups, women’s liberation,
minority rights and freedom of expression and thought. Add to that the right to
choose alternative lifestyles, along with freedom of religion and from
religion, a ban on violence and free elections and you have a list that is
almost totally foreign to the Middle East. Most of these freedoms are opposed
to the spirit of Islam or to tribal culture, but Middle Eastern societies hold “free”
elections to create the impression that they have become democracies, although
they have not adopted any of the other characteristics of a democracy.
Elections are an easily adopted mechanism, but the other elements of democracy
are substantive and are therefore difficult, or impossible, to embed in the
Middle East.
Today
Europe is being punished by a wave of refugees for the sins it committed in the
Middle East, those it perpetrated on purpose while taking advantage of the Arab
rulers’ dependency on the West, as well as those it committed unintentionally.
During
this period of soul-searching it is important that the West internalize the
reasons behind the troubles that have fallen upon the Middle East. It can then
deal with them properly, put aside its own interests, and find solutions that
can work in the region – starting with the dismantling of the existing,
non-legitimate states and continuing with the establishment of emirates with
homogeneous populations on the ruins of those failed states. The Gulf Emirates,
with the exception of Bahrain, serve as the model of a type of regime that
suits the cultural characteristics of the area and it is imperative that they
become the model that is implemented when attempting to solve the problems of
the Middle East.
Best
wishes for a happy new year.
