ISRAEL’S INCOMPLETE JOURNEY

By Joel B. Pollak

Joel B. Pollak ’99 is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Cape Town. He was a political speechwriter for the Leader of the Opposition in South Africa from 2002 to 2006 and is a second-year student at Harvard Law School.
It still has no formal constitution. Its borders are contested and subject to negotiation. It relies heavily on foreign military aid. It has no majority party and seems incapable of electing a stable government. True, it has strong institutions, a successful economy, a vibrant cultural life, and a powerful military. It has won an Olympic gold medal and the Eurovision song contest. But sixty years after David Ben-Gurion proclaimed its independence, Israel remains, in many ways, an idea.

It is not just an idea. It is an idea with powerful political, legal, and historical foundations. Thousands of men and women have defended it with their lives, and more are ready to do so. Historian Michael Oren points out that in recent conflicts, more than 100 percent of Israeli reservists who are called to their units report for duty. [1] Israelis also have high hopes for the future, in spite of the daily barrage of rockets and the threat of nuclear annihilation. These hopes are best represented by rising birthrates among Israeli Jews, which reached 2.9 children per woman in 2006. [2] A string of Nobel prizes in the past several years serves as a reminder of what Israel continues to contribute to humanity.

But at the core of that success lies a profound—and self-inflicted—weakness: a lack of leadership. The birthday wishes said it all: “Happy 60th birthday, Israel—well done for surviving,” wrote Melanie Phillips in the Spectator. [3] “Will Israel Survive?” wondered Mitchell G. Bard in a recent book (answer: yes, after 236 pages). [4] “Is Israel Finished?” asked Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic. [5] Speaking about his article to Shmuel Rosner of Ha’aretz, he offered this “note of optimism”: “Jews survive. It’s what we do. We survive in all sorts of improbable ways.” [6]

No other country is congratulated on its anniversary for its survival. It is true that no other country has faced the threats that Israel has confronted Israel for three generations. Worse than the immediate physical danger is the steady indoctrination of Arabs and Muslims by their leaders to hate Israel and Jews in particular. As George Orwell once noted:

“The truly evil thing is to act in such a way that peaceful life becomes impossible….By shooting at your enemy you are not in the deepest sense wronging him. But by hating him, by inventing lies about him and bringing children up to believe them, by clamouring for unjust peace terms which make further wars inevitable, you are striking not at one perishable generation, but at humanity itself.” [7]

That hatred has reached the West, and is preached not only in mosques, but in university classrooms. In the eyes of Israel’s enemies, the Jewish state has never existed at all—not now, and not ever. They have denied Israel’s legitimacy in every possible forum. But they are not solely to blame for Israel’s vulnerability.

Israel’s own leaders are partly at fault, for continuing to behave as if Israel’s right to sovereignty depended on the acquiescence of its most wretched and determined enemies. Yes, Israel has shown a continued will and ability to use pre-emptive strikes against the deadliest dangers—such as Syria’s North Korean-built nuclear plant, which Israel destroyed in September 2007. But on the home front, in the fight against terror, Israel’s most successful recent military operations—the Gaza disengagement, the West Bank security barrier—have all been tactical withdrawals. Necessary and advantageous, but retreats nonetheless.

The newest stop for foreign dignitaries visiting Israel is the town of Sderot, which has been bombarded with rockets by terror groups, with the assistance and approval of the elected Palestinian government, since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. Israel’s leaders wish to emphasize that the country remains vulnerable to attack. Instead, Sderot illustrates their paralysis and shame.

One of the primary reasons for any state’s existence is the protection of its citizens. A single assault against a country’s military—let alone repeated violence against its civilians—is enough to justify a serious military response. Its allies believe Israel has displayed restraint; its enemies know it has shown cowardice. Afraid of international condemnation, wary of the cost of a potential war on two fronts, Israel’s government has failed to fulfill its most basic duty.

Not that Israel should be easily provoked into hasty counter-attacks—certainly not when the lives of its soldiers and innocent civilians on all sides are at stake. That was the mistake made in the Second Lebanon War, a fight Israel rushed into without the preparation it needed to ensure victory. The appropriate response is the one described by U.S. President George W. Bush in the wake of 9/11: “This conflict was begun on the timing and terms of others; it will end in a way and at an hour of our choosing.” [8] Of course, Israel ought not give up on peace talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Nor, however, should it rush towards talks with unnecessary urgency and hysterical warnings of “apartheid” on the horizon. [9]

What it should do is muster the will to tackle its most serious challenges, military and political. Israel was slow to recognize the damage that the images of the “death” of 12-year-old Palestinian Muhammad a-Durra—an event that was probably staged—would do to Israel’s reputation abroad. Only the determined campaign of French media critic Philippe Karsenty gave Israeli officials the courage to call the a-Durra film a hoax. [10]

For decades, Israel’s leaders have failed to muster the political courage to deal with the country’s most pressing domestic questions: the role of religion in public life and the status of its Arab minority. These are problems on a scale far greater than the political puzzles faced by other democracies, such as America’s struggle with entitlement reform. They are primary questions of national identity, left unanswered.

Israel’s finest minds have been diverted from these issues and forced to return to basics. Human rights pioneer Ruth Gavison recently lamented:

“Is it possible to justify the existence of a Jewish state?…Over the many years in which I have participated in debates about Israel’s constitutional foundations and the rights of its citizens, I did not generally feel this question to be particularly urgent. Indeed, I believed that there was no more need to demonstrate the legitimacy of a Jewish state than there was for any other nation…Today I realize that my view was wrong. The repudiation of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state is now a commonly held position, and one that is increasingly seen as legitimate.” [11]

Gavison adds: “More worrisome is the fact that many Jews in Israel agree with this view, or at least show a measure of sympathy for it.”

Legal scholar Amnon Rubinstein and historian Alexander Yakobson revisit Israel’s legitimacy in their masterful Israel and the Family of Nations: The Jewish Nation-State and Human Rights, which has already been published in Hebrew and French and is due out in English from Routledge later this year. They prove Israel meets the standards of other liberal democracies, and that its “Jewishness” ought not detract from its legitimacy. But this argument, however welcome and erudite, still frames Israel’s existence in a conditional way. No other nation measures its right to exist against the rights of other nations—except perhaps Palestine, Israel’s birth-twin and eternal shadow.

Palestine today is a grievance, not a cause. It is an anti-idea, what Orwell called a “negative nationalism,” which has been utterly failed by its leaders and by its purported champions in the broader Arab world. Yet that anti-idea has more clarity than Israel’s own incoherent self-consciousness. Never mind Palestinian textbooks; the standard American college Arabic text, Al-Kitaab, leaves Israel off the map and describes Jerusalem as the Palestinian, not Israeli, capital. [12] Anti-Israel activists accuse Israel of “apartheid,” using fake quotes from Nelson Mandela as “proof” [13] these soon become the iron truth of national myth.

There is one sense in which the South African analogy has merit. If a Palestinian state is ever established, it will look something like Lesotho and Swaziland—two tribal kingdoms, created at the end of territorial conflicts, economically dependent on their larger neighbors, which are not “Bantustans” but legitimate, sovereign states. That is the destiny to which Palestine will likely have to reconcile itself.

Whether it does so or not is not Israel’s concern. The fates of Israel and Palestine are linked but are not mutually dependent. The future of the Jewish state is entirely in its own hands. Israel cannot last if it believes its future remains contingent on “recognition.” U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181 created both Israel and Palestine, but one was built. That—and not mere survival—is what Israel’s 60th anniversary ought to celebrate.

Independence was, and remains, a formality. The key to Israel’s existence has been, and ever will be, its own will to exist. The dream of Zion remains strong, but there are deeds left to be done. Borders must be determined—and defended. The status of Israel’s Arab citizens must be resolved fairly—and finally. The role of religion must be defined in a way that satisfies Israel’s unique identity as well as its pluralistic aspirations. Israel has the hope, and the experience, it needs to continue building—to 120 and beyond. What it requires now are leaders equal to the task.

NOTES

1.    Michael Oren, “Q&A with Michael Oren,” Jerusalem Post, Jun. 5, 2007, <http://info.jpost.com/C004/QandA/qa.orenm.html>; also Michael B. Oren and Benjamin Balint, “Save the Citizens’ Army,” Azure, Winter 5765/2005, No. 19, <http://www.azure.org.il/magazine/magazine.asp?id=11>.
2.    Moti Bassok, “Study: Jewish births lead rise in Israeli fertility rates,” Ha’aretz, Jul, 11, 2007, < http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/921392.html>.
3.    Melanie Phillips, “Happy 60th birthday, Israel—well done for surviving,” Spectator, Apr. 30, 2008, < http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/643426/happy-60th-birthday-israel-well-done-for-surviving.thtml>.
4.    Mitchell G. Bard, Will Israel Survive?, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
5.    Jeffrey Goldberg, “Is Israel Finished?”, The Atlantic, May 2008, < http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200805/israel>.
6.    Shmuel Rosner, “Is Israel Finished? Five Questions,” Ha’aretz, Apr. 29, 2008, < http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/rosnerBlog.jhtml?itemNo=979077&contrassID=25&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=1&listSrc=Y&art=1>.
7.    George Orwell, “As I Please,” Tribune, Aug. 4, 1944, in The Collected Essays, Journalistm and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 3: As I Please, 1943-1946, Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, eds., Boston: Nonpareil, 1968, 199.
8.    George W. Bush, Remarks at the National Day of Prayer & Remembrance, Episcopal National Cathedral, Sep. 14, 2001, < http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/gwbush911prayer&memorialaddress.htm>.
9.    Mark Tran, “State of Israel could disappear, warns Olmert,” Guardian, Nov. 29, 2007, < http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/nov/29/israel>.
10.    Barak Ravid, “Government Press Office: Al-Dura’s death was staged by Gaza cameraman,” Ha’aretz, Oct. 2, 2007, < http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/908869.html>.
11.    Ruth Gavison, “The Jews’ Right to Statehood: A Defense,” Azure 15 (2003), < http://www.azure.org.il/magazine/magazine.asp?id=188&search_text=>.
12.    Kristen Brustad, Mahmoud Al-Batal and Abbas Al-Tonsi, Al-Kitaab fii Ta’allum al-’Arabiyya: A Textbook for Beginning Arabic, Part One (2d ed., Georgetown UP, 2004).
13.    The fake Mandela quote, which is repeated all over the Internet and at gatherings of anti-Israel activists, has its origins in a “Mandela memo” written by Electronic Intifada founder Arjan El-Fassed, available at http://www.mediamonitors.net/arjan28.html.

ISRAEL’S SEARCH FOR A CONSTITUTION

By Asher A. Fredman

Asher A. Fredman ‘08, a Government concentrator from Leverett House, graduates from Harvard College this year. This essay is based on his senior thesis.

As it enters its sixtieth year, the modern State of Israel continues to be one of the few democracies in the world without a written, formal constitution. The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel (Declaration of Independence) explicitly stipulates that the Elected Constituent Assembly should adopt a constitution “not later than the October 1st, 1948.” Yet continued debates and disagreements over core issues relating to the identity and structure of the state have stalled the process. Since the controversial and contested 1992 ‘Constitutional Revolution’—which allowed the Supreme Court of Israel to review and strike down laws made in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament)—various political and civil society actors have come to see the development of a constitution as an attractive way to enshrine—or reverse—the results of the ‘revolution’. Amid fears of demographic changes—such as the growth of Arab and ultra-Orthodox Haredi populations—and over the spread of post-Zionist worldviews, many now believe that the adoption of a constitution has become particularly urgent.

In this essay I will outline some of the main issues in the debate and provide an overview of legislative activity in Israel. My observations are based on experience gained during two summers of working in the Israeli parliament, and on research conducted for my senior thesis, for which I interviewed many of the major players in the constitutional discussions. The core issues regarding the character and structure of the State of Israel which may be affected by a future constitution can be divided broadly into three categories (though the lines between them are often blurry.) They are the self-definition and character of the State, religion-state relations, and the structure of the government and political system. [1]

I argue that as long as the Supreme Court continues to play an aggressively activist role in all aspects of public and political life in Israel, it is unlikely that the members of the Knesset will have the motivation or willingness to make the compromises needed to resolve these debates and produce a constitution. The relationship and balance of power between the judiciary and the legislature has become a central point of contention, even eclipsing, perhaps, the ‘traditional’ core issues. It will therefore be necessary to structure the relationship in such a way as to ensure that complex and sensitive compromises reached by the various parties will not be overruled for conflicting with the ideological orientations of members of the court.

Definition and Character of the State

The vast majority of Israel’s Jewish population supports the idea that Israel should be both a Jewish and a democratic State. But Israelis have many different opinions about what the State’s Jewish character should entail. Should the State simply be a safe-haven for Jews persecuted or discriminated against in other lands? Should it be the nation-state of the Jewish people, as expressed in its primary language, Hebrew, and in its symbols such as flag and national anthem? Should the State actively promote the preservation, expression and advancement of Jewish culture? Or encourage Jewish settlement of the land. The position of the Arab minority is also the subject of debate. [2]

Similarly, there are questions about how the State should fulfill the practice and principles of democracy. Does democracy require simply that every citizen be given the right to vote, to hold office, and that public officials be held accountable through regularly scheduled elections? Or does it require the state to guarantee a broader spectrum of rights, and take positive action to ensure the economic and social equality of its citizens? Does it require that the State grant political or cultural autonomy to some or all minority groups?

There are many ways in which these questions may find expression in the constitution. The first is in the official definition of the state. One approach is to employ the formulation which defines the State as ‘”Jewish and democratic.” [3] Another is to divide the two elements, so that the first clause states that “Israel is the State of the Jewish People’” (or “The State in which the Jewish nation realizes its right to self definition’” or “A Jewish State and the National Home of the Jewish People”), while the next clause states that Israel is a democratic state which respects the human rights of all its residents. [4] The constitution proposed by Adalah, the ‘Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel’, defines Israel as “a democratic state, based on the values of human dignity, liberty and equality”, and elsewhere describes Israel as a “democratic, bilingual and multicultural State.” Other groups have proposed the using the phrase, “a state of all its citizens”. [5]

Some of the other provisions whose inclusion or non-inclusion would affect the definition and character of the state include [6]:

•    A special connection between Israel and Diaspora Jewry; an imperative on the State to act for the safety and well being of Jews around the world; an imperative on the State to encourage Jewish immigration to Israel.

•    The constitutional recognition of Israel’s Arab population as a ‘national minority’ or an ‘indigenous people’; the granting of collective rights and/or limited autonomy to the Arab or other minorities; the official status of Arabic.

•    Neutral state symbols (such as flag, anthem and emblem) in addition to or in place of the current Jewish ones.

•    An imperative on the State to inculcate knowledge of the Jewish heritage in the Jewish educational system.

•    The right of the State to set aside certain pieces of land for exclusive purchase or settlement by members of a specific ethnic or religious group.

Religion and state

The debates on the relationship between religion and state revolve around whether aspects of traditional religious law (halacha in Judaism, sharia in Islam) should have a role in the legal system of the state. The debate affects issues as basic and personal as marriage, divorce, conversion, burial, and which activities are permitted on the national Day of Rest (the Sabbath.) The historical roots of the religion-state arrangements in Israel, which differ significantly from those in the United States, are in the Ottoman millet system, which was preserved by the British in the Mandatory era. This system designated people as belonging to one of a list of officially recognized religious communities, each governed by certain religious leaders.

In 1947, the Jewish Agency and David Ben-Gurion negotiated with representatives of the ultra-Orthodox Agudat Israel movement and arrived at an understanding which became known as the ’status-quo agreement.’ The agreement gave the Chief Rabbinate control over issues of personal status, which include marriage, divorce, conversions, the Jewish status of immigrants to Israel, and kashrut (kosher) certification. It provided that the Sabbath would be observed in the public sphere by the closure of businesses, government offices, and public transportation.

Competition between the two large party blocs meant that support from religious parties was necessary for nearly every government coalition. The religious parties in turn insisted that the preservation of the religion-state status quo be included in coalitional agreements. At the same time, strong challenges to the status quo emerged and violations became ubiquitous. Secular Israelis objected to the enforcement of religious law in matters such as marriage and divorce, and to the closure of places of entertainment, restaurants and public transportation on the Sabbath, their day off. Issues surrounding marriage and conversion became especially urgent with the massive waves of immigration from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s. Hundreds of thousands of these immigrants were eligible to immigrate under the Law of Return, but were not Jewish according to halacha, and therefore, lacked any official religion and could not legally marry within the State. [7] The Reform and Conservative movements within Judaism, despite still having relatively little presence or political influence in Israel, began to challenge the Orthodox monopoly over religious affairs. A number of their petitions to the Supreme Court on issues such as conversion were successful.

Several religious parties have opposed the creation of a constitution in the past, fearing that it would upset the religion-state status quo. Other prominent religious politicians have expressed staunch support for a constitution, because they believe the Supreme Court poses a greater threat to the place of religious life. Some of the proposals for a constitution explicitly single out the Jewish tradition as a source of inspiration for legal decisions and laws, while others discourage the incorporation of any aspects of religion into the legal system.

The constitutional issues related to the relationship between religion and state include:

•    The authority of the rabbinical courts, and the leeway, which the Supreme Court may exercise in interfering with their decisions.

•    The nature of Sabbath observance in the public sphere. Should restaurants, places of entertainment and retail shops be allowed to operate? Should businesses and factories? Should public transportation be allowed to operate in full or modified form in areas with significant secular populations?

•    Personal Status. Should there be a right to civil marriage and divorce, or should these issues continue to fall under the jurisdiction of the Chief Rabbinate? [8] One interesting compromise proposal would create an institution known as a ‘pact of couplehood’ (brit hazugiyut), which would have the same legal status as marriage. When entering into the pact, the couple would have to declare that they did not intend to enter into a halachically-valid marriage, thereby avoiding, according to a number of religious authorities, many of the halachic problems which the introduction of civil marriage and divorce might create.

•    The degree to which the Supreme Court may review arrangements and laws touching on religion and state. The constitutional proposal of the Israel Democracy Institute explicitly shields laws relating to four key areas—marriage and divorce, conversion, Sabbath, and religious dietary regulations (kashrut) in government buildings- from judicial review. It also states that when a judge comes to interpret a law relating to one of these areas, he or she is not required to do so in light of other principles found in the constitution. [9]

•    Who is a Jew? This question goes to the heart both of the character of the State and religion-state relations. Currently there are different criteria employed for eligibility to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return, and to be recognized as a Jew by the Interior Ministry for purposes of personal status. Connected to this area are standards for and control over conversion. On this issue, as well as many of the other issues discussed above, the constitution’s drafters may decide that it is better to avoid any mention of it in the constitutional text, and leave its resolution to the realm of ordinary politics.

Structure of the Government

The rules and procedures governing the different branches of government and the system of checks and balances between them are a central part of any constitution. An issue of great importance throughout Israel’s history has been the electoral process and the types of political alliances it fosters. Article 4 of Basic Law states that elections to the Knesset shall be general, national, direct, equal, secret and proportional. Israel currently has an electoral system which is proportional rather than majoritarian, and national rather than district-based. This means that people vote for a party rather than a particular representative of a district, and that each party receives a number of parliamentary seats (out of 120) in proportion to the percentage of votes they receive throughout the country. The result has been the proliferation of many small parties.

Many experts argue that the political system would function better if elections were held according to districts and candidates were accountable to specific constituencies. Assuming that each district elected only one representative (a majoritarian or winner-take-all system), the result would most likely be a reduction in the number of political parties represented in the Knesset.

The minimum percentage of nationwide votes needed for a party to receive seats in the parliament is unsurprisingly controversial, in the context of Israel’s party system. Since 2004 the minimum threshold for receiving seats has been incrementally raised from 1.5% to 2.5%. This threshold is one of the lowest in the world, and many analysts argue that in order to reduce the number of small parties—which in their view cause political instability and polarization—the threshold should be raised much higher. Some have advocated for even more radical changes in the Israeli political system, such as moving from a parliamentary to a presidential or semi-presidential system.

There are those who see the creation of a constitution as providing the best hope for bringing about significant changes in this area. It is unlikely that changes with far-reaching consequences will be passed within the framework of ordinary, day-to-day politics. A constitution which lays down for the first time the structure of the entire political system in a sweeping, holistic manner, could create these changes in a balanced and deliberate way, to ensure that the various reforms are compatible and complementary to each other.

Legislative-Judicial relations

At least until 1992, Israel had generally been viewed as operating under the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, similar to Great Britain. Power rested primarily in the legislature, whose acts were not subject to review by the judiciary. The judiciary tended to take a more restricted view of its role, only occasionally foraying into contentious political or ideological debates. It claimed the right to exercise powers of judicial review only in very limited circumstances. However from 1983 to 1995, during Meir Shamgar’s term as President of the Supreme Court, judicial practice began to change. Firstly, the court virtually eliminated the requirement that a petitioner demonstrate ’standing’, i.e. a personal stake in the case. Whereas a person in the United States, a person must have a personal “case or controversy” in order to bring a matter before the court, the Israel Supreme Court allows NGOs, advocacy groups and even private citizens to challenge legislation and government policies, even if the petitioners themselves are not actually affected by it. Secondly, the court gradually broadened the range of issues it considers justiciable—or within its mandate. It became particularly eager to hear cases that may concern human rights. In the U.S., the Supreme Court has generally refrained from becoming involved in questions it believes to be inherently political, and therefore properly the jurisdiction of the other branches of government, such as matters of military and diplomatic policy and decisions relating to the national budget. Aharon Barak, Justice and later President of the Supreme Court from 1995-2006, on the other hand, has declared that “anything and everything is justiciable.” [10]

In 1992 the Knesset passed the first two basic laws dealing specifically with human rights. These were Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation (chofesh ha’isuk), and Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom (kevod ha’adam ve’chairuto.) The Freedom of Occupation law, which was passed 23-0, protected the right to engage in any occupation or employment not prohibited by law. The Human Dignity and Freedom law, which was adopted by a vote of 32-21, guaranteed the right to life, physical integrity, dignity, property, privacy, freedom of movement and freedom from unlawful search. Aharon Barak, then Justice and later President of the Supreme Court declared that these developments constituted a ‘Constitutional Revolution’, as a result of which “every branch of law had to change its fundamental concepts and its fundamental outlook.” [11] A new balance of power had been created, according to Barak, in which the judiciary had acquired much broader powers to oversee acts of the executive and legislature in order to ensure their compatibility with the ‘constitution’.

Barak’s and others’ designation of the events of 1992 as a constitutional revolution, and their use of that idea as a justification for a greatly expanded role for the Court, has proven very controversial. In my opinion, Barak’s description of the revolution as a conscious decision by the Knesset acting in its role as Constituent Assembly to transform the essential nature of the political system is unconvincing. [12] According to Members of Knesset from Labor, Likud, and the ultra-Orthodox Degel HaTorah whom I interviewed, there had been no special atmosphere or sense in the Knesset at the time of the passage of the laws that an act of particular significance was taking place. Revolutions are not generally carried out by one-fourth of the legislature, as in the case of the Human Freedom and Dignity law, or by one-sixth, as in the case of the Freedom of Occupation law. Of the four main speakers who spoke in favor of Human Dignity and Freedom in the Knesset plenum, two (representing two different segments of the religious population) were explicitly opposed to the idea that the law granted the Court the power to interfere in delicate issues. Uriel Lynn, then chairman of the Constitution, Law and Justice committee, also seemed explicitly opposed to the idea that the law would transfer power to the judiciary, though he may have employed a degree of creative ambiguity. Only then-Justice Minister Dan Meridor clearly took a different stance, indicating that the law would lead to greater power for the judiciary vis a vis the other branches of government. The general public including the media did not seem to attach particular importance to the passage of the laws. [13] Several other technical factors relating to the content of the laws also serve to make Barak’s claims problematic.

A better explanation for the promotion of the idea of a Constitutional Revolution was the desire of Barak and other justices to ensure that the actions and policies of the State would be tested against the Court’s conception of what was proper and legitimate in an ‘enlightened democracy’. They were supported in this by old societal elites, largely liberal, secular and Ashkenazic, who saw transfer of policy-making power to the Court as a way of preserving their policy preferences against the vagaries of democratic politics and assertive minorities. This claim is of course is controversial and subject to wide debate within Israeli politics and academia. [14]

The Israeli Supreme Court under Barak, who served as its president from 1995-2006, evolved into one of the most activist in the world, becoming involved in many of the most divisive political, economic and social issues facing the State. The Court ruled (or claimed the authority to rule) on economic questions such as the permissibility of welfare cuts and allocation of the national budget, on military questions including the conduct of the army while actually engaged in combat, and the route of the security fence, on policy questions such as the legality of the disengagement plan, and on sensitive ideological and religious issues such as the ban on the importation of pork, the recognition of homosexual marriages performed abroad, and the right of the state to prevent the naturalization of the Palestinian spouses of Israeli citizens.

Debates between those who support and those who oppose the Court’s activism and apparent ideological leanings are manifested in different proposals for aspects of the constitution. Those who wish to restrain the Court and who argue that it is the democratically-elected parliament which is most qualified to decide on these sensitive issues of ideology and policy seek to include within the constitution provisions that would grant the legislature greater power vis a vis the Court. Those who believe that the protection of those human rights that should be guaranteed in an enlightened democracy requires the careful guardianship of professional justices seek to ensconce within the constitution the current powers and jurisdiction of the Court.

Some of the central issues involved in the debate over the power of the judiciary and over judiciary-legislature relations include:

•    The method for selecting judges. Israel’s method for selecting judges is different to that in other countries. They are selected by a special committee made up of current justices including the Court President, members of the Israeli bar, Members of Knesset and government ministers. The dominant voice in the committee is that of the Court President. This has allowed the Supreme Court to decide who may and may not join its ranks and has led, according to the Court’s critics, to the ideological homogeneity of the court bench. Supporters of the current system claim that it ensures a professional judiciary, untainted by the factionalism that would ensue were politicians given a stronger voice in the selection process. Some of those who advocate reform of the selection committee, including current Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann, argue for the alteration of the committee’s makeup in order to give more of a voice to the executive and legislative branches. Others would like to see the power to nominate and confirm justices actually transferred to the legislature or executive.

•    The ‘Override’ or ‘Nonwithstanding’ Clause. These types of clauses essentially enable the legislature to ‘disagree’ with the Court’s interpretation of the constitution under specific circumstances. An override clause would allow a special or absolute majority in the Knesset (80, 70, 66, and 61 members have all been suggested as the minimum number) to decide that a law does not in fact conflict impermissibly with a right guaranteed in the constitution, despite a Court decision to the contrary. Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation contains an override clause, which was used to overrule the Court’s determination that the ban on importing pork violated rights guaranteed by that basic law. The Canadian constitution allows legislatures to attach preemptive nonwithstanding clauses to laws, which determine that the law is valid notwithstanding a future court decision to the contrary. There are those who advocate this kind of clause in the Israeli system as well.

•    The Roles of the Supreme Court. Should the highest court of appeals also serve as the constitutional court, as is the case in the United States, or should there be a separate court for constitutional questions, as in Germany and France? At least on the European continent, separate constitutional courts have tended to be subject to greater influence by the legislative and executive branches.

•    Standing and Justiciability. Should the constitution require that a petitioner to the Supreme Court have standing in that case? Can the areas over which the Court is or is not allowed to exercise jurisdiction be delineated in some viable way?

Conclusion

At the opening session of the constitutional discussions of the 17th Knesset, there was a debate within the Law, Constitution and Justice Committee over which course of progress would most likely produce tangible results. One member suggested proceeding directly to issues of religion and state since these had historically been the most contentious, while another suggested beginning with the sections dealing with the powers of the judiciary. Committee Chairman Menachem Ben-Sasson however, insisted that the opening sections dealing with the basic definition and character of the state be addressed first.

I believe that the second approach would be the most effective. Successful constitutional discussions will require willingness on the part of the representatives to compromise and make painful concessions in return for other benefits. Representatives will be unwilling to work out multifaceted compromises on contentious issues if they fear that, no matter what is agreed to, the Court may step in and alter the arrangements. Those who find their views supported by the Court will have less incentive to engage in negotiations and compromise, since the prospects for success via judicial victories are greater. At the same time, those who are opposed to the content and nature of the court-developed constitutional norms will deny their legitimacy, leading to greater political instability and polarization.

There is a growing realization among the Members of Knesset that more important than the actual phrasing of constitutional clauses is the identity of their authoritative interpreter. The most important question is ‘who decides?’ Constitutional proposals which seek to establish substantive compromises on contentious issues, but which fail to make structural changes in the current balance of power between the various branches of government, will not reassure those who are wary of the Court’s willingness to reinterpret statutes and expand its oversight. Furthermore, while the focus had traditionally been on matters of religion and state, current debate over the role of the Court concerns the Court’s involvement in a wide range of economic, political, military, and civil issues. In order for the Knesset to be able to create a constitution successfully, mechanisms must be in place to ensure that key issues relating to Israel’s identity and character will be determined primarily by the representatives of the citizenry and not by self-selecting and unaccountable judges.

NOTES

1.    An Israeli constitution would not necessarily need to touch on all of these issues. Yet most modern constitutions contain the three elements of 1) ‘rules of the game’ (structure of the political system), 2) credos or basic principles and values of the society, and 3) a bill of rights.
2.    On the one hand, a number of Israeli Arab politicians, intellectuals and NGOs have called into question the legitimacy or desirability of Israel defining itself as a Jewish state. On the other, a poll conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute in 2007 concluded that 75% of Israel’s Arab population would support a constitution defining Israel as a Jewish and democratic state as long as equal rights for minorities were guaranteed. See Yoav Stern, “Poll: 75% of Israeli Arabs support Jewish, democratic constitution”, Haaretz.com, 4/29/2007, (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/853564.html) Last accessed 4/2/08.
3.    This approach was taken in the 1992 Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom and is found in the constitution proposed by the Israel Democracy Institute, and in alternative A of the draft presented to the 16th Knesset by the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.
4.    This approach is taken in alternative B of the 16th Knesset’s draft constitution, and in the constitution proposed by the Institute for Zionist Strategies.
5.    Though this term is problematic in the Israeli context, as it is unlikely that its proponents actually intend the type of system generally described by that term, which exists in states such as France. In such a system, as nationality is seen as congruent with citizenship, no national minorities may be recognized or supported. There would be little room for separate state-supported Arabic educational or cultural institutions, such as those that currently exist, under such a system.
6.    In this and the following sections I do not attempt to list all of the relevant or important issues, only some of the prominent ones.
7.    Many Israelis went abroad to get married, particularly to Cyprus. These marriages were then given legal recognition in Israel.
8.    The issue of civil marriage would also likely affect the possibility of officially recognized gay and lesbian marriages.
9.    At the same time, the IDI’s constitution largely preserves and institutionalizes the expansive scope of the powers which the Supreme Court has assumed for itself. The debate over the Court’s powers and jurisdiction will be discussed in the next section.
10.    Quoted in Ran Hirschl, Towards Juristocracy, p. 169 (Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass, 2004.)
11.    Aharon Barak, “Human Rights in Israel,” Israel Law Review 39, no. 2 (2006), p. 18.
12.    See Barak’s opinion in United Mizrahi Bank v. Migdal Cooperative Village (CA 6821/93, 1908/94, 3363/94), particularly paragraph 57.
13.    For example, the Jerusalem Post relegated a story on the passage of Human Dignity and Freedom to page 12 of the next day’s issue.
14.    For a detailed argument in this direction, as well as a contextualization of the Israeli case within the worldwide trend of increasingly powerful judiciaries, see Hirschl, Towards Juristocracy.

ISRAEL AND ECONOMIC LIBERALIZATION

By Gabriel M. Scheinmann

Gabriel M. Scheinmann ‘08, a Government concentrator from Eliot House, graduates from Harvard this year.

In sharp contrast to the rest of the Middle East, Israel has experienced unprecedented economic growth and has even outperformed much of the developing world, based on multiple financial indicators. According to the International Monetary Fund World Economic Database, Israel has the highest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita of all Eastern Mediterranean countries. Its financial ranking was upgraded recently to an A by the world’s leading credit agencies. [1] Furthermore, Israel, after the United States, has the second largest number of companies listed on the U.S. stock exchange. [2] Prominent American venture capitalists, such as Warren Buffet, have invested heavily in the Holy Land, instilling high confidence in the future growth of the country. [3] Few scholars have focused on the causes driving Israel’s economic success. Some historians have falsely argued that Israel’s success is a direct result of a reduction in defense spending as a percentage of GDP. However, a close examination of the statistical record demonstrates that the periods of greatest economic growth in Israel follow the implementation of liberal market reforms. As witnessed in the 1980s and the early 2000s, the roots of Israel’s blooming economy lie in liberalization policies that have started to free the Israel economy from direct government control.

Economic Growth and Military Strength

Historian Paul Kennedy was the first to put forth the argument that a powerful state cannot maintain strong economic growth if it has committed significant national resources to its military. Documenting the rises and falls of the great powers in modern history, Kennedy concludes that great powers decline when security and military ambitions take precedence over economic growth. He calls this situation military “over-stretch.” As an increasingly powerful nation with high economic growth and a significant military budget, Israel has become a great regional power, with an economy and a military on a European scale. However, the causal relationship Kennedy draws between military spending and financial decline does not accord with Israel’s continued economic success. An application of Kennedy’s analysis to the modern Middle East would suggest that Israel’s economic growth would only be sustainable if accompanied by a substantial decrease in defense spending.

Kennedy’s theory, published in 1987, maintains that it is impossible for a country, such as Israel, to maintain high GDP growth and high military spending. His theory rests on the idea that, in any country, “allocating over the long term more than 10 per cent (and in some cases—when it is structurally weak—more than 5%) of GNP to armaments…is likely to limit its growth rate.” [4] At first glance, the theory seems to explain the meteoric rise of the Israeli economy and the continued decrepit state of most Arab economies. While Israel has sharply reduced the percentage of GDP spent on defense from 21 percent in 1980 to 8 percent in 2006, Arab states have maintained relatively large armies and their economies have stagnated. The chilling of the Arab-Israeli conflict [5] and the end of the Cold War permitted Israel to cut military spending and allowed it to avert “over-stretch.” Israel could then start to reallocate military spending towards internal growth and development, and thereby spur economic growth.

However, Israel’s defense spending has remained far above the 5 percent threshold Kennedy claims necessary for economic growth. His theory states that “if, however, too large a proportion of the state’s resources is diverted from wealth creation and allocated instead to military purposes, then that is likely to lead to a weakening of national power over the long term.” [6] In high-performing Western countries, military expenditures never exceeded 5 percent—except during World War I and World War II. However, Israel devoted nearly 10 percent of its GDP to military spending in the periods of highest economic growth between 1988 and 1992, and 2005 to the present. Contrary to Kennedy’s otherwise compelling thesis, Israel has not experienced the economic decline predicted by its comparatively large defense spending.

As Appendix C demonstrates, Israel reduced the percentage of GDP devoted to military spending from 23.1% in 1981 to 8.1% in 2006. During this period, Israel also witnessed a nearly 400% increase in GDP per capita. This data appears to support the simplistic relationship between GDP growth and military spending. Financial historian Niall Ferguson, though disagreeing with Kennedy’s thesis, supports the idea “that there is a close correlation between democracy and defense/GDP ratios: less democratic states tend to spend significantly more on the military.” [7] While there seems to be a general correlation between democratic and economic development and a reduction in military spending, there is no evidence that reduced spending caused such advances in Israel.

Kennedy’s argument fails to explain the nuances in the link between military spending and economic growth. His theory does not address the patters of the Israeli economy in the past 20 years. From 1986 to 1992, Israel doubled its GDP per capita while only modestly decreasing military spending as a percentage of GDP from 14.2% to 10.7%. [8] Kennedy’s theory would have predicted a far smaller economic boost. Second, from 1995 to 2002, Israeli GDP per capita actually shrank, while military spending as a percentage of GDP remained constant. Third, the Israeli economy has exhibited dramatic growth since 2002, reaching Western levels of prosperity. However, Israeli military spending as a percentage of GDP has stayed between 7.9% and 9.5% since 1994 while GDP per capita has risen nearly 50%, from $15,567 to $22,975 in 2008. [9] Since 2002, the figures are even more striking. While military spending has declined by only 1.4%, GDP per capita has grown 33% from $17,267 to $22,975. The Israeli case has defied Kennedy’s theory.

Financial Reforms: Credit Creation and Fiscal Competence

In 1985, the Israeli government instituted a series of drastic financial reforms known as the 1985 Economic Stabilization Plan to stimulate the economy, which had experienced three consecutive years of low growth rates: 1%, 2.6%, and then 2.3%. [10] Immediately prior to 1985, the annual inflation rate had exceeded 400% and net external debt had reached 80% of GDP. [11] The stabilization plan introduced fiscal discipline, increased central bank independence, reduced government intervention in the capital, labor, and financial markets, and enhanced competition in markets that were previously dominated by monopolies. [12] The government liberalized capital flows, allowing increased foreign investment, enabling investment to exceed national savings, and making financial and capital markets more competitive. [13] Israel also adopted a fixed exchange rate, originally at NIS 1.5 per U.S. dollar, in order to stabilize the currency and quell inflation. [14]

The liberalization program produced an explosion of credit for Israeli citizens, encouraging investment and consumption levels that were previously impossible. Direct government involvement in the form of directed credit and earmarked deposits decreased from 65% in 1985 to 5% in 1998. [15] Israeli households received new lines of credit following the liberalization of mortgage lenders. The percentage of homes financed with unrestricted credit increased 40% between 1984 to 1998. For the first time, Israelis could invest freely, sparking a housing boom.

Following the implementation of the reforms, the Israeli economy emerged from its “stagnation.” The share of government expenditure as a percentage of GDP declined 20% in the following ten years. [16] GDP per capita doubled in 7 years, from $7,518 in 1986 to $14,636 in 1992. [17] Net external debt as a percentage of GDP declined from 72% in 1985 to 35% in 1989, with further reduction to 16% in 1998. [18]

By 2002, however, the Israeli economy had plunged under the weight of economic and security concerns. In 2002 alone, Israel suffered 60 suicide bombs. A major pension fund defaulted, unemployment reached 10%, and the economy shrank for two consecutive years, sliding into recession. [19] Further financial reforms were necessary.

Menaced by an unrelenting economic downturn, Israel overhauled its economy with major banking and market reforms. The 2005 Bachar banking reforms, shepherded by former-Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, corrected the massive misallocation of credit administered by Bank Leumi and Bank Hapoalim, Israel’s two leading banks. The reforms liberalized the banking industry by breaking the banking giants’ duopolistic control on the market. Specifically, the reforms obliged Bank Leumi and Bank Hapoalim to sell all provident and mutual funds by 2008, [20] thereby opening Israel to fair competition. Prior to these reforms, the three largest Israeli banks controlled more than 80% of national savings. [21] Bank Leumi and Bank Hapoalim made 70% of all loans to only 1% of borrowers. Netanyahu also sought to eliminate the fiscal deficit by cutting government spending, which immediately dropped from 53% of GDP in 2003 to 47% of GDP in 2006. GDP per capita increased from $17,267 in 2002 to $22,975 in 2008, an increase of 33%. [22]

The Netanyahu-led financial reforms, which expanded the amount of credit available to Israeli citizens and reduced government involvement in the market, are the clearest drivers of Israel’s growth in the last five years. These liberalization efforts mimicked the 1985 Stabilization Plan, which similarly led to an explosion of GDP growth. Following the reforms, Israeli capital markets have issued more than NIS 100 billion of non-banking credit, leading to job creation, productivity enhancement, and growth. [23] Unemployment has decreased from 11% in 2004 to 6.9% in late 2007. [24] The only other Middle Eastern countries experiencing similar booms are Libya and Saudi Arabia, [25] petro-states which have reaped the benefits of the staggering recent increases in oil prices.

The Israeli economy has now experienced 20 years of near-uninterrupted economic growth. In 1980, GDP per capita stood at $6,356 while in 2007 it was at $22,975—on par with several European countries. [26] In 2008, per capita income adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP) in Israel is projected to exceed that in France, Italy, and Germany. [27] Israel is the only Middle Eastern country considered an “advanced economy” by the IMF [28] and it was recently the first Middle Eastern country to be invited to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). [29] Israel is currently enjoying its fourth consecutive year of real GDP growth of over 5%. [30] With inflation low, unemployment dropping, and exports increasing, Israel’s market is doing better than ever, defying expectations that a state can succeed economically while facing real and imminent threats to its own survival.

Strategic Lift: A New World Outlook

As Israel continues to face growing and constantly adapting security threats, from the nuclear threats posed by Iran and Syria to the activities of terrorist groups at its borders, the country now finds itself in a vastly different geopolitical environment from that 30 years ago. Though it is still not at peace with the vast majority of the countries in its region, three major geopolitical events have transformed the Israeli economy and military, reducing military spending and spurring confidence in a once-fragile economy. A peace agreement with Egypt in 1979 neutralized Israel’s greatest threat and prevented future regional wars. In addition, the 1994 peace agreement with eastern neighbor Jordan legitimated Israel’s permanent status in the region. This period also witnessed the early negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. These peace-building efforts loosened the Arab economic boycott and permitted Israel to trade fully and freely with some of its neighbors.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 also had a remarkable effect on Israel’s economic and strategic outlook. First, the immigration of over 1 million, largely skilled, Soviet Jews to Israel boosted the total output of the economy. Second, the reemergence of Eastern European countries and former Soviet republics created new outposts for Israeli exports. Furthermore, the disappearance of the Soviet Union, and its material and financial support for Israel’s enemies, such as Syria, Libya, and the Palestine Liberation Organization, changed Israel’s strategic stance dramatically. The tiny state was no longer threatened by a nuclear superpower or by her proxies. At the same time, Israel’s relationship with the U.S. has grown ever stronger. The “New World Order” has allowed Israel to reorient its military and no longer tremble at the prospect of nuclear destruction, allowing it to reduce military spending slightly. [31]

Conclusion

The dazzling success of the Israeli economy is not the result of a reduction in defense spending. Rather, it is primarily driven by the adoption of liberal market reforms meant to stimulate the economy and release it from government control. Liberalizing financial reforms preceded the two periods of economic growth. In 1985, the introduction of free capital flows, the adoption of a fixed exchange rate, and a reduction in the fiscal deficit liberated the Israeli economy from its stagnant state. Similarly, in 2002, a liberalization of banking laws, which heralded an unprecedented creation of credit, and a reduction in government expenditure galvanized the new market economy. With current Israeli defense spending at 8.1% of GDP, Israel has managed to achieve Western levels of economic success while still maintaining Middle Eastern levels of military spending, contrary to Kennedy’s expectations.

The percentage of national income Israel expends on its military is unlikely to change in the near future. The 2006 Second Lebanon War, Israel’s largest conflict in 25 years, barely increased military expenditures, while the economy continued to grow rapidly. Israel’s economic outlook is encouraging: tax burdens are decreasing, national debt is decreasing and the savings rate is still rising. Not only will Israel free itself from dependence on foreign investment, but it will also become a major foreign investor. Israel has managed to avoid Kennedy’s prediction of “over-stretch” casting doubt on the future applicability of the theory. More research must be done to examine the relationship between economic growth and defense spending, and the mechanisms through which defense spending slows the economy.

More importantly, Israel’s ability to maintain high military spending while developing a flourishing economy could serve as a model to the United States, which has increased its own military spending over the past few years. Though rhetoric of an “Israeli Empire” is usually reserved for the far-left, Israel is in the unique position to extend both its political and economic influence far beyond its borders.

NOTES

1. Gad Lior, “Israel’s Credit Ranking to be Upgraded.” Ynet News, November 25, 2007.
2. Shirley Yom Tov, “The Nasdaq Loves Israel.” Haaretz, September 17, 2006.
3. Sharon Wrobel, “Buffet: Berkshire in Israel Forever.” The Jerusalem Post, September 18, 2006.
4. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers (New York: Random House, 1987), 799
5. There have been no regional Arab-Israel wara since 1973. Moreover, Middle Eastern wars have shifted away from the Levant and into the Gulf.
6. Kennedy, xvi
7. Niall Ferguson, The Cash Nexus (New York: Basic Books, 2001), 405.
8. See Appendix C. Economic data from all appendices is from the International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook Database. Data on Israeli military spending is from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics.
9. See Appendix C
10. See Appendix D
11. Avi Ben-Bassat, The Israeli Economy, 1985-1998 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 1.
12. Ben-Bassat, xiii.
13. Ben-Bassat, 15.
14. Joseph Djivre and Daniel Tsiddon, “A Monetary Labyrinth: Instruments and the Conduct of Monetary Policy in Israel 1987-1998,” in The Israeli Economy, 1985-1998 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 96.
15. Ben-Bassat, 18.
16. Ben-Bassat, 2.
17. See Appendix C
18. Ben-Bassat, 42.
19. See Appendix D
20. Ido Efrati, “Bachar Reform clears Knesset,” Ynet News, July 26, 2005.
21. http://www.nysun.com/article/60856
22. See Appendix C
23. http://www.nysun.com/article/60856
24. “Unemployment Falls to 6.9% in October,” Ynet News, December 19, 2007.
25. See Appendix A
26. See Appendix A.
27. See Appendix B
28. IMF World Economic Outlook Database. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2006/01/data/dbginim.cfm
29. “Israel Invited to Join OECD.” Ynet News, May 16, 2007.
30. Economist Intelligence Unit. http://economist.com/countries/Israel/profile.cfm?folder=Profile%2DEconomic%20Structure
31. See Appendix C

DID GOLDA MEIR CAUSE THE “YOM KIPPUR WAR”?

By Professor Jack L. Schwartzwald

Jack L. Schwartzwald, MD, is an Assistant Professor (Clinical) of Medicine at Brown University School of Medicine.

*

“…Sadat offered Golda Meir an interim deal for opening the Suez Canal in return for a partial Israeli pullback in the Sinai, which she rejected, making the 1973 War inevitable.” – Ehud Ya’ari, The Jerusalem Report (December 13, 2004), p. 28.

“Finding that Israel rejected American peace proposals (which involved the return to Arab sovereignty of virtually all the territories occupied in the 1967 War), and that the Israeli government headed by Mrs. Golda Meir dismissed contemptuously Sadat’s hints of readiness for an accommodation, Sadat decided to launch a fourth full-scale Arab-Israeli war.” – Larousse Encyclopedia of Modern History (revised edition, 1981), pp. 427-8

*

At 6 PM on June 10, 1967, a cease-fire took effect ending the Six Day War between Israel and her Arab neighbors—Egypt, Syria and Jordan. The war had changed the face of the region, and had left Israel in control of vast new territories: the Sinai Desert, the Golan Heights, the West Bank [1] and the Gaza strip. Israel, however, was not intent on keeping her new-won gains. Led by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and Foreign Minister Abba Eban, she sought to barter the territories for a comprehensive peace. On June 19, 1967, Eban approached the American delegation at the UN with the following specific proposals: (i) Israel would return to her international boundary with Egypt in return for peace, demilitarization of the Sinai, and a guarantee of free passage in international waterways; (ii) Israel would return to her international boundary with Syria in return for peace, demilitarization of the Golan Heights, and a guarantee of Israel’s fresh water rights in regional rivers; and (iii) Israel would enter into direct negotiations with Jordan regarding boundaries and peace. Israel’s proposals were forwarded to Egypt and Syria by the American delegation. [2]

On September 1, 1967, Israel got her answer. Led by Egypt’s bombastic President, Gamal Abdel Nasser (whose decision to blockade the Straits of Tiran on May 23 had provoked the Six Day War), representatives of the Arab governments, meeting in Khartoum, promulgated the infamous “3 Nos”: “No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiation with Israel.” [3] It is probably safe to assume that the annals of diplomacy do not contain a more generous peace proposal by a nation that had prevailed in war, or a more thoughtless response by combatants who had been so soundly defeated. On hearing of the Khartoum declaration, Abba Eban remarked that the Six Day War was “the first war in history in which the victor sued for peace and the loser called for unconditional surrender.” [4]

In light of the impasse, the UN Security Council attempted to formulate its own peace resolution. Preliminary drafts were put forward by the United States and India, but the first was felt to be too “pro-Israel,” and the second too “pro-Arab” to obtain passage. The task of framing a more even-handed proposal thus devolved upon the British Minister of State, Hugh Foot, Lord Caradon. [5]

After an introductory statement against the acquisition of territory by force of arms, Lord Caradon’s resolution declared that a “just and lasting peace” required both “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict” and “termination of all claims or states of belligerency.”

The specific wording was important: Multiple resolutions had already been put forward insisting on reversion to the pre-war armistice lines. They had all been defeated. The new resolution anticipated an Israeli “withdrawal from occupied territories,” but did not stipulate the extent of this withdrawal. Quite purposefully, the resolution did not call upon Israel to withdraw from all occupied territories or from the occupied territories. The British felt that the pre-war lines were untenable and thus constituted a recipe for renewed conflict. Moreover, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Foreign Secretary George Brown thought a return to these so-called “June 4th lines” was a bad idea on principle, because it would teach the Arab states that a war could be provoked and lost without penalty, thereby rewarding their extremism. [6]

Furthermore, as Abba Eban has noted, by tying any return of territories to an end of belligerency, the resolution appeared to legitimize Israel’s presence on the cease-fire lines until the parties had agreed to “durable” peace terms. [7] Eban let it be known that the proposal would be acceptable to Israel provided that it contained a clause to the effect that the UN would strive to “promote” a settlement between the parties (as opposed to “imposing” one on them). [8]

Caradon’s resolution was duly submitted as UN Resolution 242, which this journal has analyzed in the past (see New Society 1, Fall 2007). Predictably, there were immediate efforts to redefine its meaning: Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin—who was hostile to Israel—pressured United States President Lyndon B. Johnson to construe the resolution as calling for Israel’s withdrawal from “all occupied territories” irrespective of what the document actually said. President Johnson responded that the U.S. “would not agree to a single word beyond what was written in the British text.” Next, the Indian and Arab delegations called upon Lord Caradon to say, informally, that the withdrawal clause obligated Israel to withdraw from “all occupied territories.” Caradon answered that “nothing could be read into the resolution that was not specifically stated therein.” On November 15, U.S. Ambassador Arthur Goldberg spoke at the UN in support of the withdrawal clause as written, noting that the conflicting parties had never come to an agreement on borders—either before or after the war—and that they would thus need to determine these borders by negotiation. [9] One week later, the resolution passed the UN Security Council by a unanimous vote.

II.

By this time, some Israelis had begun to have second thoughts. A vocal minority adhered to the tenets of religious Zionism as espoused by the so-called “Land of Israel Movement,” which maintained that the territories occupied in the war had reconstituted Eretz Israel—the land of Israel promised to the Jews by God—and that the government did not have the authority to partition it again. Many more were moved by pragmatic concerns: Given the Arab position as elucidated in the Khartoum declaration, they felt that peace with the Arab states was an unlikely prospect and that Israel would do better to keep what had been won as a strategic buffer against renewed attack. Although the latter argument resonated with a healthy percentage of the population, the Eshkol government continued to pursue its original policy. Abba Eban has eloquently described the cabinet’s line of thinking: Israel had come into existence in 1948 largely because she had agreed to the notion of partitioning Palestine, and she would be without international support if she now pursued a policy of unilateral annexation. The Arab states would certainly not acquiesce. Thus, the expanded boundaries would not be “a guarantee of the security of the state and of peace,” but “a guarantee of future wars.” [10]

In February 1969, Prime Minister Eshkol died in office, and was replaced by Golda Meir whose attitude was more skeptical. Eban, who continued as Foreign Minister, has described her thus: “She was not a romantic territorialist. . . .Under her leadership Israel enunciated in clear terms a willingness to accept the principle of withdrawal to secure, recognized and agreed boundaries. But she was more inclined to articulate this principle than to ‘risk’ putting it into practice. And she was resolved not to be sold short on Israeli security.” [11]

On her first day in office, Meir declared that her government was “prepared to discuss peace with our neighbors, any day and on all matters.” [12] Nasser replied with his trademark bellicosity, saying: “That which was lost by war must be restored by war.” By month’s end, his shelling of Israeli positions in the Suez Canal Zone had made a mockery of the 1967 cease-fire and had initiated the so-called “War of Attrition” (March 1969 to August 1970). Israel responded by bombarding Ismailia (one of the Egyptian Canal cities).

Three months into the fighting, Meir offered to fly to Egypt to negotiate a settlement. In reply, the Arab press ridiculed her as “behaving like a grandmother telling bedtime stories to her grandchildren.” [13] Ignoring her offer, Nasser stepped up his attacks. Israel retaliated with bombing raids so deep into Egypt that the explosions were audible in Cairo. As Golda Meir has testified, she wanted to make it clear to the Egyptian people “that they couldn’t have it both ways: war for us, and peace for themselves.” [14] Whether or not her approach was the right one, it would be fair to say that the international community was less than delighted with it. And what was worse, Israel didn’t necessarily get the better of the fighting. Egypt obtained anti-aircraft technology from Russia, and the toll on the Israeli Air Force was such that Israel had to obtain new planes from the U.S.

Russian pilots, meanwhile, had begun guarding Egyptian airspace to the rear of the Canal Zone. Hoping to steer clear of them, Israel ceased her deep bombing raids, but in July 1970, there were two altercations involving Israeli and Russian pilots. In the first, there were no casualties, but in the second, Israeli fighters shot down four MiGs, and got away unscathed. [15]

III.

Anxious to avoid any escalation in the conflict that might directly involve the USSR and the U.S., the Nixon Administration proposed a cease-fire agreement in August 1970 that included a joint commitment by Egypt, Jordan, and Israel to press forward with UN Resolution 242. Golda Meir objected to the proposal—not so much to its terms, as to its being thrust upon her without prior consultation. (She had been given assurances by the U.S. that she would be consulted.) Nor did she take solace from Egypt’s subsequent acceptance of the plan, since she was certain that Nasser was only playing for time while he regrouped his forces. [16] The U.S., however, offered Israel some excellent incentives to follow the Egyptian lead: (i) the U.S. would continue to supply weapons to Israel even if there was a cease-fire; (ii) Israel would not have to remove any troops from occupied territories unless or until a durable peace had been negotiated; (iii) Israel would not be expected to solve the refugee problem in a way that would jeopardize her sovereignty; and (iv) the U.S. would exercise its veto power in the UN Security Council to protect Israel from being bullied into concessions. [17] Israel embraced these terms, and in August 1970 the War of Attrition came to an end. Characteristically, as soon as the shooting stopped, Egypt violated the terms of the agreement by bringing new Russian missiles into the cease-fire area. [18]

One month later, Gamal Abdel Nasser died and was succeeded by his Vice President, Anwar Sadat. It was widely presumed inside and outside Egypt that Sadat would be a mere figurehead. Against all expectations, however, he began removing Nasser’s cronies from positions of power, and was soon in a position to pursue his own policies.

At the same time, Moshe Dayan, the Israeli Defense Minister, was propounding the idea of an interim settlement with Egypt that would call upon both parties to withdraw a specified distance on either side on the Suez Canal. The plan—which had been conceived as a means of averting a repetition of the attritional war without addressing the potentially difficult choices required for a comprehensive peace—would have removed the combatants from artillery range, and would have allowed a resumption of shipping through the Suez Canal (which had been closed since the beginning of the Six Day War).

Sadat was anxious to have the Canal open again. Deprived of Suez revenues, Egypt’s treasury had been severely drained. Thus, as Sadat relates in his autobiography, he spoke to the Egyptian Parliament on February 4, 1971, essentially saying:

“if Israel withdrew her forces in Sinai to the Passes, I would be willing to reopen the Suez Canal; to have my forces cross to the East Bank; to extend the Rogers Plan cease-fire by six, rather than three, months…and to sign a peace agreement with Israel….” [19]

This was not exactly what Dayan and Israel had envisioned. (For one thing, they could do without the Egyptian troops on the East Bank of the Canal.) Yet it might have been the basis for talks if the plan had not been derailed by a new United Nations initiative put forth by Gunnar Jarring, the UN’s special representative to the Middle East. Jarring’s proposal called upon Israel to withdraw to the June 4th armistice line on the Egyptian front in return for an Egyptian assurance of peace. [20]

Jarring’s opinion was that the proposal should be accepted without amendment. But it had long been a clearly and publicly stated tenet of Israeli policy that border issues would have to be negotiated between the parties, and that territorial exchange would require a formal peace treaty. Jarring’s initiative smacked of an imposed settlement—not the effort “to promote agreement” promised by UN Resolution 242—and it required Israel to make extreme concessions before any discussions had been held. After considering the matter, the Israeli cabinet answered with relative unanimity that the position of final borders would have to be negotiated. A debate ensued, however, over a phrase favored by Meir spelling out that Israel would not withdraw to the June 4th line. In June 1967, the Eshkol government had been willing to do so, but in the interim, Israel had sustained 3000 casualties in the 18-month attritional war waged by Egypt, and Meir presumably felt that it would send the wrong message to suffer such losses without taking a harder line on security.

Abba Eban disagreed. With many years of distinguished service as a diplomat, he felt that the June 4th stipulation was superfluous. Israel was already saying that the border would have to be negotiated. By ruling out a full withdrawal before negotiations even began, Meir might provoke charges of Israeli intransigence when the cabinet was merely adhering to its longstanding position that decisions on borders had to be reached by negotiation, not by imposition. Despite these arguments, the phrase was retained.

Jarring received Israel’s answer as though it had been the Khartoum declaration in reverse. He ceased his initiative forthwith—an unwarranted response given that Israel had clearly expressed her willingness to negotiate. (Indeed, if anyone was refusing to budge from his position, it was Jarring himself.) [21] Moreover, it is enlightening to note that Jarring seemed untroubled by the amendments Egypt wanted to append to his proposal. Indeed, he seems to have agreed with them, [22] even though they were far more demanding. To be sure, Sadat had agreed to talk peace, but he had a number of preconditions: Israel must agree in advance (i) to withdraw her forces from all occupied territories on all fronts, (ii) to settle the refugee issue “in accordance with United Nations resolutions” (undoubtedly as interpreted by Egypt), and (iii) to accept demilitarized zones of equal size on both sides of the June 4th Egyptian-Israeli border. [23] Such maximalist demands were not worthy of serious consideration—never mind acceptance. Nevertheless, just as Abba Eban had foreseen, many of Golda Meir’s detractors, at home and abroad, sought to saddle her with responsibility for the failure of Jarring’s mission. [24] Recalling these negotiations several years later, Meir said: “‘intransigent’ was to become my middle name.” [25]

IV.

Israel now reconsidered Dayan’s idea for an interim Israeli-Egyptian agreement consisting of a bilateral withdrawal from the Canal Zone and the reopening of the Canal to international shipping. Dayan’s plan called for a 30-kilometer withdrawal by each party, but Meir and the majority of the cabinet insisted upon a lesser distance—10 kilometers—so that Israel could push back to the Canal in an emergency.

A disengagement of 10 kilometers, however, did not suit the purpose of Dayan’s proposal: At 30 kilometers, the combatants would have been beyond each other’s artillery range and the Canal could be traversed with a sense of security. At 10 kilometers, passage through the Canal would, in effect, be taking place under Israel’s guns. Egypt was unlikely to accept under such circumstances. Eban, therefore, offered his support to Dayan if the latter would press for the greater withdrawal. Sadly, there was a history of antagonism between the two men, and rather than side with Eban against Meir, Dayan preferred not to pursue the matter (May 1971).

Eban thought this decision regrettable. In later years, he argued that if Dayan’s plan had succeeded, the surprise attack on Yom Kippur 1973 could not have taken place. [26] But Dayan’s lack of resolve was not the sole issue. The final nail in the coffin was Sadat’s response: He would approve a bilateral withdrawal from the Canal in order to restore his Suez revenues, but only if Israel agreed in advance that it was a preliminary step in the fulfillment of all clauses of UN Resolution 242 (again as interpreted by Egypt—meaning withdrawal from “all occupied territories,” etc.). Once again, Sadat was seeking maximalist commitments in the absence of face-to-face negotiations—something that Meir’s Cabinet would not abide. [27]

Although the chances for a speedy settlement seemed remote, they received a last boost in the fall of 1971 when four African presidents attempted to jumpstart the Jarring mission. After discussions with Israeli leaders, the four men—representing Senegal, Zaire, Cameroon and Nigeria respectively—reported to the UN that Israel was committed to negotiation and to “withdrawal from territories,” and that in negotiating boundaries she would not pursue an annexationist course, but would focus solely upon her security and her rights of passage in international waterways. [28]

Here was concrete evidence that “intransigence” on Israel’s part was not solely responsible for the failure of Jarring’s mission—indeed, that there was no Israeli intransigence. Unfortunately, the Arab states and their supporters had gained significant currency from the “intransigence” myth and used their votes to prevent the UN from accepting the report of the African leaders. [29]

Thus, by the latter half of 1971, matters had reached an impasse. Golda Meir was unwilling to cede territory in the absence of negotiations. Sadat was not willing to negotiate unless Israel accepted his far-flung preconditions. In this setting, Israel felt confident that the existing cease-fire lines guaranteed her security, and that the Arab states had no choice but to accept the present situation or come to the negotiating table. Nor did events in Egypt do anything to alter this estimate—for an unexpected twist in Egyptian foreign policy was now to make the chance of war seem exceedingly unlikely.

V.

The Soviet Union had been Egypt’s chief arms supplier since the 1950s. In 1967, Soviet arms (and meddling) had helped push Egypt and Syria into war. During the War of Attrition, Soviet weaponry had again played a crucial part. After the collapse of the Jarring mission, Sadat signed a new Soviet arms accord (May 1971) and began speaking of 1971 as “a year of decision” in which the humiliating verdict of 1967 would be overturned. But then matters suddenly deteriorated: The Soviets failed to deliver much of the promised weaponry, and when Sadat questioned them on the matter, they would not be pinned down. Moreover, the thousands of Soviet “advisors” who were stationed in Egypt had begun to act as though Egypt was nothing more than a Soviet bailiwick. So, in July 1972, Sadat kicked the advisors out.

This was the cue that Henry Kissinger (U.S. President Richard M. Nixon’s National Security Advisor) had been waiting for. Kissinger had long kept a cautious eye on the Middle East. In his view, Israel’s insistence on direct negotiation was “as seemingly reasonable as it was unfulfillable,” since in essence Israel was asking “for recognition as a precondition of negotiation.” [30] On the other hand, there was no point in pressuring Israel to moderate her approach while the Arab states clung to their pro-Soviet policy and maximalist demands. The best course was to allow the impasse to continue until one or more Arab states broke with the USSR and assumed a more reasonable demeanor. “Then,” believed Kissinger, “would come the moment for a major American initiative, if necessary urging new approaches on our Israeli friends.” [31]

It certainly appeared as if Kissinger’s moment had arrived. By evicting the Soviets, Sadat had dismissed his chief arms supplier. An Egyptian offensive no longer seemed feasible.

But the truth was rather more complicated: the USSR had consistently failed to supply Egypt with the very weapons—particularly missile-firing jets—that were required for an offensive war. In effect, the Soviets had been controlling Egyptian policy by depriving her of the means to act. By dismissing them, Sadat had freed his hands to make his own decisions. While it might not have been clear to Kissinger—or to the Israelis—war was actually more likely with the Soviets gone.

Convinced that diplomacy was Sadat’s only option, Kissinger arranged a secret meeting with Hafez Ismail, Sadat’s national security advisor. Owing to America’s preoccupation with the Vietnam War, the talks were delayed until February 1973, by which time Russia had agreed to a massive new arms deal with Egypt in an effort to salvage Soviet influence in the region. As soon as the talks opened, Ismail made it clear that Israel must accept a return to the 1967 borders “with some margin, perhaps, for adjustment on the West Bank,” before any negotiations could take place. Moreover, Israel would have to agree to bilateral demilitarized zones on either side of the Israeli-Egyptian border. In return, Egypt would end her belligerency with Israel and guarantee Israel’s right of passage in international waterways. But there would be no formal peace treaty until Israel had negotiated a settlement with Syria and the Palestinians. Thus, says Kissinger, “the price paid for the return to the prewar borders was not peace, but the end of belligerency, not easy to distinguish from the existing cease-fire.” [32] Further talks were held in May, but there was no movement in the Egyptian position. In October, Kissinger met with Abba Eban and laid plans to open three-way talks in November. But by then it was too late.

In a Newsweek interview in April 1973, Sadat declared that, “For the first time, we see total and complete agreement between the U.S. and Israel on Middle Eastern Policy…. I want a final peace agreement with Israel. But there was no response from the U.S. or Israel—except to supply Israel with more Phantoms [i.e., fighter jets]… Everything in this country [Egypt] is now being mobilized in earnest for the resumption of the battle—which is now inevitable.” [33]

In May, the Egyptian army carried out a full mobilization. At great expense, Israel did the same. Nothing came of it. Thus, in early October, when the Egyptian and Syrian armies began massing troops on their respective borders with Israel, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan thought it was another bluff and did not follow suit. On October 6, 1973—Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar—Egypt and Syria launched a combined surprise attack. The devastating setbacks sustained by Israel during the first week of the conflict, the dramatic airlift of new supplies from the U.S. (a remarkable feat in itself), and Israel’s victorious counterthrusts on both battlefronts must be left to others to recount—for we still have some detective work to do.

VI.

So what then is the verdict? Did Golda Meir make the 1973 War inevitable by rejecting Sadat’s offer of an interim deal as Ehud Ya’ari and several other writers aver? Did she provoke Sadat to war by “contemptuously” dismissing his “hints of readiness for an accommodation?” The evidence bears out neither charge. When Sadat’s preconditions are thrown into the mix, the interim pullback from the Suez Canal was hardly an attractive proposition for Israel. But the evidence exonerating Meir is stronger than this. The fact is that the same interim bargain came up several more times before the outbreak of war—in September 1972, January 1973 and February 1973. Each time, it was proposed to Egypt by the U.S. State Department, and each time Egypt turned it down. In contrast, on March 1, 1973, Golda Meir told Nixon and Kissinger that she was prepared to accept such a plan as the opening move toward a comprehensive settlement. [34]

Meir never contemptuously dismissed the notion of an accommodation. What she dismissed—contemptuously or otherwise—was the idea of having final borders imposed on her before anyone had even deigned to talk to her. If one seeks an example of a peace proposal being dismissed with contempt, a far better example can be found in Nasser’s response to Meir’s peace overtures: “There is no voice transcending the sounds of war…and no call holier than the call to war.” [35]

Offered the return of the entire Sinai by the Eshkol Government, Nasser traveled to Khartoum and issued the “3 Nos.” Given a second chance by Meir, he launched the War of Attrition. One may argue that the Egyptian President was not in a position to negotiate, for as Henry Kissinger has noted, “in the mood of Arab humiliation following the defeat in the Six Day War, concessions would in all likelihood be ascribed to military weakness rather than to statesmanship.” [36]

This is undoubtedly true, but one should not lose sight of the fact that Nasser provoked the Six Day War, and if the Arabs were humiliated over having lost it, that was a problem of their own making. Why should it have been incumbent upon Meir to solve it? As she herself was to say: “It was a great pity that the Arab states felt so humiliated by losing the war which they had started that they just couldn’t bring themselves to talk to us, but on the other hand, we couldn’t be expected to reward them for having tried to throw us into the sea. We were bitterly disappointed, but there was only one possible reply: Israel would not withdraw from any of the territories until the Arab states once and for all put an end to the conflict. . . .We waited for the Arabs to accept the fact that the only alternative to war was peace and that the only road to peace was negotiation.” [37]

Nasser’s culpability in the Six Day War and the War of Attrition is beyond doubt. In addition, he can be called to account for stonewalling all progress toward an accord. But Nasser had been dead for three years when the Yom Kippur War erupted. He may have done his part to lay the groundwork, he may have said, “that which was lost by war must be restored by war,” but he certainly didn’t carry the project through.

At whom, then, should we point the finger? As it turns out, one of the key participants has yet to testify. There is an interesting passage in Abba Eban’s Personal Witness, describing a verbal duel between U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. Rogers sought to assure Meir that the new Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, was ready to make peace (May 1971). Meir replied that Rogers was naïve to place his trust in such protestations. Eban concludes that Meir “was affronted by the idea that an American secretary of state could discern virtue in an Arab leader.” [38] This was certainly one possibility. Another possibility is that Meir was right to distrust Sadat.

Is it possible that the far-sighted Egyptian statesman who would ultimately forge a peace deal and pay for it with his life was simply being duplicitous? The evidence suggests that he was—and the most damning of that evidence is to be found in his own utterances. In his autobiography, Sadat declares that on his accession to the presidency in late 1970,

“the key to everything…was to wipe out the disgrace and humiliation that followed from the 1967 defeat. I reckoned it would be 1,000 times more honorable for us—40,000 of my sons in the armed forces and myself—to be buried crossing the Canal than to accept such disgrace and humiliation. Posterity would say we had died honorably on the battlefield…and posterity would carry on the struggle.” [39]

It is no easy task to square these sentiments with an earnest desire for peace. Still, in his speech to the Egyptian Parliament in February 1971, Sadat did say that in return for an interim Israeli withdrawal from the Suez Canal he would, among other things, “sign a peace agreement with Israel….” Some might argue that this absolves him. But does it? Sadat goes on to say:

“My Peace Initiative of February 4, 1971, launched an Egyptian diplomatic offensive—the only alternative to a military one which I was, at the time, unable to undertake.” [40] [emphasis added]

This is a puzzling way for a man of peace to express himself. Was Sadat truly seeking peace, or was he dissimulating until the times were more conducive toward making war? The answer lies in a startling revelation made by Henry Kissinger:

“If I had been able in mid-1973 to guarantee [Sadat] the 1967 borders without his having to make peace, he would have accepted it—though with reluctance, as he later told me, since it would have done little for Egyptian pride.” [41] [emphasis added]

Each of Sadat’s so-called “hints at an accommodation” during the period under question contained maximalist territorial demands as the price of initiating face-to-face negotiations. Refusing to negotiate until all of one’s demands are met does not constitute “accommodation.” To say that war is “inevitable” unless one’s enemy accedes to maximalist demands is not to propose peace–it is to deliver an ultimatum. And to accept “with reluctance” everything that one has asked for, means that what was asked for was not what was wanted. Anwar Sadat did not want peace with Israel in the period between 1970 and 1973, because peace would not “wipe out the disgrace and humiliation that followed from the 1967 defeat.” War alone could do that. Consequently, war is what Sadat desired.

This, of course, does not mean that Israel achieved perfection in her pursuit of peace during this period. Most Israelis felt secure on the existing cease-fire lines and did not believe that another Arab attack was likely. As a result, they perceived little danger in a continuing stalemate: Either the Arabs would have to accept the status quo or they would have to negotiate – and whichever course they chose, Israel would be holding the stronger cards.

If anyone personified this confident mindset, it was Golda Meir’s Defense Minister, Moshe Dayan—the state’s most popular political figure. In addition to his duties as Minister of Defense, Dayan was responsible for the administration of the occupied territories. In the immediate aftermath of the Six Day War, his policy had been to make the occupation as inconspicuous as possible. As he told a subordinate: “I want a policy whereby an Arab can be born, live and die in the West Bank without ever seeing an Israeli official.” [42] At that time, the occupation had been viewed as temporary, but as the years passed with no progress towards a negotiated settlement, Dayan came to believe that the Arabs had no intention of making peace with Israel in exchange for territory. [43] In his view, it was not Israel’s task to remain in suspended animation if the Arabs refused to negotiate. Rather, she should “create facts”—especially by building settlements in crucial areas—so that if the Arab states did eventually agree to negotiate, Israel would already be ensconced in those sites that were critical to her security.

Within certain parameters, this concept was widely accepted in Israel. But there were two common objections to the way Dayan pursued it. First of all, he favored a more aggressive settlement policy than did most members of the cabinet. [44] Indeed, in Abba Eban’s view, his vision, particularly with regard to the West Bank, was “dark with false images.” [45] But the real objection to Dayan’s approach was that his preoccupation with administering the territories took his mind off his primary role as defense minister. His failure to fulfill this responsibility—which included determining, with some degree of accuracy, the likelihood of a major enemy offensive—was to produce consequences of the unhappiest sort once war broke out. Dayan completely missed the boat on Egypt’s and Syria’s war preparations, and he was slow to react even when the ugly truth could no longer be denied.

But even if Dayan didn’t see the war coming, he correctly discerned why it came. As he succinctly summarized it:

“The Yom Kippur War grew out of Egypt’s and Syria’s refusal to reach a peace arrangement with Israel or to leave Sinai and the Golan Heights in Israel’s hands. The Arabs wanted to retrieve the territories they had lost in the Six Day War without reconciling themselves to the fact of Israel’s existence. This goal could only be achieved through war.” [46]

War did not come because Golda Meir scoffed at peace proposals (she didn’t), or because Dayan was pushing too aggressively for settlements (there were only 7000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza in October 1973), [47] or even because Israelis were overconfident in the ultimate issue of the continuing diplomatic impasse. The ultimate cause of the war was Arab rejection of Israel’s legitimacy, compounded by an inimical and overweening Arab sense of pride—pride that could not have been assuaged even if Israel had handed back every inch of occupied territory and demanded nothing in return.

NOTES

1. I.e., territories on the western side of the Jordan River that had been occupied the Jordanian Kingdom since the 1949 armistice.
2. Abba Eban, Personal Witness: Israel Through My Eyes. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1992, p. 437 & 446; Conor Cruise O’Brien, The Siege. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986; pp. 489-90.
3. Eban, p. 446.
4. Eban, p. 450.
5. Eban, pp. 455-6.
6. Eban, p. 456.
7. Eban, p. 457.
8. Eban, pp. 456-7.
9. Comments of LBJ, Lord Caradon and Goldberg: Eban, pp. 458-9.
10. Eban, p. 461.
11. Eban, p. 478.
12. Meir, Golda. My Life. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1975, p. 383; see also Gilbert, Martin. Israel, A History. London: Black Swan Books, 1998, p. 410.
13. Meir, p. 384; Gilbert, p. 410.
14. Meir, p. 382.
15. Sachar, pp. 694-5.
16. Reich, Bernard. A Brief History of Israel. New York: Checkmark Books, 2003, p. 98.
17. Eban, pp. 488-9.
18. Sachar, p. 695.
19. Sadat, Anwar. In Search of an Identity, an Autobiography. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1977, 1978, p. 219. Mitchell Bard, however, notes that Sadat’s offer of a peace agreement with Israel was not made public (Bard, Mitchell G. Myths and Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Chevy Chase, American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, 2002, p. 72).
20. Eban, p. 500.
21. Eban, pp. 501-3.
22. Bard, p. 72.
23. Sachar, p. 696.
24. Eban, p. 501.
25. Meir, p. 373.
26. Eban, pp. 503-5.
27. Sacher, p. 696.
28. Eban, p. 507.
29. Eban, pp. 506-7.
30. Kissinger, Henry. Years of Upheaval. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1982, pp. 197-8.
31. Kissinger, pp. 201-2.
32. Kissinger, pp. 215-16.
33. From Anwar Sadat’s interview with Arnaud de Borchgrave, entitled “The Battle is Now Inevitable.” Newsweek, April 9, 1973, pp. 44-5; see also, Kissinger, p. 225. (parenthetical text added by the author for clarity.)
34. Kissinger, pp. 207, 211-15 & 221.
35. Meir, p. 383.
36. Kissinger, p. 226.
37. Meir, p. 370.
38. Eban, p. 504.
39. Sadat, p. 215.
40. Sadat, pp. 221-2.
41. Kissinger, p. 226. (italics added.)
42. Gilbert, p. 396.
43. Perlmutter, Amos. Israel: The Partitioned State. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1985, p. 217.
44. The cabinet had more or less officially adopted the “Allon Plan” for the West Bank, which called for a security belt along the Jordan River and the annexation of Jerusalem. Dayan favored more extensive settlement there, but the settlement movement was still in its nascent phase (see Eban, p. 470).
45. Eban, p. 466.
46. Dayan, Moshe. Story of My Life. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976, p. 504.
47. Eban, p. 470.

CONTRACEPTION IN EGYPT AND IRAN

By Julie R. S. Fogarty

Julie R. S. Fogarty ’08, a Government concentrator from Dunster House, graduates from Harvard College this year.

The Greater Middle East has one of the highest population growth rates in the world, lower only than that in sub-Saharan Africa. [1] The regional rate has continued to accelerate over the past 60 years, from 2.64 percent per year in the 1950s to 3.1 percent per year between 1980 and 1992, the highest in the world at the time. Although the rate had dropped slightly to 2.79% by 2007, many people remain concerned. [2] Population growth has had enormous economic consequences, including extreme pressure on educational and health services and unattainably high demand for new jobs. In an attempt to alleviate these social pressures, which could in turn prompt political upheaval, Egypt and Iran have sought to curb population growth directly through family planning programs. Although both countries have committed vast resources through sustained programs, Egypt and Iran have exhibited “stop and go” family planning policies. [3] Although Egyptian programs have been supported by international aid organizations, Iran has seen a more dramatic decrease in fertility rates (and a corresponding rise in birth control usage) due primarily to its own, government-sanctioned family planning initiatives of the past 15 years.

Iranian Family Planning

Iranian family planning has gone through two dramatic transformations. First, in 1965, the government of Mohammed Reza Shah instituted a family planning program that stressed the “supply side” of fertility rates: the availability of contraception. [4] For the first time, the government created educational and promotional campaigns endorsing contraception as a means to stem population overgrowth and improve the standard of living of Iranian families. Likewise, the Shah’s government encouraged women’s participation outside the home, granted women the right to vote, and reformed the Family Protection Law. The results were dramatic and immediate. In the ten years following the new policies, the Iranian average growth rate fell from 3.1 percent to 2.7 percent and hundreds of thousands more women began to use contraception.

However, the 1979 Islamic Revolution, led by the Ayatollah Khomeini, fundamentally changed the nature of Iranian society. Khomeini established an Islamic state, reversing many of the gains made in the area of women’s rights under the Shah and dismantling the family planning program. [5] In stark contrast to the previous policies, Khomeini nurtured a pro-natalist policy as a result of his religious outlook and his desire to usehigh birth rates as a strategic threat in the Iran-Iraq War (which began in 1980) and other conflicts. Islamic leaders publicly proclaimed that a woman’s first priority should be marriage and children. Subsequently, the government reduced the availability of contraceptives, lowered the legal age of marriage, dissolved the Family Planning Council, and provided subsidies for larger families. [6] These changes raised the growth rate to 3.4% and created a growing demand for food, health care, education, and employment. [7]

Changes within the Islamic Republic of Iran during the late 1980s altered the previously stringent pro-natalist policy. The 1986 national census served as a “wake up call” to family policy planners, underscoring the growing economic and social crisis. The end of the war with Iraq in 1988 and Khomeini’s death in 1989 provided the impetus for further change. [8] In 1989, the Ministry of Health announced plans for a new family planning program with three major goals: encouraging women to space their pregnancies, discouraging pregnancy for women not between the ages of 18 and 35, and limiting family size to three children. [9] Furthermore, sterilization for both sexes was legalized in 1990. [10] The program was endorsed by the country’s High Judicial Council, which declared that “Islam does not pose any barrier to family planning.” [11] In 1993, the government went a step further by restricting maternity leave and compelling the Ministries of Education, Health and Medical Education, and Culture and Education to incorporate information on family planning. [12]

The Iranian government has promoted these family planning initiatives through the state-run television and media, emphasizing the link between overpopulation and poverty, illiteracy, and unemployment. [13] The media encouraged the use of contraceptives, which were provided free of charge on demand, and legal reforms were made in favor of women. [14] Interestingly, religious leaders endorsed the program, directing all religious authorities to support family planning because it was initiated by the Islamic government. [15] Religious leaders now describe smaller families as a social responsibility. [16] In addition, the majlis, the Iranian parliament, voted to support the program. As a result, the number of women using contraceptives has nearly doubled from 37 percent in the 1970s to 65 percent now, although urban women are more likely to use them than rural women are. [17]

Moreover, the population growth rate sharply declined to 2.5 percent between 1986 and 1991 then to only 1.2 percent in 2001, one of the fastest declines on record. [18] In only 15 years (from 1985 to 2001), Iran’s total fertility rate dropped from more than births per woman to fewer than 3. [19] From 2000 to 2005, Iran’s average fertility rate was 2.53 births per woman, [20] and the United Nations predicts that it will drop to 2 births per woman (replacement level) by 2010.

Egyptian Family Planning

Egypt’s family planning programs have followed a similarly unsteady course. Debated by Egyptian social scientists since the 1930s, Egypt’s high population growth became widely viewed as an acute problem in the 1960s, when the government acknowledged the serious economic and social problems associated with it. The government soon established the National Family Planning Program as one response to the economic problems. [21] Yet, the program languished in the 1970s as President Anwar Sadat adopted the slogan “Development is the best contraceptive,” and focused on economic development. He also yielded to Islamists’ pro-natalist views in an attempt to gain their political support against the pro-Soviet left. [22]

Following Sadat’s assassination, new Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak rejuvenated the family planning program and established the “National Strategy Framework of Population, Human Resource Development, and the Family Planning Program,” which promoted contraceptive use by married women. [23] From 1980 to 1992, the government, pressured by donor agencies like USAID, began to focus on expanding and strengthening family planning service delivery in both public and private sectors. These efforts doubled contraceptive use from 24 percent in 1980 to 50 percent in 2000, and reduced the total fertility rate from 5.3 births per woman to 3.5 births per woman in the same time period. [24]

Yet, the total fertility rate has remained at around 3.5 since 1995, a curious fact that one researcher attributes to upper and middle class Egyptian women. Although these groups drove the decline at the beginning, their fertility rates have since leveled off because of an increase in the level of fertility within marriage (which is offset by a higher age of first marriage). [25] Interestingly, while total fertility has remained stagnant at 3.5 among upper classes in the last decade, it has continued to decline among poorer women, moving from 5.02 children in 1988 to 4.03 children in 1995, and further to 3.62 children in 2000. Thus, while wealthier women still have lower total fertility rates than poorer women, the gap is steadily narrowing.

Unlikely Results

Although they took different paths, by the end of the 1980s both countries had made strong commitments to curb rapid population growth with family planning programs. The dire economic crises experienced by both Egypt and Iran in the late 1980s made both countries increasingly willing to support the distribution of contraceptives and economic conditions played a crucial role in the reintroduction of family planning programs later on. [26] Despite these similarities, the programs also exhibit several important differences.

First, the Egyptian program received significant aid from international donor organizations such as USAID. USAID pressured the Egyptian government to introduce family planning programs throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, and providing millions of dollars ($87 million from 1977 to 1983) in funding to Egyptian organizations that supported USAID’s emphasis on training personnel and promoting the use of intrauterine devices (IUDs). [27] IUDs and permanent devices such as Norplant (a birth control device implanted in the upper arm that lasts for five years) rank as the most popular methods of birth control in Egypt. These contraceptives are distributed in Ministry of Health facilities by trained professionals and were widely encouraged by USAID members who were concerned that women would not use birth control pills correctly. [28]

In contrast, Iran developed its family planning program independently. As one of the world’s largest oil exporters, it had the financial security to avoid dependence on international aid organizations. [29] Thus, the Iranian government has funded the creation of a comprehensive health network throughout the country, in which “health houses” include family planning as an aspect of primary care (thus removing the stigma). [30] Furthermore, the government covers 80 percent of family planning costs and provides various contraceptives (including condoms, pills, and sterilization) free. The country is the only one in the region with a government-sanctioned condom factory. Consequently, Iranians tend to use oral contraceptives like “the Pill” and condoms rather than IUDs. Additionally, men have an increasingly active role in family planning. Iran is the only country in the Greater Middle East that requires a couple to complete a class on contraception before receiving a marriage license, and vasectomies are becoming more common.

Despite the aid and influence of international organizations like USAID and the International Monetary Fund, the use of contraceptives in Egypt is less widespread than in Iran. In 1995, only 48 percent of married Egyptian women were using contraceptives, compared to 70 percent of Iranian women. [31] In both countries, urban women use contraceptives at a far higher rate than rural women (most likely because of higher education levels and employment rates). [32] In Egypt, the divide between the rural fertility rate of 4.2 children per woman and the urban fertility rate of 3 children per women can be largely attributed to the fact that rural women must travel to receive IUDs from trained professionals or pay for expensive private services. [33] Although Iran also exhibits a divide between rural and urban contraceptive use, the gap is narrowing because of the country’s extensive network of health clinics in rural areas, and presumably, the easy and free access to contraceptives. [34]

Finally, the religious views of the predominantly Muslim population of both these countries influence women’s decisions about contraception. Contrary to popular belief, Islam does not forbid contraception. [35] Yet, because Islam teaches that a woman’s sphere is the home, and that children are the major source of her value, Islamic women are often pressured to forgo contraception. [36] Because of these potentially restrictive social norms, the Iranian religious leadership’s support of contraception was an important element to that country’s campaign. On the other hand, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, a banned Islamist organization, condemned family planning initiatives as “a Western conspiracy to limit the number of Muslims,” and Islamic media sources have also criticized the program. [37]

In addition to encouraging the use of contraceptives, both Iran and Egypt have supplemented their family planning programs with female education initiatives and improvements in health care, which are also likely causes of a decrease in fertility. As Iran and Egypt demonstrate, a comprehensive family planning program backed by the government, media, and religious leaders can lead to dramatic decreases in population growth and fertility rates, which are widely understood to relieve pressure on the economy. Although Egypt and Iran have made large gains since the 1980s, many issues, such as the discrepancy between urban and rural contraceptive use, remain. Furthermore, the growing influence of Islamic fundamentalist groups in Egypt and the resurgence of religious fundamentalists in Iran may the trend of the past two decades.

NOTES

1. John Waterbury and Alan Richards, A Political Economy of the Middle East, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2007), 77.
2. Josh Martin, “The Population Time Bomb.” Middle East, 03050734, Nov 2003, Issue 339
3. Martin, 86.
4. Martin, 87.
5. Richards and Waterbury, citing Bulatao and Richardson, 1994
6. S. Edwards, “Iran’s Population Growth Rate Increases by About 40% After Abandonment of Fertility Control Policy in 1979.” International Family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 18, No. 3. (Sep., 1992), 117. The legal marriage age for females was reduced to an unbelievably low nine years.
7. Akbar Aghajanian and Amir H. Merhyar. “Fertility, Contraceptive Use, and Family Planning Program Activity in the Islamic Republic of Iran. International Family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 25, No. 2. (June 1999), 98.
8. Maryann Poya, Women, Work, and Islamism: Ideology and Resistance in Iran. (London: Zed Books, 2000), 98.
9. Aghajanian and Merhyar, 98.
10. Richards and Waterbury, 87.
11. Aghajanian and Merhyar, p. 98.
12. Janet Larsen, “Iran’s Birth Rate Plummeting at Record Pace: Success Provides a Model for Other Developing Countries.” Earth Policy Institute, 12/28/2001. 1.
13. Poya, 99.
14. Poya, 100.
15. Aghajanian and Merhyar, 99.
16. Larsen, 1.
17. Aghajanian and Merhyar, 100.
18. Richards and Waterbury, 87.
19. Larsen, 1.
20. http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/indicator.cfm?Country=EG&IndicatorID=138
21. Richards and Waterbury, 86.
22. Richards and Waterbury, 87.
23. Kamran Asadar Ali, Planning the Family in Egypt: New Bodies, New Selves (Texas: University of Texas Press, 2002), 32.
24. USAID website. March 31, 2006. Viewed May 4, 2008. http://www.usaid.gov/stories/egypt/ss_egypt_family.html
25. E. Eltigani, “Stalled Fertility Decline in Egypt: Why?” Population and Environment. Sep 2003. Vol. 25, Issue 1, 41.
26. Ali (2002), 2.
27. Ali (2002), 38.
28. Poya, 38.
29. Poya, 44.
30. Larson, 1.
31. Rosalin P. Petchesky and Karen Judd, eds. Negotiating Women’s Reproductive Rights: Women’s Perspectives Across Cultures (London: Zed Books, 1998)
32. Kamran Asdar Ali, “Modernization and Family Planning Programs in Egypt.” Middle East Studies Network: the Politics of a Field. (Oct- Dec. 1997), 41.
33. Petchesky and Judd, 78.
34. Aghajanian and Merhyar, 100.
35. B.F. Musallam, Sex and Society in Islam: Birth Control before the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 16.
36. Petchesky and Judd, 96.
37. Ali 2002, 155.

CANON ANDREW WHITE: THE VICAR OF BAGHDAD

By Hope A. Jones

Hope A. Jones ’08, a Government concentrator from Leverett House, graduates from Harvard College this year.

Ravaged by three wars in the last thirty years, Iraq—to some—seems beyond salvation. Religious terrorists across the country pose a grave threat to the country’s future. Sectarian violence, once political or territorial in nature, has become increasingly religious across the Middle East, from Algeria, to Gaza, to Pakistan. Against this deteriorating backdrop, religious violence in Iraq is not the exception, but the expression of a regional phenomenon of violence perpetrated in the name of Islam.

Despite such a bleak outlook, there is an undercurrent of attempts at religious reconciliation in these same troubled countries. Brave Iraqi leaders have brought together key religious and secular figures, underscoring the importance of intra and inter-religious dialogue. Some religious leaders have renounced violence and pledged to work together for a peaceful Iraq. These peace-building efforts would not be possible without the presence of a mediator welcomed by all sides. As the vicar of Baghdad’s only Anglican parish, Canon Andrew White is exactly this kind of mediator. Over the past ten years, he has been in a unique position to develop a nuanced understanding of religious factionalism in Iraq, and his tireless work with the religious leaders of the country is a testament to the importance of mediation in any effort to stabilize war-torn Iraq.

Understanding Violence in Iraq

Religious conflict in Iraq is multifaceted in nature and cannot be fully separated from nationalist concerns. The well-documented Sunni-Shi’a tensions comprise one of several crosscutting religious conflicts in the country. Iraqi nationalist religious groups have battled radical Iranian Shi’a for control of Iraq while all moderate groups, Sunni and Shi’a, have fought back against Sunni Al Qaeda in Iraq radicals. Furthermore, intra-Shi’a religious conflict has increased, as militias such as Sayyed al-Hakeem’s Badr Brigade and Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army have sought to dominate Iraqi political affairs.

Finally, Iraqi Christians, whose presence in Iraq dates back 2,000 years, have been persecuted and driven out by both Sunni and Shi’a extremists. [1] While the exact numbers are uncalculated, it is estimated that 600,000 of the 700,000 Christians in Iraq have been killed or displaced since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. [2] Some have immigrated to Jordan and Syria and others have been displaced to the north of the country, leaving behind only poorer, less mobile families. [3] It is estimated that there are nearly 5 million Iraqi refugees, both outside and inside the country. [4]

Canon White’s Method of Mediation

Canon White presided over practical conflict resolution and prevention work in the Middle East peace process for the Anglican Church from 1998 until 2005. His work in Iraq began when he was invited by President Saddam Hussein’s Deputy Prime Minister and close confidant Tariq Aziz in 1998. [5] From 2001 to 2003, he was the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Special Representative to the Middle East, [6] the first to hold this position following the five-year imprisonment of his predecessor Terry Waite by Hezbollah. [7] Since the Coalition invasion, White has developed rescue aid initiatives, negotiated hostage releases, and brought previously hostile religious leaders together for compromise agreements.

The personal relationships he forged prior to the 2003 war have enabled him to engage Sunni and Shi’a religious leaders in the fight for peace and stability in Iraq. White’s work and positive results demonstrate the potential for Iraqis to work towards national reconciliation from the bottom up and to reduce the religiously sanctioned sectarian violence that has destroyed much of the country. He strongly believes that inter-religious dialogue and reconciliation in the Middle East “may well lead us into a complex engagement between different religious communities that in time could save the world.” [8]

Currently, Canon White is the President and CEO of the non-profit Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East (FRRME), the chaplain of St. Georges Church in Baghdad, and the Anglican and Episcopalian chaplain of the International Zone in Baghdad. He is also the coordinator and international director of the Iraqi Institute of Peace (IIP) and an advisor to the Iraqi National Security Council, acting as its liaison with Iraqi religious leaders. In 2005, he published a book entitled Iraq: Searching for Hope. He also wrote a previous book on Iraq in 2003 entitled Iraq, People of Hope, and Land of Despair. [9] Canon White couples his peacemaking with enormous relief efforts for Iraqi citizens, including Baghdad’s minority Christian and Jewish populations. He provides families with basic food provisions, creates spaces for children to play safely, ensures that young boys and girls receive lifesaving surgery, and provides widows with information on support services. He has also been responsible for humanitarian projects such as the establishment of Iraq’s first bone marrow transplant center. Canon White has received numerous international awards recognizing his work, including the International Council of Christians and Jews Prize for “Sustained Intellectual Contribution to Jewish Christian Relations.” In 2003, he was also made a Grand Commander of the Order of Merit of the Knights Templar of Jerusalem.

Building New Bridges

Canon White advocates political peace initiatives through religious reconciliation in the Middle East. He spearheaded the Alexandria Declaration, a pledge by Jewish, Muslim, and Christian leaders to use their religious authority within their respective communities to work for peace and stop the bloodshed in the Holy Land. [10] Directing the initiative since 2002, White has played an active role in engaging Israeli and Palestinian leaders in reconciliation talks. In addition to being one of the main negotiators involved in resolving the siege of the Church of Nativity in the spring of 2002, he also was integral in resolving food shortages in Bethlehem, Beit Jallah, and Beit Sahour. In 2004, Canon White was responsible for bringing together twenty-six leading Palestinian clerics with prominent orthodox rabbis in Cairo. For many of the clerics this was the first time they had ever met a rabbi. [11]

Canon White’s interest in Iraq predates the 2003 American invasion. Starting in 1998, he visited Iraq frequently and acted as a mediator between Saddam Hussein’s regime and the West, while forging ties with many of Iraq’s most influential religious and political leaders. [12] In testimony before the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom last year, he explained, “the whole mechanism of dealing with religious leaders is based on long-term relationships and an awareness of who they are and where they are coming from.” [13] Canon White believes that his presence in Iraq before the war “is the very reason I can engage with people now because they knew me before and have not just seen me as part of the coalition. From those days even amongst foreign religious leaders I am the only one still here and if I had not been in several years before the war I would not be trusted now.” [14] His close ties with religious leaders prior to the war has earned him legitimacy in the minds of many Iraqis, allowing him to avoid the “occupier” label with which many Iraqis designate American envoys.

The Need for a Trustworthy Mediator

Following the 2003 invasion, the United States and its allies failed to adequately anticipate the outbreak of sectarian and religious-based conflict in Iraq that would force so many of Iraq’s religious minorities out of the country. With the removal of Saddam Hussein’s iron fist, decades-long religious conflict between and within Sunni and Shi’a communities erupted. While Shi’as targeted Sunnis for revenge after many years of repression, Sunnis attacked Shi’as in ill-fated attempts to remain in power. Furthermore, explains White, Iraqi Christians are “bearing the brunt of any resentment over the invasion of Iraq by the ‘Crusaders’ of the West.” [15] Under Saddam Hussein’s rule, many Iraqis proclaimed the Ba’athist party line on Sunni and Shi’a Muslims—“we are all the same”—and there was a considerable degree of tolerance for Iraq’s Christian minority population. What once appeared to be a secular-minded population without serious or violent religious differences soon became a battlefield for sectarian violence and inter-religious brutality. [16] Some argue that by ignoring the need for religious harmony and reconciliation, U.S. forces unwittingly exacerbated the violence and deepened the divisions.

“If religion is the cause of much conflict,” White says, “it can also be the cure to it.” [17] In the words of the British Foreign Office, the commanders in charge wanted only “to sort out the basics such as water and electricity.” Because of the immediate need for basic infrastructure, “dealing with these other issues [such as religious tensions] came a long way down the list.” [18] From the outset, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) did not make any effort to reach out to Iraq’s religious constituencies, nor did they make the effort to establish relationships with the major Shi’a or Sunni religious leaders of Iraq who hold considerable influence over the Iraqi people. [19] Once it was realized that religious leaders needed to be consulted on the reconciliation between warring religious groups, the formation of a new Iraqi Constitution and government, the CPA had little knowledge of the network of religious leadership, particularly in the Iraqi Shi’a community that had been excluded from the previous regime. CPA officials also did not know whom to work with or trust when countless individual Iraqis came forward falsely claiming prominent standing and leadership within their religious communities in order to solicit US funding. The CPA accepted many of these claimants at face value and often ignored the true community leaders.

To the detriment of religious reconciliation, Sunni Muslims were excluded from the effort to establish a new constitution and government. The de-Baathification process was powered by the belief that Iraqi Sunni leaders were the equivalent of the leadership of Nazi Germany, so the CPA disbanded Iraq’s Sunni-led army, ignored the Sunni religious and tribal leaders, and denied pensions that Sunnis had earned over a lifetime of government service. Instead, the CPA concentrated on satisfying the majority Shi’a at the expense of creating a unified Iraqi government because they were seen as victims of the Sunni minority under Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Reconciliation under Mediation

Early on, Canon White lobbied the CPA to engage in dialogue with all Iraqi religious leaders in the process of reconstruction. [20] Ignored at first, he continued his own discussions with religious leaders in an effort to bring them together. In 2004, after the CPA’s initial strategies proved ineffective, the Coalition asked Canon White to act as an intermediary between the Coalition leadership and Iraqi religious leaders in the drafting process of the Iraqi Constitution. His familiarity with the tribal divisions among Iraqi religious groups made him a unique advocate of reconciliation and reconstruction. [21]

In his earlier work with Shi’a and Sunni religious leaders, Canon White had been responsible for the establishment of the Iraqi Centre for Dialogue, Reconciliation, and Peace (later re-named the Iraqi Institute of Peace). He also drafted the original Baghdad Religious Accord that marked the first major meeting between Iraq’s Sunni and Shi’a leaders. [22] At the risk of his own personal safety, he has also been deeply involved in negotiating hostage releases. His foundation (FRRME) has become a leading mediator of hostage negotiations in Iraq and has the most successful track record of any entity. Canon White admits, however, that this is difficult work and that he is successful in far too few of these cases. He stated in his July 2007 testimony before the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom that, “in the past month, thirty-six of my own congregation have been kidnapped. To date, only one has been returned.” [23] In the years since the Coalition invasion, Canon White and his negotiating team have left Iraq several times following the issuance of death threats against them.

Despite such setbacks, Canon White has seen an unprecedented response among Iraqi religious leaders to his efforts to develop the first joint Iraqi fatwa issued by major Sunni and Shi’a leaders, mandating an “end [to] terrorist violence, and to disband militia activity in order to build a civilized country and work within the framework of law.” [24] Religious leaders have met at conferences organized by Canon White, giving them the opportunity “to listen to and engage one another.” The conferences have attracted top Iraqi clerics including many members of the Iraqi parliament, advisors to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the senior Shi’a prelate in Iraq, Moqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi militia, and equivalent Sunni and Kurdish figures. [25] According to journalist Robert McFarlane, they have shown a clear interest “in fostering reconciliation, and in the process, reducing violence, disarming the militias and enacting into law a framework for a fair distribution of political and economic power in Iraq.” [26] These conferences have taken place in Amman, Baghdad, Cairo, and Copenhagen, with several more scheduled before August 2008. [27] The aim of this initiative will be to isolate religious radicals, dampen intra-religious competition, allow conflicts of religious views to be solved through dialogue and, finally, quell religious warfare, thus allowing a state to emerge and once again operate effectively.

In addition to the issuance of a fatwa to end violence, those involved in the process are in discussions to establish a “council of wisemen” consisting of intellectuals, scholars, and clerics to form a common understanding for religious communities. This council will be facilitated by the Iraqi Inter-Religious Council (IIRC) steering committee. It will assist the transition of Iraqi society following the eventual withdrawal of foreign troops. The council will not be a part of the Iraqi government, but will be supported by all the religious elements of Iraq. Positions will rotate approximately every five years and include the most senior Iraqi religious and intellectual figures.

Participants in this process have noted the rise of sectarianism across the Muslim world. The joint fatwa will call for a reduction in tension, highlight the current work of reconciliation by IIRC, and issue a call for Iraqi sovereignty and freedom. Negotiators are planning another preparatory meeting including a more representative group from Sunni and Shi’a communities. The meeting is likely to discuss and develop the joint fatwa and expand reconciliation discussions to the wider Gulf region.

Canon White’s Unique Appeal to Muslims

White’s success in instigating intra-Muslim reconciliation is based on his pluralist understanding of the role and interaction of religion and religious traditions in the world. White is firmly grounded in his Christian faith, and he honestly acknowledges the violence and destruction that have sometimes occurred with the support, or tolerance, of fellow Christians. “I can never forget the fact that in the heart of Christian Europe the Holocaust recently took place with the clear support of many Christian lead,” he reflects. White also has a deep respect for other religious groups and their differences. His philosophy and respectful manner are fundamental to his success in encouraging the cooperation of people from diverse and different traditions. “They know they will not be threatened by us,” White reflects.

Setting his sights on the “reduction of religiously inspired violence and [capitalizing on] the willingness of religious leaders from varying backgrounds to work together,” Canon White is beginning to see results, but he admits that, “it has taken a lot longer than we originally thought it would.” [28] Nonetheless, he sees signs that people are willing to engage with each other not only to end extremist religious violence, but also to protect all communities of believers. He has enlisted Muslim support and protection for his Christian congregation in Baghdad. He explains that the only way his congregants are able to worship at St. Georges is because they “are taken there and looked after by the Iraqi army all of whom are Muslim, [and] the decision to enable this comes from Muslim political leaders.” Some leaders, such as Prime Minister Maliki, will even lend their office spaces as places of worship when it is too dangerous to hold services at St Georges. [29]

Conclusion

Canon White has pursued religious dialogue and reconciliation in Iraq against all odds. Fundamental to his work has been his ability to use his relationships with the Shi’a and Sunni religious leaders to maintain a dialogue aimed at reconciliation. His persistence in the face of distrust and bitter hostility between warring religious sects has encouraged other religious leaders to realize they too have to act to achieve reconciliation. He notes that “in order to move forward it is essential that [these groups] are given something that they have ‘lost’ back. This concept is fundamental to proceeding successfully.” [30]

Canon White’s role is one of a peacemaker. He says of Iraqi religious leaders: “In many respects it is just because I am a religious leader that they will deal with me.” His own devoutness makes him a more credible and respected mediator between religious leaders. He is a valuable mediator, trusted by both the Sunni and Shi’a communities which he has coaxed into dialogue and cooperation.

In today’s Middle East, there can be “no peace among the nations without peace among the religions,” White argues. [31] Canon Andrew White and his tireless mission to bring relief, stability, and reconciliation to a war-torn Iraq demonstrate that dialogue between battling religious groups can sometimes yield important successes. As a neutral mediator, White succeeded in forging a leadership group and promoting dialogue among religious leaders because of his fearlessness, his initiative, his philosophy of pluralism and respect, and his development of prior relationships with Iraqis. Canon White deserves an honor on the scale of the Nobel Peace Prize for his relentless work in dangerous and challenging times.

NOTES

1.    Andrew White, Iraq: Searching for Hope. (New York: Continuum Books, 2007), 83.
2.    Andrew White. Telephone Interview. 6 January 2008.
3.    Andrew White. “An extraordinary message of hope and humanity from the dangerous parish of Baghdad.” Daily Mail: The Mail on Sunday. December, 22, 2007.
4.    http://www.unhcr.org/iraq.html
5.    White 2007, 2.
6.    Andrew White. Iraq: People of Promise, Land of Despair. (United Kingdom: Sovereign World Books, 2003), 9-10.
7.    Jerry Jones. Personal Interview. 2 January 2008.
8.    White 2007, 97.
9.    The biographical information in this paragraph has been paraphrased from the Biography of Canon Andrew White provided by his Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East.
10.    White 2003, 9-10.
11.    The biographical information in this paragraph has been paraphrased from the Biography of Canon Andrew White provided by his Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East.
12.    Andrew White. Telephone Interview. 6 January 2008.
13.    Andrew White. “Testimony by The Reverend Canon Andrew White.” United States Commission on International Religious Freedom: Public Hearing on “Threats to Iraq’s Communities of Antiquity.” 25 July 2007. Washington, DC. Russell Senate Office Building.
14.    Andrew White. Telephone Interview. 6 January 2008.
15.    White 2007, 21.
16.    White 2007, 95-96.
17.    White 2007, 83-84.
18.    White 2007, 21.
19.    Jerry Jones. Personal Interview. 2 January 2008.
20.    Biography of Canon Andrew White provided by his Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East.
21.    Jerry Jones. Personal Interview. 2 January 2008.
22.    Biography of Canon Andrew White provided by his Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East.
23.    White, Andrew. “Testimony by The Reverend Canon Andrew White.” United States Commission on International Religious Freedom: Public Hearing on “Threats to Iraq’s Communities of Antiquity.” 25 July 2007. Washington, DC. Russell Senate Office Building.
24.    Robert McFarlane. “A Fatwa Against Violence.” The Wall Street Journal. August 25, 2007.
25.    Robert McFarlane. “The Iraqi Nation.” The Wall Street Journal. June 27, 2007.
26.    Robert McFarlane. “The Iraqi Nation.” The Wall Street Journal. June 27, 2007.
27.    Jerry Jones. Personal Interview. 2 January 2008.
28.    Andrew White. Telephone Interview. 6 January 2008.
29.    White 2007, 147.
30.    Andrew White. Telephone Interview. 6 January 2008.
31.    White 2007, 95.

IRAN’S SHORT-TERM NUCLEAR STRATEGY and RHETORIC

By Cindy D. Tan

Cindy D. Tan ’08, a History of Art and Architecture concentrator from Eliot House, graduates from Harvard College this year.

Iran’s April 8 announcement that it plans to install 6,000 centrifuges at its main enrichment site at Natanz comes without surprise given the regime’s flagrant posturing in recent years. After breaching its October 2003 agreement with France, Britain, and Germany to suspend all enrichment activities, [1] Iran has taken to boasting openly about its rapid nuclear developments and its aim to enrich and process uranium. Restating on multiple occasions its unwavering intentions to pursue nuclear technology, Iran is eager to advertise its gains, and even overstate the speed and scale of its nuclear program. Iran’s public exaggeration of its nuclear capabilities allows it to make valuable, short-term political gains. Iran believes it can purposefully embellish its nuclear progress without provoking a military response because it believes that the United States and Israel are unlikely to wage preemptive military strikes. Moreover, Iran’s minimal cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also allows it to exploit the indecisive and ineffective response by the international community. Regardless of whether Iran will divert its civilian nuclear program into a weapons program, creating the impression that it has an uncontrollable and rapidly advancing nuclear industry brings Iran closer to its aspiration of achieving regional hegemony.

Iran’s Nuclear Crisis

Iran operates key nuclear sites at Arak, Bushehr, Isfahan, and Natanz, with several additional research and laboratory facilities across the country. [2] Of central concern to the international community is the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP), where Iran resumed assembling and testing centrifuge components in 2004, when it defiantly removed seals placed by the IAEA. Nuclear experts believe the Natanz site is comprised of a small pilot plant, which performs centrifuge tests and small enrichment functions, and a larger, commercial-scale plant that can house up to 50,000 centrifuges. [3] The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an exiled Iranian dissident group, first discovered covert underground operations at the site in August 2002 and exposed what many insist is a nuclear weapons program. [4] The NCRI’s disclosure forced the government to admit, in a public statement by Iranian Vice President Rahim Aghazadeh, that Iran was “embarking on a long-term plan to construct nuclear power plants with a total capacity of 6000 MW within two decades.” [5] Although, according to the IAEA, Iran was not under obligation to disclose its nuclear facilities at the time, the reports attracted public criticism and speculation about the program’s intentions. Since the IAEA’s 2003 discovery that Iran had been conducting undisclosed uranium-conversion and plutonium experiments, [6] Iran has taken limited steps toward making its program more transparent and it has minimally cooperated with international agencies. Iran contends that its civilian program does not violate the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and it has responded to UN sanctions with boastful public announcements about its nuclear achievements. [7] The November 2007 United States National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) corroborated the IAEA’s finding and claimed that Iran had a nuclear weapons program in 2003. In order to evade such accusations, Iran has shrouded its current nuclear activities in mystery and performed propagandist media stunts that complicate efforts to understand its intentions.

The reality of Iran’s nuclear progress is probably far too inglorious to warrant Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s claims of a “nuclear victory.” His announcements are often at odds with the findings of the United Nations and the IAEA. Iranian officials have frequently avoided addressing the UN reports that expose the primitiveness of their nuclear program. Nuclear analysts and experts frequently remark that the public portrayal of Iran’s nuclear progress is vastly inaccurate and overblown. [8] David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security and a former UN weapons inspector, says that Iranian claims are “little more than vacuous political posturing meant to promote Iranian nationalism and a sense of atomic inevitability.” [9]

Announcing Progress

In a nationally televised broadcast, the Iranian President declared that April 8 would be a “national day of nuclear achievement.” [10] Standing at a podium before an Iranian flag imprinted with the atomic symbol, Ahmadinejad said, “today we have started the installation of 6,000 new centrifuges,” pausing in suspense before adding, “I will announce more achievements tonight.” [11] If Iran succeeds in installing the new generation of centrifuges, it will triple its current operating capacity. [12] However, little is known about the new centrifuges or how long it will take before they will begin operation. Ahmadinejad did not specify the model or the capacity level of the new centrifuges, arousing speculation that they are the same P-1 centrifuges currently in use, and a far cry from the “breakthrough” that he claims marks the “beginning of a speedy trend to eliminate the big powers.” [13]

The “achievements” Ahmadinejad mentioned most likely refer to an enigmatic claim he made later in his speech that Iranian scientists are testing a new type of centrifuge which works five times faster than the P-1 centrifuges at Natanz. [14] It is highly unlikely that Iran actually possesses such technology. In early 2006, the IAEA investigated Iran’s acquisition of designs for a modified, thinner centrifuge called the P-2 and Iran voluntarily provided details about the new model’s improved capabilities. [15] The P-2 was more difficult to produce and sustain, leading Iranian engineers to develop their own version, called IR-2. Diplomats familiar with the inspections believe that Ahmadinejad was alluding to this specific model. The IR-2 centrifuge, a modified and more reliable version of the P-2, can spin uranium hexafluoride gas at two or three times the speed of the P-1. [16] According to the most recent IAEA report released in February 2008, Iran reported that it was in the process of planning its first subcritical centrifuge and it provided designs for an IR-2 test cascade. At that time, Iran had not yet successfully processed uranium in the IR-2 and was still running mechanical tests on the P-1 generation, thereby contradicting its own public statements. Earlier this year, according to the IAEA report, the IR-2 had still not reached operational capacity and the series of P-1 cascades still required new testing due to repeat malfunctions. [17]

U.S. intelligence sources have been aware of the IR-2 technology since January 2008 when Iran announced that it was using ten of the new machines. [18] However, the report issued by the IAEA a month later found that only one machine had been fed uranium. [19] Contrary to Ahmadinejad’s earlier claims, the IAEA reported that the 10-machine IR-2 centrifuge was not operating and that uranium was being tested in only one P-1 machine cascade. This finding implies that fewer than two hundred of the 3,000 centrifuges Iran has installed are actually functional. [20] Given that Iran is still testing the IR-2 model and is experiencing significant difficulties operating the P-1 generation, it is unlikely that the country will possesses technology capable of operating faster centrifuges than the IR-2. Some IAEA officials have leaked that “Iran has exaggerated its progress and seen problems operating the 3,000 centrifuges already in place.” [21] Unannounced inspections at multiple facilities throughout the country document numerous schedule setbacks and technological malfunctions that present a vastly different image of Iran’s nuclear progress from that painted by its firebrand president.

Ahmadinejad’s pattern of unsubstantiated rhetoric regarding the nuclear enrichment program makes the veracity of his recent claims improbable. The April 8 announcement follows Ahmadinejad’s April 2007 proclamation that Iran had reached enrichment capacity at an “industrial scale.” He claimed that Iran had begun installing 3,000 centrifuges at Natanz and would ultimately reach 50,000. [22] Ahmadinejad appeared before a similarly oversized billboard of the Iranian flag encircled by the nuclear symbol, stating: “with great pride, I announce as of today our dear country is among the countries of the world that produces nuclear fuel on an industrial scale.” [23] The following day, government-owned newspapers ran headlines reading “Nuclear Power.”

The National Nuclear Technology Day, as it was called, did not actually herald any tangible accomplishment. On 17 April 2007, days after Ahmadinejad’s international broadcast, Mohamed ElBaradei, the Director General of the IAEA, said that Iran was only operating several hundred centrifuges, not the 3,000 which it reported to have activated. [24] A confidential IAEA document produced later that month reported that Iran had installed only 1,300 centrifuges and was unable to complete the full installation due to technical setbacks. The IAEA report was produced after a short-notice inspection. A diplomat speaking on anonymity added, “They are at the stage where they are doing one cascade a week.” At this significantly reduced pace, Iran was projected to complete installation by June and to reach 8,000 by the end of the year. [25]

Reza Agazadeh, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, responded to the report by “confirm[ing] that our technical efforts are going ahead appropriately,” restating that “improving nuclear technology and the installation and operation of 50,000 centrifuges are our aim.” [26] However, he never stated explicitly the actual number of functioning machines at the facility.

In the face of skeptical responses from nuclear analysts at the IAEA, Iran did not issue another public statement regarding its nuclear program until September 2007, when it again claimed that it had installed 3,000 centrifuges. However, the September 2007 IAEA report, released a few days after the announcement, found that only 2,000 centrifuges were functioning, significantly short of the claims made months earlier. [27] The November 2007 IAEA report also noted that the P-1 machines that had been installed were operating intermittently and enriched minimal amounts of uranium. Only two of the planned six groupings of centrifuge cascades were actually in use. [28]

Former Iranian government official and political analyst Saeed Laylaz remarked in April 2007 that “the president’s announcement was mostly important from a propaganda and political standpoint.” But he also noted that “that doesn’t mean the centrifuge goal is not reachable.” He argued that Iran could potentially have 3,000 operating centrifuges “in a matter of months.” [29] His statements are symptomatic of the general ambiguity and confusion surrounding Iran’s nuclear activities.

Strategic Propaganda

As the international community continues to debate the long-term aims of Iran’s nuclear program, it has underestimated Iran’s short-term strategy. Simply by exaggerating Iran’s capacity to build nuclear warheads, the regime has gained the country honor and political influence, and it has come closer to achieving its geopolitical goals. Ahmadinejad’s public exaggerations, which have been flippantly disregarded by nuclear specialists as empty boasting, serve to propel Iran into a position of political and strategic strength, even at the cost of international isolation. In February 2007, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei proclaimed that “nuclear energy is the future and destiny of the country” [30] and he was quoted earlier this year as saying that God will punish Iranians who do not support the country’s nuclear program. [31]

Iran exaggerates its nuclear progress because it believes it can make short-term political gains. The appearance of a highly advanced nuclear program with potential military capabilities bolsters deterrence by intimidating weak regional neighbors. As Iraq’s new government focuses on establishing internal order, Iran is in a strong position to assert its control over the region, namely by fueling, funding, and arming Shi’ite militias, most importantly those in Iraq. Iran will continue to extend its influence in Afghanistan and Iraq as it gains greater support among the Shi’a resistance groups in both of these countries.

Moreover, Iran can spread its influence by instigating intra-Muslim conflict in the Gulf Arab states, where many of the Shi’ite populations there identify with Iran’s Shi’ite majority. In 2006, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 2006, said “most of the Shi’ites are loyal to Iran and not to the countries they are living in.” [32] By developing a base of support in other states, Iran can undermine the economic and technological superiority of the Gulf states and politically threaten several governments in the region.

The Iranian government also stands to gain significant domestic. Ahmadinejad’s ideological rhetoric and boastful announcements serve to inspire confidence in the government and pride in the country’s defiance of international sanctions. Iran’s former chief nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rohani, says, “Our people feel great pride because our young Iranian scientists can produce nuclear fuel, the most important part of the fuel cycle, despite all of the sanctions and pressure from the West.” [33] This sense of nationalism is driven by Ahmadinejad’s claims that “every problem we [Iranians] have will be solved by global Islamic rule.” The desire for nuclear technology forms only part of Ahmadinejad’s call for expanded power. On multiple occasions he has told the Iranian people, “we must prepare ourselves to rule the world.” [34] To maintain the credibility of its expansionist aims, Iran must demonstrate constant progress in its pursuit of nuclear technology.

Iran is also eager to convince the international community that its acquisition of nuclear power is inevitable. If Iran can demonstrate that its nuclear program has already reached advanced degrees of development, then it can fend off demands to shut down the program. The idea of “atomic inevitability” contributes to widespread concern that Iran intends to develop nuclear weapons. While there is no explicit evidence that Iran has plans to build a bomb, it is approaching a ‘nuclear threshold,’ at which point it will have enriched enough uranium to be able to divert nuclear material from its civilian program to weapons manufacturing with speed. Israel’s Military Intelligence predicts that Iran will reach the ‘nuclear threshold’ by 2009. [35] However, Iran can only reach this ‘point of no return’ once it has resolved its technical issues. In the meantime, Iranian officials effectively deny the reports that its program is underdeveloped and continue to announce milestones on a yearly basis. The resolution deadlines issued by the UN Security Council pass without significant penalties, only further encouraging support for Iran’s nuclear industry. Even when the program fails to achieve tangible results, Iran will work to display its technical competency and enhance its renegade status on the way to its inevitable acquisition of nuclear power.

Iran’s political aspirations are intertwined with its deep-seated antagonism toward Western powers, especially the United States and Israel. Iran believes that it will not be able to compete with the West for influence unless it has nuclear weapons, although it is already exploiting political and ethnic conflict across the region. Iran antagonizes the West and destabilizes the Middle East through a combined approach of using propagandist rhetoric and terrorist sponsorship. Iran’s readiness to project as great a nuclear threat as possible and transgress the limits of a semi-transparent civilian program is based on its calculation that there is a low risk of preemptive attacks from the West.

Minimizing Risk

Iran has determined that it can afford to risk provoking a preemptive military attack because it believes that the United States is politically and operationally constrained by the lukewarm domestic support for such a move and existing military engagements. Because of the intelligence failures in Iraq, the U.S. government will struggle to convince Americans of the need for preemptive military strikes against Middle Eastern states assumed to possess weapons of mass destruction. Nevertheless, the U.S. may already have drafted preliminary plans for attack. [36] In May 2004, the House of Representatives passed a resolution allowing the U.S. government “to use all appropriate means to deter, dissuade, and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.” [37] Despite some support within the Bush administration for the use of military force against Iran, a preemptive strike is likely impossible, given the overextension of U.S. forces already deployed in the region. Moreover, an attack on Iran would invariably put the large number of U.S. troops in the Middle East in danger of direct Iranian retaliation as well as by militias within Iraq. In 2007, Admiral William Fallon, former commander of the United States Central Command, rejected plans to send a third aircraft-carrier strike group to the Gulf as a threat to Iran. [38] He expressly stated that war against Iran “will not happen on my watch.” [39] Furthermore, Iran has buried its main enrichment facility, intended to house 50,000 machines, deep underground in order to avoid attacks similar to the 1981 Israeli air raid on the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor or the 2003 American “Shock and Awe” opening to the Second Gulf War.

Iran has also generated a multi-pronged strategy that it thinks will deter Israel from striking its nuclear facilities. First, Iran has invested heavily in its ballistic missile capabilities in order to demonstrate that it can attack Israel with its 1,200-mile range Ashura ballistic missiles. [40] Second, Iran employs the Shi’ite terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon as a proxy force, which threatens to bombard or invade Israel from the north. For now, Israel has adopted a reticent public stance. Israeli President Shimon Peres has expressed emphatically, “I would prefer to stop the development of the atomic bomb without getting thrown into a war.” [41] While Israel could be waiting for further developments before making a decision, Iran currently exercises great liberties in its implementation of its “civilian” nuclear program and can continue to taunt and confuse the international community.

Staying the Course

Currently, Iran is in violation of three UN Security Council resolutions that demand the suspension of all nuclear enrichment activities. [42] It vehemently defends its right to develop nuclear technology under the NPT and defiantly advertises each stage of the process, however minor. For the Iranian government, defending the right to own nuclear technology has taken on such dramatic importance that political considerations have overshadowed the facts, and government officials have become adept at exaggerating nuclear developments instead of disclosing its actual setbacks.

Although the intentions of Iran’s nuclear program remain unclear, the political and cultural significance of a nuclear Iran has enormous international ramifications. Any evidence of Iran’s encroaching regional domination further inspires its growing militant Shi’a base, both domestically and internationally. Hassan Abbasi, the Director of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps says “approximately 40,000 Iranian estesh-hadiyun (martyr-seekers)” will carry out suicide attacks against “twenty-nine identified Western targets,” should the U.S. strike any Iranian nuclear facility. [43] National prestige and the promise of regional power drive the regime’s ambitions. It therefore chooses to employ such rhetoric in the short term as long as the risks of actual military strikes remain low.

In defiance of international sanctions, Iran will continue to pursue this short-term strategy because it perceives high payoffs and only minor risks. However, this strategy is predicated on the belief that Iran’s sensitive nuclear sites, oilrigs, refineries, and military facilities are safe from attack. As long as the international community is disinclined to threaten or undertake military action, Tehran will race toward regional domination based on both rhetorical and real nuclear power.

NOTES

1. “Iranian Entity: Farayand Technique,” Iran Watch, July 21, 2004.
2. Esther Pan, “Iran: The Nuclear Threat.” Council on Foreign Relations, September 6, 2005.
3. Ibid.
4. “The New Mullahs’ Nuclear Site Under Scrutiny by International Media,” Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, September 28, 2007. <http://www.ncr-iran.org/content/view/4142/152/>
5. International Atomic Energy Agency. Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Report by Director General. June 6, 2003.
6. International Atomic Energy Agency. Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Report by Director General. Novermber 10, 2003.
7. International Atomic Energy Agency. Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Report by Director General. March 24 2007; United Nations. Security Council. “Security Council Imposes Sanctions on Iran for Failure to Halt Uranium Enrichment, Unanimously Adopting Resolution 1737 (2006).” Department of Public Information. December 23, 2006.
8. William J. Broad, Nazila Fathi and Joel Brinkley. “Analysts Say a Nuclear Iran is Years Away.” The New York Times, April 13, 2006.
9. Ibid.
10. “President Visits Natanz Enrichment Site.” Fars News Agency, April 9, 2008.
11. “Iran is Installing 6,000 Enrichment Centrifuges.” Fars News Agency, April 8, 2008.
12. Thomas Erdbrink, “Iran Claims to Install New, Faster Centrifuges.” The Washington Post, April 9, 2008.
13. Ali Akbar Dareini, “Ahmadinejad: Iran Has Tested New Generation of Advanced Centrifuges.” The Ledger, April 8, 2008.
14. Nazila Fathi and William J. Broad, “Iran Says It’s Installing New Centrifuges.” International Herald Tribune, April 8, 2008.
15. International Atomic Energy Agency. Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Report by Director General. November 8, 2007.
16. Ibid.
17. International Atomic Energy Agency. Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Report by Director General. February 22, 2008.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. “Iran Tests Advanced Centrifuges.” Associated Press, April 8, 2008.
22. Nazila Fathi, “Iran Says It Can Now Enrich Uranium on Industrial Scale.” The New York Times, April 10, 2007.
23. Ibid.
24. “Iran Enrichment ‘in early stages.’” BBC News, April 12, 2007. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6549185.stm>
25. David E. Sanger, “Inspectors Cite Big Gain By Iran on Nuclear Fuel,”The New York Times, May 15, 2007.
26. “Iran official: Nuclear Program Going Ahead as Scheduled.”Associated Press, May 20, 2007.
27. Azadeh Moaven, “A Nuclear Boast: The View from Iran.” Time, April 10, 2007.
28. William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, “Iranian Boast is Put to Test.” The New York Times, February 4, 2007.
29. Azadeh Moaven, “A Nuclear Boast: The View from Iran.” Time, April 10, 2007.
30. “Nuclear Energy Iran’s ‘Future and Destiny’: Khamenei.” Lebanon Wire, February 17, 2007.
31. “Iran Leader Says God Protects Nuclear Program.” Associated Press, February 17, 2008.
32. Lionel Beehner, “Arab Views of a Nuclear Iran.” Council on Foreign Relations, April 20, 2006. < http://www.cfr.org/publication/10491/>
33. George Perkovich, “For Tehran, Nuclear Program Is a Matter of National Pride.” Yale Global, March 21, 2005.
34. Alireza Jafarzadeh, “The Man of a Thousand Bullets to Address the UN.” Fox News, July 20, 2007. <http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,290208,00.html>
35. Amos Harel, “MI: Iran Will Cross Nuclear Threshold by 2009.” Haaretz, July 11, 2007.
36. Michael T. Klare, “The Iran War Buildup.” The Nation, August 8, 2005.
37. United States. Cong. House. “H.CON.RES.398, Concurrent Resolution.” 108th Cong., 2nd sess. May 6, 2004.
38. Gareth Porter, “Commander’s Veto Sank Gulf Buildup.” Asia Times, May 17, 2007.
39. Andrew Exum, “Here’s Why the US Might Not Attack Iran.” Daily Star Beirut, August 31, 2007. Admiral Fallon has since resigned and President Bush has nomiated General David Petraeus as the new U.S. CENTCOM commander.
40. Robert Wall, “Pentagon Sees Iranian ‘Ashura’ Missile as Worrying Development.” ABC News Technology and Science, November 20, 2007. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=3936604&page=1
41. “Peres: Israel Won’t Attack Iran Alone.” The Jerusalem Post, March 8, 2008.
42. UNSCR 1803 (2008), UNSCR 1747 (2007), UNSCR 1696 (2006).
43. Ali Alfoneh, “Iran’s Suicide Brigades.” Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2007.

BEETHOVEN IN BAGHDAD

Interview with Zuhal Sultan

Zuhal Sultan, an Iraqi student who turns seventeen this year, is a talented young pianist who has played with the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra and at musical events across the region. She lost both her parents over the past four years, one to illness and one to violence. She tells John H. Silva of New Society what it is like to travel across Baghdad to attend musical rehearsals and how she hopes music will bring change to her country—especially to the lives of its children and young people.

New Society: How did you get involved in music?

MS. Zuhal Sultan: I was born in 1991 to a very scientific family of four children. My parents both obtained Ph.D. degrees in medical sciences from the United Kingdom and my three older siblings all attend graduate school.

My parents discovered my fondness for music when I was very young. According to my sister, I’ve been sleeping to the sound of music since I was a baby. As I grew a little older, I started to play the theme songs of Arabic soap operas by ear on an electric keyboard.

Believing I might have a hidden talent, my mother bought me a piano and found a teacher for me. After a year, I was ready to study with the best teacher in Iraq, an old Czech lady who is very selective in choosing her students. She was very impressed with my ability and told my mother that I was a ‘miracle child.’ She recommended that I apply to the Iraqi Music and Ballet School. I studied there from fourth grade through senior year.

NS: Since then, you have performed across the world. Tell us about your travels.

ZS: My first opportunity to travel abroad as a musician came in April 2004. I was selected with eighteen other musicians and dancers to participate in the International Children’s Festival in Turkey.

Two years later, I attended a summer school program at the Performing Arts Centre in Amman, which was held under the patronage of Jordan’s Princess Basma with sponsorship from the U.S. Embassy. The program consisted of three weeks of intensive courses in music followed by final concerts in Madaba and Amman. I was very proud to perform a very difficult piece, despite not having received any tutoring during the three years prior to the event.

The experience in Jordan was eye-opening. I was able to rise above my troubled everyday life in Baghdad and see how much I could achieve even without the pedagogy of a teacher. The experience led me to join the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra.

NS: How did you come to perform with the INSO?

ZS: In May 2007, I received a phone call from the librarian of the INSO inviting me to attend a summer music and dance academy organized by the American Voices Association and sponsored by the U.S. State Department. Master classes were held in a variety of musical traditions: classical, jazz, ballet, Broadway and hip-hop.

It was a wonderful experience. I met my piano teacher, John Ferguson, who is also the director of the American Voices Association. I was also exposed to jazz for the first time by Dr. Gene Aitken.

I also had the pleasure to meet Conductor Demetrius Fuller of Sinfonia Gulf Coast in Florida and Ms. Allegra Klein who conducted the youth orchestra and gave lectures about the Suzuki method of teaching music. Thanks to her instruction, Iraq will be the first country in the Arab world to start applying the Suzuki method.

I had a chance to perform with the Unity Youth Orchestra, which consisted of young musicians in the INSO and from Northern Iraq. I also had the chance to perform with the National Unity Orchestra, which consisted of all orchestras in Iraq. Performing on one stage with my country’s best talent at the age of sixteen was an overwhelming experience.

Two weeks after the summer academy, I was invited to attend the summer school in Amman for a second time. After struggling with flight delays and passport troubles, I was finally able to attend the event. After great intensive courses, the final concert was another success for me, I had many people congratulating me of my achievement.

Two months after the event, I received a phone call telling me that I’d been invited by UNESCO to perform in the Iraqi Cultural Week at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris. I didn’t believe what was happening to me until my airplane actually landed and Charles de Gaulle airport. The whole time I felt like I was living a fairy tale. I performed in the hall of one of the most important culture and education organizations, before an audience of about 1300 including people from the media.

It was quite frightening to me to be the one to start the one-week event and to be the youngest performer there. After the concert, I had press interviews and a lot of people complimenting my performance. The Iraqi Ambassador invited me to stay for extra few days, along with Agnes Bashir, the director of the “healing through music” summer school, who also performed with me.

I was eventually invited to join the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra and I have since been able to live my dream of performing in it.

NS: What is the orchestra like? And how has the orchestra coped through the war?

ZS: The Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra began as the Baghdad Philharmonic in 1948. It became known as the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra in the late 1950s, and started to receive government funding, but in 1962, the Iraqi Minister of Culture closed it down. Fortunately, the musicians kept rehearsing secretly until the orchestra was reopened in 1970.

Since then, the orchestra has toured many countries. The U.S. government even sponsored an INSO concert in Washington D.C. in 2003 and Yo Yo Ma performed. Still today, though, the orchestra faces many challenges. One is brain drain. Economic crises and political instability have led many musicians to leave Iraq and find positions elsewhere.

The orchestra is currently conducted by Mohamed Amen Ezzat and directed by Karim Wasfi. It performs once or twice each month at the Iraqi Hunting Club in Baghdad.

It is very diverse ethnically and there are members from every part of Iraq. I feel like I am part of a large family. We all have a great love and respect for each other and our music. There has never been conflict between members of the INSO due to their different backgrounds. The orchestra’s role in Iraq is great. Listening to live music gives Iraqis hope for a better tomorrow.

We all understand the risks we are taking by performing in public in Iraq. Many of us do not dare to speak publicly about our connection with the performing arts. And we do not carry instruments on the streets because we fear for our lives.

Quite often foreigners can barely believe there is a performing symphony in Iraq. But there is, and it makes me very happy to contribute to it and to the joy of Iraqis. I sincerely hope the international media would focus more on the bright side of affairs in Iraq.

I think all Iraqis who go to work daily are heroes regardless of their profession. The same goes for every student seeking knowledge under the circumstances in Iraq at this time. Musicians in the INSO have a uniquely difficult mission as a diverse group of Iraqi citizens. We must set an example of unity and cooperation for the rest of Iraq.

NS: How did he Iraq War affect the orchestra?

ZS: During the fighting in 2003, the orchestra’s headquarters were looted and the music library was burnt. Despite the violence and many challenges, the INSO performed in Iraq in 2003 and since then it has performed in the U.S., the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Northern Iraq.

NS: Where do you plan to go from here?

ZS: I am about to complete my senior year in high school. I am very unsure about my future, especially about whether I will be able to pursue my musical studies further. Music has been more than a hobby for me until now. It has been a true companion when I have been happy, sad, unsure or just lonely. It has given me a reason to live and wake up every day. I feel so privileged to have my music and my piano.

I am currently applying to college in the U.S and doing my best to find a program that suits me. Due to the conflict in Iraq since 2003, I have had no regular teacher, but I have tried my best to perform and practice everyday despite the many challenges. Until December 2007, I was involved in a mentorship program by the Musicians for Harmony Organization through the internet. I am currently getting instruction from the renowned pianist Rieko Aizawa who agreed to help me for nothing in return just out of the goodness of her heart. I hope you will soon see me on a college campus in the U.S. or perhaps on stage somewhere, performing to the best of my ability.

Before we end our conversation, I’d like to encourage your readers to join our facebook group, Save the Iraqi Children—Through Music, and to make a donation to Musicians for Harmony. A $10 contribution will enable an Iraqi child to buy a webcam and start taking music lessons over the internet, the way I did. The donation will also go towards bringing students from the Baghdad Music and Ballet School to the U.S. for a national tour.

— Zuhal Sultan was interviewed by contributing editor, John H. Silva. Silva, a U.S. Marine veteran, is a Teaching Fellow at Harvard University in Social Entrepreneurship. He frequently works on social enterprise projects in the Middle East.

SHARIA LAW, THEN AND NOW

By Danielle R. Sassoon

Danielle R. Sassoon ’08, a History concentrator from Leverett House, graduates from Harvard College this year.

NOAH FELDMAN, The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2008.

In The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, Noah Feldman laments that “much analysis of the Muslim world insists on an artificial distinction between the historical past, the preserve of a professional guild of historians, and forward-looking political analysis”. Feldman seeks to transcend this divide in his new book by examining the recent rise of Islamism, and its potential for political success, in light of the way concepts of law and justice functioned and succeeded in the original Islamic states. “In essence then,” he writes, “the call for an Islamic state is the call for the establishment of Islamic law”. A Harvard Law professor, Feldman examines how sharia was implemented into governing law under the Ottoman Empire and why its authority ultimately collapsed. Through this historical exploration, Feldman hopes to illuminate the obstacles facing Islamism today in its current quest for legal authority.

Feldman focuses on the class of scholars within the Ottoman Empire and its role as legal authority and counterweight to the caliph. According to Feldman, the scholars exercised control over sharia’s meaning, interpreting the divine law and acting as a restraint on the caliph’s power. The caliph relied on the scholars for legitimacy and divine sanction, which created an institutional balance of power that gave stability and longevity to the Islamic state. Feldman argues that this institutional balance of power is what ensured justice in the Ottoman Empire, and that it is also exactly what is lacking in today’s Islamism.

Downplaying the importance of colonialism in eroding the legitimacy of the Islamic state, Feldman attributes the collapse of the Islamic state to codifications that preceded World War I. These new arrangements displaced the scholar class without substituting a correspondent institution in its place. Feldman attributes the current lack of legal justice within Islamic states to the continued absence of legitimate institutions to validate the sharia and restrain the leaders. He highlights a crisis of authority facing Islamism in the absence of a scholar class: without an institutional legal authority endowed with divine right, Islamic leaders have difficulty legitimating an interpretation and application of God’s law.

Drawing on examples beyond the Ottoman Empire, and looking at the legal development of Saudi Arabia in particular, Feldman demonstrates the need for an institutional balance of power within Islamism. Looking at the continued influence of the scholar class in Iran, Feldman acknowledges that a scholar class will not necessarily be suited to serve the current structural needs of Islamism. He emphasizes that what is needed are institutions, but that the institutions demanded by today’s Islamism may be different from those that succeeded in the past.

Feldman’s history and analysis is accessible, clearly argued, and politically relevant. Frequently drawing analogies to American and European legal development, he emphasizes that Islamism’s potential to succeed rests in its ability to find its modern day equivalent to a scholar class, which will bring increased stability and balance of power to the rising Islamic state. The reader, however, cannot help but wonder whether Feldman’s legal and academic background has led him to focus on abstract concepts at the expense of acknowledging the practical problems—such as discrimination—that are still a fundamental aspect of sharia. While it is fruitful to examine the present through the lens of the past, Feldman fails to address how the inequalities perpetuated through sharia are to be accepted in today’s world. I, for one, am unwilling to share Feldman’s optimism, when he fails to address how sharia’s systematic intolerance toward nonbelievers, homosexuals, and many women’s lifestyles can be made to cohere with modern, democratic values and human rights.

BENAZIR BHUTTO’S VISION

By Elizabeth K. Brook

Elizabeth K. Brook ’10 attends Harvard College and is a Literature concentrator in Adams House.

BENAZIR BHUTTO, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West, New York: Harper/HarperCollins Publishers, 2008.

When Benazir Bhutto, the famous Radcliffe College graduate who twice served as Prime Minister of Pakistan, was assassinated last December, she left behind a recently written book about the main sources of conflict in the Islamic world. The book, Reconciliation, was published posthumously early this year. It will no doubt interest many New Society readers for its riveting accounts of Ms. Bhutto’s first-hand experiences and its bold discussion of a timely and controversial topic. The book does not fail the reader’s expectations.

Throughout the work, Bhutto presents historical examples, analysis, and opinion. She also offers a brave solution for breaking down the barriers to peaceful relations between Muslims, and between Muslims and the West. In the first chapter, Bhutto focuses on what she believes are the two main sources of tension in the Islamic world. The first is the internal conflict between fundamentalist and non-fundamentalist Muslims. The second is the anger many Muslims feel toward the West based, in part, on its perceived inconsistency, unfairness, and meddling.

In the first chapter, Bhutto introduces the reader to her own life and in sharing several anecdotes and reflections, creates an intimate atmosphere and establishes a persuasive, authoritative voice. The fifth chapter is similarly impressive. It draws a clear and concise distinction between ‘clashers’ and ‘reconciliators’—people who think that a clash between Islamic and Western culture is inevitable, and those who think that the two must be reconciled. Bhutto then leads into her plan for the future in the sixth chapter, which I believe is the climax of the book. It presents a detailed outline for a step-by-step reconciliation between the East and the West. Bhutto first calls for the reconciliation of the internal tensions within Islamic culture and then outlines a plan to modernize the Islamic world. Her ambitious plan is superbly constructed and effectively articulated. It is certainly the highlight of her work, and this section alone makes the book a must-read for people who are interested in bringing equality, justice and harmony to the Islamic world.

The second, third, and fourth chapters are weaker, simply due to the volume of the material concerned, and the complexity of the issues she addresses. She attempts to offer a single, complete and correct reading of the Qur’an in Chapter Two, and Chapter Three tells the history of the intersection of Islamic culture and democratic governance across twenty-four countries in less than 80 pages. Chapter Four is devoted to an explanation of the political situation in Pakistan over the past 40 years. While these “fact-based” sections of the book are informative, they often appear over-simplified and are peppered with statistics that are un-referenced and evidently carefully selected. The reader cannot but question the partiality of the “facts” offered.

Worse, perhaps, than merely simplifying complicated historical episodes, Bhutto sometimes makes contradictory arguments. In Chapter Two Bhutto calls for relativism, while simultaneously presenting her reading of the passages of the Qur’an as authoritatively correct. The brevity of the discussion of the political climate of each country in Chapter Three lends those sections an anecdotal tone. Ironically these “summations” of historical events are, by their inherent nature, incomplete. Chapter Four provides a detailed, and purportedly distanced, account of the political situation in Pakistan, which is inevitably colored by loyalty to her family and defense of her own governance.

For all their flaws, however, these historical sections serve to ground Bhutto’s vision for a united, peaceful Middle East on an understanding of past failures. For the most part, these attempts are persuasive and ultimately, the book provides an interesting historical and political analysis of many of the tensions in the Islamic world. Bhutto comes across as heroic and unwavering in her belief in freedom and human rights. The after-word, written by her family, proclaims: “This book is about everything that those who killed her could never understand: democracy, tolerance, rationality, hope and above all, the true message of Islam…We commit our lives into making the message of this book into her legacy and the future of a democratic Pakistan. And ultimately we know we will succeed because, in her own words, ‘Time, justice and the forces of history are on our side.’”

Alas, as one reviewer, Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria, reminds us, “the idea of Benazir Bhutto has always been more powerful than the reality.” Bhutto presents herself as brave and committed democrat and liberal. But, as Zakaria notes, her leadership of the Pakistan People’s Party was profoundly undemocratic and plagued by charges of corruption. She allowed no internal party elections and bequeathed her party to her 19-year-old son, Bilawal—in keeping with the traditions of her feudal and exceedingly wealthy family. Bhutto herself inherited the leadership of the Party from her father and, as Zakaria uncompromisingly puts it, ran it “like a personal fiefdom.” The gap between the book’s bold message and Bhutto’s own political legacy will no doubt trouble the critical reader.

DEMOCRACY AND THE ISLAMIC STATE

By Julia I. Bertelsmann

Julia I. Bertelsmann ’09 attends Harvard College and is an Economics Concentrator in Eliot House.

The assassination of Pakistani opposition leader and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto on 27 December 2007 was the latest, most dramatic manifestation of the crisis facing the idea of liberal democracy in the Islamic world. Political violence is not unique to Muslim countries, of course, but political Islam poses a unique challenge by asserting that God, not man, is the source of law, and that (male) religious leaders are the sole bearers of political legitimacy.

Everywhere in the Islamic Middle East, the democratic gains of the past few years are being reversed or threatened, and hostility towards democratic institutions is palpable. As Palestinian human rights activist, Bassem Eid, puts it in this issue, “Creating a human rights organization under an Arab regime is like committing suicide.”

Despite sometimes affecting the appearance of democracy, as Cindy D. Tan ’08 describes in this issue, Iran continues to persecute dissidents. The Iranian government recently detained and brutally tortured a group of students in the notorious Evin Prison. Not content with attacking domestic critics, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s regime has detained Iranian-American academics as well. Like the earlier arrests of British sailors in the Shatt-al-Arab and their staged appearances in traditional garb before television cameras, the most recent political arrests remind the world that Iran’s democratic institutions are a pretense.

Hezbollah continues to menace the Lebanese government, which recently faced down a threat from Al-Qaeda but still cowers in the shadow of resurgent Syrian power. And Iraq has become more stable in the past several months but still remains as fragile and fragmented as ever before. In this issue, Jonathan S. Greenstein ’10 argues that rentier states, Iran and Syria, have learnt how to profit from provoking unrest in Iraq and Lebanon without being held responsible.

Khartoum continues to foment genocide in southern Sudan and Egypt adds to the suffering of Darfur refugees through violent, racial persecution, as Abigail R. Fradkin ’09 reports. Blocked by China and the Arab world, however, international institutions are struggling to hold Khartoum accountable.
Across the Muslim world, and most particularly in Islamic states, rampant misogyny manifests itself in “honor killings,” lashings, and other forms of brutal oppression, as the Boston Globe’s Jeff Jacoby detailed last month.

In this issue, Palestinian intellectual, Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, reminds us that politics is the art of the possible. Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria and Harvard law professor Noah Feldman, among others, have argued persuasively that there is nothing inherent in Islam that prevents Muslim countries from achieving stable democracies. And, indeed, there are several examples of success. Indonesia has made the transition from authoritarian rule; Turkey remains an example of success in the Islamic world.

Yet Turkey’s stability has rested on a strict separation of religion and the state, enforced by the courts and, occasionally, the army. The election in September of Abdullah Gül as Turkey’s first Islamic presi-dent raised fears that political Islam may yet undo the achievements of the past eighty years. As these debates have raged, American foreign policy has struggled to face up to the new challenges.

Pakistan represents the clash of two often-contradictory U.S. for-eign policy goals, which are themselves the product of a clash between U.S. institutions. The Pentagon strategy is exemplified by President Pervez Musharraf, who broke his pledges on democracy but is an ally in the war on terror. The State Department strategy was carried by Bhutto, who pursued democratic reform despite the risks.

Both security and democracy are essential to the future of the Mid-dle East. But the U.S. has been uncertain about how to balance these two priorities, to make them reinforce rather than harm each other. In contrast, China’s economically-oriented approach to the Middle East has been far simpler. As Gabriel M. Scheinmann ’08 writes in this issue, China’s goals may conflict directly with American concerns.

The potential for conflict has been realized in Sudan, where China, through its oil-based ties to the Khartoum regime, has contributed indirectly to the atrocities in Darfur. The U.S. is one of the few nations to have condemned the genocide as such, but has not intervened, partly because Khartoum has assisted the War on Terror and because of the delicate peace between north and south Sudan, among other causes.

What the U.S. is suffering from is a lack of clarity about whether (and where, and when) democracy and human rights are more impor-tant than security and stability. Backing away from the region, an option some Americans seem inclined towards, is neither realistic nor responsible. Clear, visionary leadership is needed—both in the Middle East, and in the West—to define the region’s goals, and fight for them.

HARVARD’S MIDDLE EAST STUDIES PROGRAM: STILL STUCK ON SEPTEMBER 10th?

By Madeline H.G. Haas, Junior Editor
and Gabriel M. Scheinmann, Associate Editor

Syro-Palestinian Pottery. The Muslim Mediterranean City. Jewish-Arab Encounters: The Classical Age. The Imperial System: Byzantine Society and Civilization. The Female Body and Islam: Religious Doctrines in Changing Societies. These are the “Middle East Related Courses” recommended to Harvard undergraduates by the Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies. They may all be very good, but they hardly constitute a curriculum that could produce scholars of the contemporary Middle East. Today’s students, who are taking up the study of Arabic in droves, want to understand Sunni-Shia conflict, the Israeli-Arab conflict, and the complexities of Middle Eastern societies and governments. They should be offered courses that provide them with the necessary knowledge and insight.

We therefore call on Harvard College to expand the Committee on Middle East Studies into a body that offers degrees to undergraduate students, to hire more Middle East Studies professors, and to provide a wider selection of classes on the modern Middle East. Harvard has the resources and capacity to lead the academic world in tackling the critical problems of our time and should respond to the rising interest of students in a region of vital importance.

Harvard offers dismally few classes on the contemporary Middle East. Only four were offered by the Government, History, and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (NELC) departments combined this fall. Two of those were taught in the Government Department by a visiting professor from the American University in Cairo. Harvard seldom offers classes concerning modern Israel. Next semester is the exception: two classes on Israel will be offered, again in the Govern-ment Department, this time by a visiting Kennedy School of Govern-ment senior fellow. The History Department seems to believe that Middle Eastern history ended in World War I. It offers only one class concerning Middle Eastern history in the 20th Century.

If the Committee on Middle East Studies (MES) were to expand and become like other area-studies committees, such as the Committee on African Studies or the Committee on South Asian Studies, it would become the go-to place for students who are passionate about study-ing the region. In addition to listing all relevant classes in other de-partments, MES should offer create small, in-depth junior tutorials on the key issues that students want to understand today: Arab politics, the Arab-Israeli conflict, democracy and human rights, the role of U.S. foreign policy, and the challenges posed by Non-State actors. MES concentrations should require students to achieve proficiency in one or two commonly spoken regional languages (such as Arabic, Persian, Turkish, or Hebrew).

Harvard should also do more to attract and nurture first-rate pro-fessors of contemporary Middle East Studies. Although the field is excessively politicized, Harvard must make the effort to recruit pro-fessors devoted to balanced research and teaching. Today, the Gov-ernment Department offers most of the relevant courses in the field, but it does not have a single tenured professor in any subject con-nected to the Middle East. It should be commended for consistently attracting visiting professors and fellows of a high caliber, but in future Harvard should aim to become a hub rather than a spoke of Middle Eastern scholarship.

The exponential growth of student enrollment in Arabic language courses since September 11, 2001 forcefully demonstrates rising student interest in the region. While the Institute of Politics and Weatherhead Center have done much to spur debate across campus, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences has remained stuck in antiquity. In the midst of a Curricular Review, FAS has a historic opportunity to bring Harvard to the forefront of national scholarship in a field of crucial international importance.

SUDANESE REFUGEES IN ISRAEL AND EGYPT

By Abigail R. Fradkin

Abigail R. Fradkin ‘09 attends Harvard College and is a Classics and Government concentrator in Lowell House.

On the night of the first of August 2007, Egyptian soldiers at the Egypt-Israel border killed four Sudanese refugees attempting to flee to refuge in Israel. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers witnessed the event, which was also captured on surveillance tapes. According to an IDF soldier’s account on Israel’s Channel 10 News, Israeli soldiers discovered the Sudanese refugees just as Egyptian troops arrived. The Egyptians immediately fired upon the refugees, killing two and wounding another. The fourth refugee ran toward the Israeli border, but an Egyptian soldier caught hold of him. After an IDF soldier intervened, a ‘tug of war’ [1] over the man ensued. Fearing that the Egyptians would shoot both him and the refugee, the IDF solider eventually loosened his grip. Several meters from the border fence, Egyptian guards beat the third and fourth refugees to death with stones and clubs. The Jerusalem Post quoted one soldier who witnessed the event: “What happened there yesterday was a lynch [sic]. These are not men, they’re animals. They killed him without even using firearms. We just heard screams of pain and the sounds of beating. Then the screams stopped.” [2]

This well-publicized atrocity, combined with the recent exponential increase in the number of Sudanese crossing the border into Israel, has made the issue of the beleaguered refugees from the both the Darfur region of western Sudan and southern Sudan particularly pressing. During the whole of 2006, only several refugees entered Israel, but by the summer of 2007, that number had increased to 50 or 60 each day. [3] Advocacy groups estimate that there are approximately 2,400 African asylum-seekers in Israel, including about 1,700 Sudanese, 300 to 500 of whom come from Darfur. [4] Twelve hundred of those Sudanese arrived in Israel in the past half-year after having successfully crossed the Egyptian border. [5] Many of the other asylum-seekers come from Eritrea, Ghana, and Kenya.

Israel is currently planning to set a quota for the number of refugees it can absorb. Referring to the 300 Vietnamese boatpeople whom Israel welcomed in 1977, Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit pledged that Israel will absorb the African asylum-seekers “with the same compassion” with which it “absorbed the Vietnamese refugees.” [6] The government is now working with the UN to determine which asylum-seekers qualify for refugee status. UN representatives are in the process of interviewing the Sudanese refugees and will publish their recommendations upon completing their research. Considering the ongoing influx of refugees, this may take a long time.

The representative for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Israel, Michael Bavli, asserts that ultimately “the decision on the quota will not be dictated by numbers, but on a personal, case-by-case basis.” [7] It seems most likely that the Darfurian refugees will be given priority because they are unable to safely return to their homes and are considered to have suffered the most; the future of the southern Sudanese refugees will likely remain less secure. On September 4, Sheetrit announced that Israel intended to grant citizenship to several hundred refugees from Darfur. The decision was widely praised in Israel, including by 63 Members of the Knesset (the 120-member Israeli parliament) who crossed party lines to sign a petition demanding that the Darfurians not be deported. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) affirmed that it has long believed that “it is the moral duty of the Jewish nation to do all it can to alleviate the human suffering caused by genocide wherever it arises.” [8]

This focus on Darfur reflects the fact that the situation in Darfur is even more dire than conditions in southern Sudan. In Darfur, ongoing and systematic terrorization, rape, mutilation, and murder have escalated into full-scale genocide. The current conflict began in February 2003 when a new opposition group, the Sudanese Liberation Army, embarked on an armed campaign against the government to protest the lack of government protection for, and development in, the marginalized region. The government, with its capital in Khartoum, responded by unleashing the Janjaweed (“guns on horseback”), or Arab militias, who proceeded to attack villages in Darfur, killing, raping and abducting villagers and destroying property and resources. Government troops have also been involved in the Janjaweed attacks, both on the ground and through bombing coordinated with subsequent ground assaults. [9]

In his February 2006 review of Julie Flint and Alex de Waal’s Darfur: A Short History of a Long War and Gérard Prunier’s Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide, Nicholas Kristof describes the bases of the conflict: “While shorthand descriptions are simplistic, they’re also essentially right. In Darfur, the cleavages between the Janjaweed and their victims tend to be threefold. First, the Janjaweed and Sudanese government leaders are Arab and their victims in Darfur are members of several non-Arab African tribes, particularly the Zaghawa, Fur, and Masalit. Second, the killers are frequently lighter-skinned, and they routinely use racial epithets about the ‘blacks’ they are killing and raping. Third, the Janjaweed are often nomadic herdsman, and the tribes they attack are usually settled farmers, so the conflict also reflects the age-old tensions between herders and farmers.” [10] According to UN estimates, the fighting that began in Darfur in 2003 has killed between 200,000 and 400,000 people and displaced about 2.5 million. [11]

However, despite the greater urgency of the situation in Darfur, some Israeli and international organizations worry about the distinction made between refugees from Darfur and those from elsewhere in Sudan, primarily the south, whom both the UN and the Israeli government have tended to place in the economic refugee category. Eitan Schwartz, speaking on behalf of the Coalition for the Advancement of Refugees from Darfur (CARD), urged the government “to go the extra mile and to offer citizenship to all the Sudanese refugees in Israel.” [12] During the Second Sudanese Civil War, which began in 1983 and ended in January 2005 with the treaty between the Islamic government in the north and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement in the largely Christian south, 1.9 million southern Sudanese civilians were killed and more than four million were internally displaced. [13] Although the UN is effectively focused on repatriating people in the south, it has not found long-term solutions to the continuing problems in the region. The southern Sudanese still face serious difficulties, including the continued presence of government troops and associated militias in defiance of the accord, child slavery, terrorization of the population, and religious persecution, as well as extreme poverty. Alex de Waal, in a talk at Harvard University on his most recent book, War in Darfur and the Search for Peace, repeatedly stressed the importance of “Sudan as a whole,” and of making any peace talks in Darfur a part of the larger goal of implementing the procedures set forth by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement. [14]

The 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, as amended by its 1967 protocol, defines a refugee as a person who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.” [15] Refugees from the nightmarish conditions of fear and persecution in southern Sudan fit this definition, making a compassionate international response to the plight of all Sudanese asylum-seekers, not just those from Darfur, the only humane one.

The refugees face yet another complication: because the Sudanese government has consistently refused any diplomatic relations with Israel, it automatically charges with high treason any Sudanese national who sets foot in Israel, including refugees seeking asylum there. [16] According to a report by Israel Radio, Sudanese Interior Minister Bashir Taha accused Israel of encouraging Sudanese emigration to Israel in an effort to damage Khartoum’s international image. He also declared that Sudan would prosecute any refugees who returned. [17] It is therefore imperative that both UN interviewers in Israel and the Israeli government give serious consideration to asylum requests by all Sudanese, regardless of their regional origin.

Moreover, the Egyptian government, in its treatment of these refugees, makes no distinction between those from Darfur and those from southern Sudan. Indeed, by the time they reach the Israeli border, the Sudanese refugees have not only encountered unimaginable horror in Sudan, but brutal mistreatment in Egypt as well. A candid article in the Egyptian Al-Ahram Weekly asserts, “Excessively harsh socio-economic conditions and racist attitudes in Egypt seem to be the main reason why Sudanese refugees want to relocate to Israel. Of the Sudanese refugees now resident in Israel 71 per cent report verbal and physical abuse as the main reason for their fleeing Egypt.” [18] The article also mentions the December 2005 Mustafa Mahmoud mosque incident in which Egyptian police fired on a crowd of Sudanese refugee protestors, killing at least 27. [19] Since that incident, the number of Sudanese refugees fleeing to Israel has risen considerably.

After conducting several interviews with refugees in their temporary home on the grounds of Israel’s Ketziot Prison, where food, clothing, housing, medical care, other amenities and various courses have been provided, Sheera Claire Frenkel reports that “for many of the refugees, it is still difficult to talk about their lives in Egypt. Many of the men point to scars and burn marks as physical evidence of the abuse they say they endured at the hands of Egyptian gangs. The women point to new offspring, lighter skinned than the rest of their brood.” Atoi Magit, a 27-year-old mother of four, pregnant with her fifth child, declared that “her worst fear” was that Israel would return her family to Egypt. “Anywhere but there,” she said. [20]

To cross the Sinai Desert between Egypt and Israel, refugees pay Bedouin smugglers hundreds of dollars and risk being caught by the Egyptian border patrol. If they make it to Israel safely, they are sheltered in the temporary caravan park at Ketziot, where a more permanent camp is being constructed, or they are taken in by Israeli families or kibbutzim. Due to the initial lack of sufficient official aid or clear government policy on the issue, the task of refugee care has largely fallen to Israeli organizations and individual volunteers. Israeli families and businesses have donated food and clothing, doctors have volunteered their medical services, students have set up educational programs for children, and volunteers have provided general care for traumatized refugees.

Nevertheless, despite these efforts on behalf of the refugees, the Israeli government has yet to settle upon a clear and comprehensive official policy. On August 18 Israel deported 48 Africans—many reportedly from Darfur—back across the Egyptian border. [21] At the same time, David Baker, a government spokesman, announced that Israel would absorb the approximately 500 Darfurian refugees already in Israel. Two weeks later, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert granted citizenship to several hundred refugees. [22]

However, Baker also declared that any further crossing of the border would be considered illegal and that all migrants would be sent back to Egypt under the terms of an agreement with Egyptian authorities. [23] The deportation of refugees is officially contingent upon Egypt’s assurances that it will treat refugees well, but Egypt itself has denied making such a guarantee. On August 12, the Jerusalem Post quoted the Egyptian Foreign Ministry as saying, “Egypt has informed Israel—officially—that it is not obligated to receive any non-Egyptian citizen who illegally crosses the border into Israel.” [24] This statement appears to contradict Olmert’s July 1 announcement that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak agreed to take back the refugees and guarantee their safety, a pledge Mubarak has never publicly acknowledged. Indeed, the killing of the four refugees on August 1, the discovery of the bound and bloodied body of a 30-year-old refugee in the northern Sinai and continued shootings by Egyptian forces belie the value of that supposed guarantee. Moreover, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry condoned the August 1 killings and responded to news of the incidents with the following statement: “If those crossing refuse to heed the orders of authorities to stop, then authorities are forced to deal with them in such a manner to ensure respect for the law.” [25]

It is almost certain that refugees who are forced to return to Egypt will be met with harsh, even brutal, treatment. With this likelihood in mind, the spokesman for the Israeli Hotline for Migrant Workers, Romm Lewkowicz, charged Israel with violating the provision of the Geneva Conventions concerning a government’s obligation toward refugees from an enemy state. Moreover, Lewkowicz pointed out that it was Israel that promoted the provision after the Second World War, mindful of the shelter German Jewish refugees had received in Britain. [26] Echoes of the historical experience of many Israelis make the plight of the Sudanese refugees that much more poignant for them. As Liat Collins declared in the Jerusalem Post, “Look at them and see us…Even many of those opposed to granting them permanent asylum in Israel can easily imagine them as Jewish refugees struggling to cross borders or board boats to take them away from the Nazi hell.” [27]

Compassion alone is not an adequate solution to the problem, however. While countless acts of generosity have aided and comforted the refugees in their temporary home and occasioned sweet stories like that of the Sudanese girl Miyati thrilled with her all-pink clothes, [28] much more has to be done to meet the needs of these most needy of people. Though Israel has an unusually comprehensive system for immigrant absorption, the persistent social problems experienced by the approximately 85,000 Ethiopian Jewish immigrants are perhaps a good indication of the difficulty that the Sudanese are likely to face. Two decades after the first large influx of Ethiopian Jews, 62% of Ethiopian families have no income at all, 72% of children live below the poverty line and more than 90% of employed Ethiopians have low-paying, manual jobs. [29] These obstacles are also reflected in the population’s poor educational performance, with 32% of Ethiopian students, as opposed to 50% of the general population, eligible for higher education matriculation exams. [30]

Based on Israel’s difficulties in integrating its Ethiopian immigrants, it is clear that absorption of the Sudanese, with their experience of terror and their unfamiliarity with the developed world, will be no easy task. Various possible plans have been suggested, including a (gradual) replacement of some of Israel’s 100,000 legal foreign workers and 100,000 illegal workers with refugees. [31] Most Sudanese were involved in farming at home and there are now 29,000 legal foreign workers in agriculture. The kibbutzim have already taken in many refugees, who will be allowed to stay to live and work. An additional pilot program to employ Sudanese refugees in Eilat hotels has proven successful.

While the great powers of the world hem and haw over what to do about the genocide in Darfur, as well as the possibility of intensified conflict in southern Sudan, Israel has been forced to look into the eyes of Sudan’s suffering people and grapple seriously with the practical and moral implications of these conflicts. Two recent developments have so far done little to reduce the suffering or improve the prospects for a cessation of the ongoing genocide in Darfur. First, on July 31, 2007, over four years after the beginning of the current fighting in Darfur, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to deploy a joint African Union and UN peacekeeping force of up to 26,000 troops in an attempt to bring an end to the violence in the region. Though initially slated to begin in October, deployment of this greatly expanded force was delayed by disagreement over its composition. On January 1, after months of bureaucratic wrangling and particular intransigence on the part of the Sudanese government, formal authority was finally transferred from the current African Union force to the joint mission. However, what was to have been the largest peacekeeping effort in the world now consists of only 9,000 troops, a number which experts worry can do little to seriously affect change. [32] Second, the opening on October 27 in Libya of the latest round of peace talks was marred by a boycott by major rebel figures and disputes among the rebel groups present. [33] Furthermore, while Sudan called for an immediate cease-fire, it fired seven missiles at a target in Darfur that very day [34] and, while delegates are now involved in private talks, [35] no progress has been made. In the meantime, and as the would-be forces attempt to establish peace, the people of Darfur and southern Sudan will continue to face unspeakable daily horror and to seek refuge wherever possible.

In the Western World, only the United States, with 28,123 accepted refugees, Australia, with 21,241, and Canada, with 6,258, have given asylum to large numbers of Sudanese. The other major countries offering asylum are, in descending order, Chad, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. [36] Alex de Waal described this international response as “mean, measly, unethical and even illegal.” [37] Beyond a doubt, the world has yet to fulfill its moral and legal obligation to shelter the beleaguered refugees of Sudan. Other countries must not only exert concerted pressure on Egypt to treat these refugees well, but must finally, themselves, pursue a serious campaign of refugee assistance and give practical consideration to a resolution of the conflict. This should not be Israel’s problem alone.

NOTES

[1] “Egyptians killed 4 Sudanese on border,” Jerusalem Post, 2 August 2007.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Sheera Claire Frenkel, “Israel, UN to stem tide of Sudanese refugees. Officials seek countries to absorb Africans,” Jerusalem Post, 9 August 2007.

[4] Refugee estimates vary.

[5] Ilene R. Prusher, “Israel to grant Darfur refugees citizenship,” The Christian Science Monitor, 6 September 2007.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Mazel Mualem, “Israel to grant citizenship to hundreds of Darfur refugees,” Haaretz, 5 September 2007.

[9] Amnesty International: Appeals for Action, “Sudan Crisis – Background,” Amnesty International, 16 September 2007, <http://web.amnesty.org/pages/sdn-background-eng>

[10] Nicholas Kristof, “Genocide in Slow Motion,” The New York Review of Books, 9 February 2006.

[11] Mazal Mualem, “Israel to grant citizenship to hundreds of Darfur refugees,” Haaretz, 5 September 2007.

[12] Ibid.

[13] UNHCR: The UN Refugee Agency, “South Sudan Operation,” UNHCR, http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/southsudan?page=intro (accessed 19 September 2007).

[14] Alex de Waal, Book forum on War in Darfur and the Search for Peace, Harvard University, Cambridge, 27 September 2007.

[15] OHCHR: Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights , “Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees,” adopted 28 July 1951, United Nations OHCHR, http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/o_c_ref.htm.

[16] Gamal Nkrumah, “Here today, gone tomorrow,” Al-Ahram Weekly, 16 September 2007.

[17] Sheera Claire Frenkel, Ilana Diamond, and Staff, “Sudan: Israel encouraging emigration,” Jerusalem Post, 9 July 2007.

[18] Gmal Nkrumah, “Here today, gone tomorrow,” Al-Ahram Weekly, 2-8 August 2007

[19] Amnesty International Library, “Egypt: Amnesty International calls for inquiry into killings and opposes threatened collective expulsions of Sudanese protesters,” Amnesty International, 6 January 2006, <http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE120022006?open&of=ENG-2AF>.

[20] Sheera Claire Frenkel, “‘We knew it would be safe here’”, Jerusalem Post, Pg. 1, 31 July 2007.

[21] Isabel Kershner, “Israel Returns Illegal Migrants to Egypt,” The New York Times, 20 August 2007.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Sheera Claire Frenkel, “Cairo warns it won’t take back refugees who sneak into Israel,” Jerusalem Post, 12 August 2007.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Liat Collins, “The Sudanese Dilemma,” Jerusalem Post, 17 July 2007.

[28] Sheera Claire Frenkel, “A Sudanese refugee with her child at her temporary home at Ketziot Prison,” Jerusalem Post, 31 July 2007.

[29] Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews (IAEJ), “IAEJ Employment Initiative,” http://www.iaej.org.il/pages/our_projects.htm (accessed 6 October 2007).

[30] Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews (IAEJ), “IAEJ Education Initiative,” http://www.iaej.org.il/pages/our_projects.htm (accessed 6 October 2007).

[31] Evelyn Gordon, “Why a ‘genuine refugees only’ policy makes sense,” Jerusalem Post, 23 August 2007.

[32] Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Bush Signs Bill Allowing Sudan Divestment,” The New York Times, 1 January 2008.

[33] Jeffrey Gettleman, “Rebels Split at Talks on Darfur, The New York Times, 27 October 2007.

[34] Warren Hoge, “U.N. Objects to Expulsion of Aid Official from Darfur,” The New York Times, 8 November 2007.

[35] Gettleman.

[36] UNHCR Statistics, “2006 Global Trends: Refugees, Asylum-seekers, Returnees, Internally Displaced and Stateless Persons,” UNHCR: The UN Refugee Agency, http://www.unhcr.org/statistics.html (accessed 7 October 2007).

[37] De Waal.

THE NEXT COLD WAR

By Gabriel M. Scheinmann

Gabriel M. Scheinmann ‘08 attends Harvard College and is a Government concentrator in Eliot House.

The People’s Republic of China has extended its footprint in the Middle East, even as the United States has grappled with myriad regional messes. Beijing is building political relationships with key oil-producing states in the region, based on its briskly growing need for energy, particularly crude oil and natural gas. Communist China has also become involved in Arab-Israeli peacemaking and UN peacekeeping, spheres that have traditionally been American territory.

Since 9/11, many Arab states, pressed by the U.S. for democratic reforms and human rights improvements, have warmed to the prag-matic and business-friendly Chinese approach that ignores the authoritarian nature of their regimes. Washington has been late in recognizing China’s new initiatives in the Middle East. Instead, the U.S. has been preoccupied with the chaos in Lebanon, Iraq, and Pakistan, as well as the threat from terrorist groups and Iran. The U.S. has also traditionally assumed that if conflict with China did erupt, it would be triggered by acknowledged flashpoints such as Taiwan or North Korea. As a result, the U.S. has neglected the possibility that a return to a bipolar world may actually arrive via the Middle East. Though direct military conflict is unlikely in the near future, recent economic trends, Chinese strategic decisions, and American preoccu-pations with short-term goals have signaled the beginning of the Cold War of the Twenty-First century.

China’s Middle East Policy

Beijing’s Middle East policy has four basic components. First, China has pursued extensive political ties in the region consistent with its energy needs. Second, China has reached out to isolated Middle East states in order to minimize criticism of its brutal repression of a rapidly growing, separatist-leaning, and violent Muslim population in its western autonomous region. Third, China has developed a series of naval bases, known as a “string of pearls”, across the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean as part of a gradual expansion of its naval capability. Finally, China has sought to gain geopolitical leverage by turning the Middle East into America’s renegade province, diverting U.S. energy and resources away from East Asia.

At this stage, China is unwilling and unable to directly challenge American primacy and is keenly aware of Washington’s red lines in the region. Thus China has been supportive of American and UN efforts to create an international tribunal to prosecute the (Syrian) killers of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and has paid lip service to American efforts to bar Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. [1] Chinese Premier Wen Jibao has reiterated that “Resolution 1737 adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council members reflects the concerns of the international community about the Iranian nuclear issue.” [2] China is also keenly aware of and has avoided challenging the new U.S.-sponsored Sunni-Israeli regional realignment against Iran. It has demonstrated its commitment to greater stability in the region and has avoided opposing the American initiatives in Lebanon, Pakistan, or in the Palestinian territories.

The sole exception, Chinese opposition to the Iraq War, was rooted in China’s firm belief that national sovereignty is inviolable, an atti-tude that pleases its Arab trade partners and deflects international criticism of its own domestic policies. Additionally, Beijing was concerned that its growing energy interests would be supplanted by a stronger and more physical American presence in the region. Many Chinese strategists are suspicious of the U.S. military presence in the Gulf, believing that the invasion of Iraq and American threats to attack Iran are part of a plan to monopolize regional oil supplies. [3]

Meanwhile, China has begun flexing its own muscles. In early 2006, Beijing sent a 182-member engineering battalion to Lebanon under UNIFIL—its first peacekeeping contingent sent to the Middle East. [4] It has since increased its contribution to 354 soldiers following the end of the Second Lebanon War, and reports suggest it will double that number in the near future. Increased Chinese confidence in its ability to direct events in the Middle East led Beijing to appoint its first special envoy for Middle Eastern affairs in 2002. [5] Though both the first envoy, Wang Shijie, a veteran diplomat who had served as ambassa-dor to Bahrain, Jordan, and Iran, and his successor, Sun Bigan, have had little to show for their time and efforts, their appointments and Chinese troop deployments mark a volte-face from China’s previous ignorance of, abstention from, and powerlessness in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

China also currently enjoys far greater positive standing in the Middle East than the U.S. Unencumbered by historical records of colonialism or current accusations of imperialism that beset Europe and the U.S., China is seen as a benign power in the region. It has neither publicly laid out a specific vision or policy for the region, nor has it announced that it intends to transform the regimes and institu-tions of the region’s countries. Having never participated in large military or diplomatic endeavors in the region, Communist China is a relative unknown to many Arabs. Ruling elites in Iran and the Arab world appreciate China’s willingness to conduct business uncondi-tionally, disregarding their country’s record on human rights or democracy. In Egypt, a recent government poll showed that China was the most favorably viewed non-Arab country, with 73 percent of Egyptians seeing it as “friendly”. [6]

Energy: Sine Qua Non

Chinese ambitions in the Middle East are primarily driven by the energy needs of its rapidly growing and industrializing economy. In addition to meeting the needs of its expanding power sector, Chinese energy imports are also needed to satisfy its transportation needs, which are primarily driven by the automobile market. [7] Some estimates suggest that China will have more cars on the road than the U.S. as early as 2030. Though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once told the Chinese that “Israeli know-how is more valuable than Arab oil,” Chinese actions suggest otherwise. [8]

After becoming a net oil importer in 1993, China is now the second largest importer of crude oil after the U.S. and could surpass it by 2025. In April 2007, Beijing imported nearly 50 percent of its oil needs, quickly approaching the U.S. level of 61.9 percent. [9] In August 2006, Chinese oil imports from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Oman alone amounted to 43 percent of total oil imports. [10] Led by its three major state-owned energy companies, the China National Petroleum Corpo-ration (CNPC), the China National Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec), and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), 75 percent of Beijing’s oil imports will be from the Middle East by 2015. [11] As Washington slowly diversifies its energy sources, Beijing is becoming increasingly dependent on the Persian Gulf. In 2005, trade between China and members of the Arab League totaled $51.3 billion. Estimates suggest that this could double by 2010. [12]

The Dragon’s Fire: A Minor Factor

China has never been a major player in the Middle East arms market, though it has been somewhat involved in the region’s weapons trade. In 1985, the Middle East was the recipient of all Chinese arms sales, with Iran and Iraq absorbing 91 percent of these. [13] However, after 1988, that percentage dropped into the teens. Even at its peak in 1987, Chinese arm transfers amounted only to 12 percent of total arms sales to the region. The Chinese delivered around 60 to 75 anti-ship missiles known as C-802s (designated Yingji-8 in China) to Iran by 1997. China also sought to sell M-9 ballistic missiles to Libya and Syria before shelving the deal due to American pressure. [14] Overall, however, China has remained a marginal player in the Middle Eastern arms market since the end of the Cold War.

That may change. In the recent past, China has sold Saudi Arabia CSS-2 “East Wind” intermediate range ballistic missiles. [15] Sudan, currently murdering civilians in Darfur and potentially engaged in a reignited civil war, is the greatest recipient of Chinese arms, including small arms, anti-personnel mines, howitzers, tanks, helicopters, and ammunition. During the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah fired a C-802, at an Israeli anti-aircraft warfare ship, killing four Israeli soldiers. [16] Recent reports suggest that China has agreed to sell two dozen J-10 fighter planes, a jet based on Israeli components and technology, to Iran at a time when Iran is facing a third round of international sanctions over its nuclear program. [17]

Axis of Cooperation

Beijing has established warmer ties with Syria, Iran, and Sudan, all declared American enemies. Syrian President Bashar Assad was quoted in 2004 as saying that “China is now a superpower and is very important after the absence of the Soviet Union.” [18] Trade between China and Syria surged 55 percent to $1.4 billion in 2006. [19] By the end of last year, Chinese companies had signed project contracts in Syria worth $819 million. CNPC will begin construction on a $1 billion refinery in Deir al-Zor, the same site of a purported Israeli air attack on possible nuclear installations in September, in 2008. [20]

Beijing has also sought to fill the void created by American and European sanctions against Iran and Syria, undermining American efforts to isolate both regimes. The new Sino-Syrian relationship was summarized by Syrian Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Abdallah al-Dardari: “Our strategy is to stop exporting crude in three years and refine every drop of oil Syria produces. . . . Syria has had strong and historic political ties with China and it is natural for the economic relationship to strengthen.” [21]

Though it has stood by EU and UN-led efforts to curb Iran’s nu-clear program, Beijing has gone out of its way to reach out to Amer-ica’s most serious adversary. In the months leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, then-Chinese President Jiang Zemin and then-Premier Zhu Rongji visited Iran and Libya, labeling the two U.S.-defined state sponsors of terrorism as “friendly countries.” [22] President Jiang’s trip to Iran marked the first by a Chinese head of state since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979. In December 2002, when Iranian Majlis speaker Mehdi Karrubi visited Beijing, President Jiang declared that “both states share almost similar stances on most issues.” In return, Iran has come to expect support from Tehran. Alae’ddin Broujerdi, head of the Majlis National Security and Policy Committee, announced that Iran expects “Moscow and Beijing to show more strength, power and independence . . .We expect them to use their veto power as a show of their independence and political strength, as the U.S. invariably does in instances involving the Zionist regime.” [23]

Chinese trade with Iran was estimated at $10 billion in 2006. [24] In 1994, Tehran accounted for just 1 percent of Beijing’s oil imports; today the proportion is nearly 13 percent. [25] At the end of 2004, Iran’s oil minister said that he expected China to eventually replace Japan as Iran’s largest oil market. Sinopec recently signed a $100 billion deal with Iran to import 10 million tons of liquefied natural gas over a 25-year period in exchange for a Chinese stake of 50 percent in the devel-opment of the Yadavaran oil field in Iran. [26]

China has also sold Iran anti-ship cruise missiles such as the Silkworm (HY-2), the C-801, and the aforementioned C-802. [27] In November 2003, the CIA issued a report stating that China was one of the leading providers of assistance to Iran’s ballistic missile programs. [28] China had planned to supply Tehran with a uranium conversion facility and nuclear power reactors, but public disclosure of the deal in 1995 and heavy American diplomatic pressure led to its cancellation. [29] In 1997, China pledged to stop selling cruise missiles to Iran, but in January 2005 the U.S. imposed penalties on eight Chinese companies for transferring ballistic missile technology to Iran. [30]

The same pattern has been repeated elsewhere. Since 1995, China, led by CNPC and Sinopec, has heavily invested in Sudan’s energy sector. [31] In addition to selling a variety of weapons and transport vehicles to the Sudanese regime, China has also established three arms factories in Sudan, leading to the proliferation of AK-47s across the country. [32] Today, Beijing is Khartoum’s leading oil partner, importing 64 percent of all Sudanese oil. Here, too, China has established energy and political relationships with a regime hostile to the U.S.

Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Chinese Boon

Anticipating American troubles in Iraq, China swiftly positioned itself to be one of Baghdad’s largest trading partners and political friends. The Chinese embassy in Baghdad opened less than two weeks after the transfer of authority from the Coalition Provisional Authority to the interim Iraqi government in June 2004. China also offered material assistance for the subsequent January 2005 elections and has provided fellowships for Iraqi students, technicians, and diplomats to travel to China and train in their respective fields. Last year, trade between China and Iraq topped $1.1 billion. [33]

A Chinese oil exploration and development contract has recently been the subject of two groundbreaking Iraqi gestures. First, the Iraqi government agreed to honor a CNPC deal signed with former leader Saddam Hussein in 1997 to develop the al-Ahdab oil field, valued at the time at $1.2 billion. [34] The field had an estimated pre-war capacity of 90,000 barrels/day and has been prioritized by the Iraqi government because of its proximity to new power stations and refineries. The deal was also the first to be offered to a foreign company by the new Iraqi government. [35] Additionally, China has cancelled $8 billion of Saddam-era debt, an important gesture of friendship and a symbol of closer political ties. [36] The Iraqi ambassador to China has remarked that friendship between China and Iraq dates back 2,000 years, blur-ring the historical truth but implying the intimacy of the new relationship.

The GCC and China

Beijing has also sought to establish economic ties with Gulf Cooperation Council states. Trade between China and the GCC topped $32 billion in 2005 and a free trade agreement is due to be completed by the end of 2007. [37] The overseas construction arm of CNPC moved into the Kuwaiti market in 1983 and embarked on a major business expansion in 1995 when the group won an oil storage reconstruction project. [38] China initially developed oil relationships with Oman and Yemen, rather than Saudi Arabia, because they both produced a light, sweet crude oil that Chinese refineries could easily handle. [39] By 2001, China had signed almost 3,000 contracts with the six GCC states for labor services worth $2.7 billion. [40] In 2002, the GCC had no major investments in new company facilities in China, but by 2006 they had thirteen, seven of which were bankrolled by the UAE. [41] Bilateral trade between China and Yemen reached $3.2 billion in 2005 and, in 2006, China became Yemen’s largest trading partner. [42] In December 2006, OPEC and China jointly announced that they had established a future cooperation framework on energy issues, “in particular, the security of supply and demand, in order to enhance market stability.” [43]

A New Pillar? Beijing and Riyadh

The emerging Sino-Saudi special relationship is crucial to Beijing’s Middle East policy and perhaps its biggest coup in the region. Overcoming the deep-rooted ideological polarity between the birth-place of Islam and an atheist Chinese communism, Riyadh has partly embraced Beijing in order to offset new strains in the U.S.-Saudi relationship after 9/11. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said in 2004 that Saudi Arabia would reduce its dependence on U.S.-dominated security arrangements in the future. When King Abdullah made his first overseas trip as the new Saudi king in January 2006, he notoriously skipped Washington and became the first Saudi monarch ever to visit China. [44] In January 2007, a delegation from a Shanghai political think-tank was told in Dubai that a bigger Chinese role in the Gulf would be welcomed, especially if Beijing backed Arab positions in the UN Security Council.

Diplomats from both countries have worked furiously to construct a strategic energy relationship that will permanently ensconce a Sino-Saudi partnership. In 1999, then-Chinese President Jiang Zemin visited Riyadh and inaugurated a “strategic oil partnership” between the two countries. [45] Saudi Arabian oil exports represent a greater share of Chinese oil imports (17 percent) than American oil imports (14 percent). [46]

Sinopec has partnered with Aramco to build oil refineries capable of handling Saudi high-sulfur crude oil in China’s Fujian and Qingdao provinces—a development that will ease and increase Saudi oil exports to China. [47] China has also been a major investor and partner in the Saudi oil industry. The China Petroleum Pipeline Bureau and the China Petroleum Engineering and Construction Group recently announced that they will lay down a 225-mile pipeline, as a section of the Abu Dhabi Pipeline, and will transmit oil from Saudi Arabia’s Habshan Oil Field to Fujairah, one of the seven emirates of the UAE. [48] Sinopec received a contract to explore and produce natural gas in the Rub al-Khali Basin, the first time Riyadh has opened the area up for investment in nearly 30 years. [49] In February 2007, Sinopec partnered with ExxonMobil and Saudi Aramco to set up an oil refining, chemical products, and finished oil marketing venture in China’s Fujian Province. [50] While many believe that the U.S.-Saudi strategic relationship is based on energy supplies, applying the same calculus to the rapidly emerging Sino-Saudi relationship would imply a similar conclusion.

Playing Both Sides: Arabs and Israelis

Beijing’s relationship with Israel, Washington’s greatest ally in the region, has been rather warm in order to avoid any discord with the U.S. Though Israel was the first Middle Eastern country to recognize Communist China, the two did not exchange ambassadors until 1992. [51] Additionally, Israel is one of only a handful of countries to have never granted diplomatic recognition to Taiwan. [52] During Israeli Prime Minister Olmert’s January 2007 visit to Beijing, the band at the banquet in his honor played “Jerusalem of Gold”, a striking change from a time when Chinese diplomats refused to even mention the word “Jerusalem” in deference to Palestinian sensitivity. [53]

Chinese weapons purchases from Israel have often been a major irritant in U.S.-Israel relations. Israel remains China’s second largest arms provider, including of “Harpy” anti-radar drones and Python-3 air-to-air missiles. [54] Twice in recent times, Israel has been forced to cancel arms deals with China after heavy American pressure. Israel’s 1999 agreement with China to upgrade China’s Harpy Killer UAVs greatly angered the U.S. defense establishment. [55] In 2004, China tested the upgraded UAVs over the Taiwan Strait. In 2003, under heavy American pressure, Israel cancelled the sale of one $250 million Airborne Early Warning Command and Control radar system to China. [56] The U.S. is concerned that Israeli-supplied weapons could be used against the United States in the event conflict over Taiwan erupts.

The Chinese “War on Terror”

China has forged strong ties with Muslim states in order to quiet criticism over its ruthless tactics of suppression directed against a Muslim separatist movement in the Uighur region of its western, autonomous Xinjiang province. While estimates put the overall Mus-lim population in China around 20-30 million, the distinctly non-ethnically Chinese Uighurs concentrated in Xinjiang account for 7.2 million of that population.

China is a strong supporter of Hamid Karzai’s Afghan government, with which it shares a 20-mile border. It, moreover, backed U.S.-led efforts to eliminate the Taliban because the Taliban had supported the East Turkistan terrorist forces that threatened the stability of the Uighur region. [57] Between 1990 and 2001, East Turkistan terrorist forces staged more than 200 attacks in Xinjiang, killing 162 people and wounding many more. Then-Chinese Minister of Religious Affairs Zhou Guohai announced that harsh measures against Muslims were needed because the Chinese “deeply fear Islamic extremism” and “deeply distrust the Koran and what it teaches.” He also went on to declare, “We will make sure that Islam is practiced in a way that is in line with Chinese culture and tradition.” [58] In December 2002, in a concession to the Chinese, the State Department agreed to put one obscure Uighur separatist group, the East Turkestan Islamic Move-ment, on the list of global terrorist organizations. For Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, energy and diplomatic relations trump the plight of Chinese Muslims.

Patience and Protection

China’s unwillingness openly to confront the U.S. in the Middle East is due to its self-perceived Achilles’ heel: its inability to protect energy supplies in American-controlled seaways. At present, 60 percent of Chinese oil imports arrive on tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. Securing deliveries therefore means safeguarding sea lanes from piracy, terrorist attacks, and hostile powers. An American naval blockade of Chinese tankers in the Strait of Hormuz or the Straits of Malacca would paralyze the Chinese economy. That, in turn, could catalyze domestic popular uprisings, which is China’s biggest fear. In 2006, Chinese naval forces conducted exercises simulating the rescue of a threatened tanker, a clear symbol of defensive preparatory measures. [59]

China is also helping Pakistan build a new and major deep-water port and electronic eavesdropping station at Gwadar, a mere 100 miles from the Iranian border and along the direct path of oil imports. Though ostensibly for Pakistani commercial use, the level of Chinese investment and Gwadar’s lack of usefulness as a feeder port in the Baluchistan deserts suggest that Beijing also has strategic interests in the development. [60] The basing of a Chinese fleet, even a token force, would be a clear signal of Chinese intentions to defend its oil investments from superior naval powers. [61] A February 2007 visit by President Hu to the Seychelles also suggested that China may hope to take advantage of the archipelago’s strategic position to construct a naval base. [62] China has also finalized a deal to build a naval base in the Maldives, due to be operational by 2010, as well as a naval bunker facility on Sri Lanka, much to the displeasure of the Indian government. [63] By assembling a “String of Pearls”, an image describing China’s expanding geopolitical strategy of acquiring a chain of small naval bases along its most vulnerable oil routes, Beijing is investing in protecting its energy supplies from possible U.S. threats in the not-too-distant future. China’s willingness to upgrade Iran’s anti-ship cruise missile capability is another attempt to erode U.S. naval superiority. [64]

When the Time is Right

Careful not to invite conflict with the U.S. before it has adequately protected itself against a potentially crippling American naval blockade, China has also embraced regional American allies, such as Israel. By supporting Israel’s right to security—a position unthinkable ten years ago—and following the Western lead on sanctions for Tehran, Beijing has sought to portray itself as benign to American hegemony. As long as America still controls the game, China is willing to abide by the rules the U.S. establishes.

Nevertheless, China has reached deep into the Middle East, creat-ing robust economic and political relationships with American pariah states such as Syria, Iran, and Sudan. Furthermore, it has developed its own “special relationship” with Saudi Arabia, Washington’s other ally in the region. As Sino-Saudi trade, energy investment, and diplomatic cooperation continue to increase, the Saudi royal family will have to balance its various American and Chinese interests against each other.

Chinese leaders have been emboldened by what is perceived as an American retreat from strong positions in East Asia. U.S. troop deployments in South Korea and Japan have dropped by nearly 13,000 since 9/11. [65] The Bush Administration’s willingness to negotiate with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program signals a softening in attitude on the Korean Peninsula. The War on Terror, the Iraq War, and the recent destabilization of several countries in the Middle East have shifted Washington’s attention away from the Asian rim—a development welcomed by Beijing. The Bush Administration has also exhibited a marked rhetorical shift on Taiwanese issues since 9/11. Initially announcing that the U.S. would do “whatever it takes” to defend the island, President Bush has explicitly opposed Taiwanese independence in recent statements in a major backtracking from his former position. [66] As China recognizes U.S. softening of its positions on and presence in Japan, Taiwan, and the Korean Peninsula, it has cautiously entered a traditional American sphere: the Middle East.

As Chinese dependence on Middle Eastern oil deepens, it can be expected that Beijing will vociferously back the interests of oil-producing Middle East states at the UN Security Council and in relations with the U.S. and EU. Forced to choose between a rising power that promises investment without conditions about democracy or human rights, and an established power whose stated goal is to democratize all authoritarian regimes, states will likely choose the former. The Middle East could easily become the Twenty-First Cen-tury’s Africa—a Cold War battlefield laden with natural resources but scarred by proxy wars and backward economic development. While careful to continue being a responsible stakeholder in the international system, China has begun to battle the U.S. for supremacy and re-sources in the opening stages of the next Cold War.
NOTES

[1] This has also meant soothing the fears of America’s most important regional ally, Israel. Following his January 2007 trip to Beijing, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced that he heard “many surprising and positive things” from Chinese Premier Wen and that Wen “made it absolutely clear” that Beijing opposed an “Iran with a nuclear bomb.” Haaretz, January 10, 2007.

[2] M. K. Bhadrakumar, “China’s Middle Easy Journey via Jerusalem,” Asia Times, January 13, 2007.

[3] Zhong Wu, “China Aims to Diversify Oil Sources,” Asia Times, February 28, 2007.

[4] Shichor, Yitzhak, “Silent Partner: China and the Lebanon Crisis,” The Jamestown Foundation, Volume 6, Issue 17, August 16, 2006, www.jamestownfoundation.org

[5] Yufeng Mao, “Beijing’s Two-Pronged Iraq Policy,” The Jamestown Foundation, China Brief, Volume 5, Issue 12, May 24, 2005, www.jamestownfoundation.org

[6] Alistair Lyon, “Energy-Hungry China Breaks Ground in the Middle East,” Reuters News, November 27, 2006.

[7] Leverett, Flynt and Bader, Jeffrey, “Managing China-U.S. Energy Competition in the Middle East,” The Washington Quarterly, Winter 2005-06.

[8] Rubin, Barry, “China’s Middle East Strategy,” Middle East Review of International Affairs, Volume 3, Number 1, March 1999.

[9] Shai Oster, “Iraq Turns to China for Help in Reviving Oil Industry,” The Wall Street Journal, June 20, 2007.

[10] David Winning, “China Taps Middle East for Crude as Demand Surges,” Dow Jones Interna-tional News, September 24, 2006.

[11] Lyon, Ibid.

[12] “China Seeks to Expand Trade, Energy Ties with Arab World,” Agence France Presse, May 31, 2006.

[13] Shichor, Yitzhak, “Mountains out of Molehills: Arms Transfers in Sino-Middle Eastern Relations,” Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal, Volume 4, Number 3, September 2000.

[14] Eisenstadt, Michael, “U.S. Policy and Chinese Proliferation to Iran: A Small Leap Forward?,” The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 31, 1997 <www.washingtoninstitute.org>

[15] Henderson, Simon, “China and Oil: The Middle East Dimension,” The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, September 15, 2004 <www.washingtoninstitute.org>

[16] Shichor, Ibid.

[17] Yossi Melman, “Iran to Buy 24 Jet Fighters from China”. Haaretz, October 23, 2007.

[18] Lyon, Ibid.

[19] “Syria Open to More Chinese Investment in Energy, Infrastructure,” Xinhua News Agency, July 10, 2007.

[20] Khaled Yacoub Oweis, “Syria, China Edge Closer to Oil Refinery Deal,” Reuters News, July 9, 2007.

[21] Oweis, Ibid.

[22] Blumenthal, Dan, “Providing Arms: China and the Middle East,” The Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2005, Volume XII, Number 2.

[23] Bhadrakumar, Ibid.

[24] Bhadrakumar, Ibid.

[25] Jin Liangxiang, “Energy First: China and the Middle East,” The Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2005, Volume XII, Number 2.

[26] Chietigj Bajpaee, “China Becomes Increasingly Involved in the Middle East,” Power and Interest News Report, March 10, 2006 <www.pinr.com>

[27] Bajpaee, Ibid.

[28] Blumenthal, Ibid.

[29] Rubin, Ibid.

[30] Calabrese, John, “The Risks and Rewards of China’s Deepening Ties with the Middle East,” The Jamestown Foundation, China Brief, Volume 5, Issue 12, May 24, 2005 <www.jamestownfoundation.org>

[31] Calabrese, Ibid.

[32] Nicholas Kristof, “China and Sudan, Blood and Oil,” The New York Times, April 23, 2006.

[33] “China Welcome to Explore Iraqi Oil Resources,” China Daily, June 19, 2007.

[34] Frank Gaffney Jr., “China’s Double Standard,” The Washington Times, June 26, 2007.

[35] Jamil Anderlini and Steve Negus, “Iraq Revives Saddam Oil Deal with China,” Financial Times, June 23, 2007.

[36] “Beijing Cancels Part of $8 billion Iraq Owes,” International Herald Tribune, June 23, 2007.

[37] Emma Graham-Harrison and Chris Buckley, “Oil-hungry China Courts Saudi King,” Reuters, January 22, 2006.

[38] Jin Liangxiang, Ibid.

[39] Leverett, Ibid.

[40] Jin Liangxiang, Ibid.

[41] Jim Krane, “Warm Relations between China and the Gulf Arab Countries,” AP, April 11, 2007.

[42] “China, Yemen discuss Middle East, Gulf; Sign Eight Deals,” Deutsche Presse-Agentur, April 6, 2006.

[43] “China and OPEC Start Energy Dialogue,” China Daily, December 23, 2006.

[44] Krane, Ibid.

[45] Leverett, Ibid.

[46] Energy Information Administration <http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Saudi_Arabia/OilExports.html>

[47] “Big Deals in Gulf-China Trade Boom,” AP, April 11, 2007.

[48] “PetroChina to Lay Oil Pipe in Saudi Arabia,” Xinhua News Agency, June 5, 2007.

[49] Calabrese, Ibid.

[50] “Sinopec in Talks with Companies from Middle East,” Sinocast China Business Daily News, May 29, 2007.

[51] Jin Liangxiang, Ibid.

[52] Bajpaee, Ibid.

[53] Bhadrakumar, Ibid.

[54] Bajpaee, Ibid.

[55] Migdalovitz, Carol, “Israel: Background and Relations with the United States,” CRS Report for Congress February 13, 2006.

[56] Mark, Clyde R. “Israeli-United States Relations.” CRS Report for Congress April 28, 2005.

[57] Jin Liangxiang, Ibid.

[58] Blumenthal, Ibid.

[59] Liu, Melinda, “The Merchant Marine,” Newsweek International, March 28, 2007 <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7243349/site/newsweek>

[60] Masood Anwar, “Real Significance of Gwadar Port,” The International News, March 29, 2007 <www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=47664>

[61] Haider, Ziad, “Baluchis, Beijing, and Pakistan’s Gwadar Port,” Georgetown Journal of Interna-tional Affairs, February 2005, 98, www,stimson.org/southasia/pdf/GWADAR.pdf

[62] Chellaney, Brahma, “China Covets A Pearl Necklace,” Asian Age, April 7, 2007 <www.asianage.com>

[63] Kumar, Amit, “A New Balance of Power Game in the Indian Ocean,” Institute for Defence Studies & Analyses, November 24, 2006

[64] Blumenthal, Ibid.

[65] Kane, Tim, “Global U.S. Troop Deployment 1950-2003,” The Heritage Foundation, Center for Data Analysis Report #04-11, October 27, 2004

[66] Kan, Shirley, “China/Taiwan: Evolution of the ‘One China’ Policy—Key Statements from Washington, Beijing, and Taipei,” CRS Report for Congress, September 7, 2006

IRAN: JEWISH LIFE UNDER ISLAMIC RULE

By Victoria S. Golshani

Victoria S. Golshani is a graduate of Emory College (B.A. Economics and B.A. International Relations, 2004) and the London School of Economics (M.Sc. International Relations, 2005). She has worked as an analyst at McKinsey & Company and for the Department of Homeland Security.

***

“It is no longer our country, Iran. What have we to go back to? We are Persians. They, those people who rule today, they are Muslims. They have forgotten what a Persian is.”—Anonymous

The Jewish people have been part of Persia since the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem between 586 and 538 B.C.E. Their presence in Persia can be traced as far back as the Biblical story of Esther and Mordecai, whose tombs rest in ancient Ecbatana, present-day Hamadan, Iran. Perhaps surprisingly, Iran has the second highest number of Jewish holy sites, only surpassed by Israel. [1] Persian Jews have a distinctive Jewish faith and tradition, but they can scarcely be physically distinguished from other Persians. [2] Since the introduction of Islam in Persia in 1502, however, Jews have been made to live as second-class citizens, sequestered in ghettos, and considered “untouchable” by Islamic law. Only under the reign of the Pahlavi dynasty, did Jews experience a golden age, a time when they achieved much educational, economic, social, and political success. That period was deleted from the history books by the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

From Ancient Times to Pahlavi Rule

In 1502, Imami Shi’ism was declared the national religion of Persia. Under Shi’a rule, Persian Jews faced forced conversion, mass exile, and murder. Prior to the introduction of Islam, the Jews of Persia had a comfortable and stable existence, but the adoption of Shi’ism reduced the status of Persian Jews to that of a “persecuted minority” or an outcast group. [3] Under Islamic law, Jews were considered ahl al- kitâb or “People of the Book” and afforded the protected status of dhimmi. But as in other Islamic lands, dhimmi law forced the Jews to wear a colored patch, multi-colored hat, and non-matching shoes, to remain sequestered in ghettos, without the right to own land. Iran instituted the discriminatory Pact of Umar, a covenant of subjugation dating back to 717 C.E. for the ahl al- kitâb living on newly conquered lands, and the Jam Abbasi laws, introduced by Shah Abbas in 1588, which limited Jewish activity. Together, these laws restricted Jewish mobility, public conduct, house and synagogue construction, rights to property and legal representation, and the range of professions Jews could legally hold.

During the Qajar Dynasty (1781-1925), the anti-Semitic laws of the Persian Empire grew significantly more severe. The Muslims consid-ered the Jews to be ritual polluters, najas, or “dirty.” [4] Laws forbade Jews to be outside when it rained, for the impure water that touched them may come in contact with a Muslim. [5] For the same reason, Jews and Muslims could not share bathhouses. A Jewish person could neither sell meat to a Muslim nor touch any merchandise that could be purchased by a Muslim. Jews were forbidden from speaking loudly in public and Jewish women were forced to veil their faces. It was not long until Iranian Muslims began physically harassing their Jewish neighbors. Jews were often attacked, had their clothing torn to shreds, their hats cut to pieces, their heads shaved, their earlocks clipped, and their beards removed. [6] The phrase jud baazi, or Jew-game, described the act of making a Jew beg for his life, and the term jud kosht or Jew-murder became a generalized term describing the most painful form of death. [7]

A Golden Age: The Pahlavi Dynasty

With the coronation of Reza Pahlavi in 1925, Jews established a higher social position than ever before. [8] After Shah Pahlavi disbanded the Pact of Umar and Jam Abbasi and proclaimed religious freedom in Iran, Jewish fears of persecution diminished considerably. [9] Reza Pahlavi’s son, Muhammad Reza also known as Reza Shah, continued to improve the conditions of Jews throughout Iran. The liberal polices Reza Shah adopted toward Jews were the byproduct of his efforts to Westernize and modernize his country. [10] The centuries-old barrier separating Judaism and Islam slowly crumbled as the Jewish people integrated into the Iranian society. [11] Jews were no longer barred from any profession nor were they forced to pay dhimmi taxes. Under the Pahlavi rule, Jewish ghettos immediately began to disappear and by 1967 more than half of the Jews who lived in Shiraz, once the historical center of Jewish life in Iran, had relocated to the northwest quadrant of the city. In 1977, only one quarter of Shirazy Jewry remained in the old mahalleh or Jewish ghetto. [12]

Under the banner of modernization, Pahlavi rule ushered in a long-desired societal acceptance of Iranian Jews. Jews began to give their children Persian names, making them indistinguishable from their fellow Muslim citizens. Linguistic differences began to disappear as Jews were admitted into the educational system. Most importantly, neighborhoods became integrated and socialization between Jews and Muslims increased. Children faced fewer obstacles to interfaith friend-ships. Parnianpour, a woman who grew up during the Pahlavi Dynasty says:

“Most of my life, relations between Jews and Muslims have been pretty normal. My family has always lived primarily among Muslims. My friends from childhood were mostly Muslims, and we all think of ourselves as Iranians.” [13]

The Iranian government financially supported public primary education for Jews and allowed foreign Jewish organization to aid the Persian Jewish community. Palestinian Jewish emissaries were permit-ted to come and teach in Jewish schools. [14] In 1947, the American Joint Distribution Committee provided education, medical services, sanita-tion and feeding programs for Iranian Jewish children. [15] Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU), a French organization started in 1860 that supported Jews who were subject to religious persecution, initiated a system of schools in Iran after World War II. [16] AIU proselytized the French ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity to Iranians. Other Jewish philanthropists founded the Ostar Hatorah schools in cities that lacked the Alliance schools. Jews could now receive both a Jewish and secular education with ease.

The majority of Jewish students continued to attend public schools, however, which reflects the religious and cultural comfort they must have felt in Iran. By 1968, 80 percent of the male Jewish population and 25 percent of the female Jewish population in the city of Shiraz received a secular education. [17] By the end of Pahlavi rule, Jewish literacy rates approached 100 percent [18] and Iranian Jewish students were attending boarding schools and colleges in Europe and the United States.

Not only did Jewish schools and synagogues flourish, but the Shah overturned laws barring Jews from many professions. Jews could now climb the social and professional ladder. Within decades, the Jewish standard of living grew substantially higher than that of the non-Jewish population. [19] Muslims and Jews could freely conduct business with one another for the first time in centuries. Jews invested in sales franchises, land, and hospitality services, thus allowing for a vast improvement in the economic status of the Jewish community. [20] Jews were no longer only peddlers, goldsmiths, butchers, and merchants but were now doctors, teachers, landlords, and even civil servants. Jewish newspapers, books, and magazines printed in Hebrew and Persian entered circulation. By 1977, only two percent of Jews were receiving state economic relief. [21] For the first time in Iranian history, a Jewish bourgeoisie that even boasted a small population of million-aires emerged, with Tehran as its epicenter. Many Jews inside Iran, as well as those in bordering nations, such as Iraq, stopped emigrating to Israel and looked instead to Tehran. [22]

The political life of Jews in Iran during Pahlavi rule has been called “the most favorable era for Persian Jews since Parthian rule.” [23] When Hitler visited Iran during World War II, the Shah protected the Jews; Iranian Jews believe that the Shah told Hitler that the Jews of Persia were as old as Persia and as Aryan as the rest of the Iranians. [24] He abolished the Law of Apostasy and allowed Jews to have political representation in the Majlis, the Iranian Parliament. Most importantly, the Shah began full diplomatic relations with the state of Israel in 1960. [25] Israeli delegates regularly attended international conferences held in Tehran and Israeli athletes participated in Iranian sporting events. Top Israeli politicians and leaders such as David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, Abba Eban, Yitzhak Rabin, and Yigal Allon visited the Shah and high-level Iranian politicians. El-Al, Israeli’s flagship airline, operated openly through Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport. Trade and other transfers between the two nations were extensive, and included oil transactions, agricultural assistance, and consumer good sales. An estimated 70 to 80 percent of Iranian military officers with the rank of major or higher made trips to Israel between 1960 to 1979. [26] The Shah’s close relationship with Israel was symbolic of the improved relations between Muslims and Jews within Iran.

Turning Back the Clock: Post-Revolutionary Iran

Overnight, the 1979 Islamic Revolution overturned all the societal gains made by the Jewish community under the Shah. In the first few years after the Revolution, dozens of Jews were executed. [27] Habib Elghanian was the wealthiest Jewish philanthropist in Iran where he funded Hebrew schools across the country. Elghanian, who had introduced plastic to Iran, was accused of being a Zionist traitor, or to be more specific, he was charged with “friendship with the enemies of God, warring with God and His emissaries, and economic imperialism.” [28] He was hanged in 1979. Although Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering that all Jews be treated well, [29] and that Iranian Jews should be distinguished from Zionist agents, the record shows otherwise.

The supposed equality of Jews and Muslims and the rhetorical dis-tinction between Jew and Zionist soon became a political joke. Jews reverted to the status of dhimmi. Khomeini reinstituted the jizya and declared that if Muslims had obeyed the divine ordinances, “a handful of Jews would not have dared to occupy our land.” [30] During the year of the Revolution alone, numerous Jews were killed for “causing economic corruption in Iran.” [31] Any person who had a connection with the Shah or had “too much wealth,” was handed a death sentence. [32] Most of those who fled left their wealth behind to be appropriated by the Islamic regime.

These discriminatory practices all continue to this day. All workers in public sectors have to be screened for Islamic credentials. [33] “Blood money,” the payment given by the family of a murderer to the family of the victim, once again became customary in Iran after the Revolution, and the amount of financial compensation a Jew can receive from a Muslim in the case of a relative’s murder or death is equal to one-eighth the amount that is paid if the victim is a Muslim. [34] Further-more, Jews face obstacles in bringing civil suits to trial, are barred from high-level government posts, and are faced with insuperable delays in service delivery. Iranian courts refuse to accept testimony from Jews and, unsurprisingly, murderers of Jews have never been brought to justice. [35]

Parallels have been drawn between the state of Iranian Jewry and the state of German Jewry in the 1930s. [36] The Jewish population’s decline in Iran strongly reflects the new anti-Semitic fervor stirred up by the Revolution. [37] The Jewish population is estimated to have declined from 150,000 at mid-century to 30,000 in the decades following the Revolution. Current estimates range from as low as 10,000 to as high as 35-40,000. Both the U.S. and Israel have recognized the dangerous state of Jewish life in Iran. Immediately following the Revolution, the Iranian government confiscated all Jewish passports and would not allow more than one member of a Jewish family to travel abroad. [38] Although these laws no longer exist, the regime keeps a close watch on the Jewish community, their travels, and their ex-tended family, especially in the U.S. and Israel.

After the Revolution, Iran severed all relations with Israel and de-clared Israel an enemy of Islam. Iranian Jews learned the hard way to renounce any connection to Israel or Zionism in public. [39] “You can be Jewish and not associate yourself with Israel,” says Sarah Hay, a 21-year old computer engineer student from Tehran. [40] Jews are unable to telephone or send mail to relatives in Israel, let alone visit. Jews who have corresponded with family in Israel have been executed or jailed for “spying for Israel.” [41] In 1999, 11 Jews were convicted on this charge. One boy was only thirteen years old. “Virtually every Iranian Jew has relatives in Israel. To regard normal family connections of Jews with Israel a crime makes a mockery of pledges in the Islamic Republic constitution that Jews will be accorded full rights as a recognized religious minority,” another Iranian woman says. [42] In March 2006, fifteen Iranian Jewish folk dancers visited Russia. When the Russian Jewish community brought out a cake decorated with the Israeli flag to celebrate the occasion, the Iranian Jews would only eat from the section of the cake that did not bear the Israeli flag. [43] Even abroad, they feared the possible repression of their government. As Haroon Yashaie states, “supporting Israel is absolutely out of the question.” [44]

The Jewish community, once the most affluent in Iran, now consists mostly of people who are too old or too poor to leave. [45] Given the potential repercussions of speaking out against the Islamic regime, the substance of interviews with Iranian Jews must be viewed skeptically. In recent documentaries, Jews tell journalists of their good life in Iran and their freedom to live as they wish. [46] However, a recent Dateline documentary [47] captured the climate of fear in which they live. The film shows a Jew imploring the Dateline cameraman to stop filming a woman in a Kosher restaurant. When the cameraman puts down the camera, but without stopping the film, the fearful Jewish man says:

“You should stop filming now. That’s enough stop please. You only have a permit from our council…They gave you a permit to film in the synagogue. That’s all. That’s all…Please stop. We have problems. If our members happen to say the wrong thing by mistake… we’ll get in trouble for it.” [48]

Anti-Jewish slogans, cartoons, films, and celebrations, such as that of the one-hundredth anniversary of the publication of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, have permeated Iranian popular culture. Although anti-Semitic violence is rarely reported in Iran, a U.S. State Depart-ment report reveals that Jews, fearing reprisal, are reluctant to speak of mistreatment and that the Jewish community in Iran is closely monitored by the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance and by the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. [50]

Iran’s current vehement Holocaust denial is not surprising. Since the establishment of the Islamic Regime, Iran has supported Roger Garaudy, a French author and philosopher who drew much public attention for his conversion to Sunni Islam and anti-Holocaust writ-ings. When the French government fined Garaudy $40,000 for racial defamation and Holocaust denial in his 1995 book Mythes Fondateurs de la Politique Israélienne, Iran helped pay his fine. [51] The link between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in Iran was witnessed at the Jaleh Square Massacre of September 1978, in which the government opened fire on crowds of protesters against the Revolution. When a crowd of 10,000 to 20,000 gathered in the square refused to disperse, govern-ment troops began to shoot into the crowd, killing hundreds and wounding thousands. [52] Mujahedeen and Fedayeen guerillas began chanting “Massacre the Jews” with megaphones and opened fire from surrounding rooftops. The Muslim religious leaders in Tehran claimed that thousands had been massacred by Zionist troops. [53]

The complaints of Iranian Jewry are routinely ignored or censored by the government. Maurice Motamed, Iran’s only Jewish parliamen-tarian, accused President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of insulting all the Jews in the world by denying the Holocaust, but did so only in media interviews and not in the parliament. [54] Furthermore, the chairman of the Jewish Central Committee of Tehran, Haroun Yeshaya, sent a letter to President Ahmadinejad strongly criticizing him and inform-ing him that his denial of one of the “most obvious and saddening events of 20th-century humanity” produced “anxiety among the small Jewish community of Iran.” The government promptly acted to censor him. [55] Having protected the Jewish community in the face of strong anti-Israel rhetoric in the early days of the Revolution and having long challenged anti-Semitic television shows and books published in Iran, he was asked not to run for reelection as chairman. [56]

Once again, Jews are being ostracized and are unable to socialize much outside of the small Jewish community because of their precarious situation. Gone are the days of Jewish leadership in local politics and professional circles. [57] Synagogues are now the central point of Jewish life. In a Dateline interview, Robert Halduh, a Jew still living in Iran, says that the “[Muslim] religious environment is more conducive to being a religious [than] a non-religious environment.” [58] Synagogue attendance has soared partly due to the religious atmosphere culti-vated by the Islamic Republic, [59] and partly due to the withdrawal of Jews from public life into close-knit communities. For the most part, Jews inhabit their own separate space within the limits of the Islamic Republic, a “protected” but rather uncertain people. [60]

Even in their own communities, however, Iranian Jews are not free from outside interference and suppression. The Iranian mullahs strictly control Jewish education. They forbid Jewish schools from teaching the Torah or other holy scriptures in Hebrew, [61] thereby forcibly separating Hebrew from Judaism and ensuring that Hebrew is only taught as a secular language. The only school that teaches Hebrew lessons is the Orthodox Jewish Otsar Hatorah School, which the Iranian gov-ernment sardonically forces by law to provide lessons on the Jewish Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest. Despite government interference, Ostar Hatorah is still a far friendlier place for Jews than public schools, where many Jewish children complain of unfair grades and physical abuse due to discrimination. [62] The Goharian family, for example, explains that other students will not sit next to their children at school because they are Jewish. [63] In an interview for a Dutch documentary, one student discussed how her teacher told the other students that she was najas and that if they touched her they would never be able to rid themselves of impurity. [64] The situation became so difficult for the young girl that she was forced to switch to the Jewish school. [65]

The situation of Iranian Jews is so tenuous today that it is difficult to believe how deeply woven they are into the fabric of Persian history. Iranian Jews are the preservers of Shiraz wine from the Shiraz region of southwest central Iran, and they were some of the highest advisors to the former Shah. Of course, Persian anti-Semitism long predates Islam, as the Jewish holiday of Purim attests. After all, Purim celebrates the Persian Jewish princess, Esther, who used her influence with the anti-Semitic vizier, Haman, to save the Jews from captivity and murder. Although there is still a small Jewish community in Iran, it has significantly dwindled from its pre-Revolution heyday and is now a vulnerable remnant of what it once was. Unfortunately, it is only outside Iran that Jews can be both Iranian and fully Jewish. The history of the Jewish community of Iran is centuries old; it may soon be coming to a close.

NOTES

[1] “Iran’s Jews: Shalom Salaam,” Dateline, 16 May 2007.

[2] Elgin Groseclose. Introduction to Iran (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947): 57.

[3] Laurence Loeb. Dhimmi status and Jewish roles in Iranian Society. (Salt Lake City: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers Ltd., 1976): 92.

[4] Ibid. 93.

[5] Ibid. 93.

[6] Ibid. 93.

[7] Ibid. 93.

[8] Peter Avery. Modern Iran. (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1965): 490.

[9] Ibid. 490.

[10] Michael E Bonine (ed.) and Nikki R. Keddie (ed.). Modern Iran: The Dialectics of Continuity and Change. (New York: State University of New York Press, 1981), Contributed by Laurence D. Loeb.

[11] Robin Wright. The Last Great Revolution. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000): 206.

[12] Bonine and Keddie, 306.

[13] Wright, 206.

[14] Bonine and Keddie, 310.

[15] Ibid. 310.

[16] Ibid. 310.

[17] Ibid. p. 310.

[18] Wright. 206.

[19] Peter Avery, 308-311.

[20] Ibid., 308-311.

[21] Bonine and Keddie, 310.

[22] Ibid. 310.

[23] Laurence Loeb. Outcaste: Jewish Life in Southern Iran (New York: Gordon and Breach Publishers Inc: 289.

[24] Boghrat Khorsandi. Personal Interview. 28 September 2000.

[25] Barry Rosen. Iran Since the Revolution. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985): 89.

[26] Ibid. 89.

[27] Boghrat Khorsandi. Personal Interview. 28 September 2000.

[28] Roya Hakakian. Journey from the Land of No (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2004): 151.

[29] http://www.sephardicstudies.org/iran.html

[30] Rosen, 90-91.

[31] Amnon Netzer (ed.). Pādyāvand V.II. (Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 1999): 244.

[32] Boghrat Khorsandi. Personal Interview. 28 September 2000.

[33] http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/hriran97.html

[34] http://www.iranian.com/Opinion/2003/March/Jews/

[35] Ibid.

[36] Amnon Netzer (ed.). Pādyāvand V.III. (Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 1999): 225.

[37] Wright, 207.

[38] Netzner, Pādyāvand V.I, 160.

[39] Angus Mcdowall, “Iran’s Jews Struggle in the Shadow of Holocaust Denials,” 22 May 2006 <http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article549814.ece>.

[40] Krichevsky.

[41] Netzner, Pādyāvand V.I, 160.

[42] Ibid. 160.

[43] Krichevsky.

[44] “Iran’s Jews: Shalom Salaam.”

[45] Amnon Netzer (ed.). Pādyāvand V.I. (Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 1999): 145.

[46] Such as: “Life as an Iranian Jew,” Frances Harrison, BBC Newsnight, 21 September 2006.

[47] “Iran’s Jews: Shalom Salaam.”

[48] “Iran’s Jews: Shalom Salaam,” Dateline, 16 May 2007.

[49] http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51599.htm

[50] Marc Perlman. “Letter Fuels Concern Over Fate of Jews in Increasingly Radical Iran,” JTA, 20 February 2006 <http://www.jta.org/cgibin/iowa/news/article/20060220Letterfuelsconcern.html>.

[51] Hooshang Vazerey. “Roger Garaudy, Old Communist, New Muslim, Opportunistic Extremism,” Iran Press Service, 1 October 2007 http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles/vaziri_garaudy.html

[52] http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_reader.php?BiotID=137

[53] Boghrat Khorsandi. Personal Interview. 28 September 2000.

[54] “Life as an Iranian Jew,” Frances Harrison, BBC Newsnight, 21 September 2006.

[55] Perlman.Golnaz Esfandiari. “Iran: Jewish Leader Criticizes President for Holocaust Denial,” 13 February 2006, http://www.rferl.org/features/features_Article.aspx?m=02&y=2006&id=FB25E81F-BCE9-4291-ACDB-CF2C5C69FE92>.

[56] Perlman.

[57] “Iran’s Jews: Shalom Salaam.”

[58] Ibid.

[59] Angus Mcdowall, “Iran’s Jews Struggle in the Shadow of Holocaust Denails,” 22 May 2006, <http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article549814.ece>.

[60] Barbra Demick. “Life of Jews Living in Iran,” Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture, 30 September 1997, <http://www.sephardicstudies.org/iran.html>.

[61] Boghrat Khorsandi. Personal Interview. 28 September 2000.

[62] Jaklin Golshani. Personal Interview. 28 July 2007.

[63] “Life as an Iranian Jew.”

[64] Jews of Iran, dir. Ramin Farahani, NIK Media, the Netherlands, 2005.
Ibid.

TERRORISM AS A RENT GENERATOR FOR THE STATE

By Jonathan S. Greenstein

Jonathan S. Greenstein ’10 attends Harvard College and is an Economics concentrator in Currier House.

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks by Al Qaeda, the United States Government has heightened its focus on global cash flows. Vast and increasing amounts of money travel across international borders on a daily basis, generated and funneled by a wide range of sources, including charitable, as well as criminal and terrorist, organizations. A close look at the political economic aspects of terrorism and its relation to the state suggests that terrorism presents an opportunity for rentier states in the Middle East to benefit directly and indirectly from terrorist-related rent generation.

According to The Economist, rent-generation is figuratively the act of cutting yourself a bigger slice of the cake without making the cake bigger. [1] Hazem Beblawi, a noted political economy theorist, explains that a rentier state is one that relies on substantial external rent, keeping in mind that there is no purely rentier economy. Few people generate the rent, but the government is a major beneficiary. [2] One effect rentierism subsequently has on a state is to undermine the idea of work-reward causation, as it is unearned income, and to create an exploitative mentality where layers of beneficiaries emerge as groups take advantage of their special situations. [3] A rentier mentality consequently damages a state’s commitment to real economic development and its accountability to citizens. Instead, the rentier state becomes a “welfare” state that allocates resources based on political patronage, [4] thereby fostering cronyism and corruption. Several states in the Middle East exhibit these tendencies to varying degrees. Whereas the Saracen countries of North Africa, formerly known as the “Barbary States,” can be seen as historical examples of rentier states, Saudi Arabia and Syria are modern-day examples.

While these ideas of the rentier state were initially formulated to describe the behavior of oil-producing states, [5] the rent dynamic and its effects can be applied to things other than natural resources. It is important to note then that rents were a source of income for Middle Eastern and North African countries centuries prior to the discovery of oil. In the eighteenth century, for example, the Barbary States de-manded ransoms, or external rents, to allow ships safe passage on trade routes through the Mediterranean Sea. “Styling themselves as mujahideen—warriors in an Islamic holy war—Arabic-speaking pirates preyed on Western vessels, seizing their cargos and enslaving their crews,” among them, three American ships in the mid-1780s. [6] When Massachusetts Federalist and then-future U.S. president John Adams approached officials from Tripoli in an attempt to negotiate safe passage for merchant ships, he was advised that “no nation could navigate [the Mediterranean] sea without a treaty of peace.” It is difficult today to estimate the real monetary value of rents generated by Barbary piracy, but it is known that the proposed price of the “treaty of peace” with Tripoli, together with the price of treaties with other North African pirate states, totaled approximately 10 percent of America’s annual budget. [7] This cooperation between the mujahideen and North African governments was an early form of state-sponsored terrorism, designed to produce revenues for the state.

Today, terrorist rent-generation can take several recognized forms. The first form is state terrorism, whereby governments seek rents from other states, as Nazi Germany did by annexing Austria and looting its gold. The second form can be called the “rent-seeking” model. Gordon Tullock, the economist who coined the phrase “rent-seeking,” cites as a simple example a protection racket in which a gang takes a cut from the shopkeeper’s profit. [8] On a broader scale, “rent-seeking” terrorist organizations compete with governments for rents [9] and are therefore likely to advocate their overthrow. The third form is state-sponsored terrorism. This model is distinct from state terrorism as the state distances itself from terrorist organizations while secretly benefiting from them and assisting them. Under this model, terrorist organizations are “engaged in gains from trade” and seek to obtain sponsor-ships by providing “disruptive services” for governments. Governments proceed to capture external rents while limiting their own exposure. [10]

In the first case, it is easy to condemn state terrorism internation-ally and to hold states accountable in various ways. For example, Nazi Germany was held accountable by having to pay reparations to those whose property it confiscated. In the second case, governments them-selves have an interest in controlling competing terrorist organiza-tions, although, paradoxically, they can and do sometimes benefit from them. In the third case, where states and terrorist organizations are nominally separate but actually closely connected, states deny their complicity in terrorism and it becomes difficult for other coun-tries or international institutions to hold them accountable. State sponsorship of terrorism has therefore proved an effective way to achieve a state’s foreign policy goals and further its economic objec-tives, while shielding itself from international condemnation. [11]

It is a paradox of terrorism that the “rent-seeking” model, in which terrorist activity is considered a threat to a government’s monopoly on power and resources, can sometimes benefit the government. This paradox is best illustrated by Saudi Arabia’s relationship with Al Qaeda. To achieve its aim of “bringing down the royal family,” Al Qaeda has targeted the regime’s principal rent generator: its oil infrastructure. In 2006, Saudi Arabia’s oil industry accounted for 10 percent of world oil supply and 75 percent of Saudi Arabia’s revenues. Since 2000, the value of its oil exports has increased from $71 billion to $191.5 billion. [12] Somewhat ironically, Saudi Arabia generates addi-tional oil rents from Al-Qaeda’s activities because “the fear of attacks is a key factor in oil prices remaining high.” [13] In addition, the U.S. has showered Riyadh with aid and arms for counter-terrorism as a direct result of the threat Al-Qaeda poses to the Saudi royal family. [14] While Saudi Arabia appears to be taking Al-Qaeda’s domestic threat seriously, it uses some of the additional oil rents to finance terrorism abroad. [15] The Saudi Arabian case shows that when rent-seeking terrorism is contained and successfully prevented from toppling a regime or triggering a global recession, it can produce rents for the state.

The state-terrorism model can describe Syria’s militaristic behavior before the rise of Hezbollah in the 1980s, but the “gains-from-trade model” of state-sponsored terrorism [16] is a better description of Syria’s behavior since then. A comparison of Syria’s two strategies reveals the benefits and costs of each. Historically, Syria has generated significant strategic rents through militarization and aggression. By maintaining a military conflict with Israel and acting as the Soviet Union’s client state for much of the Cold War, Syria generated a war dividend through financial transfers estimated at $12-13 billion, between five and six percent of its GDP. [17] By stationing troops in Lebanon from 1976 onwards, Damascus furthered maintained its military opposition to Israel. But these policies exposed the Syrian government to Israeli retaliation. Syria sustained catastrophic losses in Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which demonstrated that although the threat of war may generate rents, direct confrontation can be costly. The result ever since has been Syria’s adoption of a de facto “no war, no peace” policy. [18]

Further, Syria’s occupation of Lebanon allowed it to generate addi-tional rent from criminal activity. In the 1980s, the Syrian army was involved in significant drug cultivation and trade in Lebanon. [19] While the exact drug-trade revenues are unknown, one study reports that in 1985 the participation of Syrian troops in looting, taxing, and re-exporting Lebanese goods generated $5 million per day in rents. [20] Although Syria’s armed forces formally retreated from Lebanon in 2005, Syria’s proxy, Hezbollah, built up a growing political and military presence in Lebanon, which has facilitated Syria’s ongoing rent-generation. Syrian officials, including the former Minister of Defense and chief of Syria’s intelligence operations in Lebanon, have continued to be involved in drug trafficking. The same intelligence chief was later implicated in the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. [21]

A comparison of public responses to the 2005 Hariri assassination and the 2006 Second Lebanon War with Israel demonstrates the differences between the two strategies and the benefits of Syria’s indirect rather than direct involvement in Lebanese affairs. Following the assassination, the U.S. condemned the attack, recalled its ambas-sador to Syria, [22] and demanded a comprehensive UN investigation. [23] In contrast, during the 2006 war, Lebanon and Hezbollah bore the brunt of Israeli military might, while Syria remained unscathed. In fact, Syria was regarded as a positive force and was congratulated for opening its borders to refugees and providing humanitarian aid to displaced Lebanese people. [24]

Ultimately, state-sponsorship or facilitation of terrorism can be a rational economic choice for a state that relies on rents. Such behavior can give a state access to additional external rents that would other-wise be unavailable without placing its regime at risk. As a result, however, terrorism perpetuates the unproductive behavior, corruption and cronyism that are characteristic of a rentier mentality and that are among the main causes of political and economic underdevelopment in the region. The Saudi Arabian government’s schizophrenic relation-ship with terrorist organizations that claim to want to overthrow it and Syria’s ability to generate revenue through criminal activity in Lebanon are demonstrative of terrorism’s economic appeal. Only when the potential economic motivations of terrorism are understood and terror-sponsoring regimes are held directly accountable for the actions of their proxies will there be any chance of overcoming the regional problem of rentierism and defeating terrorism.

NOTES

[1] Matthew Bishop. Essential Economics. London: Profile Books, 2006. Available at http://economist.com/research/Economics/alphabetic.cfm?letter=R#rent-seeking

[2] Hazem Beblawi. “The Rentier State in the Arab World,” in Luciani Giacomo (1990), Pg. 87-88

[3] Ibid, Pg. 96-97

[4] Giacomo Luciani. “Allocation vs. Production States: A Theoretical Framework,” in Luciani (1990), Pg. 71

[5] Beblawi, Pg. 86

[6] Michael B. Oren. Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007. Pg. 18

[7] Ibid, Pg. 26

[8] Gordon Tullock, “The Fundamentals of Rent-Seeking.” The Lock Luminary 1, no. 2, Winter 1998, Part 2.

[9] Richard M. Kirk, “Political Terrorism and the Size of Government: A Positive Institutional Analysis of Violent Political Activity.” Public Choice, no. 40 (1983). Pg. 44

[10] Ibid, Pg. 48

[11] Louise Richardson, What Terrorists Want. New York: Random House, 2006. Pg. 51

[12] “Saudis Round Up 172, Citing A Plot Against Oil Rigs.” The New York Times, April 28, 2007.

[13] “Saudi Arrests Stoke Oil Facility Worry.” The Wall Street Journal, April 28-29, 2007.

[14] International Affairs Congressional Budget Justification for Fiscal Year 2008. February 14, 2007. Available on the U.S. State Department Web site. www.state.gov/documents/organization/80701.pdf. Pg. 514

[15] Matthew Levitt, Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad. New Haven:Yale University Press, 2006. Pg. 188

[16] Kirk, Pg. 48

[17] Perthes, Volker. “Si Vis Stabilitatem, Para Bellum, State Building, National Security, and War Preparation in Syria,” in Steven Heydemann (2000), Pg. 158

[18] Ibid, Pg. 160

[19] Picard, Elizabeth. “The Political Economy of Civil War in Lebanon,” in Steven Heydemann (2000), Pg. 305

[20] Ibid, Pg. 298

[21] Feinberg; Benjamin, Sarah Marek, and Jan Snaidauf. “Hizbullah and its Worldwide Crime/Terror Infrastructure.” December 20, 2005. www.american.edu/traccc/resources/publications/feinbe01.pdf. Pg. 9

[22] “U.S. Recalls Ambassador to Syria.” International Herald Tribune, February 17, 2005.

[23] Mehlis, Detlev. Report of the International Independent Investigation Commission Established Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1595 (2005). United Nations Security Council. Beirut, October 19, 2005. www.un.org/Docs/journal/asp/ws.asp?m=S/2005/662. Pg. 61

[24] Raman, Aneesh and Hala Gorani. “Lebanese Refugees Pour Across Syrian Border.” July 20, 2006. www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/20/lebanon.refugees/

THE WORLD IS BIGGER THAN OUR FOOLERIES: INTERVIEW WITH DR. SARI NUSSEIBEH

Interviewed by Julia I. Bertelsmann and Joel B. Pollak

Julia I. Bertelsmann ’09 attends Harvard College and is an Economics concentrator in Eliot House.

Joel B. Pollak ’99 is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Cape Town. He was a political speechwriter for the Leader of the Opposi-tion in South Africa from 2002 to 2006 and is a second-year student at Harvard Law School.

***

Dr. Sari Nusseibeh is the President of Al-Quds University in East Jerusa-lem. He earned a Ph.D. in Islamic Philosophy from Harvard University in 1978 and has taught at Birzeit University in the West Bank as well as Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He played a prominent role in the first Palestinian Intifada and represented the Palestine Liberation Organiza-tion in East Jerusalem during the second Intifada in 2001. In 2003, together with former Israeli internal security chief Ami Ayalon, he launched a peace campaign called The People’s Voice that gained hundreds of thousands of signatures among both Israelis and Palestinians. He published an autobiography, Once Upon A Country: A Palestinian Life (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) in 2007. He is married to nonviolence activist Lucy Austin and has four children. New Society interviewed him in his office in East Jerusalem in July 2007

New Society: What do you think the prospects for peace are, now that Hamas has taken over in Gaza?

Dr. Sari Nusseibeh: It’s hard to talk about the future because it’s not laid out already. It’s something you can create. One doesn’t know what people are prepared or willing to do. Looked at from a distance, one would think we were in the worst possible situation with Hamas in control of Gaza and a schism in Palestinian society at every level. But it is also possible to think that maybe, because it is so bad, the society would be able to determine what is in it’s best interests—namely, peace—and therefore we could come out more strongly in favor of peace with Israel than we could five years ago.

NS: What do you think the prospects are for the two-state solution?

Nusseibeh: I think it depends on us. Nothing happens by itself. Politics is a construct of human action. We can always create a two-state solution. We can always create a one-state solution, a three-state solution. Any kind of political structure. It is really within our power.

NS: But which do you think is ideal?

Nusseibeh: I personally am not a nationalist. I’ve never really been in favor of an Arab Palestinian state per se. I’ve only been in favor of a Palestinian state—and therefore the two-state solution—because of my sense that Israelis and Palestinians want this solution, and that it is therefore the least bad scenario. I think the two-state solution can be used to construct other scenarios for the future, including a one-state solution, but any solution must be arrived at by consent. If people decided that they wanted a one-state solution or a larger structure that included states like Jordan and Lebanon, then I’d support those suggestions as well. If they wanted to create a system based on a federation of smaller city-states, then I’d support that too. It may come to that. If one looks at the clusters of different populations—Jewish and Muslim—maybe one can think of separating and combining those clusters at different levels.

NS: In 2002, you and Ami Ayalon signed an agreement based on six points. If I remember correctly, you suggested that all Arabs in Israel should get Palestinian citizenship and that all Israelis in Palestine should get Israeli citizenship.

Nusseibeh: No. We did not say that. We said that Israel should be the only Jewish state and that Palestine should be the only Palestinian state. That does not mean that people of different nationalities shouldn’t live in each. We said that, with regard to returnees, Pales-tinians should return only to Palestine and Jews should only return to Israel. After the border adjustment and agreement, we said there should be no more settlements in the Palestinian state—and by settle-ment, we meant large clusters and planned developments—but Jewish families should certainly be allowed to live in the Palestinian state. Ayalon wanted to allow Israel to annex Israeli settlements into Israel, and I agreed on the condition that Palestine would be compensated and would be able to receive an equal amount of land in return.

Realistically speaking, if the Palestinian government went and asked Arabs from Nazareth or Umm al-Fahm to take Palestinian citizenship, most would probably refuse because they are happy to be Israelis. They don’t want to become Palestinian citizens. Sometime in the future, there could be sufficient openness between the two communi-ties that could enable individuals from either group to enjoy the fullness of the entire region so that they would not feel any longer that by belonging to one part they are barred from enjoying freedoms in the other. This is really an ideal kind of situation. It will take time. In order to achieve it, we have to focus on education, on economic development, on cultural development, on developing an open society of tolerance between people.

NS: One of the other requirements may be building Palestinian insti-tutions. In your book, you talk about your efforts to build many institutions in the early 1990s towards a state. To what extent does that remain a challenge today?

Nusseibeh: It is not really such a challenge. Although we failed to build a proper state structure between 1994 and 2000, I don’t think that our failure was due to genetics. There are different reasons why we failed, but I think we are still capable of building a state structure and sound institutions. I think so mainly because of the fact that over all these years, particularly since 1967, the Palestinians have had to look after themselves. And they have been able to look after them-selves. I’ll give you some examples. Take, for instance, the major hospital that we have in the West Bank, Al Maqasid, near East Jerusa-lem. This health provider was not a product of the government but of civil society. Palestinian people got together and created it. And they created many similar institutions: universities, colleges, and schools. You name it, we created it. The government did not create those things. Ordinary people did. And this makes me believe that we are indeed capable of building institutions. We did fail to build pre-state institutions between 1993 and 2000, for many reasons. One should study those reasons, and then work again towards success. I think that in the next few years, if we are helped to develop our institutions, we may be able to build a state. And even if it doesn’t result in a state, it’s important anyway to have good institutions.

NS: We spoke to Bassem Eid and he said: Who needs a state? Pales-tinians need work permits, food, and services. Do you agree with him?

Nusseibeh: That’s a good thing to say in the following sense: I think one should keep in mind that the state is not an end in itself. One must ask the questions: What are states for? You have to think about your concerns and values. And you have to prioritize them. You have to say, for example, my main concern is that I be free. And by that, I mean, having the social space within which I can grow, develop, and achieve happiness. In such a place, I have to feel equal with others. I don’t want to infringe upon others’ space, nor do I want my space infringed upon. But also, in this sense, there must be equality. You have to think of the balance, of what is most important. Freedom of travel, being able to vote freely, being able to go to school and be educated, having good facilities in school, having access to good services. Do you know Amartya Sen’s concept of living standards? People have basic needs. One must ask: how do I achieve all these things? Can I achieve them through a state? If the answer is yes, then I want a state. But if a state does not provide me with those things, then I do not want it. This is what I say personally. This is my position. I am not for a state, I am not a nationalist, but I want a space for myself as a human being, a space in which I will be provided with the things I need. Now, I do think it is possible to do that in the context of a state. And maybe achieving those things in the context of a state allows others to achieve them in the contexts of their states—Israelis, for example. This is why I think that maybe a two-state solution is a good thing. But it is an open question.

NS: What do you think is the major obstacle preventing Palestinians from achieving those aims? Many Israelis would blame the Palestinian Authority’s corruption, use of violence, and desire that Israel disap-pear rather than exist peacefully alongside it.

Nusseibeh: There are many Palestinians who either don’t want to have peace with Israel or who think that peace with Israel is not possible. And there are likewise many Israelis who feel that peace with the Palestinians is not possible. The numbers vary. It probably goes up and down on both sides. The numbers are probably not synchronized. The numbers might be in inverse proportion.

I think one of the reasons why this attitude might exist on both sides is the lack of vision. If all you see is the rigid mountainous landscape surrounding you, if you feel imposed upon, only then is it difficult. You need to free yourself in order to start imagining. Then you can move forward. The obstacle is the lack of imagination on both sides.

NS: Do you think it will be difficult for Israel to negotiate with the Palestinians so long as those negotiations are undermined by Iran?

Nusseibeh: I don’t like to believe that Iran has such an influence on how I as a Palestinian think. It certainly has an influence on Hamas—it pays them money. But Hamas is not Palestine. Nor is the Hamas ideology something that is rigid. It is a bit more complex.

What is Hamas? It is a virtual construct. Behind Hamas are indi-vidual human beings. Now individual human beings are open sys-tems. In other words, one day they may adopt the ideology of this virtual construct and another day they might adopt something else. Hamas is itself, full stop. It believes, for instance, in the liberation of all of Palestine, in the creation of an Islamic state. The question to ask is who is the person who adopts those beliefs and is such a person also somebody who will continue holding those beliefs. My feeling is that that is not the case. I think a majority of Palestinians are prepared to accept a two-state solution based on 1967 lines, East Jerusalem as a capital, compensation for refugees, all those things. If the Palestinians are given this offer, they will take it.

So I don’t believe it’s a question of Iran. It’s not Iran that prevents them from doing this. So, you might ask me, what does prevent them? And there are a number of different reasons.

First, we don’t really know what Israel’s intentions are with re-spect to the Palestinians. We are not sure what their intentions are regardless of the statements they make. But if, for instance, Israel were to make a promissory note, saying, “We are prepared to come to peace with the Palestinians on the following terms,” and if [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert were to state very clearly Israel’s ultimate positions with regard to a two-state solution, I personally believe that the majority of Palestinians would take this offer.

That is why Ayalon and I came up with the destination plan. We said the Road Map [for Peace] would not move anywhere unless we outline a destination.

NS: There are some who say that the path of the security barrier is the destination, that the line will be a “plan B” and become the border to which Israel withdraws.

Nusseibeh: I said that a few years ago at a talk. I said this would be a good plan B option for Israel’s security regime. When Sharon first put up this wall, I argued with my colleagues and told them that I thought this would be Israel’s plan B. I think if I were him I might have done the same thing—if I were also a military kind of guy who didn’t really believe in peace with neighbors, if I was only guided by security concerns and a short-term vision. But this is not going to work. Mili-tary solutions never work. No matter how clever, military solutions always fail as solutions.

NS: In your book you described how you protested the route of the security barrier to prevent it from being built on Al-Quds campus grounds. I have not been in Jerusalem for several years, but what strikes me since the erection of the wall is how much more integrated West Jerusalem seems. Since the barrier has gone up, people seem to feel safer and less suspicious of one another. There have been some articles about how Arabs from East Jerusalem have been moving to West Jerusalem as people have been moving from one side of the barrier to the other.

(Nusseibeh walked us over to the window and pointed out the barrier to the west.)

Nusseibeh: Now we’re looking due west. There’s Beit Hanina. This is part of East Jerusalem. Now, if we look west, you see in the middle of the hill another part of Beit Hanina—a continuation of the same community. But between the two parts, there is now a barrier. So it’s all a kind of jigsaw. It doesn’t make any sense from our point of view, although it makes sense from the point of view of the Israelis.
So what are the Israelis doing? They are building a highway that will partly go through and under Arab areas. So that east and west are joined. At the same time, the Arab habitations are disjointed. They are separated even though—if you look from a bird’s eye view—they are in the same area. Now, does this make Israelis feel more integrated? It is possible. But the Arab inhabitants are certainly more scattered. The living standards of the Arabs are nothing to write home about, except if you are doing a kind of tragic-comic kind of story.

I do think that Israelis feel more secure since the erection of the barrier. You probably know about logical fallacies, though, and one of the first one learns about is post hoc ergo propter hoc—after the fact therefore because of the fact. Because B follows A it is a result of A. So people think now that it is the wall that has stopped suicide bombings, because suicide bombings stopped after the wall. But I do not think this is the case.

NS: Tomorrow is the Jewish holiday of Tisha B’Av, the commemora-tion of the destruction of the first and second Temples. You write very emotively about Jerusalem in your book. Is there any kind of shared sense of mourning for the city? Are Palestinians developing rituals around Jerusalem in the same way?

Nusseibeh: You know, there’s a competition between Israelis and Arabs to see who holds the strongest connection to Jerusalem. When the Arabs see the Israelis commemorating events that assert the connectedness between Jerusalem and the Jewish people, the Arabs get very upset and say “no, no, no.” Or they say, “Yes, but that was 3,000 years ago. Maybe 3,000 years ago the Jewish people were con-nected to Jerusalem but the people here today, Israelis who claim to be Jewish, have nothing to do with the Jews who once lived here.” So they’re very angry about any kind of assertion that Jews have a claim to Jerusalem. And I suppose likewise with Israelis. Many look down on the assertions Muslims make that they have a claim to the city, and make fun of stories like the flying donkey. Many like to repeat that Jerusalem is not the first, not the second, but the third holiest city in Islam whereas it is the first holy city in Judaism.
But the truth is that after I wrote my book I had second thoughts about Jerusalem. I think we are giving it too much importance. I think that the two sides have gone crazy about Jerusalem in that we’re giving far more weight to things like space and stone, location and geography, than we are to human beings. We are prepared to sacrifice human beings for the sake of location, which is a crazy notion.

I was thinking the other day, going back to the story of when Abraham wanted to sacrifice his son and God said here is a lamb instead. The whole point was—I mean, I imagine—that God’s message to Abraham was that he should not sacrifice human blood over that rock, over Jerusalem, over that specific location where we have been spilling blood, Jews and Muslims. This is a contravention of God’s message.

NS: Are you hopeful for the future?

Nusseibeh: Yes. I’m hopeful for the future and even about the present. I keep thinking that the world is much larger than our fooleries. There is much more than the mistakes and miscalculations we make, than the connivance or whatever we do to suppress other people. So in the end, the world is still much bigger than us. There is more to the world than what we see, is almost how Shakespeare put it, although I think he did so better.

NS: How do you like speaking at universities to students? How did you like speaking at Harvard?

Nusseibeh: I enjoyed the talk at Harvard because the community was a more mature audience than one usually finds on a campus. But I’ve come across audiences in the States and Europe where I’ve felt very sad to find that the war is raging out there. And it’s like we here are fighting and we go out hoping that we can be finished with this war. What we find instead is that the war is just spreading outwards and replicating itself, becoming the war of Jewish and Arab communities everywhere. What I would like to find when I go abroad is people making peace or people at peace with one another who can help me here to make peace with the party I’m at war with. I don’t want to go out and see even more war. Why should I go out? I sometimes get depressed when I see that.

NS: I remember that when you spoke at Harvard the moderator and several students seemed to be pushing you in one direction.

Nusseibeh: (Laughing) I seem to remember they pushed me to the bathroom!

NS: (Joking) I don’t know whether you did that on purpose—

Nusseibeh: Of course not! Not every peaceful Palestinian action is a contrivance!

NS: —but I thought it was brilliant. You effectively said, “Let’s let reality intrude for just a while.”

Nusseibeh: (Laughter) It was very embarrassing. There was the next president of Harvard sitting in the front row and I said to myself “this is Harvard. Can I do this kind of thing?” And then I thought, “Hell, why not?”

LIFE IS BETTER THAN DEATH: INTERVIEW WITH BASSEM EID

Interviewed by Joel B. Pollak

Joel B. Pollak ’99 is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Cape Town. He was a political speechwriter for the Leader of the Opposition in South Africa from 2002 to 2006 and is a second-year student at Harvard Law School.

***

Bassem Eid is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG), which tracks human rights violations against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, regardless of who commits them. He is a former fieldworker for B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization focusing on the occupied territories. Eid’s work at PHRMG has concentrated on documenting violations by the Palestin-ian Authority against its own citizens. In recent years he has also moni-tored abuses committed by the Fatah and Hamas factions in their internec-ine struggles. Eid has received numerous human rights awards and frequently addresses Israeli and foreign audiences about the human rights problems facing Palestinians. Earlier this year, he teamed up with left-wing Israeli politician Yossi Beilin at the Doha Debates, arguing that Palestinians should abandon the right of return for the sake of peace with Israel.

New Society: Tell me about your life—where you are from, and how you came to be where you are today.

Bassem Eid: I am Palestinian and I was born in the Old City in East Jerusalem. I lived there for eight years, but then in 1966, for no reason, the Jorda-nian government established a refugee camp called Shuefat Refugee Camp near the French Hill in Jerusalem. The Jordanian government removed 500 families from the Old City, mainly from the Jewish Quarter. It was exactly one year before the 1967 war. I lived in the refugee camp for 32 years from 1966 until 1999. For the past four years, I have been living in Jericho.

I finished secondary school in one of the municipality schools in East Jerusalem. Then I attended Hebrew University for two years and studied journalism, but I couldn’t continue for financial reasons. After leaving the university, I worked as a freelance journalist for Palestin-ian and Israeli newspapers until 1988 before joining B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization that investigates rights violations in the occupied territories. In mid-1996, I resigned from B’Tselem and founded the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG), which is where I still am today.

NS: Why did you leave B’Tselem?

Eid: When the Palestinian Authority (PA) was established 1994, I noticed that most Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations continued monitoring the Israeli occupation, but that nobody wanted to pay any attention to the PA’s violations. In a meeting held in March 1996, the board members of B’Tselem decided that they would not concern themselves with PA abuses. That’s why I left. I wanted to fill a role that I thought was very important, but that was empty.

NS: So you left that same year?

Eid: Yes. The decision came out in March, and I left at the end of July 1996 to set up the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group. Our main aim is to observe the Palestinian Authority’s violations. Between 1996 and 2000, our publications did not cover Israeli violations at all. All of our reports and press releases responded to Palestinian Author-ity abuses. We only started collecting data on Israeli violations after the second Intifada broke out in September 2000. Then we started to investigate Israeli killings, assassinations, house demolitions, and the use of the excessive force. In the meantime, we continued to collect information about Palestinian Authority violations.
Today, we are probably the organization with the most extensive data on internal killings among the Palestinians. I believe we are the only organization, for example, that investigates the murder of col-laborators by Palestinians. We also investigate long-term imprison-ment without charge, torture, the conduct of the state security court, and deaths that occur in Palestinian detention centers. We collect information on these issues and update our reports everyday.

NS: Why do you think B’Tselem chose not to monitor the Palestinian Authority?

Eid: In my opinion, that was a wise decision. At that time, there were still large areas under Israeli occupation and B’Tselem still had a lot of work to do to expose rights violations by the Israeli army in the occupied territories.
On the other side, I think that if the Palestinians want to form a successful civil society, live in a democracy, and respect human rights, we will have to build institutions with our own hands. We should not lay our fate in other people’s hands. We have done so quite enough over the past sixty years. We are still demanding a state from the international community instead of building it ourselves. I think that it is the time for the Palestinians to start building their own democracy right now. I believe that democracy has never been offered by leaders or governments. Democracy is determined by the people themselves.

NS: How did the Palestinian Authority react to your new organiza-tion?

Eid: Creating a human rights organization under an Arab regime is like committing suicide. Yasser Arafat was used to doing whatever he wanted without being criticized or monitored. When I started watch-ing, investigating, criticizing, he started to look at me in a very bad light. The Palestinian Authority defamed us and slandered us. Among other accusations, they said that we serve the enemy’s interests.

When we started to publish reports on PA human rights viola-tions, the reports became sexy news material for the international community. They were particularly well-reported by the Israeli media. The issue was especially sexy because, as you know, I had spent the past seven and a half years criticizing only Israel. Arafat saw me as a traitor.
We had a very tough period and had to get through many tough moments. Sometimes, ironically, these fears and difficulties gave us more energy and made us become even more committed to the sub-ject. We decided to continue in spite of all the danger surrounding us. And here we are! We still exist.

NS: Has your work become easier or more difficult since Arafat’s death?

Eid: Well, I think the PA does not really exist anymore. It exists in the pages of newspapers rather than on the ground itself. The PA com-pletely destroyed itself during the past seven years. They got them-selves into huge trouble.
As far as my work is concerned, I feel very secure right now. Eve-ryone knows me where I live in Jericho. I’m very satisfied with what I’m doing.

NS: What do you think of the prospects for Palestinians right now? Will there be a Palestinian state? Is the two-state solution still viable?

Eid: It must be possible to create a Palestinian state. The question is how. How will we deal with it? How will we build it? How will we unite to establish good institutions?

In my opinion, the establishment of a Palestinian state is not only related to the Israelis. It concerns the Palestinians. We have had a very bad experience with building a state, developing it, and keeping it alive.

That brings me to the September 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza. Everybody thought that the Israeli disengagement would be a kind of test for the Palestinians. It would test whether we are really able to build our own state and manage our daily lives ourselves. In my opinion, we totally failed to manage Gaza, develop it, and build infrastructure.

Today, fewer and fewer Palestinian voices speak up in favor of es-tablishing a state. Everybody has his own horrible troubles. The only people calling for a state right now are the politicians.

Politicians around the world are buying and selling blood. This is the only income that they have. And that’s exactly what Arafat prac-ticed with the Palestinians. I remember with great sadness what happened when he started creating an Intifada and threatening the Israelis. Palestinian security workers went to the schools, ordered the schoolmasters to close the schools, and then sent the schoolchildren to throw stones at the Israelis. That was a very horrible thing to do. Politicians sacrifice their people to achieve their political interests. This is unfortunately the Palestinian attitude.
Look at Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad, who is saying, “No more resistance!” This is a huge change. One can resist, but one must also protect oneself and one’s survival. People were born to live, not to die. When you are alive, you can choose to resist, but you can also choose to build, to achieve things, to reach for what you want. When you die, you just die. This is a good lesson for the Palestinians right now: sacrificing ourselves will not help us achieve anything. We won’t achieve anything with violent resistance.

We are having to face the consequences of our actions over the past seven years. In my opinion, the Palestinians totally lost their way during the past seven years. Things will get worse if we continue in the same way. We will have to change our direction.

NS: What do you think should happen in Gaza?

Eid: Gaza is a big problem for the Palestinians, Israelis, and Egyptians. The international community becomes more and more afraid of the Palestinians because Hamas reflects such a negative side of Palestinian politics. I don’t think that Hamas will ever offer Gaza to back to Abbas.

The question is: Who is going to control Hamas? Hamas right now oppresses the Gazan people. But who will contain Hamas? I don’t think that dialogue will solve the problem.
We will all be watching whether Hamas can manage Gaza and keep it functioning. The Arab countries should put more effort into solving the conflict between Hamas and Fatah. The problem is that the Arab countries are so divided, some supporting Hamas against Fatah and some supporting Fatah against Hamas. This won’t help the situation.

I don’t think the international community can do very much on this issue, besides continuing to provide important humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. On the whole, though, it’s too early right now to tell what will happen to Gaza and Hamas.

NS: What about Hamas in the West Bank. Are they a factor?

Eid: They do exist in the West Bank, but what’s happening in Gaza could never happen in the West Bank.

This is not only because Fatah is stronger than Hamas, but also be-cause of the Israeli occupation in the West Bank. Israelis will never allow Hamas militants to take over Jenin, facing Afula.

Of course, Hamas will still threaten to occupy the West Bank, to jeopardize any peace agreement, and to harm the Palestinian Presi-dent and government in the West Bank. I don’t think we will see peace in the near future.
Daily life in the West Bank will become a little bit easier, though, according to the promises of Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas. But I think the peace process will take much longer than anybody expects.

NS: What do you think is the main reason that the conflict continues?

Eid: I think there is a lack of good will and leadership on both sides. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict also tends to become a commercial conflict. Everybody is making something off this conflict. There are countries that have an interest in perpetuating the fighting. The Iranians, for example, are trying to provoke a regional war using Hezbollah and Hamas.

I don’t think the Palestinians will have the same opportunities for peace that we were offered between 1947 and July 2000. Palestinian violence has probably caused some countries to want not to get involved anymore. The foreign policy of the international community is totally biased.

NS: When you say that foreign policy is biased, you mean in which direction?

Eid: Well, the problem is that the international community is not united. Countries are divided. Policies are divided. So many different biased policies are involved in this conflict. In this kind of situation, I don’t think that the Palestinians or the Israelis will be able to reach a kind of final peace or a final agreement between themselves.

NS: Do you think there’s a possibility that Israelis and Palestinians will be able to build something out of the cooperation that still exists between them in some areas? Are these areas of cooperation possible foundations for peace?

Eid: Small-scale cooperation is very important. But I don’t think a permanent solution is possible right now. Let us talk about a tempo-rary one, instead. This is what Abbas and Olmert are doing right now. Let us release few thousand Palestinian prisoners, let us evacuate a couple of checkpoints, let us open the gates of the wall between villages and clinics or schools, let us issue a couple of tens of thou-sands of work permits to Palestinians so that they can work in Israel—this is what we are negotiating with the Israelis now.

When you talk about the state, the settlements, the borders, and the water, the Israelis say, this is so complicated, let’s leave it to the end. In the meanwhile, let’s do things step-by-step. That is how we are today negotiating with the Israelis. Many of these small things will probably continue to be delivered in the future.

NS: How do you feel about the situation? What motivates you?

Eid: I’m very angry and frustrated. I’m hopeless. I know my ideas provoke people, but I’m not a politician. I care much more about people’s lives rather than their lands. Land you can get everywhere in the world, but you can never replace lives. I don’t want to hear about killings, I don’t want to hear about shootings. I hate violence.

I am 48 years old. I had never, ever in my life seen a tank shooting until the past six or seven years. Since then, when I’ve gone to Ramal-lah, Bethlehem, Jericho, I’ve been so afraid. I’ve seen the kinds of things I never want to see again. I don’t like the way we are militariz-ing the conflict. It’s horrible. And I don’t like the way we’re making it religious. That brings great danger.

Looking back through history, one finds several examples of con-flicts that were solved without any kind of bloodshed. So I do believe that we can solve our conflict. We will have to learn from the experi-ences of others.

NS: What did you learn when you went to South Africa this year?

Eid: South Africa is very interesting. But it couldn’t be a model for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are some very good things in the South African case that we can learn from. The Truth and Reconcilia-tion Committee, for example.
The most important lesson is that the people in South Africa built their democracy and institutions with their own hands. Nobody offered it to them. I hope Palestinians will learn from that.

But otherwise, the South African case is very different from our situation. It involved people fighting against one apartheid govern-ment. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, you are not talking about one government or one nation. It’s totally different. We are not fighting for a one-state solution. Of course we are not.

What I learnt in South Africa is that some Islamists in South Africa are totally disconnected from the realities and still believe that the solution will be one state—an Islamic state. I found that very horrible.

NS: Do people in the West Bank and East Jerusalem want one state or two states, or do they want something else entirely?

Eid: At the moment, I think the Palestinians want a three-state solu-tion for two nations—Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel. Of course, there are still some disconnected Palestinians and Israelis who believe in a one-state solution. But I think that the Palestinians dream of creating our own independent, democratic, anti-Islamist country. And I think the Israelis want their own Jewish, Zionist country. I think both people have a right to their own states.

NS: What do you think the role should be of the Palestinian Diaspora, people in other parts of the region and other parts of the world?

Eid: That’s a really a big problem right now. I don’t believe that all the Palestinian refugees would like to come back. Israel will never open its doors to those refugees. The Palestinians shouldn’t have to continue sacrificing themselves for the right of return, a dream that will never be applicable on the ground. There are refugees around the world. All nations have refugees. This is an international problem. Refugees should be able to move to the West Bank or other countries. They should be more realistic about the situation.

NS: How are your ideas received by other Palestinians?

Eid: I don’t think that most Palestinians agree with me. And politi-cians are completely ignorant of my ideas because they don’t serve their political interests. We are a totally unstable society. Our opinions change ever day. Sometimes we feel powerful and energetic; some-times we feel tired and hopeless. I prefer talking to people when they are tired. Then they are more likely to listen to new ideas.

NS: What are your perceptions of Israeli human rights groups? Are they succeeding in their work?

Eid: I think they are doing a good job. We, the Palestinians, have learnt a lot from the Israeli organizations. There are Palestinians who are critical of the Israeli organizations, but mostly they are people who have no real idea of what is going on. I know what happens inside the Israeli organizations. I think that they are doing the maximum they can do to improve the daily lives of the Palestinians. If you go to the High Court, you will realize that most of the appeals made on behalf of Palestinians have been presented by Israeli groups and Israeli lawyers, not Palestinian ones.

NS: Are you able to monitor what’s going on in Gaza right now?

Eid: That’s very, very difficult. Don’t forget that we are living under a Taliban regime in the Gaza Strip. Our fieldworker hesitates before investigating cases there. The situation for human rights organizations sometimes reminds me of the Saddam Hussein regime. We can’t monitor the Gaza Strip the way we used to monitor it when it was PA territory. We are trying to collect data from newspapers and other organizations that operate in the area. We are in touch with some journalists there. But we face serious opposition and danger.

NS: What advice would you like to give to the Palestinians?

Eid: The best opportunity for us to make peace with Israel was probably in 1978 or 1979 when Egyptian president Anwar Sadat visited Israel. He suggested that Yasser Arafat join him, but Arafat refused.

The most important thing for us to do now is learn from the mis-takes we made between 1947 and today so that we don’t repeat them. We should put these mistakes on the table and study them well. After studying our mistakes, I think the solution will be very easy to create.

THE UNVEILED FACE OF IRANIAN LIFE

Observations from an American in Iran

By Cindy D. Tan

Cindy D. Tan ’08 attends Harvard College and is a History of Art and Architecture concentrator in Eliot House.

Iranian police cars are recognizable by their clean, white bodies, cobalt blue strips and, most notably, the silver Mercedes medallions perched on their hoods. Often they sit in the shade of a string of tall, leaning pine trees, a few hundred meters behind a clearly marked sign in both Farsi and English announcing their presence. Traffic builds up on the single lane roads at these police roadblocks, and old Peugeots and Renaults wait impatiently to be checked for stashes of opium before being released. The enormous fleet of police cars guarding the roads is comprised of expensive, German-built cars that were purchased some years ago as a result of bloated state budgets and an expanded security program. However, after years of use, damage and deterio-ration, the police budget could no longer meet the cost of basic repair replacement parts. These “Iran super cars” as many locals sarcastically call them, are now used until they become dilapidated old jalopies and are then replaced with Iranian-made cars. There are even YouTube videos of now-censored Iranian TV talk shows that make fun of them. No one was scared of the police then. In fact, it seemed there was very little to be scared about. I was surprised to see how fearless many Iranians were about political and social issues. To an unimaginable degree, the Iranians I met were happy to discuss with me their thoughts and personal feelings on their way of life, their government’s policies and the future of their country.

With the support of an academic fellowship, I traveled to Iran this summer to conduct my senior thesis research on medieval Shi’ite tomb architecture. The nature of my project led me through the desert and mountains and into the most populous cities and remote villages. However, my reasons for traveling went beyond the scope of my academic research. I wanted to see how Iranians, whose country maintains a tenuous position between deep tension with the U.S. and international isolation, saw themselves in light of their country’s controversial stance. I imagined that Iranians were hideously misrep-resented in the media based on discussions I’ve had with my Iranian friends at Harvard who are dual citizens, and overwhelmingly, I found that to be true. Despite travel warnings and pleas by my friends and family not to travel, my month-long sojourn in Iran this summer was marked by the surprising hospitality and warmth with which I was received.

Certainly, people looked on curiously as I walked by, mainly be-cause of my ridiculous ensemble. I wore a heavy raincoat and a thick, black pashmina wrapped tightly around my face. Embarrassingly, I knew that many of the women on the street, by whom I was dread-fully outclassed, stared in wonder at my hot struggle with a constantly slipping headscarf. Fortunately, water was constantly available at mosques and it was common practice to stop on the street and take a sip from tin cups chained to the side of communal fountains. At first I was concerned about how potable the water would be, but I soon I learned to trust the tea and water I was given. I received many invita-tions to have tea and biscuits in the homes of kind strangers. Seeing how exhausted and sunburned I was, Iranians were deeply sympa-thetic; it was an expression of the natural hospitality I found common to Iranians. With each positive experience, my preconceptions of Iranian life were gradually transformed.

State authorities never singled me out for being an American. However, on the streets, my presence often caused a great commotion. When I arrived in the village of Nayriz, it was already twilight and the air had begun to cool. The rounded roofs of the small adobe houses glowed in the warm sunlight and children played in the streets. The afternoon siesta had just ended and life had revived with bustling activity. The shops were open, women bargained for groceries, and old men played chess on the sidewalks. Many families sat on carpets and blankets under the shade of trees and drank tea. It made me happy to see these rich scenes of provincial desert life. I felt fortunate to be among so many people as I passed by brightly colored shops and fragrant bakeries.

My work for the day was near its end and the last site I visited was a dilapidated mosque dating back to the 11th century. The front doors were bolted and I followed a dirt path around the mudbrick structure. I saw a group of young boys playing soccer in the adjoining open lot and as soon as they saw me, they ran up and excitedly shouted, “What’s up? What’s up?” Their greeting, translated from a sitcom on Iranian television, must have been the only English they knew. They all wore short-sleeved button-down shirts, khaki shorts and rubber sandals. The eldest boy pointed to my camera and demanded to know what I was doing in their town. Though my guide explained that I was an American researcher, they kept asking me to take their pictures so they could be in the movies. I asked about the mosque and a few of the youngest boys guided me through a collapsed entrance into the courtyard, where a majestic cypress tree stood at least four stories tall. They were all too excited about having their faces in Hollywood movies to appreciate my own curiosity and I soon resumed taking their pictures, which I promised would make it to the U.S. for many people to see.

My encounters with women never lasted as long. Young Iranian women are fashionable and carry themselves with confidence. They do not wear full burkas or cover their faces. They wear heavy makeup and let carefully placed strands of dyed hair frame their faces. Every young woman I met smiled easily and spoke with a bright voice that rung with lyrical clarity. Many were university students studying architecture, though some were training to become doctors, nurses, and officers in government agencies. While many women wore long black chadors, others dressed in fitted jackets and colorful silk scarves. At the trendier cafes in Isfahan, particularly in the Armenian quarter known as the hip part of the city, women smoked cigarettes and drank espressos. The Beatles’ “Come Together” played in the background, as the women nodded indifferently to the beat of the song.

The general apathy toward authority in Iran does not carry a defi-ant tone. The modes of resistance to the imposed behavioral laws were passive but visible. Alcohol and pop music were readily available but no one talked about such things publicly. Little girls rode on bicycles and men wore short-sleeves. The rural areas are unsurprisingly more conservative, but even in these areas the most educated people we spoke with were not afraid to offer their opinions on their quality of life.

One woman I spoke with kindly invited me to her home for tea. A delicate woman in her thirties, she lived in a rented two-room mud-brick house with her mother and her two children. She never told us the whereabouts of the children’s father but she insinuated that he was not a part of their lives. She spent her time weaving carpets that are sold in the western parts of the Middle East and, although she did not know their selling prices, she imagined they went for much more than the pittance she received. She expressed how difficult it was for a woman to find work and she explained that her only two options were to live at home and weave or work in a factory, because she could not afford the vocational training necessary for finding a different job. She also explained that she could not leave her town easily and that Iranians often raise their families and live their whole lives in the place where they are born. She never expressed resentment towards her government, but she did express the belief that life is harder now than it was for her when she was a child, perhaps a subtle comment about what life was like under a different regime.

Almost everyone is poor. The Iranians I spoke to recognize the reality of their circumstances and know that the world is watching. However, the media attention that Iranians receive does not directly affect their everyday life. Iranians don’t believe the international community will intervene on the behalf of dissidents. There is little movement towards change, mainly because Iranians struggle to achieve minimal stability and fear the consequences of escalating internal conflict. Once, I was surprised to see a small bumper sticker of the Swedish flag on a cargo truck. I soon spotted these small flags on many trucks. To many Iranians, Sweden, not America, is the land of freedom. The U.S. and its policies were frustrating to the Iranians I met who could not understand why they were being targeted for evildoing. If anything, Iranians consider themselves among the most peaceful people in the world, albeit only when disassociated from their government. The Iranians I spoke to have a powerful sense that they lack political representation and they have the suspicion that Americans are given an inaccurate view of their country. Many of the people I met felt surprised that there was any U.S. antagonism at all. They could not comprehend why they were being judged based only on the words of their president.

The feeling of awe I first felt when I arrived was soon mingled with a sense of consternation. Here was a vast, peaceful country in which the people, who are more educated than many of their neigh-bors in the region, take a largely passive stance towards a government they do not support. Instead, to circumvent government censorship, many Iranians use American IP addresses to connect to the internet. One Iranian told me that if his government mobilized the army for war no Iranian man would stand up and volunteer to fight. He said that maybe Iran should declare war and then the world could see how peaceful Iranians actually are.

Verses of the Qur’an are painted in enormous white letters on the sides of hills and mountains so that they will be visible from the highway and nearby villages. The highway is also dotted with signs that remind pious Muslims of proper behavior and proclaim praise for the Prophet and the coming of the Twelfth Imam. In my early days in Iran, feeling that I was a witness to spiritual communication, I concen-trated on each message I passed. When I learned that industrial corporations also use mountains to advertise their products, I discov-ered that I was often staring not at a message from the Prophet but at an advertisement to purchase bulk steel at low prices. Here was a small intrusion of secular life into the world of religious proselytizing.

While Islam pervades all aspects of life, there exists an equally pervasive secular way of life rooted in Iran’s pre-Islamic heritage. Every Iranian I met was proud of the country and its history. But I was fascinated to learn how deeply Iranians revered the memory of pre-Islamic Persia. The guides or curators I met at museums and historical sites always referred to pre-Islamic building practices and Achaeme-nian kings in explaining the influences on more recent constructions. (It is also worth noting that the Achaemenian king, Cyrus the Great, who ruled over 2,500 years ago, issued one of the world’s first declara-tions of individual rights, including the right to freedom of religion.) In the teahouses and restaurants, I was told which foods and spices existed before the introduction of Islam and I observed young men and women holding hands in the bazaars where the mosques were mostly locked. There was no clear dividing line between the religious and the secular. They seemed intertwined and Iranians traversed these fine lines at their convenience.

I was fortunate enough to be present for a three-day national holi-day celebrating the birthday of the Twelfth Imam, al-Mahdi, and I saw the country burst into excited celebration. Islam unified the country and on those three days, everyone was a believer. Mosques, lavishly decorated in ribbons, flowers and posters of Imam Khomeini and Grand Ayatollah Khomeini, were attended in unprecedented num-bers. Elderly men came up to my guide and me to offer us sweets and invite us to join their prayers and celebrations. Food and brightly colored syrup drinks were handed out along the road and streamers hung from every tree. The typically quiet streets were flooded with people shouting happy greetings to one another. Even then, in the midst of that chaos, I never felt unsafe as a female traveler, but walked easily in the streets among the cheering people who were queuing for food handouts. Despite our enjoyment, both my guide and I recog-nized something sad in this. We had met so many independent-minded, generous people desperate for more freedoms and greater knowledge of their world, but here they were, standing in line, jostling each other for a free meal.

Perhaps it was a sign of the cultural divide that I could not appre-ciate the full import of that momentous holiday. The serious human rights violations, torture, and suppression of free speech that I read about before coming to Iran were a constant thought in my mind. Yet what I saw before me was the momentary relaxation of cultural restrictions and the appearance that people enjoyed life and were content with their circumstances. Every experience I had in Iran confirmed this new observation, however incongruous it was with the presentation of the country I received in the media.

It greatly surprised me that, in the course of my experience in Iran, I found myself feeling safe, welcome and comfortable. Once in the company of locals, I was embraced. It is a horrible shame that Ameri-cans are presented such a dark view of Iran. What little I saw of it in a month demonstrated to me that this was a country with deep-rooted, vibrant traditions to which people cling, either to maintain a sense of national pride or because, in the face of serious criticisms by other nations, there was little else to hold the country together. An artist I met in Isfahan expressed his frustration that a country as hypocritical and corrupt as the U.S. could judge his country. This level of national-ism seemed prevalent and might have altered how Iranians ap-proached me. Women pride themselves on the freedoms they enjoy, however limited they may appear to us. Young urbanites consider themselves fashionable and rebellious. The cities move at a pace that reminds me of home, and the countryside, beset with poverty, reveals immense faith and an appreciation for a traditional way of life.

I left Iran feeling sad to go and treasuring the memories of all the things I had seen. The sun sets with an orange intensity that makes the entire desert look like it is on fire. In the cities, the mudbrick houses begin to cool and the colossal domes of the mosques emerge with splendor, glittering in the fading light.

“THE ISRAEL LOBBY”: A DEBATE

By Joel B. Pollak

Joel B. Pollak ’99 is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Cape Town. He was a political speechwriter for the Leader of the Opposi-tion in South Africa from 2002 to 2006 and is a second-year student at Harvard Law School

JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER AND STEPHEN M. WALT, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007)

ABRAHAM H. FOXMAN, The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007)
The late U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a memoir, A Dangerous Place, [1] about his brief stint as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in the mid-1970s. He recalled that in the debates leading up to the infamous “Zionism is racism” resolution in 1975, [2] Arab diplomats often found it convenient to attack the “Israel lobby.”

In one debate, during which Arab ambassadors attempted to de-fend the anti-Israel fulminations of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, Moynihan recalled: “The Libyan representative…read excerpts from a New York Times article of August 8 on the Israeli lobby and its influ-ence on Congress.” [3] Arab diplomats, confident of the backing of the Soviet Union, were certain that Americans would reject the “Israel lobby” once alerted to its nefarious presence. But U.S. support for Israel, based on shared values and interests, remained solid, even in the face of a crippling OPEC oil embargo.

Three decades have passed, and the old scapegoat has been resur-rected, not by hostile foreign emissaries but by two esteemed Ameri-can professors. This time the crisis is not an oil embargo, but the debacle in Iraq. Americans, the majority of whom favored the Iraq war at its inception, [4] now oppose it by similar margins and wonder how it happened in the first place. [5]

Enter Professors John J. Mearsheimer (University of Chicago) and Stephen M. Walt (Harvard University), who provide a fantastical, familiar, and handy explanation: blame the “Israel lobby.” Denounced by some, their argument has been judged “persuasive” by others. [6]
In The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, Mearsheimer and Walt have updated their infamous 2006 paper somewhat. [7] They even nod, prophylactically, in the direction of some of their critics (which is not the same as answering them). Fundamentally, their claim—that the “Israel lobby” is bad for America—remains unchanged and unproven.

Their argument has three parts. First, they argue that the U.S. of-fers Israel “extraordinary material aid and diplomatic support.” [8] (This is true.) Next, they argue two separate but related claims: that “the lobby is the principal reason for that support,” and that the relation-ship—which they describe as “uncritical and unconditional”—is “not in the American national interest.” [9]
And what is “the lobby”? It turns out to be “a loose coalition of in-dividuals and organizations that actively works to move U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction.” [10] This broad, amorphous definition allows the authors to blame “the lobby” for anything done by any pro-Israel individual or group.

True, Walt and Mearsheimer do admit that not everyone in “the lobby” agrees with everything “the lobby” does. But this is merely a superficial admission, made for the purposes of deflecting criticism, and is contradicted by the rest of the argument, which relies on this calculated imprecision. Such vagueness is typically the hallmark of conspiracy theories. To put it charitably: this is a polemic, not a schol-arly work.

Setting aside the absurd claim that U.S. support for Israel is “un-critical and unconditional,” [11] the authors argue that the alliance is against American interests because Israel’s policies are a motivating force for anti-American terror and that Israel has goaded the United States into invading Iraq, isolating Syria, and confronting Iran.

How do the authors prove that “[t]he United States has a terrorism problem in good part because it has long been so supportive of Israel”? [12] They don’t. They simply state that Palestinian terror groups “do not attack the United States” [13] (a claim that is demonstrably untrue), [14] but assert that Al Qaeda does because of Israel. [15]

The latter claim is denied even by the University of Chicago’s Pro-fessor Robert Pape, whom the authors rely on for many of their conclusions. In his book Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, Pape argues that groups that use suicide bombing have the common goal of pushing a foreign military to withdraw its forces from territory that the terrorists consider theirs. [16] Whatever the merits of this argument, Pape clearly believes that what motivates Al Qaeda is the presence of U.S. troops in the region, not the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. [17] But Mearsheimer and Walt distort Pape’s views, adding that those who disagree with their arguments want to protect “unconditional” U.S. support for Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians. [18]

Walt and Mearsheimer include such people as Dennis Ross and Alan Dershowitz in this group, both of whom are critical of several Israeli policies, particularly the settlements in the West Bank. [19] Here, and elsewhere, Walt and Mearsheimer indulge in the labeling and slander that they claim Israel’s defenders mobilize against critics of the Jewish state.

How do the authors prove that “the lobby” has brought the U.S. to war with half of the Middle East? They don’t. They cite newspaper reports, op-ed articles, after-dinner speeches and the like, elevating these bits of hearsay to geopolitical importance rather than presenting any concrete evidence of causation. As in their 2006 paper, they hardly cite any U.S. government documents, aside from the Iraq Liberation Act and a handful of letters and speeches. [20] They also ignore almost anything said or done by Arab states, Iran, and international terror groups.

Consider their theory that Israel and “the lobby” influenced the decision to invade Iraq. Exhibit A is a visit to Washington by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. [21] Exhibit B is an interview in a Cleveland newspaper by Ariel Sharon’s press spokesperson. [22] Exhibit C is an appearance on CNN by former Prime Minister Shimon Peres. [23] Exhibit D is an op-ed by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak. [24]

The utterances of these former Israel prime ministers and press secretaries—none of whom was in any position of real responsibility at the time—are credited with decisive influence. And “the lobby”? The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—Mearsheimer and Walt’s primary target throughout the book—never came out in support of the Iraq war, so they have a hard case there. [25] Instead, they point to the Jewish “neo-cons” in the administration, shifting the definition of “the lobby” to fill their empty argument.

Walt and Mearsheimer are on even shakier ground when it comes to Iran, downplaying the imperial ambitions of the regime and the apocalyptic fanaticism of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, both of which are a threat to U.S. interests whether or not Israel’s security is at stake.

On Syria, they describe Israel as the villain; they ignore Syria’s ex-plicit threats towards Israel and its destructive policies in Lebanon. Not even the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, in which Syria was directly implicated by the UN Security Council in 2005, merits mention. [26]

In the end, the authors resort to the foregone conclusion that lurks at the heart of any conspiracy theory: they announce that opposing “the lobby” is foolish because it is too powerful. Instead, they argue that Americans should focus on “[r]edirecting the lobby’s agenda,” backing leftist elements of “the lobby” that support a two-state solu-tion (as if the rest do not). [27] It’s a wimpy end to a very, very weak book.

Perhaps the “taboo” the authors break is not, as they claim, criticiz-ing the role of the “Israel lobby” in U.S. foreign policy. Perhaps, as the cover of the book suggests—with the red, white and blue of the U.S. flag replaced with the Israeli azure and white—what they are really suggesting is that the “lobby” controls much more.

Either way, as Moynihan might have said, we have heard it all be-fore.

***

Abe Foxman, who heads the Anti-Defamation League, attempts a response to Mearsheimer and Walt in The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control. [28] His targets include Jimmy Carter and Tony Judt along with Mearsheimer and Walt. The book is written in a simple, sing-song style, which may strike some readers as some-what pedantic.

Foxman’s attack is perhaps predictable, beginning with a descrip-tion of anti-Semitism in the U.S. He hits the mark, however, when he challenges Mearsheimer and Walt to “[w]in the policy debate” rather than attack the “lobby,” noting that instead they resort to “complain-ing about the process and suggesting that their opponents . . . are somehow using unfair tactics to withhold the victory that Mearsheimer and Walt believe they deserve.” [29]
Foxman presents several recent examples of cases in which the ADL and other Jewish groups actively opposed and criticized Israeli policy: the annexation of the Golan Heights in 1981; the (unsuccessful) attempt by Ariel Sharon to establish a Jewish settlement in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem; and a law preventing Palestini-ans who marry Israelis from living in Israel. [30]
Next, he turns to historian (and former IDF soldier, now turned anti-Zionist) Tony Judt. [31] He tells his side of the infamous cancellation of Judt’s speech at the Polish consulate in New York last year, [32] saying it should not have been stopped and denying that he was responsible for the decision to call it off: “I never actually called the Polish consu-late to complain about the Tony Judt speech.” [33] He did not “censor” Judt, he says, nor does he equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, though he believes some criticism of Israel is illegitimate.

Finally, Foxman turns to Jimmy Carter and Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. He points out the fallacy of the Israel-apartheid analogy, and says Carter deliberately provoked controversy by using the word “apartheid” in his title.

Unfortunately, Foxman uses rather sloppy language himself: “The Jews of Israel don’t want to rule the Palestinians—they want to live apart from them.” [34] The Israeli desire to separate from the Palestinian polity (as opposed to Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, who form twenty percent of the population and enjoy equal political and civil rights) has no resemblance to apartheid. Apartheid South Africa created a system of racial domination in which the existence of sepa-rate nations was a self-serving illusion reinforced by segregation laws throughout society. Nevertheless, anti-Israel partisans will make a facile feast of Foxman’s use of the word “apart.”

Foxman attacks Carter’s historical revisionism and one-sided recol-lections, drawing on criticisms provided by former Carter associate Kenneth Stein, and documents some of Carter’s apparently relig-iously-based hostility to Israel. He acknowledges that Carter is “a good man,” but argues that he, like Mearsheimer and Walt, will “give comfort and support to bigots and opportunists” who hate Jews and Israel. [35]
The “comfort and support” line of argument is somewhat disturb-ing. It can be used all too easily to shut down debate. Critics of Zim-babwe’s tyrannical government, for example, are routinely lumped with racists. But that does not mean the motives of Mearsheimer, Walt, Judt, and Carter should be entirely beyond question. Why only Israel? Why Israel more than others?

Foxman closes with an appeal to Jews—particularly “‘liberals’ or ‘progressives’” to join communal debates on Israel. Ironically, this is the same audience targeted by Mearsheimer and Walt. One is tempted to wonder why “progressives” have been elevated to such high political importance by both sides; if any group is exerting dispropor-tionate influence on the debate, it is apparently this self-regarding left-wing minority, whoever they are.

The most powerful part of Foxman’s book is actually the foreword, written by former Secretary of State George P. Schultz. In clear prose, Schultz debunks the idea that the “Israel lobby” controls American foreign policy, and defends the U.S.-Israel relationship:

We are a great nation, and our government officials invariably include brilliant, experienced, tough-minded people. Mostly, we make good decisions. But when we make a wrong decision—even one that is recommended by Israel and supported by American Jewish groups—it is our decision, and one for which we alone are responsible. We are not babes in the woods, easily convinced to support Israel’s or any other state’s agenda. We act in our own interests. [36]

Mearsheimer and Walt deserve no more than this simple, elegant and truthful response.
NOTES

[1] Daniel Patrick Moynihan with Suzanne Weaver. A Dangerous Place (Boston: Atlantic-Little, Brown, 1975).

[2] G.A. Res. 3379, U.N GAOR, 30th Sess. (Nov. 10, 1975), rescinded by G.A. Res. 46/86, U.N. Doc. A/RES/46/86 (Dec. 16, 1991).

[3] Ibid. 161.

[4] Richard Benedetto, “Poll: Most back war, but want U.N. support.” USA Today, Sunday, 16 Mar. 2003, available at http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-03-16-poll-iraq_x.htm. 58 percent of Americans were said to support the war

[5] Dalia Sussman, “Poll Shows View of Iraq War is Most Negative Since Start,” New York Times, Friday, 25 May 2007, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/25/washington/25view.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1192979227-EoHrzxr5um1tUAnXylkxLA. 61 percent of Americans said that the U.S. should not have invaded Iraq.

[6] See, e.g. Sasha F. Klein, “’Lobby Authors Confront and Transcend Controversy,” Harvard Crimson, Friday, 12 October 2007, available at http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=519981.

[7] John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” Kennedy School of Government Working Paper Number: RWP06-011, 13 March 2006, available at http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011.

[8] Mearsheimer and Walt, 14.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid., 5.

[11] There is ample evidence to the contrary, including, most recently, the U.S. State Depart-ment’s public conclusion that Israel may have violated the conditions of an arms sales agreement with the U.S. when it used cluster bombs in the closing stages of the Second Lebanon War. See Sean McCormack, “Daily Press Briefing,” United States Department of State, 29 January 2007, available at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2007/79467.htm. Other examples include numerous American protests against Israeli settlements in the occupied territories in the early 1990s, angry American reactions to Israeli arms sales to China, American objections to Israeli bombing raids against the Palestine Liberation Organization in Beirut in 1982, American condemnation of Israel’s attack against Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, and so on.

[12] Mearsheimer and Walt, 64.

[13] Ibid., 63.

[14] Palestinian and Lebanese terror groups have often targeted Americans, when such targets have been available. On October 15, 2003, Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip used a roadside bomb to kill Americans traveling in a diplomatic convoy. See “Three killed in Gaza convoy blast,” Guardian, 15 October 2003, available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1063311,00.html. Hezbollah, which the authors claim is a local phenomenon that only attacked the U.S. when American troops were in Lebanon, has hit targets overseas on occasion. Most notoriously, It has been accused of carrying out the July 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. Interpol recently issued warrants for five Iranians associated with the bombings. See Philip Sherwell, “Iranians named over Buenos Aires bombing,” Telegraph.co.uk, 12 November 2007, available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/11/wiran211.xml. In November 2006, Hamas called on Muslims worldwide to attack the United States. See Associated Press, “Hamas calls on Muslims to attack American targets,” International Herald Tribune, 8 November 2006, available at http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/11/08/africa/ME_GEN_Palestinians_Hamas.php.

[15] Ibid., 64-70.

[16] Robert Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (New York: Random House, 2005).

[17] Robert Pape, “Why the War on Terrorism Goes South?”, lecture at the 2007 Middle East & Central Asia Politics, Economics & Society Conference, University of Utah, Friday, 7 September 2007.

[18] Ibid., 64

[19] Ross said of Israeli settlements in 1999: “We [the U.S.] see settlement activity as very destructive to the pursuit of peace precisely because it predetermines and prejudges what ought to be negotiated.” See Dennis Ross, quoted in Foundation for Middle East Peace, “Settlement Timeline,” May-June 1999, available at http://www.fmep.org/reports/vol09/no3/05-settlement_timeline.html. Dershowitz has also criticized Israeli policies in the occupied territories, including the Israeli security barrier: What I don’t like is the idea of creating a security wall with political implications and implications for the ultimate resolution . . . I surely would not build a wall around the Ariel settlements or any of the other external settlements. I think that would be a terrible mistake.” See Alan Dershowitz, Speech at Royce Hall, University of California at Los Angeles International Institute, 21 October 2003, available at http://www.international.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=5071.

[20] Ibid., 426-38.

[21] Ibid., 234.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Ron Kampeas, “Groups tackle all issues but Iraq war,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 23 March 2007, available at http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/31956/edition_id/596/format/html/displaystory.html.

[26] United Nations Security Council, Report of the International Independent Investigation Commission established pursuant to Security Council resolution 1595 (2005), U.N. Doc S/2005/662, 20 October 2005 (prepared by Detlev Mehlis).

[27] Mearsheimer and Walt, 354.

[28] Foxman’s attack is directed against Mearsheimer and Walt’s original article, not their book, although the release of his book was timed to coincide with the release of theirs. Much of his critique remains relevant, since Mearsheimer and Walt did not fundamentally change the premises of their argument.

[29] Foxman, 89-90.

[30] Ibid., 113-15.

[31] In 2003, Judt declared his support for a binational state as an alternative to present-day Israel. See Tony Judt, “Israel: The Alternative,” New York Review of Books, 23 October 2003, available at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16671. Despite vociferous criticism, he has continued to defend his position and to speak out on behalf of other critics of Israel, including Mearsheimer and Walt.

[32] For a thorough critique of Judt’s response to this incident, see Christopher Hitchens, “How Uninviting,” Slate.com, 23 October 2006, available at http://www.slate.com/id/2152032.

[33] Foxman, 160.

[34] Ibid., 185.

[35] Ibid., 214.

[36] George P. Shultz, in Foxman, 17.

FOXBATS OVER DIMONA: THE LIMITS AND BENEFITS OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL ARGUMENT

By Matthew D. Klayman

Matthew D. Klayman ’10 attends Harvard College and is a History concen-trator in Quincy House.

ISABELLA GINOR AND GIDEON REMEZ, Foxbats over Dimona: The Soviets’ Nuclear Gamble in the Six-Day War (New Haven: Yale Univer-sity Press, 2007)

In Foxbats Over Dimona, authors Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez make a startling claim: that during the prelude to the Six Day War of 1967, a war widely regarded as a seminal event in the formation of the modern Middle East, Soviet pilots flew top secret MiG-25 aircraft over Israel’s nuclear reactor at Dimona. With this groundbreaking assertion, the authors seek to reevaluate the history of Soviet involvement in the Six Day War.

Foxbats Over Dimona challenges the traditional account of the conflict by arguing that the Soviet Union helped to plan, instigate, and fight the 1967 War with the aim of halting Israel’s growing nuclear ambitions. Most popular accounts tend to depict the Soviet Union as a cautious actor that wanted only to exploit regional tensions and secure political ties with Arab allies, rather than to encourage a hot war. But instead of viewing the Soviet Union as an unsuccessful moderating influence, Remez and Ginor believe that the Soviet Union would have successfully destroyed Israel’s nuclear reactor in Dimona and staged a naval desant (landing) in the city of Haifa were it not for the success of the initial Israeli strikes in response to a Soviet-Arab provocation.

Proving this claim and opposing decades of historical writing is cer-tain to be a challenging endeavor, but the authors argue that traditional historical theories are based on only a “limited foundation of sources.” [1] The authors maintain that the Soviet Union selectively released docu-ments from its archives to hide its active role in the conflict and that it forged documents in order to fool historians. In addition, the authors argue that some Soviet military orders were transmitted orally and remain undocumented. Their solution to the difficulties involved in researching Soviet archives and substantiating Soviet claims is a new approach and a new historical methodology.

They call this method “Historiography as Investigative Journalism.” [2] Rather than basing their argument on a close examination of public archival documents, they examine official documents in the context of a wide variety of sources about what they call “genuine” Soviet policy—information about “what the USSR did [rather than] what it intended.” [3] One way they try to find the truth behind flawed Soviet records is by interviewing Soviet pilots and naval officers. Another way is by analyz-ing the language of Soviet documents in search of deliberate vagueness and ambiguity. Such a “bottom up” approach to history is difficult and has its share of problems, they concede, but it can sometimes produce very important insights.

In addition to expanding the historical record of the War, Ginor and Remez’s methodology suggests a way for historians to identify false rhetoric and propaganda and logically deduce actual Soviet intentions and actions. Their system cannot always deliver what it promises, how-ever.

The authors themselves acknowledge that the most obvious and serious problem with their argument is the dearth of documented evi-dence to support it. The authors compare their investigative task to working on a giant jigsaw puzzle, but they admit to having only a very few pieces. Historian Benny Morris writes in The New Republic that the book’s thesis “rests on very flimsy evidence” and that there is “no real documentation to back it up.” [4] Many of the arguments in Foxbats Over Dimona are founded on unorthodox and retrospective readings of archi-val documents in light of newly discovered information. But without an abundance of reliable evidence, the authors’ inventive “bottom up” approach produces an argument that remains circumstantial and uncor-roborated.

The Jerusalem Post recently reported that a senior official in the Rus-sian air force confirmed the book’s claim that Soviet pilots flew secret aircraft over Israel’s nuclear reactor before the War. [5] This confirmation strengthens Remez and Ginor’s claims about Soviet aerial intervention and suggests that there are still significant facts about the conflict that are unknown and hidden by the archives. A further investigation could radically change our understanding of these historical events. Circum-stantial arguments have their limits, of course, but the pilot’s story suggests that the book and its thesis, despite their shortcomings, deserve our attention and the further investigation of historians.

NOTES

[1] Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez. Foxbats Over Dimona (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007) 5.

[2] Ibid 1.

[3] Ibid 6.

[4] Benny Morris. “Provocations,” The New Republic 237, no. 2 (2007), http://www.tnr.com (accessed October 9, 2007).

[5] David Horovitz. “Russia confirms Soviet sorties over Dimona in ‘67” Jerusalem Post, August 23, 2007, http://www.jpost.com (accessed October 9, 2007).

POLITICS, CINEMA, AND THE MIDDLE EAST: RECONSIDERING EXODUS

By Jacob M. Victor

Jacob M. Victor ’09 attends Harvard College and is a Social Studies Concentrator in Leverett House.

Imagine that an American director today decided to make a film about the founding of the State of Israel.  And imagine that in this film he depicted a steamy romance between an American protestant nurse and a young Zionist freedom fighter, described the British as hapless, slightly anti-Semitic buffoons, claimed that the Palestinian Arab leadership employed former Nazis during the Israeli War of Independence [1], and ensured that all characters in the film—Europeans, Israelis, and Arabs alike—spoke with impeccable American or British accents.  The controversies over political bias, cultural authenticity, and historical accuracy that seem to plague every current film on Middle East (such as political films like Munich and Syriana and even crude action films like The Kingdom and 300) attests to the fact that the press, academics, and politicians today would not look kindly on the kind of film described above. [2] And yet, when Otto Preminger’s Exodus—a most politically incorrect film by today’s standards—was released in 1960, it was treated by the American media with a politeness and fondness that seems rather unusual by today’s politically charged standards.

Exodus, which runs at a massive 3 hours and 28 minutes, is based on the novel of the same name by Leon Uris, and tells the epic story of a group of Jewish refugees imprisoned at a British internment camp at Cyprus, their successful attempt to reach Palestine by stealing a ship (which they rename the Exodus), and their experiences in Palestine’s sectarian, conflict-ridden political landscape leading up to Israeli War of Independence. The film focuses on the exploits of a leader in the Jewish Haganah named Ari Ben-Canaan, played by the dashing Paul Newman, and an American nurse named Kitty Fremont, played by the ethereal Eva Marie Saint, who eventually becomes Ari’s lover despite originally “feeling uncomfortable” around Jews.  It also follows the story of Dov Landau, played by Sal Mineo, a bitter Auschwitz survivor who joins the more militant Irgun, and Karen, an idealistic young girl played by Jill Heworth. [3]

The film has all the trappings of a classic epic adventure: romance, idealism, and a fight for freedom.  But its political overtones are clear.  The movie allows each party in the conflict to present its point-of-view: Ari’s uncle, the leader of the Irgun, explains why violence is necessary to force the British to leave Palestine. Ari’s Arab best friend strives for coexistence with Jews, but is ultimately treated as a traitor by the uncompromising Palestinian leadership. And a friendly British general explains that the British troops are only following orders and want to get out of Palestine as much as everyone wants to see them leave. But despite these moments of balance, the movie explicitly endorses the Zionist point-of-view and paints the founding of the Israel in the most romantic terms.  Regardless of one’s opinions on the events surrounding the creation of the State of Israel, the fact that Exodus can overtly defend one side of such a controversial piece of history, and get away with it, is quite surprising by today’s politically charged standards.

And yet, most of the political overtones, so jarring to modern sensibilities, were either ignored or overlooked in public responses to Exodus at the time of its release. Although a media frenzy developed around the film before it was released, the press paid more attention to its all-star cast and exotic filming locations than its political subject matter.  Preminger, who produced and directed Exodus, was already well known from his previous films, including Laura: Fallen Angel (1945), and Anatomy of a Murder (1959). [4] The press reported how he was immediately attracted to Leon Uris’s novel and even proposed the film before the book was released to the general public. [5] As the novel became a bestseller and the stars of the film were announced, the press began to pay even more attention to the details of the film’s production, especially the fact that the entire movie was filmed on location in Israel and Cyprus. [6] The New York Times published two articles about the large-scale casting of locals and use of actual Israeli buildings and landscapes in the filming. Special attention was paid to the “impressive” logistics of the production, including the large collection of weaponry and military vehicles gathered for the sets, and of course, the twenty camels used in desert scenes. [7]

This media blitz culminated in a front-page photo essay on the film published in the December 12, 1960 issue of Life. [8] The essay painted a rather melodramatic portrait of Exodus and included several photographs of the main characters looking contemplatively into the distance with the fields and valleys of Israel as a backdrop.  The photos were prefaced with a glowing description of the film that claims that it even “goes beyond the book.” [9] When Exodus finally opened on December 21, 1960, the premiere was attended by a wide array of celebrities, including Adlai Stevenson and Leonard Bernstein. [10] The film went on to win an Oscar for best music and was nominated for best cinematography.  Sal Mineo was also nominated for best actor in a supporting role. [11]

Exodus was fondly received by most major newspapers and magazines and many reviewers were moved by its epic scale and historical subject matter.  The New York Times called it “a dazzling, eye-filling, nerve-tingling display of a wide variety of individual and mass reactions to awesome challenges and, in some of its sharpest personal details, a fine reflection of experience that rips the heart.” [12] Time named it one of the best films of 1960 and called it a “terrific show.” [13] The Los Angeles Times remarked that the film showed a remarkable lack of political bias, claiming that despite being somewhat slanted toward the Zionist cause, all parties in the conflict “are allowed to present their ‘sides.’” [14] Film critic Stanley Kauffmann wrote one of the most flattering reviews in the New Republic and despite being critical of the second half of the movie, which he described as “not often more than superficially exciting,” he described the film as not only an entertaining story, but a “powerful instrument of contemporary truth.” [15] Even somewhat disapproving reviewers failed to make the kinds of political criticisms that one would expect today.  Roger Angell, reviewing the film in the New Yorker, criticized the cinematography, calling it “pretentious.”  He further criticized the realism of film’s plot, especially its depiction of all the sides’ willingness to talk about their disagreements. He claimed: “one begins to wonder why all the problems of the Middle East could not have been settled over a glass of tea.” [16]

Reviews criticizing the film’s political message only appeared in less mainstream sources. For example, Film Quarterly, a scholarly journal published by the University of California Press, ran a scathing review by Gideon Bachmann, in which he asserted that Exodus is not only “a bad film” but propaganda designed to be “the best promotion Israel ever had.” [17] This claim comes close to the kind of political reading one would expect today.  However, the specialized academic nature of Film Quarterly certainly ensured that the readership of Bachmann’s review was relatively small.

In trying to understand why Exodus was received so differently then than it is today, it is not enough to assume that reviewers at the time were less aware of the controversial political issues surrounding the events depicted in the movie. Several writers inside and outside the United States were publishing harsh criticisms of Israel at the time, but these criticisms seem to have been deliberately overlooked or dismissed by most of the mainstream medial when dealing with Exodus. It is instead important to ask what specifically about the film might have led Americans to embrace it.

First of all, Exodus is tremendously entertaining; it has all the grandiose features found in classic, epic Hollywood films: love stories, idealism, exciting battles, and exotic locales.  Furthermore, the story of Exodus has all the characteristics of great historical drama.  As the glowing review of the novel printed in the Nation pointed out: “[Exodus] contains in its borders and its brief modern history every conceivable element of drama—‘conquest of the desert,’ ‘return to the soil,’ ‘ingathering of exiles,’ ‘conflict of cultures,’ the ‘Promise and Fulfillment’ of Biblical prophecy.”  [18]

Many aspects of the film also resonate very strongly with a uniquely American cultural and political sensibility.  First of all, as recent historical scholarship has demonstrated, a fascination with the Middle East and with the Jews’ return to Zion is, in many ways, as American as apple pie. [19] But, even more importantly, Exodus also resonates with the more general American love of the underdog.  Ari makes this especially clear when he asks Kitty, who is skeptical of the Jews’ chances at overcoming the odds and succeeding in establishing a state, “How many men did you have at Concord the day they fired the shot heard round the world?  77.” This reference makes explicit what the audience feels during the course of the film; that the Jews’ struggle is in fact representative of a universal struggle of freedom over tyranny.  To add to this sense of universalism, the film carefully avoids overt ethnocentricity.  Although Ari is originally distrustful of non-Jews, the very Christian Kitty makes him see that “there are no differences” between people. [20] Indeed, Exodus is adept at straddling the line between particularism and universalism: the film’s ideal seems to be a world where every nation is free to realize self-determination, but where pluralism and peaceful cultural exchange – not violent struggles – are the norm.  This is the kind of a world where a Jew, like Ari Ben-Canaan, can fight for Israeli independence, while still being able to fall in love with a Christian and sustain a friendship with an Arab.

In recent years Exodus has received some of the political scrutiny that we would expect to see were a similar film released today.  Some have called it orientalist, others simply historically inaccurate, and the late Edward Said even claimed that he was alarmed to what extent the novel still defines the “narrative model that dominates American thinking.” [21] These critics would probably claim that we are all now more enlightened and sensitive to the politics of the Middle East, which is why a movie like Exodus could never receive the kind of positive treatment today that it was shown in 1960.

Still, Exodus, despite its many historical inaccuracies, is not propaganda. Rather, it is the product of a more idealistic and perhaps more optimistic time. The film’s attempt to embrace liberal nationalism and pluralism simultaneously might strike us as naïve and simplistic by today’s standards, but it is also refreshing.  Modern films about the Middle East, and especially about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, are so self-consciously political and swept up in the assumption that they must blatantly defend one specific political message that they often seem to blur the line between the creative and the polemical. The way that Exodus so unabashedly presents its idealistic stance may be jarring to our modern sensibilities, but that may be simply the result of our cynicism over the many years conflict in Middle East. Though Exodus may now be an anachronism, it might still have something to tell us about art’s potential to create an optimistic and meaningful vision, which we can, at the very least, still hope to see fulfilled.

NOTES

[1] Although the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was allied with Hitler during World War II the claim that Nazis came to Palestine after the war is of quite dubious historical validity.

[2] For instance, the recent film The Kingdom, which tells the story of an American FBI team charged with investigating a terrorist bombing in Saudi Arabia was panned by many critics, not for plot and acting, but for cultural insensitivity.  The New York Post, for example described the film as “xenophobic” and “pandering” (see Lumenick, Lou. “The King-dumb.” New York Post Sept. 28, 2007)

[3] Exodus. Dir. Otto Preminger. United Artists, 1960.

[4] Fujiwara, Chris. “Otto Preminger.” Senses of Cinema. http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/02/preminger.html

[5] Pryor, Thomas M. “Preminger Plans Movie on Israel.” New York Times May 26, 1958: 25.

[6] Thompson, Howard. “Preminger Tells of ‘Exodus’ Plans.” New York Times Dec. 9, 1959: 58.

[7] Hift, Fred. “Guiding a Film ‘Exodus.’” New York Times Apr. 17, 1960: X5.
Crowther, Bosley. “Film Cameras Over the Holy Land.” New York Times May 15, 1960: X1.
[8] Cover image courtesy of: http://cgi.ebay.com/LIFE-MAGAZINE-1960-HAWORTH-MINEO-EXODUS-WALKERVILLE-MT_W0QQitemZ150092435481QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

[9] “A People’s Return to the Promised Land.” Photographs by Gjon Mili. Life Dec. 12, 1960: 70-76.

[10] “‘Exodus’ Draws Crowd.” New York Times Dec. 16, 1960: 44.

[11] “Exodus (1960).” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053804/

[12] Crowther, Bosley. “Screen: A long ‘Exodus.’” Review of Exodus, dir. Otto Preminger. New York Times Dec. 16, 1960: 44.

[13] “The Best Pictures of 1960.” Time Jan. 2, 1961.

[14] Scheuer, Philip K. “‘Exodus’ the Record of a New Genesis.” Review of Exodus, dir. Otto Preminger. Los Angeles Times Dec. 11, 1960: B3.

[15] Kauffmann, Stanley. “Double Feature,” Review of Exodus, dir. Otto Preminger. New Republic Dec. 19, 1960: 21-22.

[16] Angell, Roger. “The Current Cinema: 3:45 Flat.” Review of Exodus, dir. Otto Preminger. New Yorker Dec. 17, 1960: 136-138.

[17] Bachmann, Gideon. “Exodus.” Review of Exodus, dir. Otto Preminger. Film Quarterly 14.3 (Spring, 1961): 56-59.

[18] Wakfield, Dan. “Israel’s Need for Fiction.” Review of Exodus, by Leon Uris and The Anglo-Saxons, by Lester Gorn. Nation Apr. 11, 1959: 318-319.

[19] See: Oren, Michael B. Power, Faith, and Fantasy America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007.

[20] Exodus. Dir. Otto Preminger. United Artists, 1960.

[21] Said, Edward. “Propaganda and War.” Al-Ahram Weekly Online 549 (Aug. 30-Sept. 5, 2001). http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/549/op9.htm

RECOMMENDED BOOKS

JEWS AND POWER
Ruth R. Wisse (Nextbook, Schocken, 2007)

Harvard University’s Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Lit-erature, Ruth R. Wisse, explores the Jewish relationship to power across Jewish history in Israel and the Diaspora, particu-larly the Jewish trend towards “moral solipsism” and the “poli-tics of accommodation.” She also explores the effects of anti-Semitism on Jewish politics, on liberal democracies in general, and on anti-Semitic regimes.

THE TRUTH ABOUT SYRIA
Barry Rubin (Pelgrave Macmillan, 2007)

Professor Barry Rubin, MERIA Editor and Director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center, investigates the motivations behind the Syrian government’s policies and their effects on global politics.

CHURCHILL’S PROMISED LAND: ZIOMISM AND STATECRAFT
Michael Makovsky (Yale University Press, 2007)

Dr. Michael Makovsky, a recipient of a Ph.D. in Diplomatic History from Harvard University, explores the role that Zion-ism played in the political thought of Winston Churchill. He traces the development of Churchill’s worldview, political strategies, and attitude towards Zionism across his career.

ISLANDS OF AGREEMENT: MANAGING ENDURING ARMED RIVALRIES
Gabriella Blum (Harvard University Press, 2007)

Through case studies of protracted conflicts between Pakistan and India, Turkey and Greece, and Israel and Lebanon, Assis-tant Professor of Law at Harvard Law School Gabriella Blum expounds a strategy involving the creation of limited areas of peace and prosperity amid bitter fighting. She argues that in cases where wholesale conflict prevention or resolution may be impossible, “islands of agreement” reduce suffering and pave the way toward broader accords.

RECOMMENDED BLOGS

MIDDLE EAST STRATEGY AT HARVARD (http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh)

Middle East Strategy at Harvard (MESH) is a project of the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at the Weatherhead Center for In-ternational Affairs, Harvard University. MESH is a community of scholars who are interested in the formulation of U.S. policy toward the Middle East. MESH is convened by Harvard Uni-versity’s Beton Michael Kaneb Professor of National Security and Military Affairs, Stephen P. Rosen, and by Olin Institute Senior Fellow Martin Kramer. Its members include some of the most distinguished commentators on U.S. foreign policy.

MICHAEL J. TOTTEN’S MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL
(http://michaeltotten.com)

Michael Totten, a liberal freelance journalist and blogger whose views have shifted from opposition to support of America’s foreign policy, writes brilliant articles about his experiences and research in many parts of the Middle East.

FOREIGN POLICY WATCH
(http://fpwatch.blogspot.com)

Foreign Policy Watch is written by an undergraduate at Brown University, Jeb Koogler, and is one of the best student blogs around. His observations on foreign policy are a constant source of interesting information and reflections.

ACROSS THE BAY
(http://beirut2bayside.blogspot.com)

Tony Bey, a Research Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and blogger on Lebanese and Syrian affairs, is a source of interesting information and compelling analy-sis of the policies and actions of the Lebanese and Syrian governments.

Editor’s Note

By Julia I. Bertelsmann

Julia I. Bertelsmann ‘09 attends Harvard College and is an Economics concentrator living in Eliot House.

NEW SOCIETY was born in late December 2006 when twenty-seven Harvard undergraduates visited the Shalem Center in Jerusalem as participants in the Harvard Israel Leadership Initiative (HILI). Like the initiative, the journal aims to encourage students and faculty members to debate positive visions for the future of the Middle East. We begin with the question: what should a peaceful, prosperous Middle East look like?

The inaugural edition of New Society features a combination of long, scholarly essays, shorter op-ed style articles, and reflections, plus an interview and write-ups of events on campus. Future editions will feature reviews of books, films and concerts, photographs, and artwork. The journal will publish students, faculty members, and associated scholars based on the quality of their scholarship and writing and on the innovation of their ideas.
The journal is largely inspired by the intellectual vibrancy and influence of a formidable group of students who became known as the “New York Intellectuals” on account of their prolific contributions to American political, economic, and cultural thought several decades ago.

Ladan Boroumand: From Iranian Revolutionary to Human Rights Advocate

By Abigail R. Fradkin

Abigail R. Fradkin ‘09 attends Harvard College and is a Classics and Government concentrator living in Lowell House.

Shahla Ka’bi. Age: 34. Nasrin Ka’bi. Age: 27. Date of Execution: August 27, 1980. Location: Sanandaj, Iran. Mode of Execution: Shooting. Charges: “Corruption on earth”; Providing medical care to counter-revolutionaries; Unspecified counterrevolutionary offense.

Remember: Shahla and Nasrin Ka’bi, two nurses arrested and executed by the Iranian Islamic revolutionary government during a military crackdown in the province of Kurdistan. After being arrested and exiled, brought back, then rearrested, the sisters spent three months in prison. During that time they were denied access to legal counsel, forbidden contact with relatives, and interrogated by the Revolutionary Guard. The Jomhuri Eslami daily from August 31, 1980 reported that the sisters had been charged with “participation in recent clashes” and “collaboration with the insurgents.” But authorities told the family that the sisters were arrested for providing care to opponents of the revolution. On the evening of August 26, 1980, Sadeq Khalkhali, an itinerant religious judge at the Sanandaj prison, sentenced the nurses to death at dawn. A fellow prisoner survived to tell the tale to the family. He described the execution as follows:

Iran: The Inside Story

By James R. Russell

James R. Russell is the Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at the Near East Department and the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University.

The first confusing and inconvenient thing to know is that Persia and Iran are the same thing. Iran (note to self: look at map) resembles a comfy pussycat sitting up, with its ears between Turkey and the Caspian Sea. Its furry southwestern belly is the province of Fars. The Arabs conquered the latter in the seventh century and didn’t say “p” then, either, so Pars got its modern name. The language thereof, properly called Persian, came to be pronounced as “Farsi”— and it is all very well to refer to it that way only if you are equally agreeable to call the language you are more likely studying, if you are an American, Español rather than Spanish. The old word parsa meant “broad-shouldered”, as in “Hello, big guy.” The equally self-complimentary aryanam, from which we get Iran (Ee-ráwn, not pronoun plus preterite “I ran”), meant “(expanse) of the noble ones”. As in “Yo, noble one,” I suppose.

It is sometimes useful to come from a country with two unrelated, though similarly laudatory, designations. During the 1979 hostage crisis a friend of mine was walking across the University of Utah campus and some football players asked him where he was from. “Iran,” he said. So they punched him in the nose. A few days later a similar company posed the same question. “Persia,” he replied. “That’s cool, man,” said his interlocutor. “My girlfriend has a Persian cat.” If you memorize this humorous, true story you’ll be able to remember that Iran and Persia are the same, they speak Persian there, and the country is shaped like a cat.

Anti-Arab Racism in the Military

By Michael A. Carey

Michael A. Carey is a graduate of Brigham Young University, a veteran of the Iraq war and a pilot in the Rhode Island National Guard. He is a first-year student at Harvard Law School.

 

I.

I spent just over three months at Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait during my last active duty deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Toward the end of my tour I made my way over to the Kuwaiti side of the base to buy some souvenirs. I caught a ride on a van and found a seat near the back. After going through the security checkpoint that separated the living quarters from the rest of the base, the driver looked back and asked where everyone was headed.

“I’m going to the Kuwaiti Store,” I replied, referring to a little shop that sold cheap trinkets and pirated CDs. A few moments later, a thoughtful airman sitting in the seat next to me looked in my direction. “Thanks for calling it the Kuwaiti Store,” he said. That was the end of our conversation, but I knew precisely what he meant. No one ever called that little shop the “Kuwaiti Store”; the troops almost universally referred it as the “Hajji Store”. I had never consciously decided not to use the term “Hajji,” but it always seemed too much like saying “nigger” or “Jap” for me to be comfortable. I was surprised that another airman had consciously thought about the term, and that he would thank a total stranger for avoiding it.

The Case for Kurdistan

By Chia N. Mustafa

Chia N. Mustafa ‘09 attends Harvard College and is a Government concentrator living in Kirkland House.

I.

As I learned it growing up in Kurdistan, the myth of the creation of the Kurdish people goes something like this: long ago there lived an evil Assyrian king named Dehaq, cursed with two giant man-eating snakes extending from his shoulders. The snakes grew and slowly took control of the old king’s mind. To sustain the snakes, the king ordered that human brains be mixed into a stew and fed to them everyday. As the snakes began to demand ever more food, the king sacrificed ever more of his subjects. One of the palace guard sabotaged the king’s plan to slaughter innocents by mixing sheep’s brains into the vile stew and saving half the people who would otherwise have been slaughtered. These survivors were sent to the far eastern corner of the kingdom, where they lived in the mountains and became the mythic founders of the Kurdish nation.

On their inadequate diet of sheep’s brains, the snakes grew weaker. The king soon uncovered the deceit of his guard, who was promptly killed and fed to the snakes. After weeks of welcoming new arrivals to their refuge in the mountains, the Kurds noticed that something was amiss when the stream of visitors and exiles stopped. Even though they now thrived, they could never forget the terror of King Dehaq and constantly thought of those who were still suffering in their homeland.

Toward a Positive Palestinian Nationalism

 

By Joel B. Pollak

Joel B. Pollak is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Cape Town. He was a political speechwriter for the Leader of the Opposition in South Africa from 2002 to 2006 and is a first-year student at Harvard Law School.

“The Palestinian situation itself is remediable, since it is human beings who make history and not the other way round.”
-Edward Said, “These are the realities,” Al-Ahram, April 2001[1]

 

I.

On January 23, 2007, former President Jimmy Carter addressed a packed forum at Brandeis University’s Shapiro Gymnasium to defend his recently released book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. The largely Jewish audience applauded him warmly (defying the canard that Jews are viscerally hostile to criticism of Israel), and did so in spite of Carter’s refusal to debate Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz—or anyone else—at the event.

Dershowitz—who had written several scathing reviews of Carter’s book[2]—was only allowed to address the gathering after Carter had already left. After rebutting Carter’s claims, he opened the floor to questions and invited each of his interlocutors to ask a follow-up question as well. The more hostile, the better, he said.

Liberté, Egalité, Futilité

By Gabriel M. Scheinmann

Gabriel M. Scheinmann ‘08 attends Harvard College and is a Government concentrator living in Eliot House. He is a dual citizen of France and the United States.

On March 12, 2003, French-American relations were at their lowest nadir since General Charles de Gaulle occupied L’Elysee. Congressman Bob Ney of Ohio, Chair of the Committee of House Administration at the time, renamed all French fries served in House cafeterias “Freedom fries,” calling the gesture a “small, but symbolic effort to show the strong displeasure of many on Capitol Hill with the actions of our so-called ally, France.”[1] Rather than react with anger or acknowledge Ney’s ploy as a personal affront, designed to excoriate the French for blocking a second United Nations resolution authorizing the Second Iraq War, the French Embassy declined to comment and meekly announced that French fries were actually Belgian.

This amusing episode trivializes the greater tensions between French and American policies on the Middle East. The two freedom-loving countries are at loggerheads with one another over almost every major policy issue concerning the region and they seldom pass up an opportunity to talk past one another. While the French accuse Yankee foreign policy as imperialistic, materialistic, and unilateral, Americans revel in reminding the Frogs that if it were not for the U.S. army, the French would be speaking German and eating bratwurst.

Saudi Arabia in the Post-Gulf War Era

By Ondrej Beranek

Ondrej Beranek is a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, and a Ph.D. candidate at the Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic. In 2003, he received a scholarship from the University of King Saud in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he underwent intensive training in the history and culture of Arab countries and in Arabic language. He recently finished his doctoral dissertation, entitled “Saudi Arabia Between Traditions and Modernity—Domestic Policy, Salafi Ideology and Foreign Relations.” The author thanks Hannah-Louise Clark for her invaluable comments on an earlier draft of this article.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an unusual country. Saudi identity is closely bound to its position as the guardian of Islam’s two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina. Regardless of the fundamental disagreements among Islam’s variant forms—Sunni and Shi’ite, Sufi and Salafi—hundreds of millions of Muslims all around the world look toward Mecca, the birthplace of their religion, five times a day. As an inevitable consequence of its control of Mecca and Medina and its vast oil reserves, the Kingdom is positioned to exert considerable influence on Muslim culture and thought. Finally, Saudi Arabia bears some responsibility for the international spread of a puritanical and radicalized form of Islam. Ironically, the very same radical Islam presents the greatest threat to the stability of the Saudi regime.

The Kingdom’s oil wealth and close alliance with the United States have given radical movements and miscreant Middle Eastern states cause to doubt both the religious and political legitimacy of the regime. The Saudi royals have overcome threats before—Arab nationalism in the 1950s and 1960s, Iranian revolutionary Islam in the 1980s, Saddam Hussein in the 1990s. But it is unclear whether Saudi Arabia’s rulers can survive the current onslaught of Islamism, which, reinvigorated by the First Gulf War in 1990-1991, threatens their religious legitimacy.

The Unmaking of U.N. Resolution 242: The Story of how Resolution 242 was Undone Before it was Even Finished

By Danielle R. Sassoon

Danielle R. Sassoon ‘08 attends Harvard College and is a History and Literature concentrator living in Dunster House.

Five years ago, sixty-one Harvard professors and fifty-two MIT professors signed a petition calling for universities and American companies to divest from Israel, partly due to Israel’s failure to comply with United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, which calls for “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from occupied territories.” The professors failed to mention, or perhaps to understand, that Resolution 242 predicates withdrawal on the establishment of safe and secure boundaries for Israel.

Since its passage on November 22, 1967, U.N. Resolution 242 has served as a framework and foundation for Arab-Israeli peace negotiations. A basis for the 1978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, and employed and referenced in peace talks ever since, Resolution 242 seems to be one of the few areas of common ground between Israel and its neighbors. Unfortunately, many––including former President Jimmy Carter in his new controversial book––have misinterpreted the meaning of Resolution 242 and invoked it incorrectly to justify a biased political agenda. Resolution 242 has become synonymous with demands for Israel to withdraw unilaterally from the occupied territories and allow all Palestinian refugees to return to pre-1967 Israel. Yet a reexamination of the making of Resolution 242 reveals that the recent interpretation of 242 has diverged significantly from its framers’ intent.

Familiarity Breeds Contempt: Dialogue at Harvard on the Middle East

By Jacob M. Victor

Jacob M. Victor ’09 attends Harvard College and is a Social Studies concentrator living in Leverett House.

When Mark Twain coined the famous phrase “familiarity breeds contempt” he was describing the human tendency to look down upon those closest to us. Unfortunately the opposite is also true: a constant exposure to familiar ideas often leads us to become more and more disdainful of the viewpoint furthest from our own

At Harvard, over the past year, this tendency has taken a dangerous new turn. While Harvard’s pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups all invited many interesting, thoughtful speakers throughout the year, these events were trumped by two speakers who were chosen because they presented the views familiar to each side in an unfamiliar form. Both these speakers were chosen because of their unusual identities, rather than the substance of their scholarship.

Circle of Women

By Cristina M. Ros

Cristina M. Ros ‘08 attends Harvard College and is a Comparative Study of Religion concentrator (with a focus on Islam and Christianity) living in Quincy House

Most Harvard students agree that the best education comes from classmates. On a late Thursday night in March 2006, B. Britt Caputo ’08 and Clotilde Dedecker ’09 sat in a dorm room and discussed how they could make a difference. They brought a powerful combination of ideas: Caputo wanted to use the bountiful resources available to Harvard students to benefit society; Dedecker had previously founded the Buffalo School Coalition, which helped build a girls’ school in the rural town of Wonkhai in Afghanistan’s Wardak Province, while she was in high school.

After learning about Caputo’s enthusiasm and Dedecker’s experience, I dove into the effort. I am a child of Cuban immigrants and I have been raised to value education as the one asset that no one can take away. Dedecker and Caputo both attended girls’ schools through high school, and credit their successes to the leadership, confidence and competence that these institutions foster. We have all enjoyed vast educational opportunities we know from experience how precious those opportunities have been.

The Falafel Stand

5 Recommended Books

• Martyrdom in Islamic History by David Cook (Cambridge University Press: January 2007)
• Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present by Michael Oren (W.W. Norton: January 2007)
• Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Free Press: February 2007)
• Iran: A People Interrupted by Hamid Dabashi (New Press: March 2007)
• Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life by Sari Nusseibeh (Farrar, Straus and Giroux: March 2007)

5 Recommended Blogs

Guide to the Perplexed (http://guidetotheperplexed.blogspot.com), by our very own Editor-at-Large, Joel B. Pollak.

A discussion of human rights and conflict resolution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It was recently nominated for recognition Best Left Wing Blog and Best New Blog in the Jewish and Israeli Blog Awards.

Iraq the Model (http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com)

A firsthand view of the Iraq conflict, written by an Iraqi living in Baghdad, who supports American policy in the region.

Michael J. Totten’s Middle East Journal (http://michaeltotten.com)

Writings on the Middle East by a liberal freelance journalist and blogger whose views have shifted from opposition to support of America’s foreign policy.

Foreign Policy Watch (http://fpwatch.blogspot.com)

One of the best student blogs around, 19-year-old Jeb Koogler’s observations on foreign policy are a constant source of interesting information and reflections.

The Syria Monitor (http://syriamonitor.typepad.com)

News on the Syrian opposition movement and human rights activism, compiled by the Center for Liberty in the Middle East.

Games People Play

Peacemaker (http://www.peacemaker.com; $20)

This computer game puts you in the role of the Israeli Prime Minister or Palestinian President. Your goal: save the region and avoid a third intifada.

Global Conflicts: Palestine (http://www.seriousgames.dk/gc.html; coming soon)

This forthcoming game centers on the adventures of a young journalist in Israel who has to shape the region’s future by writing balanced newspaper articles. Mission impossible? Find out soon!