Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

This is a short article I published in the ISIM Newsletter in 2002. Ironically, it was posted online by “CampusWatch,” a site created by Daniel Pipes, whose views I criticize in it. Presumably someone at CampusWatch posted the article because, although I am critical of the neoconservative view of the Middle East, I am also critical of some of my fellow Middle East experts who seem determined to ignore the more odious aspects of militant Islamic movements.

It should be obvious that it is unethical to object to the antisemitism lite of a Pat Robertson or an Ann Coulter while ignoring the more obvious antisemitism that pervades many Islamist texts. One can be, and should be, outraged by both the simplistic neoconservative cant about “Islamofascism” and much of what is said and done by Islamists. One can be, and should be, outraged by what Israel is doing to the people of Gaza. But this does not entail portraying Hamas as the innocent victim of “Islamophobia.” One can be, and should be, outraged by the neoconservative effort to induce the government of the United States to attack Iran. But this not entail ignoring the vile Holocaust denial of Ahmedinejad.

By failing to condemn that which deserves condemnation, many prominent Middle East experts unintentionally help the neoconservatives portray all critics of Israel as antisemites. Analyzing the nationalistic and anti-imperialist dimensions of Islamic militancy is legitimate. Ignoring the reactionary and xenophobic dimensions of Islamic militancy is not.

There is a middle path between demonization and idealization. And that is the path that should be taken by serious analysts of Islamic militancy.

Henry Munson, Between Pipes and Esposito, ISIM Newsletter, July 2002

Shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy published a short book (137 pages) by Martin Kramer entitled Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America. Kramer is the editor of the Middle East Quarterly, a journal founded by Daniel Pipes and others who feel that the discipline of Middle Eastern Studies, as practised in the United States, has become too pro-Arab and too ‘dovish’. Kramer, a former director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, shares Pipes’s views, though he has generally been less strident in expressing them. Ivory Towers on Sand is primarily a critique of scholars dealing with issues related to American foreign policy in the Middle East. Kramer is not especially troubled by current trends in the study of Sufi poetry.

Both Kramer and Pipes, like their intellectual mentor Bernard Lewis, view the Muslim world as inherently irrational, violent, and above all, anti-Semitic. The Arabs in particular only understand force. They will behave only if they are beaten mercilessly. The American government should not waste time trying to address their alleged grievances, or those of Muslims in general, because these all boil down to primitive hatred of the infidel and resentment that the infidel now dominates the believer instead of the other way around (Lewis 1990).This view of the Islamic world underlies the policies of the Sharon government in Israel and the policies favoured by at least some members of the American administration. So the issues at stake are by no means strictly academic.

British Teacher Found Guilty in Sudan - New York Times, November 29, 2007

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov. 29 — The British teacher in Sudan who let her 7-year-old pupils name a class teddy bear Muhammad was found guilty on Thursday of insulting Islam and sentenced to 15 days in jail and deportation.

Under Sudanese law, the teacher, Gillian Gibbons, could have spent months in jail and been lashed 40 times.

Munson: Condoleeza Rice did not foresee that invading Iraq would strengthen the very Islamists the invasion was supposed to weaken and for years she ignored the critical importance of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even now that she has begin focusing on this issue, the Annapolis conference she organized was poorly timed and unproductive. Moreover, her statement that “like the Israelis,” she knows what it is like to be “afraid to go to your church,” was remarkably naive. All of this notwithstanding, however, it is clear that Rice understands the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a way that President Bush never has.

Rice, Israeli Official Share Perspectives - washingtonpost.com, November 29, 2007

Rice began by saying she did not want to draw historical parallels or be too self-reflective, but as a young girl she grew up in Birmingham, Ala., “at a time of separation and tension.”

She noted that a local church was bombed by white separatists, killing four girls, including a classmate of hers.

“Like the Israelis, I know what it is like to go to sleep at night, not knowing if you will be bombed, of being afraid to be in your own neighborhood, of being afraid to go to your church,” she said.

But, she added, as a black child in the South, being told she could not use certain water fountains or eat in certain restaurants, she also understood the feelings and emotions of the Palestinians.

“I know what it is like to hear to that you cannot go on a road or through a checkpoint because you are Palestinian,” she said. “I understand the feeling of humiliation and powerlessness.”

Olmert to Haaretz: Two states, or Israel is done for - Haaretz, November 29, 2007

WASHINGTON - “If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Haaretz Wednesday, the day the Annapolis conference ended in an agreement to try to reach a Mideast peace settlement by the end of 2008.

Munson: Beers, Goldenberg and Barry are right to say that the term “Islamofascism” is often used in ways that obscure fundamental differences. They are wrong, however, to suggest that conservatives are generally unaware of this. The truth is that conservatives like Andrew Bacevich and Leon Hadar have been among the most insightful critics of the neoconservative tendency to obscure the very different goals of different Islamist movements.

The Myth of “Islamofascism” | National Security Network, November 14, 2007

The Myth of “Islamofascism”

By Rand Beers, Ilan Goldenberg and Patrick Barry

“Violent, radical jihadists want to replace all the governments of the moderate Islamic states, replace them with a caliphate. And to do that, they also want to bring down the West, in particular us. And they’ve come together as Shi’a and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda with that intent.” – Mitt Romney, 5/15/07

“The first step toward a realistic peace is to be realistic about our enemies. They follow a violent ideology: radical Islamic fascism, which uses the mask of religion to further totalitarian goals and aims to destroy the existing international system.” – Rudy Giuliani 10/07.

“Islamic fascism has declared war on us and the Western world. Their intent is to bring down Western civilization,” – Fred Thompson 10/30/07

Since 9/11 conservatives have continually lumped various groups and countries together including Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda in Iraq, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran into one threat that they term “Islamofascism.” The reality is much complicated. These various groups and countries have different intentions and capabilities, often work at cross purposes and are in some cases ideologically opposed to each other. In fact, Shi’a-Sunni tension across the Middle East is at an all time high, only further reinforcing the fact that these groups are different.

The simplistic term “Islamofascism” undermines America’s national security. By confusing these various threats, conservatives make it impossible to pursue effective policies. This ideological approach has caused the United States to miss numerous opportunities, where it could have played these groups off of each other to America’s benefit. Moreover, the term “Islamofascism” creates the perception that the United States is fighting a religious war against Islam, thus alienating moderate voices in the region who would be willing to work with America towards common goals. Dividing these groups and dealing with them separately is a far better policy than lumping them together.

Ignatius, The Spy Who Wants Israel to Talk, WP, Nov. 11, 2007

JERUSALEM — Efraim Halevy, the former head of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, titled his memoirs “Man in the Shadows.” But now that he’s out in the sunlight, the 72-year-old retired spy chief has some surprisingly contrarian things to say about Iran and Syria. The gist of his message is that rather than constantly ratcheting up the rhetoric of confrontation, the United States and Israel should be looking for ways to establish a creative dialogue with these adversaries.

Halevy is a legendary figure in Israel because of his nearly 40 years of service as an intelligence officer, culminating in his years as Mossad’s director from 1998 to 2003. He managed Israel’s secret relationship with Jordan for more than a decade, and he became so close to King Hussein that the two personally negotiated the 1994 agreement paving the way for a peace treaty. So when Halevy talks about the utility of secret diplomacy, he knows whereof he speaks.

Of course, Halevy looks like the fictional master spy George Smiley — thinning hair, wise but weary eyes, the rumpled manner of someone who might have been a professor in another life. And Halevy has the gift of anonymity: You would look right past him in a crowded room, never imagining that he was the man who had conducted daring secret missions. After he appeared here with former CIA director George Tenet at a conference sponsored by the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center, Halevy agreed to sit down for an interview.

Halevy suggests that Israel should stop its jeremiads that Iran poses an existential threat to the Jewish state. The rhetoric is wrong, he contends, and it gets in the way of finding a peaceful solution to the Iranian nuclear problem.

“I believe that Israel is indestructible,” he insists. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may boast that he wants to wipe Israel off the map, but Iran’s ability to consummate this threat is “minimal,” he says.

Tom Segev, The 29th of November, then and now - Haaretz, November 29, 2007

On Saturday night, November 29, 1947, many of the Jews in the Land of Israel went out to dance in the streets of the cities. They were celebrating the United Nations decision to establish a Jewish state in part of the country. The Arabs were also supposed to get a state, but they went to war.

In his new book, Yoav Gelber, a professor of history at the University of Haifa, ponders what would have happened had the Arabs agreed to the Partition Plan adopted by the UN 60 years ago today. “We can only guess,” writes Gelber cautiously.

Such guessing fires the imagination: It is possible that everything would have happened as it did, from one war to the next. The Zionist movement invested great efforts into attaining a majority in favor of partition, but the borders proposed by the UN were far from being an answer to its yearnings. Had the Arabs agreed to those lines, the Zionists might have rejected them.

In any case, everyone knew that it was not the UN that would determine the borders of the country, but rather the outcome of the war. Israel today controls an area about twice the size of the area it was allotted on November 29, 1947. The partition resolution can therefore be seen as the mother of all the ensuing diplomatic fictions, from Security Council Resolution 242 to the “road map.”

In recent months, we have marked a number of significant dates that offered an opportunity for similar pondering: the 90th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, the 70th anniversary of Lord Peel’s partition plan, the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War, the 30th anniversary of Anwar Sadat’s visit.There is no point in asking who is to blame, the questions which usually dominate such discussions. There is a point to trying to understand why it is so difficult for the two sides to end the conflict, and where they erred.

It is not easy to understand why so many Israelis still believe that a large Israel without peace is better than a small Israel with peace, and why Israeli patriotism is usually identified with expanding borders rather than with the desire for Jewish and democratic borders. But the really important question is this: Who has more to lose in the present situation? The answer is clear: Israel. Not only because of Iran, Hamas and the weakness that was revealed in the Second Lebanon War. With every settler who moves to the territories and with every Palestinian child who is killed by Israel Defense Forces fire, Israel loses some of the moral justification that led to the decision on the 29th of November 60 years ago. The Palestinians have already lost almost everything they had.

AFP / Getty
Newly graduated Iraqi soldiers parade at Bismaya military camp in the southeastern outskirts of Baghdad.

Charles Crain, The Mahdi Militia: Quiet But Not Gone, TIME, Nov. 27, 2007

In the east Baghdad neighborhood patrolled by Capt. Mike Juarez and the men of Charlie Company, 1-8 Cavalry, Iraq’s most feared militia is keeping its head down. Since Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army declared a unilateral cease-fire at the end of August, the Americans have been able operate freely in some of Baghdad’s worst areas, and have faced very few serious attacks. But in Juarez’s neighborhood, as elsewhere, the militia retains an insidious weapon: a presence within the Iraqi government’s security forces.

On a recent night patrol Juarez and his men went door to door, discussing everything from electricity to security with residents. One home had a picture of Sadr, the militia chieftain, on display in the living room. It turned out that the man of the house was a member of the Iraqi security forces.

In the back-and-forth that followed, the man told the Americans that he did not work with the militia, and did not have any colleagues who did either. Eventually, though, he said he might know a few cops or soldiers whose loyalties lie with the Mahdi Army (”Jaish al-Mahdi” in Arabic, “JAM” in the parlance of U.S. soldiers). The Americans left the man with a phone number to call so he could leave anonymous tips.

Talking about the exchange outside the man’s house, the Americans were skeptical. “He’s probably in the JAM,” said Lt. Michael Shevcik. The next day Juarez concurred. “Yes, one hundred percent. He’ll never call.”

With the Mahdi Army’s cease-fire mostly holding up, it’s hard to say exactly how much influence the militia still retains within Iraqi police and army units. Officers in 1-8 say the problem has declined over the course of the year. But on the streets of east Baghdad the signs are less reassuring. Juarez and his men noted that the perpetrators of a recent rocket attack on their base had to pass through an Iraqi Army checkpoint, raising the possibility that Iraqi soldiers turned a blind eye.

American commanders acknowledge that men affiliated with the militia are still working within Iraqi police and army units. But in areas like the one patrolled by 1-8 Cavalry — which borders the militia stronghold of Sadr City — anyone of any consequence is affiliated, at least to some extent, with the militia or Sadr’s political organization.