The Middle East, what else?
Like so many others, I had been a dove in Middle Eastern (read: Arab/Israel) affairs for a long time. My belief was that the Palestinian people had been displaced, in a modern example of the zero-sum nature of history, and that they deserved a state and the assistance and respect of their neighbors, the Jews of Israel. Part of this was tactical; you can’t win every time, and the reality is that Israel only gets to lose once. Better to work for a stable peace, I felt.
Like so many others, I’ve changed my mind. Not about Israel getting to lose once – that’s still the sad and frightening truth – but about the ability of the Palestinian population, as presently organized, to support a state. And, bluntly, about the question of whether they have earned one.
On the second question, the harsh reality is that had Arafat led 100,000 Arab people on a peaceful march to the sea…imagine a modern version of the “Salt March” of Gandhi…he’d have won already. Picketing, boycotts, and marches…the vocabulary of the American Civil Rights movement…would have granted him an unassailable moral high ground, and Israel would within months have been negotiating on his terms.
But for a variety of historical, social, and I would imagine psychological reasons, Arafat is incapable of that kind of moral leadership. Actually, that’s unfair. He’s not alone. Where in the modern Arab are the contemporary Ataturks?
On the first question, I am still confused as to why it is that people widely believe that social and political institutions which took close to two hundred years to mature and grow in Western societies can simply be transplanted like rose cuttings into societies, cultures, and political environments that simply cannot support them.
We assume that we can create Western democracies by fiat, and I just don’t understand why the absurdity of that position isn’t more apparent. The only case I am aware of in which anything close to this has been accomplished was in post WWII Japan, where the incredibly strong sense of nation, and the clear support of those who held whatever legitimacy remained made a form of democratic government possible.
So the Palestinians don’t deserve a state, and probably couldn’t maintain one. So just what the hell is to be done?? Personally, I’m not sure, but I think it highly likely that a number of people will have to die before any positive result becomes possible. The political task, as I see it, is to keep them from being my sons.