THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 117, May 8, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
ISRAEL'S PREDICAMENT AT SIXTY:
WORLD'S WORST NEIGHBORHOOD
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
THE CURSE UNDER WHICH THE STATE OF ISRAEL LIVES: THE CONSTANT THREAT OF DESTRUCTION -- ISRAEL'S
REMARKABLE PROGRESS OVER THE PAST SIX DECADES HAS NOT LIBERATED IT FROM A MULTI-PRONGED PERIL THAT
INCLUDES NEARLY EVERY MEANS IMAGINABLE: WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, CONVENTIONAL MILITARY
ATTACK, TERRORISM, INTERNAL SUBVERSION, ECONOMIC BLOCKADE, DEMOGRAPHIC ASSAULT, & IDEOLOGICAL
UNDERMINNING -- THE ERROR OF SEEING THE ISRAELI-ARAB CONFLICT AS THE MOTOR FORCE BEHIND THE PROBLEMS
CONFRONTING ISRAEL -- THE MORE RATIONAL PERCEPTION: SEEING ISRAEL'S PLIGHT AS THE RESULT OF ITS
LOCATION IN THE ISLAMIC MIDDLE EAST & THE TOXIC POLITICS OF THAT REGION
FULL STORY:
Two religiously-identified new states emerged from the shards of the British Empire in the aftermath of World War II.
Israel, of course, was one; the other was Pakistan.
They make an interesting, if infrequently-compared, pair. Pakistan's experience with widespread poverty, near-constant
internal turmoil and external tensions, culminating in its current status as a near-rogue state, suggests the perils that
Israel avoided, with its stable, constitutional democratic political culture, dynamic economy, cutting-edge high-tech
sector, lively general culture, and impressive social cohesion.
But, for all its achievements, the Jewish state lives under a curse that Pakistan and most other polities never face: the
threat of elimination. Its remarkable progress over the decades has not liberated it from a multi-pronged peril that
includes nearly every means imaginable: weapons of mass destruction, conventional military attack, terrorism, internal
subversion, economic blockade, demographic assault, and ideological undermining. No other contemporary state faces
such an array of threats; indeed, probably none in history ever has.
The enemies of Israel divide into two main camps: the Left and the Muslims, with the Far Right a minor third element.
The Left includes a rabid edge (International ANSWER, Noam Chomsky) and a more polite centre (United Nations
General Assembly, Canada's Liberal Party, the mainstream media, mainline churches, school textbooks). In the final
analysis, however, the Left serves less as a force in its own right than as an auxiliary for the primary anti-Zionist actor,
which is the Muslim population. This latter, in turn, can be divided into three distinct groupings.
First come the foreign states: Five armed forces that invaded Israel on its independence in May, 1948, and then
neighboring armies, air forces, and navies fought in the wars of 1956, 1967, 1970, and 1973. While the conventional
threat has somewhat receded, Egypt's U.S.-financed arms build-up presents one danger and the threats from weapons
of mass destruction (especially from Iran, but also from Syria and potentially from many other states) present an even
greater threat.
Second come the external Palestinians, those living outside Israel. Sidelined by governments from 1948 until 1967,
Yasir Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization got their opportunity with the defeat of three states' armed
forces in the Six-Day War. Subsequent developments, such as the 1982 Lebanon war and the 1993 Oslo Accords,
confirmed the centrality of external Palestinians. Today, they drive the conflict, through violence (terrorism, missiles
from Gaza) and, even more importantly, by driving world opinion against Israel via a public relations effort that
resonates widely among Muslims and the Left.
Third come the Muslim citizens of Israel, the sleepers in the equation. In 1949, they numbered merely 111,000, or 9
percent of Israel's population, but, by 2005, they had multiplied ten-fold, to 1,141,000, and to 16 percent of the
population. They benefited from Israel's open ways to evolve from a docile and ineffective community into an
assertive one that increasingly rejects the Jewish nature of the Israeli state, with potentially profound consequences
for that the future identity of that state.
If this long list of perils makes Israel different from all other Western countries, forcing it to protect itself on a daily
basis from the ranks of its many foes, its predicament renders Israel oddly similar to other Middle Eastern countries,
which likewise face a threat of elimination.
Kuwait, conquered by Iraq, actually disappeared from the face of the earth between August, 1990, and February, 1991;
were it not for an American-led coalition, it would quite certainly never have been resurrected. Lebanon has been
effectively under Syrian control since 1976 and, should developments warrant formal annexation, Damascus could at
will officially incorporate it. Bahrain is occasionally claimed by Tehran to be a part of Iran, most recently in July, 2007,
when an associate of Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i, Iran's Supreme Leader, claimed that "Bahrain is part of Iran's soil," and
insisted that "The principal demand of the Bahraini people today is to return this province … to its mother, Islamic
Iran." Jordan's existence as an independent state has always been precarious, in part because it is still seen as a
colonial artifice of Winston Churchill, in part because several states (Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia) and the Palestinians
see it as fair prey.
That Israel finds itself in this company has several implications. It puts Israel's existential dilemma into perspective: If
no country risks elimination outside of the Middle East, this is a nearly routine problem within the region, suggesting
that Israel's unsettled status will not be resolved any time soon. This pattern also highlights the Middle East's
uniquely cruel, unstable, and fatal political life; the region ranks, clearly, as the world's worst neighborhood. Israel is
the child with glasses trying to succeed at school while living in a gang-infested part of town.
The Middle East's deep and wide political sickness points to the error of seeing the Arab-Israeli conflict as the motor
force behind its problems. More sensible is to see Israel's plight as the result of the region's toxic politics. Blaming the
Middle East's autocracy, radicalism, and violence on Israel is like blaming the diligent school child for the gangs.
Conversely, resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict means only solving that conflict, not fixing the region.
If all the members of this imperiled quintet worry about extinction, Israel's troubles are the most complex. Israel, having
survived countless threats to its existence over the past six decades, and it having done so with its honor intact, offers
a reason for its population to celebrate. But the rejoicing cannot last long, for it's right back to the barricades to defend
against the next threat.
© Daniel Pipes 2008
Originally Published in the National Post (Toronto), May 6, 2008
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes Mailing List, May 8, 2008
Article URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5552
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- Radical Islam & Islamic Terrorism
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is the Founder and Director of the Middle East Forum,
the Founder of Campus Watch, a signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S.
Institute of Peace, a former adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the
U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and
Technology, and a former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the
University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for Front Page Magazine, the New York
Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and developments in the Middle East
have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington Post, the New York Times,
and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network television, as well as at universities and
think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on
BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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