Posted by Neal

Mr. Shmookler,/////////////////////////////////////

The problem with what you write is that you misinterpret Arab society, of which the Palestinian Arabs are an example. Middle Eastern Arab society is difficult to understand wholly in a modern context because religion plays a role which, to those of us living in a largely secular society, no longer exists for us. //////////////////////////////////////////////////

In the plainest meaning of the term "totality," Islam, particularly in the Middle East, is a totality and even more so than, for example, was the Soviet Union (which people sometimes termed "totalitarian"). Sovietism was a totality except in one sphere of life, namely, that of spirituality or religion. Islam, by contrast, is a complete totality. It governs all aspects of life, from the moment one wakes to the moment one sleeps and it, in theory, governs all aspects of governance as well and has, in essence, a political program regarding civil life and regarding foreign regions.///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The civilization created from the Islamic Jihad conquests, including the conquest of what is now Israel and the near eradication of the dominant Christian and the remaining Jewish culture, can be described, in part, as tolerant. Which is to say, the conquered were extended a surrender pact which permitted them to live. However, that is only part of the story. /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The other part of the story is that for non-Muslims to survive in Muslim society, they had to play by the Muslim rules. And that meant serving the interest of the Muslims. And that, in turn, meant that a form of governance (e.g. a country that was not operated in accordance with the Shari'a for the benefit, primarily, of Muslims) was simply inconceivable. And such understanding of the nature of things is part and parcel of Islam and, moreover, finds expression in the Shari'a (i.e. in Muslim law).////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

What might more accurately have been said by you is that the ordinary Muslim people on the Arab side, including, but not limited to, Muslim Arabs in historic Palestine, never accepted the notion of a non-Muslim state or a state which afforded equal rights to Jews (or Christians). That was true in 1920, 1930, 1940, 1948, 1967, 1973, 1979, 1982, 1986, 1991, 2000 and today. That refusal is well grounded, historically, in the Muslim notion of a just society, in which non-Muslims have, traditionally, only had conceded privileges, not inherent rights and never equal rights. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Lest you doubt me regarding the fundamental refusal, on any condition ever, to accept Israel by ordinary Muslims in the Arab world, read what follows from the book In No God But God, Egypt and the Triumph of Islam, by Geneive Abdo (pages 64-65):////////////////////////////////////////////////////

"The Grand Sheikh's battle with his conservative critics boiled over in December 1997, when Tantawi hosted an unprecedented meeting at al-Azhar with chief rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, leader of Israel's Ashkenazi Jews. Held just before the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, and amid growing outrage in the Arab world toward Israeli intransigence in the stalled Oslo peace process, Tantawi's meeting was nothing short of explosive. Ordinary Egyptians had never accepted the Camp David peace accords, or for that matter any attempt to normalize relations with Israel. Most Muslims saw the invitation of the chief rabbi into the very citadel of Sunni Islam as a complete betrayal of the fifty-year effort against the Jewish state.***************************************************

"Egypt's most respected Islamic thinker, Seleeem al-Awa, spoke for many when he bitterly denounced the visit on the front page of the Islamist daily al-Shaab and wrote a letter of protest to the Research Academy. 'I did not believe my eyes when I read that the Grand Sheikh met the Zionist rabbi in Cairo.... It is as if the Zionists want to declare before the whole world that they have achieved normalization with the symbol of Sunni Islam and the entire Islamic world, and with the Sheikh of al-Azhar himself.'******************************************************

"'Why did you headquarters become the site of normalization with the Zionists? How are we going to welcome Ramadan with the biggest spiritual defeat of the modern age?' al-Awa asked.**********************************************************

"Tantawi was filled with consternation. He had never expected that such a meeting would outrage the Muslim world. Shaken and tense, he defended himself in a long interview with a Qatari satellite television channel that was broadcast in Egypt and across the Middle East. The interviewer asked Tantawi why he had decided to meet the rabbi, when his predecessor, Gad al-Haq, had refused.**************************************************************

"'I followed in the footsteps of our Prophet, peace be upon him. He met Jews and had a dialogue with them.... Was I supposed to refuse to meet him, so he'll go to his country and say the Sheikh of al-Azhar was unable to meet me?'***************************************************

"'What is you answer to Dr. Seleem al-Awa who said this meeting is more dangerous than any form of normalization?' the interviewer asked.***************************************************************************

"'This is the logic of cowards and pacifists,' Tantawi replied. 'Can Dr. al-Awa deny that the Prophet and his companion Abu Bakr met with the Jews? And after that, they say 'normalization.' What normalization?'******************************************************

"Tantawi's response did little to pacify his critics with al-Azhar. In fact, the controversy handed the traditionalists the evidence they needed to challenge his suitability to hold Sunni Islam's highest position. 'What we read about the meeting between the Sheikh of al-Azhar and the Israeli rabbi shocked us all,' commented Yahya Ismail, the general-secretary of the Azhar's Scholars' Front. 'We must abide by fatwas issued by senior scholars since 1936, which are official fatwas that forbid dealing with the occupying Jews with any weapon other than jihad (holy struggle) until they evacuate from our lands.'"***********************************************************

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[END OF QUOTED MATERIAL.] I note that Ms. Abdo is sympathetic to the Arab side and is an unlikely source of information suggesting that it is the Arab side, not Israel (or not only Israel), which does not want peace. And note: the ordinary Muslim, if Egypt is exemplery (and it is), are still fighting the war of 1948, not the occupation. Or, in simple terms, they consider places such as Tel Aviv to be occupied territory./////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

So, frankly, Professor Landes makes a very good point. The issue, of course, is to what extent such attitudes pervade the Arab world today. In fact, such views are widespread and, frankly, growing. Moreover, the very sort of tolerance - in the modern, not in the classical Muslim sense - which might allow a settlement between the Arabs and the Israelis is on the decline throughout many of the world's Muslim regions. Hence, oppression of Christians in Muslim lands is rampant. In fact, such is a far, far worse problem affecting far, far more people - tens of millions of people - than the dispute between the Arabs and Israelis.//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The language of the Islamists, which has wide voice across the Muslim regions, is the langauge of oppression. It is, moreover, the very medieval langague that Professor Landes surely had in mind. So, your dismissal of his analysis is, frankly, rather shallow, naive and ill-informed.///////////////////////////////////////////////////

Now, you write: "Israel is an immigrant society, with recent waves of Jewish immigrants from places as diverse as Russia, Ethiopia, and China..."///////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Actually, that is not quite. Israel is largely a refugee country. And nearly half of Israel's Jewish population consists of refugees (and their offspring) from Arab countries. ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

In fact, Israel's history is not appropriately seen solely as a history of immigrants including refugees from Europe and the like, although such is certainly an important part of the history.///////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Consider that a near majority of Israel's Jews, not only today but from nearly the beginning of the state, were Jews from Arab lands. Such people were a product of the war waged by the entire Muslim Arab world not only against Israel but against Jews more generally. Hence, the pogroms against and ultimate expulsion of 856,000 Jews from Arab countries. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Moreover, these Arab Jews were simultaneously expelled and, upon gaining citizenship in Israel, liberated from their former, almost always servile, circumstances. That is, Arab Jews had essentially been non-participants in Muslim/Arab society and, apart from insistence by Europeans where Europeans had some uncompromised influence, were at the sole whim of other people's, in this case Muslim Arab, politics.//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

I mention the history of the Arab Jews because, more than anything else, their history (ignored almost entirely by your analysis and by most other people who offer a Eurocentric analysis) (a) flies in the face of the view that, looking back, Jews in the Arab Muslim regions had a realistic option, consistent with universal emancipation all of us expect, other to create a state somewhere and (b) that the creation of Israel is today, in fact, justified in view of the Muslim failure to afford equal rights rather than a modicum of privileges conceded by the Muslim conquerors of the Middle Ages. (Note: I cannot imagine why any state actually requires justification but, in Europe, people seem to think that Israel - but not, say, Germany and France with all the harm Germany and France have caused - has to justify itself.)//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

In short, I think your analysis is not sufficiently penetrating to the issues you raised.

Posted by Neal F.

In order to understand and resolve a century long dispute between people from very different cultures and histories, you need to know something about the cultures and histories of each side of the dispute, not merely the narrow issues that, on the surface, appear to be in dispute. Instead of contributing to an understanding and resolution of the Arab Israeli dispute, Max Shmookler essentially ridicules such approach. Which is to say, what Mr. Shmookler writes amounts to crude sophistry disguised as analysis. Surely the Miscellany News can do better.