DECEMBER 26, 2024 – ‘’Tis the season for the Middle East: the star over the manger in Bethlehem, in the case of Christians; the Maccabean Revolt, capture of Jerusalem and cleansing of the Second Temple and the miracle of the oil (think: lights of the menorah), in the case of Judaism. Unfortunately, every season “’tis the season” for unrest between Israel and its enemies in the Middle East. “Unrest,” of course, is a euphemism for “outrageous violence and destruction on a grandly horrific scale.” Since October 7, 2023 (already!), the Gaza Strip has been at the vortex of that violence. More recently the destruction has spread to southern Lebanon, with Yemen on the periphery. Looming over the whole mess is the theocracy in Tehran, a thousand miles from Tel Aviv but just 12 minutes by ballistic missile.
Most of us feel helpless in the face of Israel’s war against everyone, except, course, the United States. But what are we Americans to think about the turmoil over which we have no control or influence, except . . . what, to replace the Biden Administration with Netanyahu’s buddy?
Over the years, three books that I’ve read stand out in the field of “understanding the Middle East.”
One was From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman, the American columnist and commentator on Middle East affairs (and fellow native Minnesota). Among the many takeaways from that book was that Israel is anything but a monolithic theocracy.
Another was My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel by Ari Shavit, a left-leaning Israeli journalist and writer. This book was packed with head-spinning detail of the early Zionist movement that led to Jewish migration to Israel and how things went wrong as much as they went right throughout the history of the plucky state.
The third book was A Peace to End all Peace by David Fromkin, an American international lawyer turned academic. Without a doubt, this scholarly work is the densest material I’ve ever encountered on the French and British record of colonial shenanigans in the Middle East, with the Ottomans, the Russians, and the Americans playing supporting roles. I found myself re-reading many pages two or three times—slowly—just to grasp and synthesize the depth and breadth of imparted information. If you really want to understand how the region got so screwed up, this book is required reading.
Now added to this modest stack is Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth by Noa Tishby, an Israeli entertainer and unofficial (after she got fired by Prime Minister Netanyahu) envoy for the Israeli cause. Tishby’s work will set your hair on fire, which is exactly what she intends to do with her brash and unapologetic style. She’s blunt, funny, and genuine. There’s no question where she stands. Though she’s a leftie politically, she’s become a darling of the American right because of her uncompromising championship of Israel. This is not to say she is “anti-Palestinian” nor does it suggest that she doesn’t acknowledge Israel’s flaws. Her aim is simply to put things in perspective and to use the historical record to correct key misperceptions about Israel and its relationship with “Palestinians.”[1]
Except for Tishby’s getting sideways with Netanyahu, we are somewhat in the fog as to her take on the government’s conduct of the war in Gaza (and strikes elsewhere). One over-arching thesis that Tishby argues convincingly, however, is that historical responsibility for the plight of the “Palestinians” lies squarely with Arab and Palestinian leadership reaching back to 1947, when a “two-state” solution was proposed by the UN, accepted by Israel and rejected by the Arabs, and again in 2000 when Yasser Arafat refused to say “Yes” to a two-state solution accepted (along with nearly all of Arafat’s demands) by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David.
The sad reality is that Israel has been caught in a perpetual swing of the pendulum between 1. Misperceptions/disinformation coupled with calls for Israel’s destruction; and 2. The consequent Israeli obsession with its national security. In the post-October 7, 2023 phase of its unending fight for survival, Israel is winning the battle (is there anything left to bomb?!) but losing the war: the global condemnation of Israel is exactly what the Hamas leadership sought when it planned and launched the horrific attacks against Israeli innocents nearly a year and a half ago. Netanyahu, under threat of a corruption trial and a possible prison term, couldn’t believe his good luck—once he got past the question of how Israeli intelligence had missed what was in the works by Hamas. In launching the counter attacks against Gaza, however, Netanyahu led his government into a giant trap—one from which the state of Israel might never extricate itself.
Hamas has no concern for the welfare of the people under its thumb. In fact, the cynical leadership of Hamas saw those innocent folks as the helpless pawns in an effort to direct world opinion against Israel. Quite apart from its own cruelties against the people of Gaza, Hamas knew that by sticking Israel with a very sharp stick, Israel would fire back mercilessly against Gaza in a scorched earth effort to root out Hamas once and for all. As a consequence, thousands of innocent Gazans would die and two million would suffer, causing the world to condemn Israel as a pariah for its “disproportionate response.” Among its supporters—namely, the Iranian theocrats—Hamas would be declared the victor and entitled to continued support.
But why would Iran—a non-Arab, Shiite nation at odds with most of its Sunni neighbors—want to destroy Israel? I submit that in large part it’s out of a playbook as old as nation states. Need to control your own subjects who have strong reason to dislike your regime? Create a perpetual “foreign problem” to distract people from domestic problems.
Until hearts and minds are allowed to change through social and civic interaction, diplomatic interchanges and mutually beneficial economic engagement, the madhouse of the Middle East will continue. Until the narrow, selfish interests of entrenched and corrupt leadership are threatened, the so-called leaders—bereft of good will and good faith—will hold tight their cards. As long as they do, Israel will not be secure, and as long as Israel is insecure, the world will despise it and its neighbors will threaten it.
Pity the innocents. Despite the third Beatitude, spoken by the ultimate Christian authority, the historical record does not point to the meek inheriting the earth, at least the part we call the Middle East.
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© 2024 by Eric Nilsson
[1] Tishby argues that “Palestinians” aren’t an independent nationality any more than say, “Midwesterners” are (or ever were) by virtue of being “Midwesterners,” part of a discrete polity. Rather, she asserts, “Palestinians” are people who came from a particular geographic area once designated as Palestine but never existing as a nation state. Moreover, she points out that according to UNRWA, “Palestinian refugees” include successive generations of people whose forebears can trace their roots to the area under the British Mandate. This is the only case in which the definition of “refugee” extends beyond the people who fled their homes (in the case of the “Palestinians,” at the urging of the Arab League as they initiated war against Israel in May 1948) to include an indefinite number of successive generations, irrespective of where they were born or grew up.
