Thank you for coming today; I hope to make this hour fascinating for you while we explore what the next generation of leadership in the Middle East, specifically in the Arab World, is thinking about these days. Last year I spoke about Arab attitudes with regard to Israel and the text of that address is available on my website, globalthoughts.com. This year’s text will deal more with other issues that are of immediate concern to Arabs, such as the coming war in Iraq, the American-led war on terror and, at the end, current developments that have an impact on the Israel/Palestinian conflict. I will discuss some observations that give context to these remarks, such as the conditions that exist in Arab countries today that affect what people think and what they say about what they think. I will speak from text for about 40 minutes and then take questions. The text is carefully crafted to stick to the point which is what Arabs are thinking, not what I’m thinking and not what I think is going to happen, although I’ll be happy to take up those types of questions in the Q&A. I have spent a lot of time with Israelis too, but there isn’t enough time to talk about what they are thinking and you already know those things. I will draw some conclusions from the evidence and make policy recommendations along the way.
Why I am I standing here giving this lecture? Because among the things I do is travel a lot around the world listening to what people have to say and then reporting it on GlobalThoughts.com. This text is drawn from my most recent visit during the period October 10 through November 10 to 15 countries in Europe and the Middle East and notes from discussions with about 50 people. Remember that the Arab World is a big place with many countries and many strains of religions, ideologies and systems. I am by necessity generalizing and don’t want you to think that I am covering the entire spectrum of Arab opinion. Of course, I am speaking to people who are not run of the mill people. But you will get a few important ideas from this address that represent a critical mass of opinion in this region.
IRAQ
Suppose you go to an 85 year old person and offer him a free trip to anywhere he wants to go and he refuses, saying I just want to stay home because when I get up at 2am to go to the bathroom, at least I know where it is. That’s life in the Middle East today. Everyone is sitting in a pile of you-know-what and they know it. They don’t know how to get out of it. They are afraid of anyone cleaning the pile which would force them to get up and move because they are not sure they wouldn’t wind up in a different pile that might be worse.
Current Example: Arabs who have been complaining about the artificiality of their borders for the past 50 years as set by the Western powers fear that a war in Iraq will open up a pandora’s box that might lead to self-determination by various elements of Iraq that might lead to different borders.
What is scary to Arabs today is that they know change is coming, imposed from outside, and they can’t control it. When you land in Amman, the first thing you notice is the rows of Iraqi Airways planes that have been sitting on the tarmac the past decade. My first impression in Amman last month was that the next time I land there, those planes will be gone, one way or the other.
People are resigned to a US-led war in Iraq; they just want to get it over with and stop talking so much about it. They want it to be as clean and quick as possible. They want the US to finish the job this time and be committed to the rebuilding of Iraq, but they don’t want the US to stay in there too long and act as if they rule Iraq. Then they want the US to use the leverage it gets to push the Israelis and the Palestinians into some kind of fair settlement, because they feel that neither the Israelis or the Palestinians, under their present leaders, will solve this themselves.
The number 1 issue in the region today is Iraq.
Iraq is a shadow over the region. Investment is on hold and people know that the day Iraq has the bomb is the day they are subject to blackmail. They agree that if Iraq had the bomb in 1991 it would have been unopposed after it had invaded Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. They do understand that Americans are still freaked out by the fact that no one has ever taken credit for 9/11 and that Americans fear the leakage of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons from Iraq that might land in the hands of third parties who will use them anonymously against America. The Jordanians fear scuds and Israeli anti-missile instruments flying over their country dumping biochemical crap all over them; if the Iraqis send smallpox to Israel and it lands anywhere other than where it is supposed to, the Israelis will be vaccinated but the Jordanians and Palestinians will die — but will Saddam care? Jordanians live in a country that is more free than it was 10 years ago and is freer than the other Arab countries, but it is still not free and Jordanians are afraid of Iraq even though it doesn’t rule Jordan. Talk about Iraq in a public place and you will make your Jordanian hosts nervous; they glance around to see if anyone is listening. Arabs are accustomed to the idea that power shifts and they are always hedging their bets because people in that region like to take revenge when they take over.
For this reason, what Arabs, particularly in the Gulf, fear more than anything is that the Americans will attack Iraq, declare victory, pull out before they actually win, and leave the region in chaos. They accuse the Americans of doing the bare minimum in Afghanistan. If so, the Americans will have absolutely no credibility left in this region. So if the Americans start this war, the Americans have to win and can’t afford to lose. On the other hand, they don’t want the Americans to hang around in Iraq, rule the place like a colony and milk all its oil wealth. They say they believe that the danger posed by Saddam is exaggerated, that Israel with its nukes and Sharon at the helm is more of a threat to them (and want to know why America isn’t bothered by that), and that if the Americans didn’t deal with Saddam a decade ago, they don’t see why they should be declaring him Enemy #1 right now. “Why, Why, Why…” is the way they pose each of these questions. These are conflicting demands from an insatiable constituency – you want to repair mistakes and they tell you No because they fear more mistakes. They want it big but not big, small but not small…
I believe taxi drivers and one of them in Bahrain said to me that every Bahraini knows who Saddam is and wants him out and that I should ignore all the Bosses who say otherwise because none of the people in charge want to lose their chairs. The only person I ran into this trip who believed that the people in Iraq actually like Saddam was the daughter of a diplomat in Brussels who was pretty intelligent but thought of herself as super-intelligent and was in certain ways profoundly out of touch with reality.
FEAR AND DYSFUNCTION
I want to give more detail to the concepts of Fear and Dysfunction in these countries because you can’t get the flavor of Arab thinking without understanding the context from which it comes. Every time I am in an Arab country, I feel that something around me isn’t real and I can’t quite figure out what it is. You watch the TV and it is surreal; you see pictures of monarchs receiving visitors and signing proclamations with kingly music in the background. It is the adult version of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood in 2002 in a world where this kind of BS no longer exists. (For those of you who don’t know, Mr. Rogers is an American-made children’s TV show that features a king and the kingdom called Make Believe consisting of puppets.) The newspapers read like party organs and in the whole region people watch satellite TV stations to know what’s going on inside their countries because they know that nothing published inside their countries is free thought. People are afraid to talk in public spaces, to be quoted, to photograph or be photographed, to point their finger at things that might be considered sensitive such as embassies or palaces (even inside their cars late at night), and they are really afraid of retribution by real or supposed enemies or public officials. There is no real rule of law here; the system is rigged to favor the ruler and his friends. The tourist might feel welcome and safe and people here are not exactly tied to the clock or feeling a sense of urgency, but people know in the back of their minds that the system of government could change tomorrow, that they could be picked up and thrown out without any rights or reason, and that there is no justice in the world for them. Their futures are not theirs to determine; nobody wants their opinions, they have no vote, and outsiders will shape their destiny. The Israelis have to fear terror, but they are free people who can speak their minds and do whatever they please in a country in which words mean what you say they mean (instead of some kind of code), and Arabs would prefer to be in the Israeli system (but not as Arabs under Israeli rule) any day of the week. Right now, they are not realizing their potential socially, economically or politically, and they are unable to express themselves without restraint or codes. More than people realize, the Arab world is enslaved both mentally and physically; the challenge is how to set things free. If it is insulting to say the Arab World is not free, then say it is restrained and repressed. Whatever word suits you. Bin Laden and Saddam are guys who make things happen. They represent Freedom in this dysfunctional state of affairs. So the challenge is to bring freedom that unshackles this dysfunctional state.
People ask me how come I am not terrified to go to Arab countries and talk to Arabs? Arabs are more afraid to talk to me and host me than I am to go and see them. They are afraid of what I might ask, say, photograph or do. I leave the next day; they are stuck there and at the mercy of the authorities. (A few years ago I posted to the website a distant photo of a palace in Jeddah and if my amigo could have reached across the Atlantic and strangled me, he would have done so. This year, I was actually asked to not post a photo of several people and I eating dinner in a restaurant in Amman. They were concerned someone with malicious or suspicious intent might see it. I didn’t know GlobalThoughts had become so (in)famous!) I have done some outrageous things over the years in these countries such as running around the center of Riyadh just before midday prayers and photographing everything in sight, and maybe I am just nuts, but I have properly assumed at least so far that nobody is that interested in me to stop me, and that any idiot can sit around and discuss the weather but it is with your friends that you talk about real issues and that you learn something.
People in this region are afraid to send e-mails and talk on the phone because they think they are being monitored. They think they might lose their job or attract the suspicions of someone because they are talking to me. Some think they might be called in for questioning the next morning. I can sit here and call them cowards but that wouldn’t be fair since I’m not in their shoes and I don’t have to worry about someone calling me in for questioning here in New York. Whether or not people here are truly hostile is something we won’t know until after people are at least free enough to let you know how they really feel. Many of these people say they are not anti-Semitic, only anti-Zionist but it is clear that a good number of these people are anti-Jewish or shift between these feelings depending on what they feel at a given time. But then again, many of them still don’t know enough to know for sure and may change over time. Some of them are grappling with this issue and trying to decide what they think. For the time being, even with those that are more hostile, I am willing to give these people the benefit of the doubt because there is a lot of ignorance and misinformation that lies beneath these opinions and these have been fed for years by a very hostile environment. For a good number of these people, I’m the first Jew they’ve seen face to face or had a conversation with and that makes a big difference. Many of them only know Jews they see wearing army uniforms, pointing weapons at them and giving them a hard time, which is not the way we tend to think of Jews. Moreover, there are several famous Jewish commentators I know who will stand here and talk to you for an hour about the Arab World but when you ask them, they’ll admit they’ve never visited an Arab country or had a real conversation with an Arab. It’s one reason I keep getting off my butt and going over in person; it’s the only way to really take the temperature in the region. Over ten years now since I first visited an Arab country, I’ve managed to keep my friends regardless of the ups and downs of the emotional roller coaster people in the region have had to ride, because I’ve been there even before times became good and because there are people over there who realize there is good sense in exchanging information and opinions and keeping the lines open. There is value for some people at the top to put their emotions in check, cut past the propaganda, try to figure out what’s going on and move information and ideas around. The Middle East is not just a place for Diaspora armchair quarterbacks to write out checks and play out people’s ideologies, fantasies and abstractions; there are real lives at stake here too and we mustn’t forget it.
Here’s a little story to tie the points together. Earlier this month I spoke to someone who offered some opinions about democracy and corruption with regard to Saudi Arabia. He is a European moslem who has lived in the region for a good many years with his family and works professionally. He said that Saudis think democracy is an interesting idea but what they miss, more than democracy, is the lack of representation in the Saudi government. They don’t really know what democracy is, so they don’t miss it. They do know that they have no say in Saudi Arabia’s government and that bothers them. It is a show run by the royals for the royals. Corruption is high and it is estimated that 30% of the nation’s GDP is diverted. I wrote everything up without mentioning his name, country or company, but he still freaked out figuring someone might deduce whose opinions they are, crack down on him and close up his company, even though he doesn’t live in Saudi Arabia and his company is not inside that country. The guy was truly sweating until I made the changes he asked for; there were 3 messages on my answer phone in the span of 3 hours. Every time I call someone in these countries, you hear that pause on the phone while they decide whether to take the call or slam down the phone. But after we had the initial interview, he sent an e-mail stating: “I was reminded afterwards by how dialogue helps to overcome the dehumanization of the other side which is so negative in disputes.” So I think there should be room to withhold judgment about people of the region until a point in the future where people have had the chance to decide for themselves what they think of people and matters at issue.
Anyway, back to the main point. Right now Iraq is a shadow over the region and it is one reason things don’t move forward. Prime property in Amman is sitting dormant or vacant because money is on the sidelines. A Beduin shepherd tends sheep one block from the Amman Sheraton hotel on a plot of land worth $10 million. You can’t have a conversation in a restaurant or drive around downtown Amman at night without seeing Iraqis or worrying about their presence. Bahrainis remember that in the last war the scuds fell from Iraq on them too. Everybody knows the Iraqis are paying off government officials and media inside the various countries to toe their line. If Iraq goes nuclear, people will never have reason to think their countries could ever be free. If Iraq is out of business, then people could think of a future in which they could be free. Right now, they are so fearful and cynical that they can’t fathom the idea that anything good could actually happen. But something good needs to happen because in the past 7 years most young Jordanians I know have left the country and increasingly no longer think about going back there. Older people even think of leaving the country.
SAUDI ARABIA
Now a few words about Saudi Arabia. This is a country that 20 years ago had a GDP that was equivalent to the USA; today its GDP is that of Mexico. What an incredible failure for a country that is one of the greatest oil producing countries on the planet. 80% of Saudis are watching satellite TV and 30% are using internet, although internet is restricted and people are careful what they look for because they fear monitoring. Self-censorship runs deep from experience; if you go to Google and enter the search term “queen” looking for linens, you will be taken for a homosexual and find your service shut off.
The country is in a complex state; they are hostile to the U.S., but not anti-West. Saudis threaten to pull their investments out of the US; it is a hollow threat because the alternatives are Europe and Japan, both weak economies. The American response is: If you want to lose your shirts and sell out to us at a loss like the Japanese did 5 years ago, be our guests. Market research from the region shows that contrary to what people in the West think, there is a significant degree of alienation among significant sectors of young people at traditional values within the Kingdom. There are significant differences of opinion within the country. There is an article on my site with the latest market research about attitudes among the Saudi population and it is worth reading if you want further information. Saudi Arabia is a crucial country to watch; it is the hardest to get a read on and its people are the least accessible and the most exasperating, but it is a country which will be profoundly influenced by the Iraq war and this war will help decide whether the country becomes overtaken by fundamentalists or changes in a manner more friendly to the West. And maybe we do exaggerate the potential instability of that country, but I can’t be sure. Saudi Arabia remains one of the world’s most insular countries today and it is amazing how little is going on in the country in terms of preparation for the coming war and its possible after-effects. People there just don’t believe anything that happens in the world really matters to them as long as they remain inside Saudi Arabia.
AMERICA
Let’s give some attention to Arab attitudes about America. Al-Jazeerah is losing a good portion of its elite audience because it is becoming too preachy and sensational. Radio Sawa, a product of the US Information Agency, is now the #1 radio station in Arab capitals because it is pop and talk with straight news. Arabs are going back to the BBC for their news. They are flabbergasted to hear that some Jews in America boycott CNN and several major newspapers such as the New York Times because those Jews think these media outlets are anti-Semitic. The Arabs think CNN is ZNN; the Zionist News Network. Amid the irony here’s the moral: Don’t insult the intelligence of your audience; just stick to reporting the news, and they will pay attention.
If the Americans or Israelis say the sky is blue, the Arabs think it must have become green as the result of some conspiracy and will insist that it must be green. The level of trust anywhere in this region and the willingness to give someone the benefit of the doubt is presently below zero and this is true in Israel as well with regard to the Arabs. The Americans might gain some currency with a convincing victory in Iraq because strength is always respected, but right now nobody in Arabville likes the American government and this is going to be a problem because it is hard to mediate if one side feels you are not an honest broker. The Arabs think that America is some kind of empire in the world and that it is powerful and imposing its will because its military is powerful. They prefer not to think — even though they know it is true — that American ideas and the US Dollar are popular and that this is what creates military power. Russia, with territory in 12 time zones, has an economy the size of Denmark and virtually no military power today.
People feel the US is filled with people who today irrationally hate all Moslems and Arabs. The Christian fundamentalists saying how Islam is evil are not helping America’s image in this part of the world. People feel that America is more interested in trying to convince people of this region than they are in trying to understand people of this region. People feel America doesn’t practice what it preaches – they felt that America betrayed its principles by putting people in Guantanamo without trials or appeals, and that anyway the guys in Guantanamo are the footsoldiers who weren’t well connected enough to escape. They think the US wants to sit in Iraq, take over the country and milk its oil. They think Bush is a dumb cowboy who is captive to Jews and Christian evangelicals. They don’t like Rumsfeld; Powell though is OK.
People realize the last 50 years in this part of the world has been a failure on all counts. Egypt and South Korea started out the same and look where the two countries are today. Look where Israel is today. They prefer Arab solutions to Arab problems but they are resigned to the idea that only a Big Bang from the outside can reshuffle the deck and offer people of the region a better hand.
What the Americans should do (but they won’t) is to take the risk of respecting people’s aspirations in the region to have free and fair elections and to pledge to honor those elections instead of rigging and overturning the ones they don’t like as in Pakistan and Venezuela. (In Pakistan, the Islamic party had never gained more than 5%; in the last election they got 30%.) If America would do this and Arabs would feel that their vote actually counts, they will vote in moderate governments in Saudi Arabia and Palestine. If they think the Americans are playing with them, they will go out of their way to vote fundamentalist as an expression against American imperialism and interference. If a free vote were held in Saudi Arabia, the belief is that 50% would vote for a moderate party; 30% fundamentalists, and 20% to other parties or no vote. 80% would get rid of the religious police, except in Riyadh and certain bible-belt pockets in the country. Remember that some of the things you see today in Saudi Arabia (such as veils being worn by women in cities such as Jeddah) have only been going on for 20 years since the country’s government made such concessions to fundamentalists, so it is not as if these things are historical and irreversible.
American propaganda efforts are succeeding, even though people are making fun of them. American propaganda is becoming much more sophisticated than English-speaking people realize, and this is making a difference. Many people don’t realize where the TV and radio reaching them is coming from and they are tuning into these programs which are aimed at young people, and get the message across in a subtle way without it being obvious. The problem for America is not so much its PR but its policy – people need to believe that America is not just acting for its own good, but that it truly cares about the people of the region as well. Whether that is true or not remains to be seen because we don’t know what the true motivations of Bush and Co. really are, and what they will actually do when given the chance. For instance, people don’t know what to think when they hear that the US is working with Jordan’s crown prince Hassan with regard to ruling a future Iraq. They don’t like him and they don’t take that kind of idea seriously. They also think the Americans are allowing Mubarak to try and run Egypt as a mom and pop shop and that the idea of installing his son as president is an insult to the intelligence of 70 million Egyptians. So the jury is still out here.
9/11
Let’s look at 9/11. Ahmed thinks Bin Laden is brilliant. He keeps leaking stuff to Al-Jazeerah on cue, and picked people from 15 leading tribes in Saudi Arabia to embarrass the government from all the tribal sectors making it impossible for the authorities to investigate or to pin it on any one party. Just like all 12 tribes went against Mohammed, so that revenge was impossible. The Saudis can’t touch these people, he says. Bin Laden wants the US out of the Middle East, and the regimes replaced by an Islamic superpower that will impose its will and can threaten the rest of the world. Ahmed thinks that America and much of Israel do not understand the Arab mentality and will keep paying a price until they do. I will pick up this last point later.
You will believe and you won’t believe how many educated Arabs told me in all seriousness that they thought the Zionists had a hand in 9/11 to get Americans on board in a war against Islam, and that perhaps it is an American-inspired setup designed to plough the way for imperialist designs in the Arab world. People here can’t believe that Arabs pulled off such a brilliant operation. People here believe the story that 4,000 people were called up the night before 9/11, told not to go to work, and that no Jews were killed. When I explain to them that it is ludicrous to think you could come up with a list of 4,000 Jews who work in the World Trade Center, call them all up the night before, manage to get every single one of them not to show up to work the next day and that in over a year not one person has said a word or produced evidence of such a phone call, and that in any event over 300 Jews and Israelis did lose their lives there – yeah, they agree that the story is nuts, but that nobody ever really had them think about it that way.
One Saudi fellow did have some more doubt-raising points. (1) How did the FBI find a car filled with Arabic language flight manuals by the Boston airport just an hour after the hijacking? Even in a jewelry heist, it takes a few days to come up with that kind of evidence. Who ever heard of an Arabic-language flight manual? These manuals are all written in English and the hijackers, who went to American flight schools, were in a position to be able to read English manuals. There are no known Arabic flight manuals in existence in the general marketplace. (2) The video of Osama, released by the American government last year with subtitles, has an inaudible audio and you have to trust the subtitles. Bin Laden was about 50-60 pounds heavier than he used to be, which is strange for such a sick man. As far as many Arabs are concerned, they aren’t sure the man in the video is Bin Laden. (3) How could it be that these airplanes were crashed, burned to thousands of degrees with contents utterly destroyed, and then these letters from hijackers turn up entirely whole in the wreckage? (4) One of the suicide bomber’s girlfriends was waiting for him to return; he was in love. Not an ideal candidate for suicide.
As for the last point, we have been told that not all of the 19 hijackers knew they were going on a suicide flight. But the other 3 points are more thought-provoking. I’m not here to debate 9/11; I’m here to tell you what people out there are thinking. So let’s move on to my final area of reporting, which is the Israeli-Palestinian situation.
ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN
People want Sharon and Arafat out but they have no idea who the next guy will be. I don’t know anyone who has anything nice to say about Arafat. “Tell Sharon to put a bullet into Arafat and I will build him a statue,” said one Jordanian to me in Bahrain. Here’s another missive from a prominent Jordanian: “You take care of Sharon, we will replace Arafat and in one year Saddam will sign a peace treaty with Israel.”
They think the Israelis are depressed and want change. They are furious about the occupation and they think it has gotten worse the past year, and that the Israeli soldiers are becoming tougher and less humane. They really can’t stand being bossed around by Russians who can’t even speak a decent Hebrew. They think the Israelis don’t know the full extent of what their soldiers are doing in the territories. They see Sharon running Israel with people such as Effi Eitam and Avigdor Lieberman in the government, and they don’t see Israel as a democracy or a responsible nuclear power, with such people at the top. They intensely dislike Sharon for his history. They feel impotent against the Israelis and the Americans, and they tend to think that Israel wouldn’t last 5 minutes if the Americans didn’t prop them up. Whenever they report that the Israeli military did something, the report always says “The Israeli army, using American-supplied warplanes, did such and such.”
Has suicide bombings gone out of style or is the dropoff these last few months the result of tighter security by the Israelis? Depends on who you ask; the more likely answer you get is the latter. There were women Chechans in the Russian theater who were probably inspired by the female Palestinian suicide bombers, and the lack of success lately is not for the lack of trying.
One fellow said to me, the Americans, after 9/11, threw out the legal system when it came to Arabs. The Israelis at least have a legal system and continue to play by the rules of their system when it comes to Arabs. Arabs know they can fight the army through the courts in Israel and sometimes win. He said, the Jews at least check themselves against their worst excesses because they know they will be judged by history and their descendants. The Americans, he said, are not like the Jews.
I could say many things on the Israel-Arab situation but I’m going to stick to 2 points that are more current than last year’s address and that I think are very interesting and are at the essence of solving this conflict.
During the past year, the Saudi crown prince offered peace to the Israelis. Some took it seriously while others thought it was a PR gimmick. Mohammed took it very seriously and said the Israelis missed a big opportunity.
Israel, he says, makes a profound mistake by trying to cast the conflict as one between itself and Palestinians or Sharon and Arafat. It is also making a mistake in terms of trying to enforce a solution based on natural law justice and overlooking the emotional sense of justice which is what Arabs want. What is necessary is a Sulha (reconciliation) between Israel and the Arabs in order that a peace will not just be between governments but among peoples, or else it won’t last or be taken seriously. A Sulha involves asking forgiveness for past misdeeds and then promising to do right by that person or clan. Even if the person is angry for being the victim, if an elder recommends a Sulha, everyone has to go along with it. So if you murder somebody and it was an accident, you could offer money in the Western sense of things as restitution, but the Arab won’t want to take your “blood money” – if you want to avoid the cycle of revenge, you are better off sending emissaries to the victim’s family, requesting a Sulha and arranging that your family and the victim’s family will kiss and make up and Be Excellent to one another. Israel, he says, must seek a Sulha with the Islamic world via either a Wahid of Indonesia or an Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. When the simple 78 year old Abdullah offered Israel a Sulha this past year, it was a mistake to roll out the lawyers and academics to parse his every word and look for legal loopholes; they should have taken his outstretched hand and ran with it. Abdullah himself said that he was a simple person who did not appreciate having academics run around trying to interpret his simple remarks. Mohammed said that Sharon understands what he has to do but that his advisors are holding him back. Barak was not viewed as having a good attitude and couldn’t even reach a Sulha with the Sefardim of Israel, so why should he reach one with the Arabs? Mitzna is the type of guy who Arabs feel they could deal with.
Here’s a little story that tells you a lot. I was walking around Nazareth with Mohammed. We walked into the local Mashbir department store. Just before we walked in, about 50 kids walked right into the store in one big group. It was so ordinary that there was no reason to notice it. Mohammed didn’t mention it but it hit me like a ton of bricks. This was actually totally profound because this is an Israeli chain store in the middle of Arabville. And there are no identifiable Israeli troops anywhere around here either. In a Jewish area, there would be security guards and all these kids would have been given the lookover and more. That’s what I got Saturday night going to the shopping mall in Jerusalem where cars were lined up for inspection and humans went through a metal detector. This is the most important point of the trip – who is more safe today? You’re not safe in New York, Tel Aviv, Paris or even walking underneath the Western Wall through the tunnels where we had a security detail walking with us, but you are safe walking the casbah or Mashbir in Nazareth, at least if you are with a friend as a guest. I was walking around the casbah with Mohammed and any sane Jew should have felt his blood pressure running wild because this was the site of many gun battles between soldiers and enemy combatants just 2 years earlier. But frankly, I’m walking around with Mohammed and I feel I got nothing to worry about. It again confirms to me my gut feeling which I have being sharing for years – and this is the point that Arabs have been trying to make more than anything else — the Israelis who constantly keep tightening the screws in the search for more security will only find themselves with less security. Better the security of an honored guest than a fearful occupier. The only security is in compromising and coming up with a modus vivendi with the Arabs that speaks to the aspirations of people.
The term Security has a problem; it is not quantifiable. Ask Israelis what they want from Arabs and they generally say “We want them to say they will STOP doing X.” It’s not so much that they expect Arabs to do Y. On the other hand, ask Arabs what they want from Israelis and the overall answer is they want Justice, and they want it more on an emotional level than in a physical sense, because money will not put them back where they were, they know they can’t go back to where they were, so what they really expect and their culture tells them to expect is a meaningful apology. Of course, the Israelis feel they have nothing to apologize for, so you have a problem here. But the point is that if you want to solve this problem in a profound way, it is not going to be with lawyers, contracts and dollars between governments, but with feelings and reaching out between people, led by people at the top who show good attitude, creativity and leadership. Mohammed’s suggestion of a Sulha/Reconciliation is one way to bridge the gap between the unquantifiable demands for Security and Justice which will yield Peace.
There are some people who, no matter how much they have, feel they are at risk of losing what they have and therefore can’t give up part of what they have because they feel vulnerable or poor. Israelis who insist they are vulnerable and cannot compromise have to seriously consider if they are truly vulnerable now or whether or not they will be more vulnerable later because they think either (a) they can have it all, or (b) they should hold out and wait for better times. I think that Arabs have been thinking hard the past few years and are becoming reconciled to the fact that they can’t have it all, but that they will hold out until they feel they have received Justice. It is not for nothing that they speak of a “just peace.”
The Americans think that they can create more security in airplanes by checking bags and people and building fortresses around airplanes. Just after 9/11, I flew back to the US from Gatwick, got up the next morning and wrote on GlobalThoughts.com, Aha! A shoe bomber could cut right through all this. And a few months later, Voila! A shoebomber did just that. And then everybody flying was a suspected shoe-bomber being asked to take off their shoes at the gate. As if…
Today, I’m telling you that if we are serious, we should eliminate checked baggage because it is ridiculous to think that nobody will board a plane prepared to die with a bomb inside his luggage. Of course, we know that we can’t protect airplanes against missiles fired at low altitudes and that airplanes regularly fly below 10,000 feet over major metropolitan areas. But here’s the ticket – somebody gets on a plane, buys a bottle of vodka from the duty free cart, breaks the bottle which then becomes a dangerous weapon, pours the vodka all over the floor, lights a match and the plane is now on fire. Or better yet, someone flies a small plane into a large plane.
The point is, no matter how much you think you can create security, human beings are smart enough to penetrate your shell from the inside or, if all else fails, the outside. Israelis today think they have recreated downtown Jerusalem in the Malcha shopping mall. For how long? The conundrum I leave you with, which is the one that Arabs today feel is the crux of the matter, is that when it comes to the major issues dividing the West from the Arabs – Islamic terror, Saddam Hussein, Israel and the Palestinians – the fulcrum to the West is Security. The Arabs are saying, fix the problems that exist in this region that lead to the dysfunctions that lead to the sympathy and infrastructure supporting terrorism, and then you’ll get security. The West is saying, we need security, and then we’ll deal with the problems. The Arabs are saying: No. You’ll never get security unless you fix the problem because until we cooperate to alleviate the problems, there will be humans dedicated to piercing any security system you can devise and none of us can stop them before they ruin everything for us all. And yes, they are ruining it for everyone – 9/11 is making it more difficult for Arabs to come to the West to get education, to keep contacts alive and to keep goods and ideas in motion. It makes everyone poorer, angrier and more suspicious and closed-minded; it is a victory for Bin Laden.
You can decide which comes first here, the chicken or the egg. My conclusion is that you should take a walk in the Mashbir and Casbah of Nazareth, fly from Dubai to Bahrain, and visit Damascus and see who feels secure walking and flying today. Unless you want to take this to another level and declare war against the whole Moslem world, I think that we have to be more flexible in our thinking about the concept of Security and that our policies have to be more dynamic to deal with the aspirations of people in the region and a realistic sense of what we need. We need to think Win-Win rather than Winner Take All and get everyone to believe that we believe it; I think we would be surprised to realize the extent to which people in this region are coming to realize that Win-Win rather than Winner Take All has to be the way to go. When this whole region comes to think that We’re All in this Boat Together and we must make a Commitment to Share rather than continue to think The Winner Takes All, everyone will finally be the winner.
Q & A — Abridged.
What do Palestinians value? I am surprised at how much we have in common. Thursday night Chinese takeout, for instance. We both care about families, education, and tend to be cosmopolitan. If you are asking about suicide as a value, I think most people I know are against it but that they see desperation around them and don’t want to judge these people, so they are against it but can understand it at the same time.
What about dialogue with Arabs — why don’t they participate? Arabs have been dialoguing for years but came to feel with Israeli Leftists a patronizing attitude: We want to talk to you and get you to agree to X, which is what we believe is good for you. They figured what’s the use of talking to these people.
What about the soldiers getting tougher — how do I know this? First, I said that the Arabs feel this. But anyway, I hear from psychologists who work in Israel that the profile of the soldiers has changed (ie: more Russians and religious Zionists in combat units; fewer liberal kibbzuzniks), and the situations they face are harsher. So to deny there has been change is to deny reality.
What should soldiers do when challenged with rocks? I don’t know. It’s not on topic, I’m not a soldier, and I’m incompetent to answer. When I am a soldier and have rocks thrown at me, I’ll answer the question. Meanwhile, my overall answer is that people should do what they are supposed to do and what they feel they should do. I am not oblivious to the fact that there are people with Molotov cocktails surrounding themselves with 12 year old kids and that this is a problem; but this is not my topic and I don’t profess to judge people whose shoes I’m not in. I can and do talk about the overall objectives of national policy.
Didn’t Camp David prove Oslo wrong? No. Camp David proved Barak was a jerk and that Arafat was not primarily interested in taking risks and becoming a statesman. Oslo was wrong for 2 reasons: It set up a corrupt entity with Rabin’s approval because he didn’t care about having a mafia run Palestine. Also, everybody made concessions without knowing the end game, and this turned out to leave everyone disillusioned and it blew up. People on both sides still think a negotiated solution could be found with the right leaders.
What do Arabs ask me these days? Primarily: What’s gonna be with Iraq and Why is the US doing X, Y and Z?
But the Israelis have to have higher security because the horror is higher? And what about the 10% that will always be against Israel? Yes, but that’s the trap. To think they will have higher security. Maybe for a few months, but then the Palestinians will figure out new ways to pierce the shield, and then it starts again. For the long run, the way to get security is to solve real problems. And to do it in a way that gets 70-80% of the Palestinians supporting the peace. There will always be 10% causing trouble; but if you ask the heads of Israeli intelligence, they will tell you the history is that terrorism only stops when the leaders on the Palestinian side and their populations decide to stop it.
Who will make the Sulha? I don’t know if it would be the Chief Rabbi or the President or Prime Minister of Israel. It depends if you view this as a reconciliation between religions or polities. The thing about Arab political leaders is that they also claim religious status; not so in Israel.
What about the PA — isn’t it hopelessly corrupt? Yes, but remember that at the very top, Israelis and Palestinians are partners and making lots of money. Look at the scandals surrounding the top advisors to Rabin and Barak — we are talking hundreds of millions of dollars of kickbacks. If there is peace, it threatens the gravy train and power of people at the top, and we cannot underestimate the influence of money that drives this continued state of war.
