The Middle East

Some Observations and a Few Suggestions

by Michael F. Hamm, Boles Professor of History

More than a year has passed since September 11, and to no one’s surprise, the Middle East and its Muslim neighbors in southwest Asia still dominate the headlines. At home, as police powers are extended, we wonder whether to worry more about protecting ourselves from terror or protecting our civil liberties. Last spring, as the blame game for our intelligence failures escalated, columnist Thomas Friedman suggested that we “cool it.” If we’re to maintain an open society, “ all we can do is take all reasonable precautions and then suck it up and learn to live with a higher level of risk,” he wrote. “That is our fate, so let’s not drive ourselves crazy.”

Agreed. But while we cool it at home, let’s not forget that we can make a difference abroad.

There can be no stability in the Middle East without a viable Palestinian state. In 1947 the United Nations partition resolution gave Israel 55 percent of Palestine even though Arabs outnumbered Jews by two to one. Partition touched off civil war, and within a year Israel controlled 78 percent of Palestine. The Arabs never got their state. In 1967, Israel occupied additional territory, including the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, and soon began to build settlements on the West Bank. Still, opportunities for compromise and peace persisted. President Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak nearly engineered a breakthrough at Camp David in 2000, but their proposals were rejected, in part because they required the Palestinians to relinquish more land. Barak’s Labor Party, traditionally Israel’s party of peace, gave way to Ariel Sharon’s militant Likud government. A deadly war of attrition ensued, marked by Palestinian suicide bombings and a harsh Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Since September 2000, an additional 1,800 Palestinians and 600 Israelis have been killed. There are now 135 Israeli settlements on the West Bank, and their colonists, who now number 380,000, including those in East Jerusalem, control nearly half of that territory. The Israeli army controls another 400 Palestinian towns, leaving only 20 percent under the control of the Palestinian Authority. As The Economist recently noted, “Palestinian civilians are killed or injured almost daily by loose Israeli gunfire. At the myriad roadblocks, Palestinians are subjected to humiliation almost as a matter of course.” Half of the Palestinians now live in poverty, one in five children suffers from malnutrition, and more than one-third are unemployed.

One in five Israelis also lives in poverty, many of them Likud supporters. Israel faces an unemployment rate of 14 percent, the highest in the country’s history.

But there is some hopeful news. Increasingly, prominent Palestinian leaders have condemned the bombings, arguing that suicide attacks are contrary to Palestinian traditions and morals. Most Palestinians now recognize that non-violent protests can be as effective as violent tactics, according to polls taken in November 2002. Polls have also shown that more than half of all Israelis believe West Bank settlements weaken their country and support unilateral withdrawal from the occupied territory. While levels of mistrust on both sides remain very high, Israelis and Palestinians have come to recognize that the status quo benefits no one, and nearly three-quarters of both populations believe that a two-state solution based on 1967 borders represents the best hope for peace.

The fate of the four million Palestinian refugees still needs to be addressed. Israel cannot absorb them, but the other Arab states could help by dismantling the camps and granting the refugees citizenship. The West and the affluent Gulf States could compensate these unfortunate victims for their material losses.

Both sides claim moral superiority. The Israelis believe they are combating terror, while the Palestinians have lost their land and want it back. Both have strong, justifiably moral positions. For America to have real influence, it must assume moral neutrality.

Because 40 percent of the world’s oil leaves the Persian Gulf every day, we often forget that many of the countries of the Middle East and southwest Asia are very poor. Oil-rich Iran, for example, has an annual per capita GDP of only $1,100. Egypt and Pakistan, both oil-poor, have per capita GDPs of $1,500 and $400 respectively. By contrast, America’s per capita GDP is $36,000.

Explosive population growth contributes mightily to the region’s poverty. Thirty-eight percent of the Arab population is under 14 years of age, the highest proportion of any region in the world. The costs of educating such a young population are very high, but education holds the key to a lower birth rate. In Egypt, where the population has doubled since 1970, only 5 percent of the girls who stay in school beyond the primary grades bear children in their teenage years, while more than half who leave school become teenage mothers. Southwest Asia offers much the same picture. In Afghanistan, where education for girls was non existent under the Taliban, fewer than one in 20 couples uses contraception. Pakistan’s population, 33 million in 1950, is projected to be 345 million by 2050, a tenfold increase. Sixty-two percent of Pakistanis are illiterate (76 percent of the women). Islamic schools (madrasahs), originally intended to train Muslim clerics, have grown from 3,000 in 1978 to 39,000 today, providing educational opportunity where the state cannot. However, these schools emphasize rote religious training. Few are equipped to train innovative and productive citizens for the 21st century, and some impart fanaticism and violence.

Even in Saudi Arabia, which has 25 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves, per capita GDP has fallen from $19,000 to about $7,000 in the past 25 years. During that time, the Saudi population has nearly tripled, and it is expected to triple again by 2050. Forty percent of the population is under 18 years of age, and unemployment already exceeds 20 percent for people under 30. This loss of economic opportunity, what Friedman calls “the poverty of dignity,” provides new converts for radical causes.

There is some progress. In Iran, where moderates have attacked the worst abuses of the Ayatollah’s “Government of God,” family planning programs have cut the birth rate, perhaps by 50 percent. However, educational opportunity for girls continues to be limited in many regions, and many marry by the time they are teenagers. The Bush administration could make a difference by reversing its refusal to support international organizations that educate about contraception.

Let’s not write off nation-building. We rejoiced when Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan, but we then stood by and watched as Taliban extremists filled the void. Afghanistan’s 23 year civil war has seemingly ended, but the United Nations has only 4,500 peacekeepers in the country, and they are restricted to the area around Kabul. Afghanistan needs a larger peacekeeping force and a long-term infusion of aid if it is to rebuild.

Remember the horrors of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia? An international commitment to refugee return and reconstruction has kept the peace in Bosnia, enabling the creation of some 2,000 private organizations that address humanitarian needs. The U.N. mission has trained an independent, professionalized Bosnian police force of 17,000 for the purpose of controlling powerful politicians and criminal gangs. Why not give nation-building a similar chance in Afghanistan? It is a long-term proposition, but it is the right thing to do, and it might produce a stable, hopeful Afghanistan and eliminate one training ground for international terrorism.

Likewise, if Saddam Hussein is toppled in Iraq, the Kurds are likely to seek an independent state (which will not be acceptable to the neighboring Turks) and some 20 other groups, including Communists and Iranian-supported Shi’ites, will vie for the spoils. Perhaps they can create a stable state with a modernist Islamic vision, but this will not happen without a lengthy American commitment to nation-building. War with Iraq carries substantial risks, especially if we encounter significant resistance in Baghdad. In urban combat, technical and numerical superiority do not always bring advantage. In 1995-96, the Russians lost thousands of men in an effort to take Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. If Saddam unleashes biological and chemical weapons, many civilians may die as well.

Radical Islamists have attacked America, but they have also attacked the vast moderate majority of Muslims throughout the world. Writing recently in Foreign Affairs, Peter G. Petersen points to the need to “encourage dialogue with and debate within Islam about the radicals’ efforts to hijack Islam’s spiritual soul.” As of now, we spend less on polling foreign opinion than we do for research in many Senate campaigns. Many Muslims resent American support for corrupt Muslim regimes, as well as America’s pro Israeli bias, but most Muslims admire American values and freedoms. By using credible sources—Muslim-Americans who are thriving here, for example—public diplomacy can remind mainstream Muslims that we are a tolerant and pluralistic society in which Islam and all faiths
are welcome.

Democratic states respect property rights and effectively mobilize and maximize human talent. In the long run, democratization may offer the best hope for prosperity and political stability in the Middle East. Islam and democracy can co exist. There are Muslim political parties today that support free speech and human rights. (Turkey has two such parties.) In the past, Islamic civilization flowered when it encouraged diversity and permitted freedom of inquiry, and it once dominated the world of science and learning. The Muslim world desperately needs leaders who can draw from this heritage and offer viable progressive models to counter fundamentalist currents. Imaginative and sustained public diplomacy can offer valuable support.

Michael F. Hamm has taught history at Centre since 1970. He is the author or editor of three books on Russian and Eastern European history. His suggestions here reflect the rapidly changing Middle East situation as of early December 2002. His e-mail address is hamm@centre.edu.



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