January, 2003

A Good Initiative at a Bad Time

Dr. Osama Al-Ghazali Harb

In a speech before the Heritage Foundation on 12 December 2002, US secretary of state Colin Powell presented his long-awaited initiative on US support for economic, political and educational reform in the Middle East. 'The US-Middle East Partnership' represents a commendable effort on the part of the US to bring economic prosperity to the people of the region and increase their contribution to the world economy; to enhance democratic practices despite claims that democracy cannot take root in the Middle East; and to encourage creative and critical thinking within the educational systems. We welcome and support this initiative, even though its designated budget of $29 million appears modest compared to the billions being spent on armaments and military deployment in the area.

This initiative is part of US policy towards an area where it has vital interests. The superpower has come to perceive, in the post-11 September era, which the economic, political and cultural problems of the Middle East represent a threat to its own national security. The initiative is therefore motivated directly by US national interests, and is not a purely charitable and humanitarian undertaking. We need not emphasise that such reforms are also in the obvious interests of the peoples of the Middle East. In short, on this point, both parties have a joint interest in the realisation of these reforms, and we have an obligation to examine them and decide the conditions necessary to achieve them.

There are first two points of form or procedure that we would like to point out:

1- Although the initiative is defined as a 'partnership,' which implies the participation of both parties in its conception and preparation -as for example in the partnership with Europe-, it is widely known that there was no such prior consultation with any official, or non-official Arab parties.
It is therefore a proposal designed and presented according to the vision of one party only.

2- The initiative is also described as Middle Eastern, which implies it could include Israel, Turkey or perhaps Iran. In point of fact, the initiative is directed only at the Arab world, and thus might be more aptly named the 'US-Arab partnership.' The symbolic implications involved go obviously beyond semantics.

Furthermore, the Powell initiative raises two basic issues that we must address.

1- We cannot repeat often enough that the reform in our countries - economic or political, social or cultural - is first and foremost our objective and our concern, rather than a US objective or interest. It is true Powell acknowledged this in his speech, referring to the fact that societies in the area are not only aware of these issues and discuss them, but are also ready to deal with them. This presentation oversimplifies the issue of reform in the Arab world and the position of Arabs towards it. Changing the political, economic and social conditions in the area, including the issues of democratisation, economic liberalisation and the emancipation of women, has been at the top of the agenda for a significant segment of the Arab and Islamic elite for more than 200 years. Rifa'a Al-Tahtawi and Kheir Al-Din Al-Tunisi called for the implementation of Western democracy during the first third of the 19th century.

Abdel-Rahman Al-Kawakbi, at the beginning of the 20th century, identified despotism and the absence of liberties as the source of all problems in Arab and Islamic countries. Gamal Al-Din Al-Afghani and Mohammed Abdo called for social, cultural and religious reforms in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the 1920s, the Egyptian entrepreneur Talaat Harb and the first Egyptian bank he established brought to life a truly significant liberal economic experience. During the same period, Kassem Amin addressed the issue of women, declaring social progress impossible without extending them the same rights and liberties enjoyed by men, especially the right to education and employment. All these ideas found expression, from a very early point, in the discourse and activities of many intellectuals and politicians, as well as charitable and voluntary associations. There were serious attempts, both in Egypt and the Arab world to implement these ideas, with varying degrees of success.

The question therefore becomes: Why have these successive attempts at reform - throughout the past two centuries - failed in the Arab world? Reform, in other words, is not a new idea introduced into the area by the US, but has been the centre of our attention for a very long time. In order to achieve success we must begin by first objectively and valiantly defining the causes behind this repeated failure of reforms, and second realising that reform can only succeed if we undertake and pursue it with our own free will. It is within this context alone that we can accept assistance from our friends, be they in the US or other countries.

2- We must point out that this initiative comes at a time when US credibility and popularity in the area are, unfortunately, at their lowest level for several decades. This is a fact easily ascertained by US officials -or intelligence and public-opinion polling agencies-. The negativity with which the US is viewed in the area is directly related to its support of the most aggressive and extremist of Israeli governments and policies. Many in the Arab world and elsewhere were under the impression that the US would reconsider this uncritical support of Israeli policies as part of its assessment of the events of 11 September, and realise their serious consequences in provoking feelings of hostility and aggression towards it in the Arab and Islamic world. It was hoped the US would actively seek a more balanced and just approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict as a means of mitigating these hostile feelings. Contrary to all expectations, the US moved in the opposite direction, increasing its uncritical support of Israeli policies to the point of vetoing a UN Security Council resolution condemning the killing by Israel of UN employees, despite the support of all other council members of this resolution.

The US bias towards Israel is also apparent in the double standard with which it approaches the issues of Palestine and Iraq. Although the Palestinian Authority is one of the few democratically elected Arab governments, the US is openly insistent that the Palestinians choose a different leadership as a pre-condition for the resumption of the peace process. While there are many problems with the current Palestinian leadership, US pressure will only serve to legitimise and strengthen it.

The same argument applies to the US position on Iraq. There is not a single, sane person in the Arab world that could possibly support Saddam Hussein's bloody dictatorship. However, the Arab world cannot but observe with scepticism that the insistence on Iraq's disarmament is not accompanied by even a hint about the Israeli nuclear arsenal, even as a subject for future discussion.

Powell's initiative comes at a time when Arab public opinion is extremely bitter about US policies in the area. These feelings will not be alleviated by honeyed words on US resolve to find an equitable solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Deeds and not words are what we are all expecting. Until actual change on the practical level takes place, the US, and all the well-intentioned in the area, are likely to be disappointed by the level of enthusiasm the US initiative will receive there.

The confrontation between the Muslims -not Islam- and the West, and specifically the United States, has worsened since the events of 11 September 2001, and two main hypotheses have surfaced to explain this: one based on the contradiction in culture and civilisation between Islam and the West, and the other centred on political factors.

The cultural interpretation is backed up in Samuel Huntington's writings, in the words and actions of Osama bin Laden and in Zionist and Israeli pressure. According to the political interpretation, the US policy towards the Islamic world in general, and the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular, is the main reason for much of what is happening. Many observers in the Arab and Islamic world, as well as in the West, support this view. They fully realise the reality of the situation in the Arab and Islamic world and they are not restricted by personal bias, interests or ideologies.

I, without any reservation, support this second explanation, and believe that the presence of major cultural differences between the Islamic world and the West in general does not, in itself, explain the strong feelings of hostility in the Islamic world towards the West. This cultural difference is accompanied by definite political factors and influences.

From the end of the 11th century to the late 13th century, the Crusades gave rise to the first friction between Islam and the Christian West. This was followed by the rise of the Ottoman empire, which was by 1529 besiging Vienna. Europeans counterattacked, conquering Andalusia and retaking Iberia, challenging Ottoman power through their maritime excellence. With the Ottoman empire weakened, individual European powers divided it into smaller units, which they colonised. From Indonesia to Gibraltar, from Central Asia to sub-Saharan Africa, with the exception of Afghanistan and the Arab peninsula, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Russia each carved out their own colonies. From the beginning of the 20th century, the Arabs and Muslims came to view the West as dominating colonial powers which they resented.

In brief, the cultural and religious conflict between Islam and the West is not enough in itself to produce strong feelings of hostility between Muslims -and the Arabs in particular- and the Western world. This conflict is linked with other political influences and factors, such as Muslim unity under one empire that seeks invasion and expansion -such as the Ottoman empire-, and the Western powers' colonisation of Islamic countries and the accompanying economic and technological gap -as at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries-. And the Zionist project in Palestine, crystallised in the emergence of the Israeli state in the middle of the century, played an important role, the influence of which surpassed that of other factors.

The Arabs were in no doubt about the role played by the European colonialist nations - which had dominated their countries since the beginning of the 20th century - in the foundation of the Israeli state. For while these nations desired the establishment of separate entities in the region, which later became the states of the Arab Mashriq, they perceived that the state most worthy of support in Palestine was a Jewish and not an Arab state.

The British foreign minister Lord Balfour's declaration in November 1917, in which he stated that the British government viewed favourably the establishment of a national homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, was the real beginning of the establishment of Israel. In the view of the Arabs, however, who considered it an ominous promise, it was a token of a European conspiracy aiming at the establishment of an alien state in their midst, like a dagger in their hearts.

At the same time as arrangements were being made for the establishment of an Israeli state, the Arab countries were totally absorbed in their struggle for independence before and then after the second world war. Amid their struggle, these countries saw their support for the Palestinian people as an expression of solidarity against two allying foes, colonialism and Zionism, and as an indication of the persistence of Arab nationalism.

Apart from this, the eruption of the Arab-Israeli conflict during the Cold War era included it in the context of confrontation between the East and the West. Although the Soviet Union and some of the countries of Eastern Europe were primary supporters of the establishment of Israel, the prerequisites of international competition shifted the East-West polarisation to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This shift helped crystallise the harsh stance taken by the Arab leftist forces against Israel together with the nationalist forces.

It is not strange then that the most important moments in the contemporary history of the Arab world have been related to developments in the Arab-Israeli conflict more than any other factor. The Arab world changed drastically in 1948, 1967 and 1973, especially for those countries directly bordering Israel. These years witnessed the Arab-Israeli wars, with all the accompanying psychological and emotional mobilisation, as well as enormous human and material losses.

The Jewish and Zionist powers focused their activities to secure support for Israel from the United States, just as they had previously done from Britain. Yet Britain's traditional skill in balancing its support for the Jewish state in Palestine with the establishment of good relations with the Arab ruling elite -represented in its support for the establishment of the Arab League- was not matched by the attitude of successive US administrations, with some few exceptions.

Over almost 50 years of the Arab-Israeli conflict -including the developments of the peace process that started in 1979-, the high levels of Arab political and emotional mobilisation against Israel have only been countered with similar levels of unwavering US bias towards Israel, and the general and provocative overlooking not only of Arab governments' demands, but also, more importantly, of the emotional feelings -of political and religious origins- of ordinary Arab people across the region.
The researcher in US policy towards the Middle East can easily perceive that the US focus has been centred on support of Israel all the way, regardless of its being right or wrong, more than on the promotion of the peace process between Israel and its neighbours. The United States has played a vital role that cannot be denied in bringing about the agreements of Camp David and the Egyptian-Israeli treaty, as well as the agreements convened with Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. Yet it did not show any real interest in introducing comprehensive projects for a real and all-encompassing peace between Israel and its Arab neighbours in a way that reflects its weight and capabilities.

In this context, the destructive impact of US policies in the Middle East - and in particular the unwavering and flagrant bias towards Israel - on the Arabs' vision -both Muslims and Christians- of the United States is only to be expected. So why can't the numerous US research centres and opinion-poll institutes figure out this close relationship between US policy, on one hand, and the negative attitudes of Arab public opinion against the United States, on the other? The vast majorities of the ordinary Arab world citizens have no background in the cultural contradiction between them and the Americans and have only slight knowledge about US hegemony over the world and their countries. However, they know only too well a very simple fact; that the United States usually supports Israel against the Palestinians and the Arabs.

We can thus conclude that reaching a comprehensive, fair and final settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict is among the most important elements that will contribute to removing the feelings of hatred and enmity against the West, and the United States in particular. Such a settlement would also remove the legitimacy from the terrorist organisations that threaten everyone, in the Muslim world and the West.