JEDDAH, 4 August — In the Arab and Islamic worlds we talk of Western empathy for the Israelis and the absence of any for the Palestinians. Why?
As late as the end of World War I, when America had not yet developed ambitions in the Middle East, Washington showed no strong interest in supporting the Zionists in their effort to create a Jewish state in Palestine. A democracy moving into liberalism, America would be expected to sympathize with Jews being an ethnic group not fully liberated from discrimination especially in Europe and Russia. With Europe moving into the Nazi and fascist era and targeting of Jews intensifying, America’s sympathy for Jews increased
When Washington grew closer to making the decision to join the Allies in World War II against Germany and Italy Washington projected the atrocities against Jews as one more justification for her entering the war. German occupations in Europe, images of the ruthless and bloody persecution of Jews in Germany and German-occupied Europe were used as effective propaganda material. Whether out of conviction or not, the Allies, including America, used this tool to rally domestic and international support for the war effort.
A country in time of war tends to magnify and/or exaggerate facts. Sometimes even fabricate them. This is usually necessary if the propaganda campaign is to have a greater impact. Following WW II propaganda claims became undisputed facts and powerful images of atrocities became permanent imprints on the psyche of the American and European public.
The Zionist movement, riding the wave of liberalism in the West, capitalized on this development and established on it a solid base for the operation of a powerful domestic political machine. The machine, since World War II, has been exceptionally effective in rallying support for Jews in their campaign to end discrimination against them in Western societies.
For the Zionists and their supporters, it helped rally support for their wars on the Arabs, political and military, to create a Jewish state in historical Palestine which had been almost completely Arab. American and European public and governments, influenced by a recent history of bloody European persecution of Jews, turned their sympathy for Jews into empathy. They gave the Zionists almost all that which they needed: full political and military support, but most importantly, a feeling of guilt. The rest is history.
Lately, Jewish scholars themselves have admitted that before WWII only a small minority of European and American Jews supported the Zionist movement. Following the war the Zionists gained unprecedented support from European and American Jewish communities. It created the impetus and provided the necessary funding for mass Jewish immigration to predominantly Arab Palestine.
When we probe deeply into the history of Washington’s policies vis-a-vis the Arab Israeli conflict, we find a faint line, which follows US national interest. But we find a powerful and persistent line, which follows Israel’s national interest. Degree of the visibility of the American national interest line has varied with the prevailing American domestic politics.
America’s initial thrust into the Middle East came around the mid-1930s. It became more active following World War II. Washington’s newly developed ambitions in the Middle East included four main objectives: 1) to replace European dominance in the Middle East; 2) to continue traditional European strategy and policies including the creation and protection of a Jewish State in Palestine; 3) to deny the Soviets any strategic advantage in the region and, 4) to secure, for America, a solid position in respect of the oil resources in the region.
America’s entry into the Middle Eastern arena was not easy but could have been less difficult and certainly less costly to itself and the people of the region. Against the background of Europe’s ugly history of occupation, America had shown no colonial ambitions in the region. Historically Arab receptiveness and admiration was for Woodrow Wilson’s America following WW I.
But Washington’s uncompromising Cold War stance to contain the Soviets required that certain major Middle Eastern countries join the alliance and form links in the European/American encirclement of the USSR. To agree to join the alliance, concerned Middle Eastern countries would have to allow the establishment of "foreign" military bases on their soil. Many of these countries had just regained their independence. Some of them had just dislodged European military forces from their territories. Others were in the process of doing so.
There was also recent mass immigration of European Jews to Palestine That was happening while Palestine was occupied and ruled by Britain under a mandate from the League of Nations following the end of World War I.
After the war America assumed leadership of the Western world. Under these conditions the Zionist movement decided to make its final and decisive onslaught on Palestine. American and European pro-Israeli policy and physical support made possible the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine populated by a flood of new Jewish immigrants from Europe.
To make room for the newcomers there was forced mass expulsion of the Arab inhabitants. This was seen as a clear invasion of an Arab territory and violation of Palestinian rights under international law. That injustice, committed by the Western world, led by America, could only have meant that America had abandoned Woodrow Wilson’ s principles and taken on the role of an imperial power. America’s image and popularity in the region began to change for the worse.
Yet, as late as the early 1950s, America still enjoyed a favorable position. Before the introduction of the Baghdad Pact to the region, even Egypt whose military in 1952 had just taken over government in a coup d’état, showed willingness to befriend and cooperate with Washington. But the "revolutionary" officers had taken control of government to end British occupation, fight corruption, reform the armed forces and introduce long awaited political, economic and land reforms.
For the young revolutionary regime, joining the West in the Baghdad Pact at that juncture would have constituted a betrayal of revolutionary principles. Joining a pact in which Britain played a pivotal role would have meant the retention of British military bases in Egypt. British military bases in the Suez Canal zone were seen as an occupation force. Britain was also a major power behind the forced creation of the state of Israel.
Rejecting the idea of joining the pact put Egypt and America at loggerheads. US Secretary of State John Foster Dallas exerted extreme pressure to force Egypt into joining the pact. He threatened by denying her World Bank funding for the High Dam project and badly needed military and economic aid. Egypt vehemently resisted. Being a leading country in the region, she also managed to discourage other Arab countries from joining. America succeeded only in convincing Iraq to join the pact.
Egyptians were caught between their immediate national interests and Washington’s pressure to include their country in the alliance. They found themselves in a corner. Their choices were clear: Either abandon the principles and promises of the revolution or go to the Eastern Block, which was only too eager to embrace them. The Soviets wasted no time. Moscow readily funded the construction of the High Dam, which by then had become a national symbol. They also poured badly needed military hardware and industrial material. Moscow did all that without requiring Egypt to join the Warsaw Pact or even abandon her membership in the non-allied movement.
Forcing Egypt to make that choice Washington afforded the Soviets a breakthrough in their Cold War embattlement. That miscalculation by Washington cost the alliance dearly. The move allowed the Soviets their first chance to establish a strategic foothold in the region. They secured a solid presence in Egypt, the most populous and one of the leading countries in the region. It also helped alienate a number or other Arab countries that were compelled, like Egypt, to move toward the Soviet orbit.
History proved that Egypt’s pro-Soviet position did not do significant damage to the Western position vis-a-vis the Warsaw Pact. It would have been less costly and more stabilizing to the region had Washington left Egypt to maintain neutrality rather than lean toward the Soviets.
One would conclude that Washington’s misguided policy in the 1950s led to all the instability and bloodshed, which has plagued the region for decades. Instead of creating conditions for the convergence of Arab/ American political and economic interests, Washington adopted policies, which served to create conditions for divergence.
Not until 20 years later (1973), when Egypt’s military forces won back the Suez Canal from Israel, was the problem for the West partially solved. Egypt, responding to political, military and economic gestures from Washington, evicted Soviet military forces from her territory. She then started a process of reorienting her political and economic posture away from Moscow and in favor of America. However, Soviet relations with other countries in the region remained strong until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. Washington unnecessarily continues to face resentment in the region especially at the popular level.
A superpower would be expected to formulate major policies only on bases of national interest. The Arab part of the Middle East consists of nearly 300 million people. It sits on the world’s largest oil reserves and controls waterways, which are vital for world trade and military traffic. With these facts on the ground why would Washington choose to secure her national interest in the Arab world by confronting rather than befriending countries of the region?
Unless themselves and/or their national interests are threatened, countries of the region should have no interest in denying their exportable resources and the use of their strategic waterways to a friendly West. It is also obvious that countries of the region had no interest and no ambition to compete with America for political or military control of regional or international territories. At this time and age there is no reason for a conflict of interest between the two sides except that which relates to the Arab-Israeli dispute.
With that in the background one is led to the conclusion that, in the early 1950s, American foreign policy makers made a historical miscalculation. Washington chose to ignore interests of the people of the region and remained oblivious to their dreams of freedom, a better life and cultural revival. From that unfortunate miscalculation precipitated most of the hostility, unrest and, to some extent, poverty. These negatives plagued most of the region’s population for over 50 years. It is obvious that America inherited and stubbornly followed the "wisdom" which characterized British and French prewar colonial strategies in the region, i.e., the "wisdom" of following imperial policies and implanting a hostile Jewish state in the region, That misguided policy emanated from the erroneous perception that without these policies Western interests would be threatened.
Even after the Arabs accepted to coexist with Israel and in spite of the region falling from one disaster to another, Washington persisted in her failure to recognize the numerous opportunities she had for course corrections.
Different but more effective and indeed less costly chances to win the area back were delivered to Washington on a silver plate many times. Washington remained trapped in the same archaic colonial reasoning of Europe and her own errors of the 1950s when she did not recognize the open arms of the region following the end of the European colonial era.
It does not take a genius to see that, had there been no Arab-Israeli conflict, only "common", not "conflict of" interests join the region with America. Had Washington chosen friendship based on equitable partnership, rather than domination, America would have had a loyal ally in the Arab people. The region would have willingly supported America in her cold and hot wars. Even the Arab-Israeli conflict would have developed differently which would have spared America the resentment and mistrust of the people of the region and spared all concerned the bloodshed and destruction that ensued.
Washington’s policies in the 1950s inevitably led to the relentless struggle by people and governments in the Arab world to fight back attempts to reverse their hard- won independence and the fruits which come with it. Attempts to bring the Arabs to line short of total independence and full and equitable partnership were doomed to failure. With few exceptions, Washington’s few successes were forcefully imposed or won at high price, thus carrying the seeds of their own destruction.
Few months ago in a courageous and generous move the Arabs made a unanimous historical offer to accept Israel in the region with full diplomatic and trade ties. This was an attempt to bridge the remaining gap in Arab-American relations. Washington’s response was lukewarm. Washington appears to be straining to extract herself from her post-World War II European strategy at a time when Europe herself has reassessed and almost reversed that strategy.
Hani Emam is a Saudi businessman based in Jeddah
