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Free Palestine (for Real)
The United States toppled Saddam Hussain and expected the spontaneous creation of a free society. That is not what occurred. When Khaddafi and the Taliban were toppled the outcomes were the same. When the West allowed the Mullahs to take over Iran they may have expected freedom from the Shah to be replaced with freedom, period. Instead, a cult of violent and expansionist messianic Muslims took over the country. The Egyptians overthrew Mubarak, and then the Muslim Brotherhood took over. They went back to dictatorship. After the fall of the wall, Russia descended into chaos and then slipped gently into an ever-strengthening dictatorship. Indeed, if we look back through history, most revolutions do not lead to greater freedom or a healthier society.
Chaos and dictatorship are the norm, not the exception.
Danger for Palestine
All of this is relevant today because, around the world, protestors are chanting for the end of the Israeli mission in Gaza and for a ‘Free Palestine.’ It is important to ask what a ‘Free Palestine’ would look like.
Would it lead to the chaos or to a Libya so dysfunctional that heavy rains brought down a dam that hadn’t been maintained for 20 years (killing 20,000 people only a few months ago – not that anybody cared)?
Would it lead to dictatorship?
Or would it lead to freedom?
The first approach to this question is one that assumes that Israel continues to exist – the Palestinians just gain governance of a territory of their own. We can already know what would happen in that case because it has already played out. Gaza was freed from Israeli occupation in 2005. Israel hoped, like the U.S. in Afghanistan or the world in Russia, that a free and peaceful society would suddenly emerge. Instead, Hamas emerged. It started with rockets on the very day the Israelis left and continued until and after Hamas won the Palestinian elections a mere five months later. They won elections and they followed up by throwing their political opponents from the tops of buildings.
If Palestine were free – today – it would be a country where gay people would face executions. It would be a country Christians would flee. It would be a country that would dedicate its budgets to tunnels and rockets and war at the cost of its own citizens.
Of course, those protesting around the world don’t want the Jewish State to exist. They want Palestine, “from the River to the Sea”. They want Israel erased. The majority of the Israeli Jewish population is not, of course, descended from European ‘colonialists’. They are descended from refugees from Arab and Muslim nations. These protestors want to follow the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab lands with the genocide of Jews from their homeland. The supporters of this plan imagine a free, almost utopian, society will emerge with the genocide of the Jewish population. “Justice will lead to peace.”
They imagine they will see a government that fulfills their progressive ‘Queers for Palestine’ dreams.
The historical record suggests another reality.
In Haiti, in response to some of the harshest slavery in world history, a slave revolution drove out the French. Then the Haitians killed every single white person on their territory. It was an anti-settler-colonialist’s dream. But it was not a dream for Haitians themselves. The society, freed of its oppressors, never became free. It remains by the far the poorest and often the most violent of all countries in the entire Western Hemisphere. 200 years have passed since the revolution and has still not found it way to political maturity and freedom.
In Algeria, the French colonialists were driven out. But the people never became free. One dictatorship followed another in a pattern that remains even today. There was another revolution as recently as 2019. But now, once again, protest is prohibited and dictatorship is all that remains.
In South Africa, white rule was removed. Now, a country blessed with extraordinary wealth is mired in crime, corruption and an inability to even supply electricity to its own people. Just do a video search for armored car heists in South Africa. It is like an action movie – except it isn’t fun.
A Somali revolution that started in 1978 eventually led to the collapse of the Somali government in 1991. The collapse of the government did not lead to peace, but to a civil war that is still ongoing and has taken an incredible toll.
All these examples show that freedom from an oppressor often does not lead to freedom for the oppressed.
Civil Society
Of course, not all revolutions follow this path. Some find their way to freedom and stability. Poland, Czechia, the Baltic States, and East Germany are free and function reasonably well. Rwanda overthrew the violent Hutu leadership and while it, too, is not a free country, it is far better than it was. The United States, although it was long stained by the sin of slavery, did not devolve into chaos and dictatorship after the revolt of 1776.
A Free Palestine, cleansed in the blood of eight million Jews, could follow the path worn by Germany, Poland, Rwanda, and the United States.
But it won’t.
It will follow the path of Haiti, Afghanistan, Egypt and Libya.
The reason is simple: the countries that blossom after revolution are those that had pre-existing civil societies prior to revolution. They step into a new, free reality, because they had already developed and internalized the traits necessary for freedom. Critically, they had social institutions capable of self-governance – prior to overthrowing their oppressors. They had the building blocks of the rule of law, rather than rule by force. Those social institutions have the social (not military) power to curtail the excesses of those who hold the weapons.
Ask Palestinians about their social institutions. They may hate Israel, but they know that both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas are deeply corrupt and rule through violence. While some pockets of Palestine have social institutions, such as clans not involved in criminal enterprises, they would be swept aside by the likes of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas.
This is why a ‘Free Palestine’ would be very unfree. Not only would a genocide of Jews occur, but Israeli-Palestinians (who can now vote, sit in the Israeli Parliament and be Chief Justices of the Israeli Supreme Court) would find themselves living under a violent tyranny. Gays would be thrown from buildings, minorities would be violently persecuted and the country would devolve into chaotic civil war. Removing the Jews from the equation would not make reality any better.
So is there hope for those, like myself, who want a Palestinian to be free?
The answer is: yes.
That hope must simply be qualified by the reality that such freedom will not spontaneously erupt simply because the Jews are eliminated. In fact, the elimination of the Jews will make it less likely to occur.
Roads Forward
The hopeful reality is that there are countries that have started with dictatorship and then found their way to peace, stability and at least some kinds of freedom. South Korea and Taiwan are vibrant democracies that were forged through dictatorships. India is a vibrant democracy that suffered a violent start (including as many as two million deaths and the transfer for 14 million people). Rwanda has emerged from one of the worst slaughters of the second half of the 20th century (Congo was far worse) to earn the third-highest rule of law index score in all of Africa (behind only Botswana and Namibia and ahead of South Africa and Egypt). The UAE, still a dictatorship, enjoys the second highest rule of law score in the entire Middle East (behind only Israel).
In other words, societies can evolve and become increasingly free and law-abiding. Of course, South Korea and Taiwan had strong social structures in place. They had the long-established Confucian traditions that defined much of their society. In the UAE, the absolute dictators of the Emirates recognized the value of the rule of law and managed to impose it on a tribal society – creating the framework for a rush of expatriates (and, sadly, slaves) to their cities.
In some way, the Tutsi government in Rwanda has the most remarkable story. They managed to move on from the Hutu genocide of three-quarters of a million of their people. They didn’t respond with a massive massacre of Hutus. Yes, they suppress free speech and hold close political control. Nonetheless, a thirst for revenge has not driven their government.
If this sort of even-keeled resolution of issues was a part of the current Palestinian culture, then peace would already have been made.
So, can Palestine evolve into a civil society? Can Palestine learn to be free?
The answer is: probably, but not by themselves.
The keys to a truly free Palestine are four-fold: honor, anger, civil society, and structure.
Honor
There is a fundamental dividing line between cultures. There are those cultures that are fundamentally driven by honor, and those fundamentally driven by law.
In an honor-based society, personal, family, and clan honor are not only critically important but used to justify violence. The Torah talks about society before the Flood as being obsessed with honor – and overwhelmed by violence. Street violence in the U.S. is often driven by a need to redress disrespect.
Arab society, and particularly Sunni Muslim society, is in large part an honor society. Yes, there are laws, but the legal system is explicitly writ small. Within the religious system there is no precedent and no courts with ultimate overriding authority. Instead, parties to legal disputes appeal to legal scholars for Fatwas and then bring them before judges. The judges compare the fatwas, and perhaps the status of those issuing them, and make one-time judgments. There is a lot of practical leeway – leeway that enables extremes such as mass sex slavery of women and public beheadings under the Islamic State. Because consistency is not a critical part of the legal system, there can be only a limited rule of law (Shia courts function differently).
At this point, for many, Palestinian honor demands that the Jews of Israel be genocided. This might seem reasonable to Westerners; at least those who support such an action. After all, 75 years ago many Arabs were driven from Israel. But cast it from the other perspective. The application of a very similar sense of honor would demand that because the Egyptians and Iraqis and Moroccans expelled their Jews, Jews are honor-bound to run commando teams into these countries and behead civilians within them until a Jewish need for honor is satiated. Cast from this perspective, the application of the rules of honor seems insane.
Nonetheless, it is a powerful force.
So how can this need for honor be tamed and or redirected?
The answer is all around us. Despite their need for honor, Sunni Arab states such as Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain, and the UAE have found their way to peace. Saudi Arabia may not be far behind. How have they done this? In every case, their governments discovered that the price of honor was simply too high relative to the returns.
First, Egypt and Jordan were soundly defeated, time and again. Egypt was the first to make peace. It wrapped itself in the cloth of victory, celebrating its defeat in 1973 as if it were the greatest of successes. And then, after lying to themselves about their honor being assuaged, they found their way to a cold peace. Jordan looked to the Oslo Accords as an excuse to discontinue the war – pretending their honor had been assuaged. Morocco, Bahrain, and the UAE had less skin in the game and were thus persuaded by the relative benefits of peace and trade.
The first step in the path to addressing the dangers of honor is making the price of honor too high to be worth the returns. The Palestinians are closer to the conflict. Their honor has been more directly threatened, and so overwhelming that sense of honor will require a firmer establishment of its costs.
Of course, military defeat at the hands of Israel will not change the fundamental role of honor in Arab society. Shia Muslims remain angry about the death of Ali, almost 1,500 years ago. No, for peace to emerge, another source of honor has to be developed. The UAE provides a wonderful example. The Emir of Dubai, in particular, discovered that there is great honor in development and that development is greatly accelerated by peace and the rule of law. His honor is now being met by launching spaceships to the moon, building ridiculous skyrises, buying the largest planes in the world, and sharing his deep ‘wisdom’ with Western visitors eager to ascribe their admiration to some cause other than profligate spending.
Clan warfare is no longer critical to their honor. It has been redirected.
In current Palestinian society, those who conduct terrorist attacks against schools and beat in baby’s skulls with rifle butts have streets and town squares named after them. They are called heroes and martyrs. The ‘moderate’ Palestinian Authority government pays their families stipends that total hundreds of millions of dollars a year – and the amount paid effectively rises with the level of terror committed. This has to be quashed. Within this society, honoring killers is a form of incitement to genocide. Thus, the Internet has to be filtered, posters removed, squares renamed, and this sort of propaganda utterly suppressed.
I am fundamentally a fan of free speech, but every one of these celebrations is not an act of free speech but an act of incitement. Go ahead and criticize the Jewish state and state the case for Palestinian freedom. Honoring murderers is another story entirely.
An honor society requires a source of honor. So even as the celebration of murderers is quashed, something else has to take its place. Thankfully, there are worthy targets of honor. Those who advance peaceful Palestinian society, from artists to poets to bureaucrats, have to be praised. At the same time, the great Muslims of the past – who engaged in acts of great cultural and scientific achievement – should be praised. They should be honored, and at the expense of those who just engaged in conquest, subjugation and religious oppression. This praise cannot come from Israel, but the shifting in priorities can occur. This is where structure will become critical.
Anger
A close cousin of honor is anger. Palestinians are angry about their history. From a wider Arab perspective, that anger is unreasonable. Arabs drove 99.5% of their Jews out of their countries. Baghdad was a third Jewish in the 1930s – only four Jews remain. They then followed up by stating and attempting to genocide the Jews who had gathered in Israel. They very nearly succeeded. The displacement of the Arabs from Israel was entirely reasonable given their ongoing attempts to genocide the Jewish population. In the great Arab-Israeli conflict, the genocide of Jews and the prevention of that genocide have long been the driving motivation of each party.
From a broad Arab perspective, the problem is one of honor – a Jewish state should not exist in a place where there has been Arab-Muslim rule. It is insulting. But the Palestinian perspective, writ onto a smaller canvas, is very different. Certainly, they committed pogroms in the 1920s and 30s. Certainly, they supported a campaign of genocide. Nonetheless, they were the only ones to actually lose their lands. Furthermore, instead of being welcomed by other Arab states, they were left in refugee camps where their society turned more and more angry at their predicament. Jewish refugees from Arab lands were taken in by the nascent Israeli state. They moved on. Arab refugees were given no such welcome. They weren’t allowed to move on. They were meant to be a thorn in Israel’s side, and they have been. Yes, they have joined in the actions of attempted genocide – but unlike the Jordanians, Egyptians, Syrians, Lebanese, and others, the Palestinians were actually displaced.
They have a reason to be angry, even as they subscribe to genocide.
While their need for honor can be redirected, can their anger be deflected?
There are those who have moved on from righteous anger. There are children of Holocaust survivors – millions of them – who harbor no ill-will to Germans. I have a Boer friend who did not tell his children the crimes the British committed against his family – because he did not want his family’s anger to be sustained (his own brother decided to pass the family anger on to his own children. Today, my friend’s nephew finds himself living a bitter life mired in hate.) The Vietnamese are now allies of the United States.
However, these people come from other cultures, cultures that have learned to move on from anger rather than sustaining it for thousands of years. When Arab Muslims taunt Jews with the chant “remember the Qurayza (or Khaybar),” they imagine this massacre of Jews by Mohammed continues to rip at the collective heart of the Jewish people. I’d wager that 99%+ of Jews have no idea what they are talking about (I couldn’t remember the name when I wrote this article – I had to look it up). Jews move on. Jewish culture doesn’t sustain anger. By and large, Arab Muslim culture does.
This idea of holding on to ancient anger plays a critical, but often forgotten, role in the Torah. Amalek becomes angry when Abraham does not rescue them from Kedarlaomer. They carry their resentment for hundreds of years and launch a cowardly attack against the baggage train of the Jewish people upon the Exodus from Egypt. We are commanded to eliminate the memory of Amalek. Of course, just by remembering the command, we preserve the world’s memory of them. Thus the phrase ‘the memory of Amalek’ is not about everybody else forgetting Amalek – it is about eliminating Amalek’s only ability to remember. In other words, it is about enabling them to move on. One generation out of Egypt, Jews are commanded to treat the Egyptian with kindness. Of all the commandments, this is one we actually internalized. Part of our fundamental mission is to bring the possibility of moving on from anger.
So how can the anger of this conflict be dissipated?
The answer exists in Islamic law: with money.
In Saudi Arabia, murderers are sentenced to death. However, the families of those who were murdered can accept diyah from the murderers’ families and choose to commute the sentences. Acceptance of the diyah is an agreement to drop a claim to vengeance. In Saudi Arabia, third-party donors can and do step in to enable these payments. Israel could pay diyah to Palestinian families who have lost people in the conflict. At the same time, Palestinians could pay diyah to Israelis for the murders they have committed.
I do realize the law raises questions about the applicability of diyah when it comes to non-Muslims — and some argue it should only apply to cases of accidental death. Nonetheless, the concept (and the obvious flexibility in the Saudi application of it) creates an opportunity for a balancing of the books.
The greatest question in the process of diyah is the sums necessary to achieve settlement. In 2012 in Egypt, the government paid families $16,500 each for those who were killed in anti-government protests. At the other extreme, Saudi cases are routinely being settled for sums north of $1 million each.
As with the resolution of questions of honor, the resolution of questions of anger through diyah or other means also ultimately rests on structure.
Civil Society and Structure
Not every Palestinian city or town is equal when it comes to terrorism. For years, Jericho was fundamentally at peace with Israel while Jenin has been a central hotbed of terror. Beit Lechem is not Gaza. What distinguishes these places?
One of the core distinctions has to do with clan. Where people were displaced into refugee camps – particularly from cities where clan structures were already weak – social order has been weak, and terrorism has flourished. Terrorist organizations have built loyalties among people who are displaced in more ways than one. Jericho, the city, has been at peace with Israel – but the refugee camp at its southern end has not.
One of the factors that enabled the UAE to so quickly shift from war to peace was the top-down tribal structure of the UAE. Once the decision was made at the top, it flowed down through the social structure of the society. A state of war became a warm peace almost overnight. The clans can achieve this. In the West Bank, some clans could be leveraged to deliver improvements.
The clans could support:
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- The refocusing of honor on civic achievement and peaceful cultural pride.
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- A settlement on the scope of diyah payments in each case and from each side. A court could decide the appropriate scope of payments based on circumstances (e.g., active firefights vs. accidental deaths vs. terrorism or unjustified uses of force).
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- The gradual integration of clanless residents of refugee camps into functioning social structures.
Israel could further support this process by supporting the clans themselves with financial, trade, and legal improvements of their status vis-à-vis Israel.
Many clans would not join in such arrangements, but for those who would, a road to a better reality would be established (it must always be remembered that this is the Middle East. Problems are not solved, situations are only improved.)
The Gaza situation is entirely different. Not only have the Gaza clans been consistently at war with Israel, but they also have a very different position in society. Many of them were family-based criminal organizations that made a business of taking advantage of Gazan refugees. Most importantly, the position of the clans has been greatly weakened. Their structure presented a threat to Hamas, so Hamas made a point of destroying the most prominent clans in Gaza, from the Al-Bakr and Al-Masri to the Hilles and the Doghmush. As the Financial Times put it: “Hamas demands that its members place their political affiliation above all else – even above family and kinship.”
A clan-based improvement of Gaza is almost entirely out of the question. Even if they were to be resurrected, they would not be partners in peace and the establishment of the rule of law.
A more appropriate corollary for Gaza is post-war Japan. Japan was also an honor-based society whose people had been convinced to carry out hopeless suicide missions against the American military. The American occupation government punished the Japanese military, banned former military officers from taking political leadership, reduced the power of rich landowners and began the legal transformation of Japanese society. But Japan was a far more homogenous society than Gaza is today. Prior to the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the Japanese had had 300 years of internal peace. After a brief period of internal conflict during the Restoration, they went to war – but not internally. A rebuild of Japanese society was thus far simpler than a rebuild of Gazan society.
Nonetheless, there are lessons to be learned. In Gaza, all the existing leaders and social structures have to be swept aside and the refugee camps have to be completely dismantled. The entire education system has been dedicated to Jew-hatred. Textbooks for children teach hate and have such material as accusations that the Jews infect Palestinians with cancer, conspired against Mohammed, and have bought the UAE. These same educational institutions exist in West Bank refugee camps, but at least there are alternative social structures in place. In Gaza, the entire society is one of poison.
This is why nobody wants to accept Gazans in their countries – even temporarily. Egypt will not accept them, neither will the Saudis, the Emiratis, or anybody else. Their society is entirely poisoned and all their Arab kinsmen know it. None of Israel’s neighbors (with the exception of the sub-national army of Hezbollah) actually want a free Palestine “from the River to the Sea” — it would be a nightmare for the region far more dangerous to the Arab world than Israel itself. Even the Syrian regime would be deeply threatened by such an outcome.
This poison is the reason why the resolution of the issues in Gaza thus has to be far more forceful.
First, there must be no road to honor through the murder of Jews. No signs, no mourning tents, no social media posts. Nothing. Those who are caught celebrating such murderers must themselves be prosecuted and they must be isolated so their poison can be contained. Their actions are not the actions of free speech, but direct encouragement and incitement to genocide.
Second, new school systems – perhaps run by the UAE or Israeli-Palestinians – have to be established. Their curriculum has to be monitored by Israeli authorities. The UN has shown it actively encourages and enables hate and terrorism.
Third, exposure between cultures has to be dramatically enhanced – not exposure of Arab employees to Jewish employers but exposure of Arab children to Jewish children. One Gaza man established a system of Zoom calls between Arabs and Jews. I took part once. A few of my kids met his niece and they spoke in English. Make this concept a regular part of curriculums throughout Israel. Mandate Zoom calls between every segment of the population (or phone calls in the case of the Haredim). Use interpreters to facilitate these conversations.
Monocultures, whether Arab or Jewish, are dangerous and ultimately deadly.
Fourth, those who will accept diyah payments to conclude their fight with Israel should be welcomed to do so. Courts similar to those to be established in the West Bank should be established in Gaza. However, they should be manned by Israelis and Arabs from outside Gaza. Give people a way to formally and religiously renounce the state of feud.
Finally, enable self-rule of Gaza in every area that is possible. While you may restrict genocidal teachings, don’t suppress Islam as a whole. While regular sweeps may suppress weapon-making workshops, encourage the growth of a domestic construction industry. Explicitly specify the rights of Gazans and, bit by bit, if the poison is leached and if the society maintains the peace – expand those rights. Give Gazans control over ever-increasing areas of self-governance – starting with municipal issues and civil law courts and moving towards ever greater self-determination. All of this can only be done under the terms of a direct and hands-on occupation. Without close monitoring, the reality will be a return to the Gaza of today. You can not start with complete self-governance – that is the trap that led to the election of Hamas.
While the lack of complete freedom may seem like a curse to those living in liberal democratic societies, sometimes it is critical to enabling people to live the fullest possible lives. Singapore is not a free society, Dubai is not a free society – both have fundamental inequities – but they manage to create peace and opportunity for their citizens and most of their residents. Taiwan, South Korea, Rwanda and the UAE all went through periods of unfreedom to get where they are today.
Conclusion
I support a free Palestine. I support the freedoms of all people. But history has shown us that the most effective paths to freedom are often not the most direct. Freedom requires the creation of civic institutions and civil society that refocus anger and the seeking of honor. The West Bank has such institutions in some areas. Gaza does not.
Creating the conditions where Gazans can enjoy true freedom will require a complete rebuilding of Gazan society. Indeed, such a rebuild will ultimately be necessary in parts of the West Bank as well.
Anything short of this will lead only to horror – not least of all for the Palestinians themselves.
The opportunities for failure are manifold. Such a process is far from guaranteed to work. But unless we want endless war and and ever-suffering peoples, we ought to seek a path out of our current reality.
To reach more of my Hamas war coverage, visit https://www.josephcox.com/category/hamas23/
Published in Foreign Policy
To my knowledge, this is the only cogent proposal for what Israel can do after Hamas is eliminated. And I think it has a lot of merit.
I hope it gets lots of coverage!
I didn’t think I would, but I read the whole piece. Because I really want to understand what is going on beyond the slogans. This sentence crystalized it for me: Gaza’s people are poison. But you provide a non-starry eyed path to rehabilitation. I share iWe’s wish that this post gets some attention. You may not be right about everything, but it seems time for this type of thinking.
In those cases, people were fleeing the countries in search of freedom long before the revolutions came.
That might be the key. You need evidence that the common people are actively taking great risks to secure personal freedom first.
Arguably, Iran comes somewhat close to fitting that description, considering how many Iranians have fled the Iranian dictatorship.
The current Arab diaspora, by contrast, (arguably) not so much. They tend to be war refugees (at best), not freedom-seekers.
It wasn’t always thus. I know some Egyptian old-timers who immigrated after serving in His Majesty’s armed forces during WWII. They got outta there when Egypt became an independent republic because they saw the British Crown as a better guarantor of freedom.
Regarding the current crisis: I agree that Arab Palestine cannot be independent unless it has strong civil institutions first. IMHO, the best way for those to emerge is for Egypt to take back Gaza and for Jordan to take back the West Bank, and for both of ’em to grant the Gazans/West Bankers full citizenship with the option of declaring their own independence at some point in the future after a free and fair referendum. I don’t see that happening any time soon, especially considering how Jordan still refuses to grant West Bank “refugees” full citizenship.
“Honor Cultures”…it has been suggested that honor cultures..in which you are expected to personally fight to avenge any insults…have in the West evolved into Dignity Cultures, with the principle ‘sticks & stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” and the rule that wrongs are to be righted by public institutions rather than by private violent revenge…but now we are in the stage of Victimhood Culture, where people expect anything they perceive as an insult to be righted by the public authorities.
It strikes me that people with Victimhood Culture beliefs may feel a natural affinity toward people with Honor Culture beliefs. It is strictly a one-way affinity, though.
Also the reality of probable behaviour of the Gazans after. I think expecting the Israelis to not just rebuild physical infrastructure but to reform and rehabilitate a belief system (when other Arabs will not) is a very big ask, as they say. I do not see any serious condemnation of Hamas/Gaza determination to obliterate the Jews. I don’t see real acceptance that it’s the foundation for their being. Who will support Israel eliminating that foundation to rehabilitate a body of people?
You are right, of course. It is a big ask.
The value of this kind of post is that it is trying to address the underlying problem and find a solution that does not require forcibly expelling people into countries that will not take them.
Posit: Once Hamas is dead, what else can Israel do?
Israel itself is reluctant to do so. But Israel is also very aware of the failure of doing so. The ask may well be smaller than sending my grandkids and their grandkids to war. Europeans (and of course, other Arab states) are also increasingly aware of the costs of failure. I wouldn’t be surprised to see tacit support among Arab nations even as the Europeans hold their noses and condemn the Jews.
Remember, even Saudi Arabia – the font of Wahabi Muslims (they don’t like to be called that) and a very extreme Islamic country – has also fought against their own religious super-radicals.
The effort could even be funded and staffed by Gulf states with military control from Israel.
My piece on the dangers of barbarism is here: https://www.josephcox.com/hamas-and-the-threat-of-a-new-dark-ages/
It won’t work. Gazan extremism could topple the Egyptian government. They’d never do it without a lot of help. Same goes for the Jordanian government. The Jordanians may sometimes talk a big talk – but letting the residents of the Jenin camp run around Amman as full citizens… I think not.
From Israel’s perspective the West Bank side of the equation would be completely unacceptable (we’d love Egypt to solve Gaza, but they can’t). The Jordanians (for certain) wouldn’t be able to impose enough force to control the area without the threat of rebellion. And, of course, a poorly defended West Bank would expose every inch of Israel to 30-second rocket warnings and constant assault. No city in Israel is further than 20-odd kilometers from the borders of the West Bank or Gaza.
I think “Gaza’s people are poison” is a little too all-encompassing. The society is poison – and it has mechanisms to reinforce that poison and spread it. But I’m very very reluctant to say people are poison.
I’m not really coming from the Right here… Arab (and for that matter Israeli) cultures are both solidly communitarian. That isn’t going to change. Nonetheless, you can have the rule of law (as seen in Dubai and Israel). To give another example, Poles may have been fleeing Poland, but Solidarity wasn’t first and foremost a movement to bring individual liberty. It was a movement to oppose authoritarianism through trade unionism. Nonetheless, it built up civil institutions that served the country well when the Soviet system fell.
I think the opposite analysis is useful. Iran *had* thousands of years of civil institution building and if the survival of Chaharshanbe Suri (and even its official acceptance to some degree) is any indication, these cultural institutions are still there under the surface. The Ayatollahs and the Shah and the various other society-crushing forces that pre-dated them still face social institutions that can project power without force.
Again, hard to say. I once had a wonderful conversation with a terrorist in training (on a plane of all places). One of the key indicators of his life-path was that his uncle and aunt had become frightened of him. There is a process of radicalization and it doesn’t apply to everybody.
Consider this quote from the JPost in 2008 with regards to Palestinian reaction to members of a Gaza clan coming to Jericho…
“Why didn’t Abu Mazen [Abbas] take them to Ramallah?” asked a shopkeeper in the center of the city. “Why do they always send these guys to our city?”
A restaurant owner noted that in the past he and some of his colleagues had been exposed to threats and extortion by Fatah gangsters who were “exiled” to Jericho by Israel and the PA.
“May God help us,” he commented upon learning that the Hilles men were about to be transferred to Jericho. “Many Fatah gunmen who were sent to Jericho over the past few years gave us a very hard time. I believe that the presence of the Hilles people here wills scare away many tourists.”
I think the United States has an ongoing problem with some similar characteristics: the drug cartels in Central and South America.
I feel very sorry for the people trapped in these cartel-controlled countries. I don’t know how we can help them in the big way that needs to happen.
They are related. There is an issue of barbarism (the opposite of integrated civilizationism) in both cases. I wrote a piece very recently about this and included the drug cartels in a part of it…
…If Israel fails to kill the virus of Hamas – whether through a lack of action on our part or the constraining of our actions by the West – then Hamas’ barbarism will be rewarded. Barbarians of all stripes – from Mexican drug gangs to Islamic terrorists – will grow ever more bold. Civilizations will falter before them. Civil societies will break down. On a smaller scale, we have already seen this – from the banlieues of Paris to the countryside of Sinaloa…
I don’t have strong approaches on the cartels. Getting the U.S. healthier (from a cultural perspective) might cut drug spending. Licensing drug use (but only after spending a minimum number of hours with people trying to recover) might cut margins. But the cartels are definitely destroying already weak civic institutions throughout the region – to terrible effect.
That’s right. They have been free. Frankly I think you’re falling for the propaganda if you think they haven’t been. They elected Hamas. They have supported Hamas without much of blowback as far as I can tell. (Others who have spent time in Israel can correct me if I’m wrong.) Your comparison to Iraq is flawed. From what I remember 80% of Iraqis wanted Saddam Hussein gone. Here they actually elected Hamas. Sure, continue to give the Palestinians freedom – it wasn’t taken away – but I wouldn’t expect a change of attitude. They brag about their children being martyrs in a death struggle with Israel. That’s not going to change. They will rebuild but they will also rebuild their military infrastructures and they will try again in 20 years if Iran keeps supplying them weapons. Unless you have a complete change of heart from the Palestinians, I wouldn’t expect change. The best Israel can do is set them back and monitor the situation better.
And frankly, in my opinion, that is the heart of it. If Islam could be suppressed, I would highly advocate it. But unfortunately it can’t be. It would be a futile if not counterproductive. Islam advocates supremacism, so no two cultures on what they consider Islamic land are ever going to get along unless Islam is held as in charge.
The average age in Gaza is 18. The last election was in 17 years ago. Approximately 80% were under the age of 18 at the time of those elections. Saying the current population chose Hamas is a stretch. There is lots of evidence that many in Gaza want Hamas gone – but only because they haven’t met their election promises, including the destruction of Israel and a clean government. This position has been strengthened by Hamas and UNRWA educations.
I would have thought the rest of the article would have made very clear that I’m not talking about ‘giving the Palestinians freedom’ in quite the way you imagine.
I guess your utopian view stopped me from reading the entire post. Let me ask you. What was the average age of the the men who invaded on 10/7 and cut the heads off of babies? You seem to think that their hatred of Israel and Jews is a passing fad. It’s deeply ingrained.
Except that history shows Islamic civilization can take different forms. Andalusia was a multi-cultural and highly cultured place – certainly more so than what followed. Albania is not a radical country. Until recently, Indonesia wasn’t a radical country. Egypt was far less radical a century ago. Look at the photos from Afghanistan before the Soviets. Iran’s government is radical, but much of the population isn’t.
Ideology, even Islamic religious ideology, can and is leavened.
Yes, there is a powerful drive not to surrender territory to non-Muslims. But this doesn’t mean that accommodations can’t be reached. The UAE is actually in a friendly peace with Israel.
I’ll take a Jewish perspective – as I’m Jewish. There are undeniably Jewish supremacists. They come in a few different forms (from those who simply believe in sort of ‘soul’ supremacy to those who believe political supremacy in Israel is a commandment). That said, ‘Judaism’ is in reality not a religion or ethnicity that pursues supremacy. I certainly don’t and basically nobody to the left of me (politically or religiously) does either. I would venture that a very solid majority of Jews do not believe political supremacy should be pursued – or that Jews are superior or more important than anybody else.
You can read the same texts many different ways. The commandment to destroy Amalek can be seen as applying to the Palestinians or it can be seen as an irrelevance in the modern world (my position, as seen above, is totally different). Sections of the Talmud can be ignored (and generally are) or they can be used as a lodestone of faith.
The same basic rules apply to Islam. The way in which a faith manifests itself can vary dramatically.
Furthermore, it’s so deeply ingrained it goes back to the founding of Islam itself. There are numerous slanders against Jews in the Koran and Hadith. Not only is it ingrained in their souls it’s ingrained in their sacred scriptures. Mohammed could not convince Jews to convert as he conquered the region, and so he “received” from Allah all sorts of characterizations about the Jewish people. You can almost construe their views of Jews as a genetic feature of their nature. It’s racist, and no wonder Muslims were in league with Hitler, and no wonder at the slightest Palestinian/Israeli conflict Muslims around the world come to the Palestinian defense.
Here from back in the 7th century after a particular battle, the incident of Banu Qurayza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banu_Qurayza where Mohammed had 600-800 Jews beheaded.
Muslims will never consider anyone, especially Jews, to be in a position of authority in a land once supposedly was part of Dar al-Islam. It is part of their folklore, their scriptures, and their identity.
Welcome to Ricochet, @josephcox! Very thoughtful piece that exhibits deep understanding of social structures and mores of the region. I look forward to reading more of your observations and recommendations.
As an aside, my proposed Israeli Constitution tempers the ‘Jewish Control over Muslim lands’ issue by focusing Jewish control on the function of protecting Jews while also yielding new opportunities for sectarian self-government.
To be clear, this self-government already exists (Haredim and Arabs have their own banking systems and dispute resolution systems) but it is illegal. By making these systems explicit and legal it brings de-facto systems into a de jure reality that strengthens the rule of law while also encompassing structures that moderate monocultural extremism.
It also enables Muslims to say that Israel isn’t really under Jewish control or a ‘Jewish State’, it just provides protection to Jews. Religious flexibility is greatly enhanced by effective fig leaves.
@Manny
10 When you march up to attack a city, first make them an offer of peace. 11 If they accept your offer and open their gates to you, all the people of that city will become your slaves and work for you. 12 But if they do not make peace with you and fight you in battle, you should surround that city. 13 The Lord your God will give it to you. Then kill all the men with your swords, 14 and you may take everything else in the city for yourselves. Take the women, children, and animals, and you may use these things the Lord your God gives you from your enemies. 15 Do this to all the cities that are far away, that do not belong to the nations nearby.
Deuteronomy 20. From the Jewish Torah.
Oh, and not practiced by the Jewish State or believed to be anything but completely anathema to Jews. Even the craziest radicals don’t argue for complete genocide and enslavement of enemy populations.
But there it is, in our folklore and our scriptures and part of our identity.
Things change.
You obviously accept all the liberal BS with Islam. Multicultural my behind. It was multicultural as long as Muslims were in power and other cultures were subservient. Here:
THE MYTH OF THE ANDALUSIAN PARADISE https://isi.org/intercollegiate-review/the-myth-of-the-andalusian-paradise/
THE MYTH OF ANDALUSIAN MULTICULTURAL UTOPIA DEBUNKED https://tundratabloids.com/2016/04/14/the-myth-of-andalusian-multicultural-utopia-debunked/
Anything by Raymond Ibrahim such as this. https://www.frontpagemag.com/when-spain-crushed-islamic-jihad-battlefield-raymond-ibrahim/
Good luck!
I think Ibn Warraq may also have written about that myth. (Although my memory cannot be relied upon on this.)
I don’t know about the myth of the Andalusian utopia (he may have) but he’s certainly written about the Islamic need for supremacism, and he writes from one who was Muslim.
Absolutely superb post. I learned a lot – thanks.
Having said that, I view your proposals as extremely optimistic. Palestinian culture is poison – the idea of self rule in that culture seems unrealistic. And as you point out, self rule there right now, with this culture, would be horrifying for everyone involved.
Then again, I don’t have any better ideas. Your proposals may be worth a try.
But good luck. In the Palestinians, the Arabs have build a weapon which was designed to kill Jews, but now that weapon cannot be controlled, even by the Arabs who built it and have supported it over the years. They’ve built something they cannot possibly control. And neither can anyone else.
I could be wrong, of course. I pray that I am.
Because if I’m right, this cannot end well.
Again, fantastic post.
Interesting read – and the outcome could really be much worse – but diyah only works if the guilty party accepts responsibility.
I agree that a new dark age seems very likely. The efforts to erase all measures of achievement, excellence, elegance and civilization in the West have been hard at work for a long time. Who have challenged those who destroy those examples of civilization or erase evidence of history? Lived history as they say on the left seems irrelevant if it’s real. Exactly no one.
So I don’t see anyone declaring the ideology and motivation of the Islamists to be beyond the pale of civilization. It’s not just Hamas – the rest of the Arabs would have to deny a pretty key part of their ideology: supremacy and its goal of conquest and submission. I don’t see that happening.
(Snidely she said: since the 1980’s I’ve seen powerful Muslim men indulging all manner of western pleasures all over Europe while they encourage and support those who work to destroy that very same environment.) I apologize – I dislike being snide or snotty but the intellectual dishonesty from the left – treating all viewpoints as equally sound – is profoundly discouraging.
And I should read the rest of the conversation. I value the thoughtful discussion.
Hm? In the piece linked to I wrote: “If Israel fails to kill the virus of Hamas… then Hamas’ barbarism will be rewarded. Barbarians of all stripes – from Mexican drug gangs to Islamic terrorists – will grow ever more bold… The well-meaning West … fails to understand that even as every culture can provide beautiful richness, not every manifestation of every culture is equal. The enlightened West, struggling not to repeat the sins of cultural imperialism, allows itself to be blinded by those barbarians who wrap themselves in the skins of the great civilizations they have hijacked.”
Seems like I declared the motivation and ideology of the Islamists to be beyond the pale of civilization.
But that isn’t the same thing as declaring Islam to be incapable of civilization.
When Isabella and Ferdinand took over Spain, my people fled south… except for the ones who were dispossessed, forced to give up their children so they could flee or had their children sent to sugar colonies to die because they couldn’t pay a head tax (San Tome and Principe).
Was Cairo wonderful for Maimonides? I’m sure it wasn’t. But some things are relative.
You opened with “the efforts to erase all measures of achievement, excellence, elegance and civilization in the West have been hard at work for a long time.”
A long time would certainly include 80 or 90 years ago. In the 1940s, Europeans killed millions of my people after over a thousand years of brutal suppression and hundreds of years of pursuing global supremacy. We grew up cursing the Crusaders and their Hamas-like crimes against us. I guess Europe should have simply been considered a lost cause. Sure, those English were a little different. Then again, they denied us many opportunities to flee the Nazis and prohibited us from even living on their island for centuries.
Then again, things change. They actually change. And they can change for the better.
Islam has been turned in a very radical direction with the rise of Wahabbism and its oil-based funding, but this is not the only direction in which things have to move. Iran has become less radical, for example. Azerbaijan is not the least bit threatening. They aren’t Arab, but the future isn’t set.
Not to be snide or snotty, but I can’t imagine you’re arguing I said all viewpoints are equally sound.