According to the Obama administration, and echoed by many well meaning and not so well meaning interested observers, there can be no Peace between Israel and the Palestinians until the Israelis stop provoking the Palestinians through their policy of building settlements. The only problem with this theory is that it is wrong. It is true that the Arabs find Israeli settlements to be an unacceptable humiliation; however, the Arab definition of "settlements" might well surprise you:
PA TV deligitimizes Tel Aviv residents as "settlers"
In a PA TV program about the history of Jaffa (southern Tel Aviv), pictures of a Muslim cemetery in Jaffa included the caption: "Jaffa's holy sites are in the hands of the settlers."
The Arabs consider all of Israel to be occupied land:
Abbas displays map of "Palestine" that erases Israel
PA cartoon: "Palestine" replacing Israel comes before education
The Israeli request that the Palestinians accept Israel as a Jewish state would seem to be the minimal expectation of their "partners in Peace" in the Palestinian Authority yet the Arab League has just officially enjoined the Palestinians from rejoining the Peace talks because of Israeli "intransigence."
It is worth wondering why the West has so much trouble understanding that the Arabs mean what they say, that it is the existence of a Jewish state in what they consider part of their territory that is the unacceptable provocation. It is not a matter of drawing acceptable boundaries between states but an existential matter; any Jewish state, within any borders, is unacceptable.
Richard Landes tries to educate Tom Friedman, the "go to" expert on the Middle East in the liberal media, on how the Middle East works:
Tom Friedman and the Deep Superficiality of Western thinking about the Arab-Israeli conflict
Tom Friedman’s latest effort to offer advice on the “peace negotiations” between Israel and the Palestinian Authority offers some in-depth insight into how superficial much of current Western thinking is on the matter. In it, he expresses some exasperation with Israel’s behavior – like a spoiled child – in refusing Obama’s request for an extension of the settlement freeze. In the process of laying out his case, Friedman reveals a curious tunnel vision which, I think, is symptomatic of many Westerners.
It’s not that Friedman’s approach, what I call the PCP1 (Politically Correct Paradigm) is necessarily wrong (which I think it is, at least right now). It’s that Friedman clearly doesn’t even consider that the other approach, the JHSP (Jihad Honor-Shame Paradigm) might be more accurate for analyzing the situation and devising successful strategies to deal with it (which I think it is, at least right now). And it’s not that these paradigms are “scientific” in the sense that one’s right and the other’s wrong. They’re about people and cultures, and therefore much less pre-determined.
But since, if the JHSP is the appropriate one for this case at this time, and you apply strategies based on the PCP, the consequences are far more than simple failure. When post-modern masochism (it’s our fault) comes together with pre-modern sadism (it’s your fault), the marriage is not a very pretty sight.
As a prelude to fisking Friedman, let’s just for a moment, review how differently PCP and JHSP analyze the key issue he treats in this op-ed piece – Israeli settlements on the West Bank. For the Politically-Correct Paradigm (PCP) – which Friedman and the overwhelming majority of the Mainstream News Media (MSNM) channel, as illustrated by Jim Clancy of CNN – they are the obstacle to peace. Settlements beyond the the “Green Line” (’67 border) compromise the “land for peace” formula; they eat away at the land that Palestinians want to create their state side by side with Israel.
They are, from the PCP, illegal (or should be if they’re not); they create enormous friction with the local population; they’re troubling evidence of Israel’s expansive tendencies; they ruined the Oslo Peace Process; and it’s entirely understandable that Palestinians are deeply angered by them and demand their cessation. In order for the Peace negotiations to advance, it’s a minimal demand. Settlements have the power to drive “peace” advocates to call for murdering “every last man, woman and child“, to drive Wikipedia to its least impartial entry. Obama reflected this thinking when he announced his intention to “solve this problem in a year or two” at the beginning of his presidency by pressuring Israel to call a freeze.
Of course, the evidence systematically contradicts the PCP belief that the solution is through settlement dismantling and “land for peace.” Since Israel has already twice agreed to dismantle settlements in the territory it cedes to the Palestinians (Barak 2000, Olmert 2007), construction in 95-97% of the West Bank (i.e., beyond the Maale Adumim, Gush Etzion and Ariel blocks adjacent to the Green line), far from being an obstacle to peace, just means that the Palestinians will get to enjoy the fruit of Israeli labor. As for work in areas that even the PA has (in principle) agreed will stay in Israel, they’re not an issue. So why do the Palestinians make such a fuss over them?
Please go to Richard's site to read the whole thing. He has spent a great deal of time trying to understand the cultural impediments to Peace and can enlighten the interested reader on the very different, alien, worldview of the Arabs viz a viz Israel and Peace. His post is long but will reward your time.
For what its worth, in answer to the question of why the West has so much trouble understanding the Middle East, I would suggest, as with any problem involving human beings, the answer is multi-factorial. It combines European (and American European-lite) guilt and hatred, as well as weakness and fear; it also brings to mind the old joke about the drunk looking for his car keys under a street light although he dropped them down the block. When asked why he was looking under the light instead of where he lost them, he responds, "because the light is better here." Pressuring the Arabs for Peace is a losing proposition for the Europeans. The Arabs find Israel's existence to be intolerable and are not amenable to reason. (If Arab leaders and the Arab street don't care about the well being of their own people, why should they care about making the world a better place for other people?) For the West to press the Arab world would ensure more terrorism, threats of oil shocks, and boundless rage. (It is slowly dawning on the Europeans, though not yet on the Obama administration, that our current tack of appeasement is evoking the very things they fear most anyway, but don't expect any changes anytime soon; they are far too wedded to their weltanschauung.) It is easier to pressure Israel because the Jews will not attack you or act irrationally and maybe a miracle will happen, Israel will be destroyed, and the Europeans will finally be rid of those troublesome people, this time without the guilt of actually committing genocide themselves.
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