May 5, 2004
DEFENDING THE STATUS QUO:
About that Israel-bashing letter to prez, consider the source: Reflecting the perverse logic that has guided the State Department for decades, 60 former diplomats have written an open letter to President Bush denouncing the current administration's "unabashed support" for the sole democracy in the Middle East: Israel. (Joel Mowbray, 5/05/04, Jewish World Review)
As noxious as the track records of many of the former diplomats may be, perhaps none is as toxic as that of the man who spearheaded the whole effort, former Ambassador Andrew Killgore. A quick inspection of his history shows that he should be the last person giving lessons on "evenhandedness."Killgore may or may not be an anti-Semite, but he certainly could be mistaken for one. That is a strong statement, to be sure, but it seems a fair assessment after spending some time at the Web site for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (www.wrmea.com), of which he is the co-founder and publisher.
The site's front page keeps a counter only of foreign aid money given to Israel. It calls for ending all military aid to Israel, though there is no similar call for ending the exact same level of aid given each year to Egypt for the same purpose, an arrangement that has existed since the Camp David Accords in 1978.
Killgore's Web site also has a "Neocon Corner," where he and others castigate one Jew or another for their sinister loyalties to Israel. (One exception was a hit piece on Dick Cheney.) Typical is a recent column on Richard Perle, former head of the Defense Policy Board. In the course of 800 words, Killgore refers to Perle as: a "fervent Zionist," a "dyed-in-the-wool Israel-Firster," part of the "Zionist lobby," "always active in Zionist organizations," the "Prince of Darkness" and a "Zionist ideologue."
On its Web page listing 27 "charitable organizations" are several with which no reasonable group would affiliate. Many are well-known for their radical Islamist agendas, and two in particular should have raised red flags: the United Palestinian Appeal and the Kinder USA, both "charitable" organizations that share leadership with the Holy Land Foundation, which was closed in December 2001, allegedly for funneling money to Hamas.
When Killgore slams Bush for not being "evenhanded," the old line about the kettle and the pot comes to mind. More apt, however, would be the analogy, "Said the desert to the grain of sand."
The great Robert D. Kaplan dissected these strange creatures some time ago, Tales from the Bazaar: As individuals, few American diplomats have been as anonymous as the members of the group known as Arabists. And yet as a group, no cadre of diplomats has aroused more suspicion than the Arab experts have. Arabists are frequently accused of romanticism, of having "gone native"--charges brought with a special vehemence as a result of the recent Gulf War and the events leading up to it. Who are the Arabists? Where did they come from? Do they deserve our confidence? (Robert D. Kaplan, August 1992, The Atlantic Monthly)
In the Middle Ages an Arabist was a physician who had studied Arab medicine, which was then more advanced than the kind practiced in Europe. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries an Arabist was a student of the language, history, and culture. With the birth of Israel, in 1947, the word gained another meaning. "It became a pejorative for 'he who intellectually sleeps with Arabs,"' said Richard Murphy, a former assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, during a recent interview. Murphy's wife, Anne, nodded sadly. "If you call yourself an Arabist," she said, "people may think you're anti-Semitic."Along with that suspicion come suspicions of "clientitis" and elitism. I was told a story about one U.S. diplomat's wife in Cairo during the 1956 Sinai war who innocently said of the Egyptians, then fighting a British-French-Israeli alliance: "We're so proud of them." The head of a conservative foundation in Washington once lectured me along these lines. "Spanish--because of our intimate contact with the Latin world--connotates a non-elite, drug-lord, 7-Eleven-store culture. Arabic is a distant, difficult, and thus mysterious language, and fluency in it suggests erudite entry to a ruling class where Jews and other ethnic Americans are not welcome."
In the wake of Iraq's August, 1990, invasion of Kuwait, which most Arabists did not anticipate, the term "Arabist" became even more negative. Francis Fukuyama, then a Reagan Administration appointee on the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, and now a consultant for the Rand Corporation, commented after the invasion, "Arabists are more systemically wrong than other area specialists in the Foreign Service. They were always sending cables, and coming into the [Planning Staff] office, saying things about Saddam being a potential moderate that now they're claiming they never said."
The more it gained ascendancy as a term of political abuse, the more indiscriminately "Arabist" came to be applied. During the Gulf crisis the New York Times columnist William Safire and the Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland frequently described John Kelly, who was then the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, as an Arabist, even though Kelly, with his limited Middle East experience, was distrusted by real Arabists as a politically imposed outsider. By war's end anyone who was vaguely sympathetic toward Arabs was being called an Arabist, even if he or she didn't speak the language and had never lived in the Arab world. I asked a senior Arabic-speaking diplomat at the State Department about the word "Arabist," and he frowned, his chin slumping to his chest, as he muttered, "The word has become poison; nobody uses it around here anymore."
But people do. One reason is sheer convenience. Terms like "Arabic-speaking officers" and "Middle East specialists" are simply too cumbersome. Another reason is prickly pride. "NEA [Near Eastern Affairs] is the best bureau at State," says one State Department Arab hand. "It attracts the best people because Arabists are always exposed to crises." Another NEA type says, "Any fool can learn Spanish in order to serve in Latin America." "The Eastern Europe people never had a riot on their hands until 1989," says Carleton Coon Jr., a former ambassador with wide experience in the Middle East. "They never had an ambassador killed. Near East hands know what it's like to be shot at and in the media hot seat." The attacks on Arabists notwithstanding, these people are a self-assured breed, for whom the word "Arabist" implies a tight-knit fraternity within the diplomatic corps, united by their ability to speak a "superhard" language and by a vivid, common experience abroad that, as one Arabist told me, "we can't even properly explain to our relatives." "We Arabists," says Hume Horan, in a whimsical, self-mocking tone, "are the Pekinese orchids begot by an American superpower. I suppose only a rich and powerful nation has a justification for us."
Just like any bureaucrats, foreign policy specialists ultimately become the creatures of the people they're supposed to be dealing with rather than serving the interests of their employers--the American people. Thus the odd phenomenon where Sovietologists tended to defend the Soviet Union and now Arabists who defend the regions dictatorships. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 5, 2004 9:30 AM
It's probably out of print now, but Kaplan also put out a fine book entitled The Arabists.
Strange, but I would say that open embrace of a "two-state solution" in Palestine is something that the Arabists would favor. Another radical (if inevitable) formal policy shift from this administration that goes unobserved from most (I think Dennis Ross mentioned it).
Posted by: kevin whited at May 5, 2004 9:41 AMOne minor correction: Egypt gets about 2/3 as much foreign aid from the US as Israel gets, not "the exact same level of aid." Also, Israel is a smaller and richer country, so many have argued that its per capita aid level is excessive. That said, it's not often that we hear of rabbis or Israeli state newspapers preaching "death to the crusaders!"
But why do people like Mowbray insist on hanging our support for Israel on the fact that she is the "sole democracy in the Middle East"? What if she became a timocracy, or some form of oligrachy -- would our support for her cease? Obviously not.
Already our support has endured despite the fact that the charges of apartheid are not without merit. That Israel's most vocal friends here in America do not seem to understand the nature of America's support for her does not speak well for their political astuteness.
As I wrote some months ago, "America has been partial [to Israel] for a straightforward reason, based on a single irrefragable fact: Israel descends from the larger body of Western civilization. We are distant cousins; we are of one tissue; and loyalty to one's historic civilization is simply patriotism on a broader scale."
Posted by: Paul Cella at May 5, 2004 10:18 AMPaul:
If the Palestinians practiced Ghandian nonviolence American opinion would turn against Israel quickly.
Posted by: oj at May 5, 2004 10:36 AMIf they all converted to Christianity, renounced Islam as a miserable heresy, and committed themselves to the war on terror, we would too; but that doesn't seem likely. I'm dealing with reality here, OJ.
(In your hypothesis, most Israelis would turn against Israel as well.)
Posted by: Paul Cella at May 5, 2004 10:41 AMOJ
If palestinians practiced Ghandian nonviolence, Israel's behavior would be different also, eh?
Paul:
If all it would take is for the terror to stop then it's really nothing intrinsic to Israel that's at work here.
Posted by: oj at May 5, 2004 10:52 AMIf the terror stopped -- well, then Israel and Palestine would become a regional issue almost entirely, and Americans would lose interest. But they would not abandon their natural partiality for Israel.
Posted by: Paul Cella at May 5, 2004 11:00 AMPaul Cella wrote that "charges of apartheid are not without merit". That is total BS, if I may say so. There is a sizable Arab minority in Israel that enjoys full civil rights including voting. (I will anticipate the objection by admitting that there is discrimination but it is not legal discrimination.) Not to mention the large numbers of Israeli Jews who used to live in Muslem countries until ethnic cleansing was practiced by Moslem Arabs. Did blacks in South Africa have any rights? I think Mr. Cella is treading very close to Jew-hating.
Posted by: Bob at May 5, 2004 11:18 AMBob's mad truculence is quite remarkable. I have spent my time on this thread defending Israel -- but not, it seems, in a manner to Bob's liking.
I am well aware that there are Arabs living in Israel with full citizenship, and that their conditions are probably quite superior to those under Palestinian authority, and that Jews living in Arab countries have been treated horribly.
Nevertheless, Israel cannot possibly open up citizenship rights to all the Arabs living under her authority. She cannot give political power to an Arab majority, which will come if citizenship is offered, and still retain her distinctive Jewish character. Thus, the two-state solution.
Posted by: Paul Cella at May 5, 2004 11:44 AMTruculence is defined as "obstreperous and defiant aggressiveness". And "mad" as a modifier. My, my. I guess I hit a nerve with Mr. Cella.
Posted by: Bob at May 5, 2004 12:12 PMPaul Cella is a good guy--he has very kindly corresponded with me, an agnostic Jewish out-marrying free-rider. Can't agree he's a Jew-hater.
Cella might not have used the word "apartheid," but his last comment is correct nevertheless. Convince me it isn't.
Posted by: Brian (MN) at May 5, 2004 12:37 PMYes, the last paragraph of Mr. Cella's last comment is basicly correct. However, that does not justify the use of the value laden term "apartheid" to describe Israel. Nor does his comment prove his point that "charges of apartheid are not without merit". Further, describing Israeli policy as "apartheid" is a very common tactic of the virulent Israel haters. So, someone who claims to defend Israel should never use the term.
Posted by: Bob at May 5, 2004 12:52 PMBob--
I agree, he shouldn't have used the term "apartheid." He's no antisemite though.
Posted by: Brian (MN) at May 5, 2004 12:56 PMIt is apartheid. The problem is the delicate Western sensibility about apartheid.
Posted by: oj at May 5, 2004 12:59 PMOJ to my defense! That is a rare event.
You see, Bob, apartheid is not a curse word in my vocabulary. It's a description. Certainly nothing to admire or emulate, but hardly surprising or appalling in Israel's situation. Any self-respecting state would resort to it under those conditions. Take a breeze through some of the history of France's treatment of the Huguenots, or England's of the Irish Catholics, to see how other states operated under analogous circumstances.
Posted by: Paul Cella at May 5, 2004 1:52 PMIf America were majority black we'd still have Jim Crow.
Posted by: oj at May 5, 2004 2:00 PMPut "Apartheid" and "definition" in Google and see the definitions. Look at the related terms in some of the entries. Now tell me, Mr. Cella, that the word is not a "curse word" to 99.9999% of the world. I repeat, as a self proclaimed defender of Israel, you should not use the term.
Posted by: Bob at May 5, 2004 2:42 PMI always identify myself as an Arabist (and a medievalist). But then, I'm an academic, not a diplomat, and I don't claim any special knowledge of the modern Middle East, other than fluency in the language, and some lengthy visits to the region.
However, I have noted that the extreme difficulty of learning Arabic, and its undeniable allure to those who study it, frequently results in people being overly enamored of the culture.
It's not like these State Department Arabists are especially unusual. I can name a score of famous Arabists (and a dozen or so American friends and acquaintances) who went native, to the point of converting to Islam and adopting Arabic names. It's a fairly common phenomena.
Posted by: H.D. Miller at May 5, 2004 2:42 PMBob:
Why? We can acknowledge that America committed a genocide against the Native Americans and still think it was a good thing, can't we?
Posted by: oj at May 5, 2004 2:48 PMH.D.:
Can you explain why the British ones so often have a homosexual element too? Richard Burton, T. E. Lawrence, the Philbys...
Posted by: oj at May 5, 2004 2:50 PMI don't think it's so much adult homosexuality as the general acceptance of pederasty in Classical Islam that was the big appeal for many. (An acceptance that seems to have lasted into the modern era in some places, witness all those stories in the media about Pushtun/Taliban boy-lovers.)
Boy love was a popular genre in Classical Arabic poetry. In many respects it's similar to wine drinking, a popular topic for poetry and a popular pursuit among some of the more fashionable segments of Muslim society, although activities deplored by the truly religious.
Burton gives an account in one of his books of having visited a boy brothel somewhere in Northern India (modern Pakistan). Of course, he claims not to have partaken.
Lest we blame Islam for this, don't forget that the English school system seems to have been designed to produce men with rather odd sexual tastes.
A lot of the Arabists are not romantically attached to the arab world. they have simply been bought and paid for by the Sa'uds
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at May 5, 2004 5:25 PMOJ: We can admit or say anything we want about events of 100+ years ago. It will not change what happened or have any present consequences. Not so about ongoing events. If Sharon announced tommorrow that he was seeking to commit genocide against the Arabs, how would that go over? Would Scott McClelland announce that President Bush recognized the right for nations to commit genocide? Would you support the killing of all "Palestinians" by the Israelis?
By the way, genocide is the "systematic and planned" killing of an entire group. Was a genocide commited against the Indians? Seems to me we took their land and killed alot of them but we never set out to kill them all. And, in fact we did not.
Posted by: Bob at May 5, 2004 5:32 PMBob:
Yes, I would:
http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/000164.html
Posted by: oj at May 5, 2004 6:26 PM