Blaming Israel for MidEast violence
The opinion piece in the Jordan Times is followed by a report from the Daily Telegraph.
Anti-American protest in Cairo, 2013. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
By Hassan A. Barari, Jordan Times
October 20, 2014
Whether the perpetuation of the Arab-Israeli conflict destabilises the Middle East or not is an unresolved debate in the West.
There is a school of thought that links instability in the region to the persistence of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Some argue that resolving the conflict can have a mitigating impact on other conflicts in the region. Implicit in this perspective is that Israelis must meet Palestinians half way to strike a deal and end, once and for all, the conflict.
There are also many who argue that Israel is to blame for the impasse in the peace process, thus jeopardising the Western interests in this part of the world.
Against this school of thought is another that insists on decoupling the two issues.
Proponents of this perspective argue that there is no link between what has been happening across the Jordan River and other conflicts in the region.
They refuse to blame Israel for the collapse of the peace process and the outbreak of other conflicts in the region.
Evidence suggest that the overwhelming majority of Arabs believe that were it not for the blind US support for Israel, the Palestinian questions would have been resolved long ago.
All polls in the region show that the vast majority of people dislike the US policy in the region. They cite Washington’s support for Israel as a key reason for the spread of anti-US sentiments in the Arab world.
It is not unnatural in this case that radical groups capitalise on the widespread anti-American sentiments.
That is not to say that American policies alone are behind radicalism in the region. To be sure, there are other reasons that have helped the rise of these movements.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday that there is a link between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and extremism in the region.
This comment, though true, was not received well by the Israelis. Economy Minister Naftali Bennett criticised Kerry for articulating this linkage.
“It turns out as well that when a British Muslim decapitates a British Christian, there will always be someone to blame the Jew,” he said.
“There is no justifying terror, only fighting it. To say that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is strengthening the Islamic State is encouraging global terror.”
Kerry’s comment came at a time when many Israelis are beginning to make the case that Arabs and Israelis should unite in the fight against terrorism.
Israel benefits from creating such a perception, so the Israeli government has been circulating two arguments.
One is that Iran poses the utmost threat to Arabs and Israelis alike, so they should form an alliance to counter Iran’s schemes in the region.
While Iran’s policies threaten the stability of the region, the majority of Arabs still believe that Israel poses the greatest threat to it.
The other argument is that radical forces threaten both Arabs and Israelis. This fails to gain currency in this part of the world. Indeed, many Arabs wonder why the radicals never targeted Israel.
Israel has been exploiting the unfolding events in the region to distract the world’s public opinion from its daily policies that only chip away at the prospects of a two-state solution.
What Israelis try to ignore is the fact that radical groups, as well as Iran, are also exploiting the impasse in their bid to recruit fighters and supporters.
I argue that the Palestinian problem should be resolved in such a way as to empower Palestinians to establish their own state. Short of doing that, there is the risk of giving radical groups further ammunition to recruit more radicals.
In other words, Kerry is correct in his linkage.
hassbarari@gmail.com
‘Solve the Israel-Palestine issue to slow Isil recruitment,’ says John Kerry
Israeli officials have reacted angrily after John Kerry suggested that a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians would help the campaign to defeat the Islamic State
By Robert Tait, The Telegraph
October 19, 2014
Jerusalem–John Kerry, the US secretary of state, has been strongly criticised for seeming to blame Israel for the recruitment of young Muslims by Islamic State.
Right-wing ministers reacted indignantly when America’s top diplomat suggested that a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians would help the campaign to defeat the jihadists of the Islamic State (Isil) in Iraq and Syria.
“As I went around and met with people in the course of our discussions about the [anti-Islamic State] coalition … there wasn’t a leader I met with in the region who didn’t raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians, because it was a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation that they felt they had to respond to,” said Mr Kerry, at a state department gathering to mark the Muslim Eid al-Adha festival.
That triggered an angry response from Naftali Bennett, Israel’s industry minister and leader of the far-Right Jewish Home party, who implied Mr Kerry was fostering antisemitism.
“It turns out that even when a British Muslim decapitates a British Christian, there will always be someone to blame the Jew,” he said. “To say that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is strengthening the Islamic State is encouraging global terror.”
Gilad Erdan, the communications ministers, joined the criticism, accusing Mr Kerry on Facebook of setting ” new records in his lack of understanding of our region”.
But it was Mr Bennett’s comments that caused most diplomatic offence.
“Either this specific minister did not actually read what the secretary said or someone is engaging in the politics of distortion,” said Marie Harf, a state department spokeswoman, adding that his interpretation of Mr Kerry’s remarks were “inaccurate”.
That was followed by an intervention of the secretary of state’s behalf by Moshe Ya’alon, Israel’s defence minister, who this year was forced to apologise to Mr Kerry after deriding his Middle East efforts as “obsessive and messianic”.
“The relationship between the United States and Israel is based on shared interests and values, and disputes of one sort or another must not cast a shadow over it,” Mr Ya’alon said at the start of a five-day trip to the US.
Mr Ya’alon’s comments came after Avigdor Lieberman, the hawkish foreign minister, who has forged a warm relationship with Mr Kerry, criticised Mr Bennett’s remarks, telling Israel’s Channel 2 television state that they “might earn him votes but cause [Israel] a lot of damage”.
Mr Kerry has faced numerous tirades from Israeli Right-wingers over his vigorous sponsorship of peace talks with the Palestinians, which collapsed last April after being launched the previous summer. The complaints have sometimes been targeted at the White House itself.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, triggered an angry reaction this month after saying the Obama administration’s criticism of Jewish settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem was “against American values”.