MIDDLE EAST CRISIS AND QUARTET ROAD MAP Lecture for Foreign Service Academy November 2006

 

 Kazi Anwarul Masud (former Secretary and ambassador)

 

 One of the most intractable and tragic problem festering the global community for the last fifty years has been the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian crisis. Israeli onslaught on Gaza at the beginning of this year and her disregard of UNSC resolution for a ceasefire (till recently) has brought anew the problem of  state sponsored terrorism on unarmed people. Israel naturally considers her incursion into Gaza as an act of self-defense against the Hammers militants’ terrorist activities. It would be prudent to define terrorism to dispel confusion about what terrorism really means. Professor Theodore P Seto, (of Loyola Law School, Los Angeles) used “the term “terrorism” to mean the killing, disruption, or destruction of something of value for political purposes by someone other than a government or its agents acting overtly. In assessing its morality, however, I treat terrorism as a subset of politically motivated violence”. Though terrorism can have no legitimate cause that is sustainable by reason Harvard University Professor Jessica Stern remarks that “the United States too often ignores the unintended consequences of its actions, disregarding for example, the negative message sent by Washington’s ongoing neglect of Afghanistan and the chaos of post war Iraq”.Western obsession with security and war on terror, horrific though the al-Qaedist acts are, has caused sharp divides in the world.  Therefore despite unquestionable American preeminence the most important conflicts of the future, predicts Samuel Huntington, will occur along the fault lines separating civilizations from one another. Samuel Huntington may prove to be prescient after all if one considered intra-European controversy generated by the invitation extended to Turkey by the European Council to start negotiations for admission into the EU.  One is therefore tempted to wonder that if the threshold of European tolerance for Christianity is so high then why is the threshold so low for Islam? The French ban on wearing headscarf for Muslim women is a case in point though the ban is equally applicable to public display of all religious symbols. German Conservative Party  political leader Wolfgang Schauble explained  European reservation about Turkish membership that European hesitation was because of potential problems that could arise by admitting a country which shares hundreds of miles of border with Syria and Iran into a Union that all but guarantees freedom of movement to all individuals. But Muslim scholars are reluctant to give much credence to perceived threat from religious extremists on the ground that the better part of the last century was occupied by wars among Europeans, Americans and Japanese not to speak of IRA and Spanish Basque separatists.   The canard spread about the link between terrorism and Muslims in general has been debunked by Professors John Mearsheimer of Chicago University and Stephen Walt of Harvard University (The Israeli Lobby and the US Foreign Policy). The paper is an astounding reading on the extent of influence that can be exerted by lobby acting on behalf of a foreign government by twisting the policies of the home government that often went against the national interest of the latter. As an example Mearsheimer and Walt argue that Hammas and the Hezbullah do not threaten the US except when the US intervenes against them in favor of Israel. And the Palestinian rage against the West is an expression of prolonged and illegal occupation of West Bank and Gaza that is morally obtuse and acts as a handicap in the US capacity to negotiate Middle East pace agreement. Since 1982 the US vetoed far more UNSC resolutions that were critical of Israel than the number of vetoes cast by all other permanent members combined. In 2004 52 former British diplomats urged then Prime Minister Tony Blair to correct the one sided and illegal Middle East policy stating that Israel-Palestine conflict had “poisoned relations between the Arab and the Muslim worlds”. Recently British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told a Yorkshire Muslim gathering that  the government made mistakes in invading Iraq and added “Islam is an enemy towards no one and friends towards all. Islam is creed of peace and it is vital that we all work to narrow gaps that can divide us across religion, geography or race”. The Western criticism of so-called terrorism by the Palestinians is largely deflected by the statements of various Israeli Prime Ministers. For example David Ben-Gurian once told the President of World Jewish Congress that “ if I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel”; Golda Meir dismissed the existence of  Palestinians; Israeli scholarship had admitted that the establishment of Israel in 1947-48 involved explicit acts of ethnic cleansing by the Jews; Ehud Barak once admitted that had he been born a Palestinian he would have joined a terrorist organization; Yitzhak Shamir argued that “neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can disqualify terrorism as a means of combat”. The pro-Israeli lobby that surrounded Clinton administration and captured power during Bush administration can be given credit for encouraging Israel in practicing terrorism, mostly recently demonstrated in Gaza. Osama bin Laden’s terrorism is a display of some wayward Muslims whereas the one daily practiced by Israel has robbed the world of peace and development for the last half a century. Professor Francis Boyle of the Illinois University giving the example of Namibia had argued that League of Nations’ award to Great Britain had provisionally recognized Palestine as an independent nation- a recognition that was still valid under the UN Charter and is thus binding upon member nations to accord such recognition. Acting on his  advice the  Palestine National Congress garnered recognition of Palestine by 110 states. Since Muslim renaissance is unlikely to come through the barrel of a gun the fight against Israel has to be fought through diplomatic and intellectual superiority of the Islamic Ummah. Many attempts were made to resole the Middle East issue. One of those was Quartet  made public on 30^th April 2006 by President Bush  (US, EU, UN Russia) preparing a  road map for a solution of the ME crisis. President Bush saw in the road map a starting point towards a two state solution in the Israeli-Arab conflict that has bedeviled international politics for more than half a century. The road map called for a secure state of Israel living side by side with a viable, peaceful and democratic Palestine.   William Schneider of the American Enterprise Institute wrote about the shock expressed by Morton Klein, President of the Zionist Organization of America on President Bush being the first US President to publicly endorse a Palestinian state. The “shock” might be partly explained by the fact that eighty-seven Senators and about three hundred members of the House of Representatives had already signed letters arguing that Israel should not be asked to make concessions until Palestinians take further steps to end terrorism. Perhaps it explains why the road map was performance based and not time table-driven. Putting the onus on the Palestinians and keeping an exit route open for the Israelis made good political sense for President Bush because if he pushes Israel hard then he could have paid a political price with his conservative base and Jewish voters. Many people have wondered over the years about the reasons behind Zionist hold on American politics. Former Irish Prime Minister John Burton urged the Europeans in particular to recognize the influence of the evangelical Christianity on the US public opinion and particularly on the Republican party because of its belief that the Second Coming can only occur when all Jewish people have been converted to Christianity and therefore the Evangelicals have special religious interest in the preservation of the state of Israel.  Walter Russell Mead of the US Council of Foreign Relations (God’s country—Foreign Affairs—September/October 2006) has described the US, the only super power in the world today, as a nation where religion shapes its character, helps form America’s ideas about the world, and influences ways Americans respond to events beyond its shores. Currently three strains envelop the nation—a strict tradition that can be called fundamentalists; a progressive and ethical tradition which may be called liberal Christianity; and a broader evangelical order. These three competing streams often influence the ways about the US’ role in foreign policy. Though evangelicals straddle the divide between the fundamentalists and the liberals, they resemble the fundamentalists in many ways. Self-identified evangelicals accounted for 40% of votes for President Bush in 2004 and the white evangelicals voted 78% in the same election. They also wield considerable influence in the Congressional and Senate elections with the result that the numbers of self-identified evangelicals in the Congress have risen from 10% in 1970 to 25% in 2004. On the question of Israel increasing evangelical political power have translated into deepening US support for Israel in the US administration and Congress as opposed to liberal Christian establishment who prefer to take a moderate view of the crisis in the Midle East. This support for Israel is not a recent phenomenon. In the nineteenth century the evangelicals repeatedly requested the US administrations to establish a refuge in the holy land for the Jews to escape European and Ottoman Empire’s persecution. This support for the Jews was rooted in the belief of the evangelicals that the Christians are the new and true children of Israel and that the Jews have a place in God’s plan in the sense that the Jews would return to the holy land before the triumphant return of Jesus Christ. In the interregnum the Jews would continue to reject Christ, a belief that reduces tension between the Christians and the Jews. “For evangelicals” writes Mead “the fact the Jewish people have survived through the millennia and that they have returned to their ancient home is proof that God is real, that the Bible is inspired, and that the Christian religion is true... They see in the weakness, defeat, and poverty of the Arab world ample evidence that God curses those who curse Israel”. Important evangelical leaders like John Hagee advocates that should Iran move to attack Israel the US must be prepared “to stop this evil enemy in its tracks”. The liberals, however, have come to sympathize with the Palestinian movement because of Israel’s human rights abuses in the occupied lands. But the liberal Christians and secular intellectuals have been losing ground simply because evangelicals have been increasing social and political power. In this scenario Marxian explanation of religion as an opiate to soothe the pain of existence or Freudian description of religious beliefs “ to exorcise the terror of nature; men’s efforts to reconcile to the cruelty of fate, particularly as shown in death, and (that) they must compensate them for the sufferings and privations which a civilized life in common has imposed on them” have been totally displaced from people’s mind and consequent political discourse. In Europe, however, despite collective guilt still felt by the Europeans for the holocaust they are by and large more just and equitable in their judgment on the Middle East crisis. The Europeans have been more strident in their denunciation of Israeli wanton aggression of Lebanon. In the recently held G-8 summit at St. Petersburg in Russia Jacques Chirac had described the Israeli mission was to destroy the Lebanese economy by destroying its infrastructures. At the summit President Bush appeared to be lone voice of discord in support of Israel while the rest, in varying degrees, were critical of the Israeli aggression. While one would not support Hezbollah’s kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers and its terrorist activities, the world community cannot condone Israel’s indiscriminate destruction and murder of civilians. President Bush’s first term Secretary of State  Colin Powell was  not very worried that Israel had neither accepted nor rejected the road map (the Palestinians have fully accepted the plan); Israel has issues with and comments about the plan because, after all, said Powell, Israel was a sovereign state and free to make its decisions. To Colin Powell regardless of acceptance or silence over the road map, security for Israel remained the “key issue” to be dealt with while issues of the right of return of the Palestinians to their homeland and of Jerusalem and its final status “are interesting questions”. He recognized that the suicide bombings by the young Palestinians “reflect the deep anger that exists among the Palestinian Community”. This universal recognition, rare among the conservative wing of the Republican administration, had probably dubbed Colin Powell as being nearer to the continental European strand of liberal thinking amongst the hawks of the Bush administration.  One wonders whether Powell’s thoughts had not merged with those of Richard Perle (United They Fall—March31, 2003) when Perle spoke of “the fantasy of the United Nations as the foundation of the new world order”. Perle had questioned the capability of the UNSC to ensure order and save the world from anarchy. Referring to the inability of the League of Nations in confronting the Italians in Abyssinia, Perle chronicles UNSC paralysis during the Cold War period; its failure in facing Milosevic’s multiple aggression in the Balkans, Sarajevo, Srebrenica and Kosovo. He reminds all that the peace agreement was signed at Dayton, Ohio and not at the UN and Falklands was saved by the British and not by the UN. He argues the forces like the “coalition of the willing” would be by default “the best hope of a new world order and true alternative to the anarchy resulting from the abject failure of the United Nations”. There is no illusion on any side that the implementation of the plan would be extremely difficult despite President Bush’s preparedness “to engage very, very intensely and more fully in this process”. It is also encouraging that Chris Patten, then EU Commissioner for External Affairs told the European Parliament (on 20^th March 2003) that Quartet must ensure urgent implementation of the road map and disallow parties to impose incompatible conditions upon their cooperation. However coherence among the Quartet partners is now being questioned. UN has been marginalized on the Iraq issue while EU and Russia, effectively the whole of Europe in Robert Kagan's view have parted ways from the US on setting national priorities, determining threats, defining challenges, and fashioning and implementing foreign and defense policies. Kagan sees Europe‘s aversion to the exercise of military power as an understandable reflection of its military weakness. Europeans oppose unilateralism, he argues, not on principled grounds but because Europe has no capacity for unilateralism which has fuelled Europe’s desire to step out of Hobbesian world of anarchy into the Kantian world of perpetual peace. Robert Kagan’s views, albeit fiercely opposed by many, is relevant here because of the composition of the Quartet and also that he reportedly represents a powerful segment of conservatives in the Bush administration.Publication of the road map had also invited irreverence and skepticism in many quarters. Chris Marden (Isarel: US Road Map—8^th May 2003) was of the opinion that the road map “should dispel the illusion of even the most naïve” that the US intended to play the role of an honest broker in this conflict. According to him the whole scheme was cooked up to help Arab states friendly to the US to stand up to their own people who would, and indeed did, oppose invasion of Iraq. In support he quotes from the London Financial Times “ It (road map) emerged… surreptiously dropped out of the back door of the White House press office”. The unheralded birth of the road map indicated to some the non-seriousness of the US topped by the general tenor of the document producing an apartheid-style Bantustan, wholly subservient to Israeli diktat and answerable to Washington. Chris Marden found it “inexplicable that such a witch’s brew could seriously be offered up as a plan for resolving Israeli- Palestinian struggle. Its conditions are far more onerous on the Palestinians than anything contained in the Oslo accords, and it holds out potential rewards that are even less attractive”. Even such a one sided plan has found little support in Israel and among her friends. US House majority leader found the plan dangerous to Israel and denounced its advocates as “neo-appeasers”. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich has taken the State department and Colin Powell to the cleaners. Majority of Ariel Sharon’s cabinet colleagues are on record opposing an independent Palestine in any form. Sharon’s right wing coalition partners have found the plan unacceptable. World Jewish Congress described the Europeans as “perfidious” and the UN as “dysfunctional” and thereby practically nullifying Israeli acceptance of the plan in its present form.What then is the world going to do? The road map has some positive features e.g.  it offers a possible end to Israeli occupation and termination of violence and terror; it reaffirms the principle of “land for peace” as resolved by the UNSC; it opens up the possibility of two states living side by side in peace; and it opens up the promise of Arab acceptance of Israel as a neighbor to live in peace. Would the plan’s implement ability be enhanced if the occupied territory were to be treated as an international protectorate somewhat like Namibia (1989), Cambodia (1992), Rwanda (1993), East Timor (1999) and Kosovo (1999)? Regardless of the form of the road map international attention particularly that of the US should remain focused; in the view of Robert Kagan as the ultimate enforcer in the Persian Gulf, the Middle East, in most regions of the world (including Europe); so that Israel does not get the opportunity to play truant in this peace process as she had done in the past. An injustice wrought upon the Palestinians by then colonial power to protect its approaches to the Suez Canal and roads to India would be rightened under the existing conditions that have undergone sea change in the last fifty years. When Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism and the writer of the book THE JEWISH STATE, approached the British for help for the creation for the Jewish people a home in Palestine the British offered to investigate the possibility of Jewish colonization in East Africa, the so-called Uganda Scheme. Balfour Declaration favoring “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” was predicated on the assurance that “nothing will be done which shall prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”. In 1923 then Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill had assured that the Balfour Declaration must not mean “imposition of a Jewish nation upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole but the further development of the existing Jewish community”. But these commitments proved to be hollow not only because of Machiavellian machinations of the colonial powers but also because of the conviction of the Zionists of the superiority of their claim on Palestine. Theodor Herzl was convinced that Palestine was “a land without people for a people without land”(Jews). Even two years after the 1967 war Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir maintained that the Palestinian people did not exist, perhaps emboldened by the UNSC resolution of November 1967 recommending “a just settlement of the refugee problem” without specifying the national identity of the refugees. The refusal to accept the force of Palestinian nationalism was contrary to the resolve of the 22^nd Zionist Congress (1946) which proposed the division of Palestine into two states: one Jewish and the other Arab, a proposal adopted by UNGA (in November 1947) regardless of the flagrant injustice inherent in the plan which would give more than half of the territory to the Jews who made up less than a third of the population and owned only six per cent of the land.The Arab defeat at the hands of the Israelis in 1948, creation of the State of Israel, exodus of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their home, annexation of the West Bank by Jordan, and attachment of the Gaza strip to Egypt marked the eclipse of the Palestinian national movement for decades. But inspired by the Algerian FNL’s liberation struggle against France and Gamal Abdul Nasser’s Pan-Arabism the Palestinian nationalists of different shades were united in their absolute faith in their return to Palestinian homeland. In late 1950s Yasser Arafat founded Al-Fatah, the largest group in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) which advocated independence from the influence of Arab states, and long duration guerilla war fare like the Algerian FNL and the Vietnamese with the active support of Arab and liberation movements in Third World countries. Al-Fatah also advocated reunification of their country into a democratic state in which people of all faiths would live on equal footing. Arafat’s acceptance of violence as a tool in his fight for liberation was not unique. Many freedom movements under colonial rule had to resort to violence in response to greater violence inflicted upon them. But these movements abandoned violence as soon as independence was achieved. Contrary to Zionist demonization of Yasser Arafat as a terrorist even his detractors must concede Arafat’s contribution to the ideological change of Palestinian nationalism from advocating for a Palestinian state in place of Israel to a Palestinian state beside Israel. According to Professor Glenn Robinson about seventy percent of the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza want a two state solution and reconciliation with Israel after the creation of a Palestinian state. This is also the official policy of the PLO.Many Western leaders had criticized Yasser Arafat for failing to reach a peace agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Yahud Bark and brokered by President Clinton at Camp David in the year2000. Clinton in his book MY LIFE has given detailed account of the negotiations. He termed Arafat’s refusal to clinch the deal “a colossal mistake” and thought that Yasser Arafat “simply couldn’t make the final jump from revolutionary to statesman….Arafat’s rejection of my proposal after Barak accepted was an error of historic proportion”. President Clinton describing Ariel Sharon as “the most aggressive, intransigent leader available” had perhaps given the impression that with Clinton and Barak gone peace in the Middle East may take a while to come. Some western scholars, however, look at the Camp David negotiations from a different perspective. To accurately understand what happened at Camp David and later, they argue, one must keep in mind that Arafat and the Palestinians approached the negotiations with 1948 as the base date. Most Israelis, in contrast, see the conflict as a territorial dispute over land won in 1967 war. They view that actions prior to 1967 such as exodus of Palestinian refugees as non-negotiable and raising such issues as constituting a challenge to the legitimacy of the existence of the state of Israel. Granting the refugees the right of return would not only threaten the Jewish character of Israel but may give birth to two majority-Arab states in the disputed land. On the other hand the Palestinians consider the refugees’ right of return as a core issue. But a survey undertaken last year of Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza found that once their right of return was recognized the vast majority would prefer to live not in Israel but in the newly created state of Palestine. Arafat’s refusal to sign on at Camp David had the support of the Palestinians in occupied land. Therefore, rightly or wrongly which only future can tell Yasser Arafat truly represented the will of his people. Despite concerns over competing national factions—“old guard” and “new guard”, increasing public support for Islamists, decreasing support for Fatah, shift in the Bush administration’s policy closer to the Israeli right wing government linking Palestinian regime change with progress in ending Israeli occupation (now of considerably reduced significance), emergence of separate entity in Gaza strip following Israeli disengagement possibly threatening unity of Palestinian state and society; there is no doubt that the institutions left behind by Yasser Arafat would be able to deliver a moderate, secular and democratic Palestine able and willing to live in peace with a Jewish Israel. In this endeavor the Quartet have a very significant role to play and thus deliver peace and development to a people who for decades have seen neither.To historian Bernard Lewis the struggle between the Muslims world   and the Christians Europe from the first Arab incursions in the eighth century to the final Turkish retreat in the twentieth century were referred to by the Muslims not in territorial or national terms but simply as war against the infidels. Therefore, writes Bernard Lewis, the American President is the successor of a long line of rulers—the Byzantine emperors of Constantinople, the Holy Roman emperors of Vienna, Queen Victoria and her imperial colleagues and successors in Europe—all of whom represented the “land of the unbelievers” (The Crisis of Islam—2003). If this struggle is still continuing then we are in conflict with Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” concept which posits that liberal democracy may constitute the “end point of mankind’s ideological evolution” and the ‘final form of government” and as such constitute the “end of history”. This is so because the open-endedness of the evolution of mankind, believed by both Hegel and Marx, had reached its final destination after experiencing the enormous weaknesses of the world’s seemingly strong dictatorships of the Right and the communist totalitarianism of the Left. This belief is further strengthened by Samuel Huntington’s thesis that conflict along the fault line between western and Islamic civilizations have been going on for thirteen hundred years and that this centuries old military interaction between the West and Islam is unlikely to decline and could become more virulent. Huntington appears to agree with Bernard Lewis that the West is “‘facing a need and a movement far transcending the level of issues and policies and the governments that pursue them. This is no less than a clash of civilizations—the perhaps irrational but historic reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo- Christian heritage, on secular present, and worldwide expansion of both” (Bernard Lewis—The Roots of Muslim Rage). While terrorism in any form can never be condoned and the Islamic world has been in the forefront not only in the condemnation of the nine-eleven terrorist acts but also has been at one with the Americans in their war on terror; one may find it difficult to unquestionably believe the pronouncements by the Western leaders that the war on terror should not be seen as war on Islam. When the US (with UNSC approval) and NATO bombed Afghanistan to stone age to dislodge the despicable Talibans from power the entire Muslim world supported the western military intervention in Afghanistan. But now when at the request of the UN General Assembly the World Court is considering to give an advisory and non-binding ruling on the legality of the Israeli Berlin wall in the occupied territories; Israel is being supported by the west in questioning the authority of the International Court of Justice to hear the complaint against Israel. One is therefore not totally surprised when questions are being raised as to whether Iraq can be democratic, let alone be a democratic domino in the Arab world. It would however be unfair to question the intentions of the western analysts if they indeed raise doubts about the possibility and viability of democratic movements in the Muslim world. US based Freedom House estimates that a non-Islamic country is three times more likely than an Islamic country to be democratic. When Samuel Huntington was tracing the third wave of democratization in the late twentieth century (the first wave took place after the First World War and the second wave occurred during the post-Second World War decolonization period) the Middle Eastern “islands of Islam remained an anomaly—a zone of resistance to the ideals that have toppled authoritarian regimes of the Left and the Right” (Martin Kramer—Arab Awakening and Islamic Revival).Western scholars have often wondered as to why prospects of democracy are so poor in the Islamic world. Some have argued that while according to the Christian calendar it is twenty first century according to the Islamic calendar it is still the fifteenth century. Therefore in accordance with the evolutionary process of civilization the Muslims are still six hundred years behind the Christians. What is forgotten in this flawed and simplistic argument is that at several points of history the Muslim world was far ahead of the rest of the world in arts and science. Where the Islamic world had perhaps missed out was in adapting itself to the changed situation following the industrial revolution and the European renaissance. A glaring example was the Muslim resistance to English education and its concomitant values in the British India till Sir Syed Ahmed established the Aligarh Muslim University to facilitate extra-religious education to the Muslim students who had already fallen behind the majority community in India in most fields relating to the governance of the country and also in the field of secular intellectual development. It is also being argued that most of the Islamic countries do not possess domestic conditions that set the stage for democratic change elsewhere. In other words the Muslim countries do not have previous experience with democracy. Besides the Middle Eastern Muslim states do not have positive “neighborhood effects” as the neighboring countries are already adorned with authoritarian rules. Democratic experience argument appears to be rather weak if one considers the transition from military dictatorships to democratic rule in many countries of Latin America who for decades had seen nothing but ruthless dictatorships in their own countries .Nor does “neighborhood effect” appear to be tenable if one considers the case of Pakistan being ruled by successive military rulers while its immediate neighbors, India is the largest democracy in the world and Turkey , a Muslim country is considered by the West as among  few Muslim countries practicing electoral democracy. One could, perhaps, with some degree of credence look into the structure of the society of a country resisting democracy such as having a patriarchal society which denies gender equality and also tribalism which dictates ‘primordial allegiance”. For example, the Western society in which the autonomy of he individual is sacrosanct would never understand that in a tribal society helping other members of the tribe is a civic duty and not nepotism. Additionally many of these countries steeped in tribal traditions give precedence to obedience to tribal elders, revenge, blood money, honor killing, polygamy over the other dictates of civil laws. Many political scientists who have studied the question of linkage of democracy with economic development are of the opinion that democratization is much more likely to occur and take hold in richer rather than poorer countries. They found that economic development stimulates higher levels of democratic values in the political culture of a people. Researchers have also found that no democratic country with per capita income of eight thousand dollars suffer loss of democracy. The argument is that higher standard of living breeds cultural values that demand democracy. It would however be prudential to note that the reverse is not necessarily true nor that a democratic country has to have high per capita income. India and some other countries that have practiced democracy for decades are still regarded as developing countries and do not fall into the category of rich countries. But then again in the cases of Taiwan and South Korea, accelerated economic growth engineered by command economies, democratic moment arrived along with economic affluence. In the ultimate analysis, argues Patrick Basham of Cato Institute, as in case of Iraq the question is not only the institution of electoral democracy i.e. the right to vote and the parliamentary institution of representative government but liberal democracy i.e. electoral democracy added with the rule of law, independent judiciary, separation of religious and secular authorities, civilian control of the military, freedom in all its aspects.  Question has, however, arisen whether democratization of Muslim societies would necessarily reduce terrorism and prevent fresh recruits to the terrorist outfits. Vermont University Professor Gregory Gause holds the view that in the absence of data available showing a strong relationship between democracy and absence or reduction of terrorism, the phenomenon appears to stem from factors other than regime type. He argues that since the al-Qaidists are not fighting for democracy but for the establishment of what they believe to be a purist version of an Islamic state there is no reason to believe that a tidal wave of democracy would wash away terrorist activities. Some Middle East experts have suggested that as the root cause of al-Qaida lie in poverty and educational deficiencies in countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, for example, caused by the authoritarian nature of the rulers the terrorist menace could have been better tackled through political reform. But a counter argument proffered by liberal thinker Paul Berman states that this approach may not succeed as al-Qaida ideology and radical Islam are driven by a fear and hatred of liberal Islam which they see as a “hideous schizophrenia” of the West that divides the state from religion and promotes individual freedom. A similar strand of argument finds that modernity rather than democracy should be used as the most important tool to fight global terrorism. Since modernity involves more than improved material conditions and entails a transformation in beliefs and philosophies, al-Qaedists with their narrow interpretation of religious dogmas interspersed with voyeuristic attractions and/or fearful retribution would lose their way in the maze of diasporic struggle for identity. But then again it has also been argued that al-Qaedist appeal is not due to lack of modernity in the Islamic society but due to its excess which in the view of so-called purists is instrumental in contributing to social “degeneration” of the western culture having contagion-effect on Muslim societies. If western libertarian values are believed to be inextricably linked with democratic values then terrorists would logically be driven not by a desire for democracy but by their opposition to foreign domination. Continuing insurgency in Iraq is a case in point. Despite American assertion to the effect that the insurgents are mainly foreigners, the insurgents are by and large Iraqi Arab Sunnis who are fighting against being dispossessed and now the list of their grievances have been added by the new constitution rejected by the Sunnis and to be put to a country wide referendum in mid-October. Sunni insurgency does not mean Iraqi opposition to democracy as more than half of the Iraqis went to the polls in January parliamentary elections despite threats from the insurgents not to turn up to vote. Historian Bernard Lewis once said the democracy is a peculiarly western way of conducting business that may or may not be suitable for others. Perhaps disproving Lewis’ contention 2003 Pew Global Attitude Project found that strong majority of those surveyed in Kuwait (83 percent), Jordan (68 percent), and Palestine (53 percent) was supportive of democracy. This position was further strengthened by large voter turn out in Algeria, Palestine, Kuwaiti, and Yemeni elections. The point that comes out is that the Islamic world may be averse to accepting American policies but not American values that quintessentially are not very different from western liberal values. Citing Iraq war as an example majority of people polled in most Islamic countries are convinced that the war was motivated by Washington’s desire for oil, protect Israel (which needed no protection any way), and weaken the Islamic world. If Iraq can be taken as a barometer then many Islamic countries spurred on by the US to speed up the process of democratization are more likely than not to opt for some kind of Islamic rule. Gregory Gause’s findings show that only in Morocco where more secular leftist parties have a long history and established presence, or in Lebanon where Christian-Muslim dynamic determine electoral politics, pluralities of people surveyed in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE, Egypt etc would support greater role for clergy in their political system. In Pakistan the great majority of people would, given a chance, opt for some sort of Islamic rule in addition to the increasing theocratic influence in two of the provinces ruled by the Mullahs. Bush administration would, therefore, be well advised to listen to Harvard Professor Jessica Stern that “democratization is not necessarily the best way to fight Islamic extremism”. Perhaps, Bush administration may wish to strengthen the secular and progressive forces to fight fundamentalist forces both within and outside the electoral process. The creation of a democratic political and social order in the Islamic world would not be easy. But vigilance would have to be maintained to see that civil liberties and rule of law prevails, that state failure does not give way to extremist religious ideology, that corrupt governments do not succeed in refusing to integrate dissident groups and emerging social classes etc. In any case, hasty “democratization” of the Muslim world may not serve the interest either of the people who are being “democratized” or of the US, the prime mover of the next democratic wave. The big question still remaining unanswered by the Americans despite nudges from her European allies is how to bring back the confidence of the Muslims by doing something concrete on the Palestine question after the Baghdad imbroglio. If the Quartet produced “performance based and goal driven” Road Map is to be given life then discussions on the key issues on border, settlement, status of Jerusalem, and the right of the refugees to return have to be addressed in all earnestness.  Since a solution of the Palestine problem is central to any exercise relating to peace in this area last October’s Geneva accord, rejected by Israel and not formally approved by the Palestinian Authority deserves international attention. Essentially a repackaging of Clinton’s 2000 peace plan the Geneva Accord is the most far-reaching draft document agreed upon by Israeli and Palestinian mainstream politicians. But if the Ariel Sharon government is bent upon finding a solution of the Israeli dilemma faced after 1967 war of how to control the land and resources of the occupied area without taking responsibility for the people living in it the Road Map/ Geneva Accord would meet the same fate as that of Allon Plan, Sharon Plan, World Jewish Congress Plan, Menachem Begin Plan, Oslo Accord etc. The interests of the modern day Prometheus would be best served not by opposing the ICJ on the case of Israeli Berlin Wall but by finding a fair solution of the Palestinian problem. The world has not become so amnesiac as to totally forget the political obfuscation of the Balfour Declaration, Winston Churchill’s 1922 assurance given on behalf of the British government that it did not contemplate the disappearance or subordination of Arab people, language or culture in Palestine. Though lot of water has passed under the bridge since then yet a conscientious world would expect some degree of fairness from the author of the doctrine of preemption and to prove that the men from Mars (in the words of Robert Kagan) is indeed sincere in finding a permanent solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Europe and the US once again appear divided on the question of terrorism .US ambassador Negroponte’s refusal to vote for the Algerian resolution in the UNSC denouncing Israel for the murder of Sheikh Yassin unless his role as Hamas spiritual leader and thereby describing him as a terrorist was mentioned in the draft resolution was to force the Council members to lend a sort of credibility to the Israeli policy of assassination. Negroponte’s description of Sheikh Yassin as a preacher of hatred, glorifier of suicide bombers, and as a saboteur of two state solution of the Palestine issue evades the basic question as to why a paralyzed wheel chair bound old man could command the respect and loyalty of so many Palestinians. It has been alleged that Israel could not have pursued its genocidal policy in Palestine without the logistical support of the US military and intelligence and political support of the American political and media establishments. Washington Post (in August 2001) ran op-ed on three successive days labeling the Palestinians as inveterate terrorists and urging Israel to annihilate Palestinian Authority and build a Berlin type wall to keep the Arab population in permanent subjugation. Michael Kelly urged Israel to unleash overwhelming force “to destroy, kill, capture, and expel the armed Palestinians”, Charles Krauthammer advised a “lightening and massive Israeli attack on every element of Arafat’s police infrastructure”, and George Will prescribed “a short war and a high wall” for Israel.It is interesting to note that ever since the six days war Israel has been trying to solve the dilemma as to how to keep both the occupied lands and their resources without taking any responsibility for the governance of the people living in the occupied lands. Particularly after the collapse of the Camp David negotiations at the fag end of the Clinton administration Israel has been pursuing a course of military aggression and provocation calculated to arouse Palestinian retaliation that is then used as a pretext for the assassination of Palestinian leaders. Even a cursory glance at the lives of Menachem Begin, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon would suffice to establish the premise that political assassination has long been an established policy of successive Israeli governments. Moderate Arab states, already jittery from Bush administration’s missionary zeal to “democratize” the Arab world, will be hesitant to embrace the American approach because the Arabs, in particular the youth, find American blind support to Israel as a betrayal of their loyalty to the US. The Western calculation that Iran’s clerical problem will solve itself due to the demographic pressure of sixty percent youth population who owe little allegiance to the clerical supremacy may prove to be wrong when young Iranians see such flagrant violation of a most basic human right to live go unpunished. Is the so-called “security” of Israel (possessing undeclared number of nuclear weapons) “threatened” by Arab states (who have already assured Israel its right to exist and can do nothing to undo it any way) be so important to the West that it should refuse to recognize the widening gulf between the Islamic and the Christian worlds? The stunning victory of Hamas in the Palestinian Parliamentary elections (Hamas won 76 out of 132 seats in the Assembly) had introduced new dynamic in the Palestinian crisis. Notwithstanding the fact that Hamas won the elections described as free and fair by the international observers including former US President Jimmy Carter, the US and EU are reluctant to honor the people’s verdict and are refusing to interact with a Hamas led government unless the party renounces violence and removes the destruction of Israel from its political agenda. US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice declared that a party couldn’t have “one foot in politics and the other in terror”. The Quartet (US, EU,UN and Russia) is already on record saying “there is a fundamental contradiction between armed group and militia activities and building of a democratic state”. The West insists that Hamas must recognize Israel’s right to exist (not that Israel’s existence is dependent on Hamas’ recognition) and join the negotiating political process by first disbanding its militia. While Hamas’ rhetoric to destroy Israel needs to be excised from its political platform one needs to explore the question as to why Hamas needs to resort to violence and why Hamas’ violent activities are so popular among the Palestinians living in the occupied territories. Initially Hamas targeted Israeli soldiers and settlers in occupied lands. The party later extended its operations to suicide attacks on Israeli civilians justifying the attacks as retaliation for Israeli killing of Palestinian civilians. Hamas is believed to have offered on several occasions to the Israeli authorities that both sides refrain from attacking civilians but the Israelis rejected the offers. The problem with the West and its loss of credibility lies in the fact that while the West condemns Palestinian terrorism it turns a blind eye to state terrorism incessantly practiced by the state of Israel.  The Europeans to a greater degree than the Americans had described Israel way back in 2003 as the greatest threat to global peace. Stung by this description by the Europeans Israel urged the European Union “to stop rampant brain washing against and demonizing of Israel before Europe deteriorates once again to the dark sections of its past”. Israeli delusion about global “support” of its genocidal behavior resides in its arrogant and “inerrant” belief theorized by Thedor Herzl, the father of Zionism, that Palestine was “a land without people for a people without land”. Therefore Israel continues to believe that extra-judicial killings of unarmed Palestinians (including women and children) are justifiable self-defense measures against interlopers. Western threat to stop financial assistance to a Hamas led government could destabilize the Palestinian Authority.  US dollars one and half billion budget is mainly externally sourced (more than half coming from European nations). Though US aid forms a small part of the total assistance package preponderant US influence could stifle the financial flow to the PA which either could force the Hamas to adopt a pliant attitude towards the West or could act as an incendiary element fuelling further anti-US feeling and show up the hollowness of the American advocacy of democracy in the US flouting the wishes of the Palestinians expressed through their votes for the Hamas. The US hardliners rejecting Hamas victory argue that building a genuine democracy needs more than elections. It requires supportive role of civil society, rule of law, protection of minority rights against the tyranny of the majority. They argue that a democratic political party must disavow violence, intimidation and terrorism. Hamas’ popularity alone neither should nor be regarded as sufficient to merit recognition of Bush administration. The hardliners who continue to look at the Palestine issue through the Israeli prism and that of historian Bernard Lewis’ millennial rivalry between Islamic and Judeo-Christian civilizations should take note of an emerging trend through out the Middle East and possibly beyond,  “of a shift towards religion based Islamist parties” as a revolt against traditionally corrupt political class and system. In Egypt candidates of Muslim Brotherhood (who ran as independents due to ban on religious parties) did significantly well in legislative elections. In Iran a puritanical ideologue has been elected President. In Iraq secular Bathists have been replaced by conservative Shias. Municipal elections in Saudi Arabia saw significant gains of conservative religious candidates. In Turkey the ruling party has Islamic orientation. In Pakistan successive military regimes sought to promote Islamist agenda as bulwark against comparatively less Islamic minded political parties. In Bangladesh not only Islamists are part of the government but also violence wrought by Islamists portends ominous signs for the country’s future inviting Western concern. The non-adoption of religious and social, if not political values nursed by the West does not make the Orient The Antartica of freedom  . The West contends Yale Professor Paul Bloom (Is God an accident—The Atlantic Monthly—Dec2005) is no less wedded to religious fundamentalism. It has been found that more than half of the supports of a major political party in the US believe that God gave Israel to the Jews and that its existence fulfils the prophecy about the second coming of Jesus Christ. In such a situation the appeal of Hamas is more likely to increase perhaps aided by Western efforts to asphyxiate the natural tendency of the Palestinians to free themselves from Israeli yoke. Perhaps the most responsible course for the West would be to invite Hamas for constructive engagement and gradually lead the party to disarmament while at the same time to encourage Israel to negotiate both with Hamas and President Abbas. Only then the world may find a solution to decades old Palestinian crisis.Israeli aggression against Lebanon and wanton destruction wrought in Palestine not only treats with disdain the Just War concept of Professor Michael Walzer but also stretches to its limit the Bush doctrine of preemption putting heavy on the tolerance threshold of the international community.  President Bush identified the root cause of the tragedy in Lebanon unfolded daily by Israel’s relentless brutalities not in Israeli contempt of the UN Charter, violation of international human rights law and the Geneva Convention but in “a state within a state. Hezbollah, an armed movement that provoked the crisis”. He spoke of the UNSC resolutions in the making which would require Hezbollh to immediately stop all attacks and Israel to stop all offensive military operations (not withdrawal from Lebanese territory) to establish an enduring ceasefire supported by an international force to “prevent armed militia like Hezbollah and its Iranian and Syrian supporters from sparking another crisis”. Both President Bush and Condoleeza Rice were at pains to paint Hezbollah as the real culprit, a terrorist organization that like other terrorists “try to stop the advance of democracy. spread their Jehadist message—a message totalitarian in nature—Islamic radicalism, Islamic fascism”. Pulitzer prize winner journalist Seymour Hirsch in his article in The New Yorker (14-8-2006) Israeli attack on Lebanon was planned well before the kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers by the Hezbullah on 12^th July and shared the plan with the Bush administration, According to Hirsch both President Bush and Vice President Cheney were convinced that successful Israeli air raids against Hezbullah’s fortified underground missile and command and control posts would ease Israeli security situation and would also serve as a prelude to potential American preemptive attack on suspected Iranian nuclear installations which are buried deep underground. Hirsch reveals that earlier this summer several Israeli officials visited Washington, long before the Hezbullah kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers, “to get a green light for the bombing operation and to find out how much the United States would bear”. The US interest was to strip the capacity of Hezbullah’s missile attack on Israel should the US decide to opt for a military solution of the Iranian nuclear issue. In short Israeli attack on Lebanon was meant to be a trial run for a possible US attack of Iran. This perception gained ground after Israeli destruction of civilian infrastructure in Lebanon that apparently was also being considered by Washington in case of an attack on Iran. Israelis reportedly reminded the Americans of General Wesley Clark’s bombing campaign in Kosovo that brought Serbia and Milasovich to their knees. When the EU condemned Israeli military attacks on civilian Prime Minister Olmert angrily reminded EU of NATO’s bombing campaign at Kosovo. But Israeli failure to destroy Hezbullah’s capacity to send missiles to Israel and her inability to achieve a quick victory over Hezbullah ha s apparently forced the White House to rethink the military option regarding Iran.Hammas victory in Palestinian elections, Muslim Brotherhood parliamentary gains in Egypt, Hezbollah’s defense of Lebanon against Israeli disproportionate use of force on Lebanese civilians and infrastructure to secure the release the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by the Hezbollah have been lumped together by the Bush administration as reflective of “Islamic radicalism”. In the process of displaying unstinted support for Israel Bush administration has totally ignored the OIC Summit’s Putrajaya Declaration of 3^rd August; and Arab League’s full support of Lebanese government’s 7-point plan calling for immediate ceasefire, withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon, greater UN international force in south Lebanon, and help rebuild the shattered Lebanese economy. Perhaps through inadvertence Bush administration is fulfilling the premise set out in Samuel Huntington’s controversial thesis on the Clash of Civilizations. Huntington’s emphasis on the key contribution of Christianity in the formation of Western culture where God is separated from the state as opposed to “in Islam (where) God is Caesar, in Confucianism Caesar is God, in Orthodoxy God is Caesar’s junior partner” is a compelling argument against multi-culturealism embraced by many European countries till the terrorist attacks of 9/11.Like former Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi, Huntington warns “The underlying problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam”. Bush administration’s reluctance to admit that the root cause of the turbulence in the Middle East is its refusal to pressurize Israel for an equitable solution of the Palestinian problem is putting the moderate rulers in the Islamic world on a confrontational course with their citizens. This difficulty faced by many Arab governments was recently voiced by King Abdullah of Jordan where governments with failed political and economic policies are treading on razor’s edge to find a common ground between those clamoring for Western model of liberal democracy and market economy and those refusing modernity are trying to take the society back to its pristine 6^th century roots. While this struggle for the soul of Islam is raging in the Islamic world the Bush administration has taken the lead for the atonement of Western guilt complex for the holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis and centuries of injustice meted out to the Jews by the Christians by giving Israel a free hand in Palestine and now in Lebanon. Consequently, writes columnist Roger Cohen, “whatever vestigial standing the US had as an honest broker in the Middle East has disappeared with the Bush administration’s embrace of Israel’s sustained use of force in response to Hezbollah’s murderous July 12 cross border raid... Hezbollah equals terrorism, terrorism must be crushed, ruthlessness is the only way forward, and damn the consequences”. In the same vein UN Deputy Secretary General Mark Brown also reportedly feels that given the discouraging US track record in the Middle East where the US is regarded as the second greatest enemy after Israel the US efforts to get through a resolution in the UNSC on the current Lebanese situation is unlikely to bear fruit. Even Tony Blair has told the World Affairs Council at Los Angeles recently that the West is unlikely to win the battle against “global extremism” unless the war on terror is fought “at the level of values as much as force, unless we show we are even handed, fair and just in our application of those values to the world”.  A few years the Europeans had expressed their belief that Israel posed the greatest danger to world peace with the US bracketed along with North Korea and Iran as the second biggest threat. The third, fourth and fifth places went to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. At that time the Israeli government urged the European Union “to stop the rampant brainwashing against and demonizing of Israel before Europe deteriorates once again to dark sections of its past”. Emotional blackmail has always been the hallmark of the Zionist propaganda machinery. One could understand the sensitivity of the Israelis because of Adolph Hitler’s belief that “by warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord’s work” or that of the Romans who considered them as Secta Nefaria (inferior sect) and of Martin Luther’s description of the Jews and the Papists as “ungodly wretches” and Pope Innocent III’s writing in 1200 A.D. that “the Jews like Cain are doomed to wander the earth as fugitives and vagabonds, and their faces are covered with shame”. But the Christian Church and Adolph Hitler can in no way consider the present day aggression as atonement for the injustices meted out to the Jews in the past.The Euro-barometer poll describing Israel, as the biggest threat to global peace had nothing to do with anti-Semitism.  And today the world has become amnesiac of the fact that the Balfour Declaration favoring “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” was predicated on the assurance that “nothing will be done which shall prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”. The Israeli aggrandizement is because of its firm belief of total US support to its militaristic activities. American academics and administration officials have always been convinced of the essentiality of the US military role   to the maintenance of global stability. But US policy of total support to Israel and its penchant to interpret any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism continue to frustrate the European and the Muslim world. Studies revealed that the Muslim Diaspora in Britain, for example, after the nine-eleven of becoming “symbolic victims of global mythology, caught in a spiral of alienation and ambivalent identification that no local protestations of innocence could counter”. To the ordinary Westerner nine-eleven created moral panic about Islam, multi-culturalism and toleration of difference precipitating “loyalty debate” which was difficult to end unless one was convicted of sedition or terrorism.  Academics have   concluded that Muslim Diaspora in the west are doomed to constantly negotiate the parameters of minority citizenship by subscribing to the Islamic juridical position that since western democracies allow freedom of worship, Muslims can owe complete allegiance to the State, defined as “Land of Treaty”. Only a small minority may feel discomfort because of their belief that permanent settlement in the “Land of the Unbelief” is forbidden in Islam. Israel appears to have taken full advantage of this distorted Western image of Muslims as terrorists and continues to display its asymmetric military might vis-à-vis the Muslim world in the face of an impotent international community. War on terrorism, repeatedly endorsed by the entire Muslim world, should not be translated as war on Islam unfortunately remains to be accepted by the Western world due to terrorism perpetrated by a section of so-called Muslims as most recently committed at Mumbai.The failure of the Muslims to excite in the West support for their cause has fuelled state terrorism by Israel against unarmed Arabs.  The intermittent Israeli aggression is only the continuous display of its muscularity characterized by the UN Secretary General as a “bankrupt” policy which can breed only hate and desire for revenge by the wronged.  In the case of unceasing Israeli brutality inflicted upon the Lebanese and the   Palestinians every day, notwithstanding many censures by the UNGA and UNSC, it is surprising that the world community is yet to see the direct relevance of the principle laid down by the Nuremberg Tribunal that when international rules that protect basic humanitarian values are in conflict with state laws, then every individual must transgress state laws in favor of humanitarian values. Since people no longer live in discrete national communities but in Professor David Held’s terminology in “overlapping communities of fate” the state of Israel and its supporters must be held accountable for their actions. If sovereignty can become divisible, limitable, non-exclusive and of reduced significance in cases like Kosovo, Rwanda, Panama, Chile and others; why should it not be so in the case of Israel?