Martin

Kramer

The Middle East, Old and New

IN

1902, Theodor

HERZL, the father

of political

Zionism,

pub

lished a Utopian novel entitled Altneuland (Old-New Land). The story is set in Palestine in the distant future of 1923, by which time a "New Society" has been established through the
mass return of commonwealth, or religion. church, Jerusalem "New the Jews. The Society" far beyond nationalism. There Its members in the art museum by is a cosmopolitan is no official lan

guage

mosque, is dominated

are free to worship "in synagogue, or the philharmonic concert." Palace" the Latin bearing to me." is alien

a "Peace

from Terence: human inscription "Nothing is also a showplace of the highest The "New technol Society" and silent electric monorails Odorless whisk the inhabitants ogy. from place

to place; power is generated inclined water by a huge to the Dead tunnel takes on Sea, which linking the Mediterranean the appearance of Lake Geneva. And although the "New Society" extends across there the Damascus, Jews us rich," says the book's need for armies. "The Jews have made one Arab character. live with "Why should we scorn them? They us as brothers. Why should we not love them?" On the title page and River, Jordan is no conflict between even Beirut and beyond and Arabs, and no

of his book, Herzl

inscribed this epigraph: "If you will

minister of Israel, Shimon

it, it is no
Peres, pub bor

fairy tale."1 In 1993, the then-foreign that the familiar obsessions

lished a book entitled The New Middle East. In it, he announced

of the Middle East?nationhood,

Martin Studies

Kramer is Director of at Tel Aviv University.

the Moshe

Dayan

Center

for Middle

Eastern

and African

89

90

Martin Kramer
ceased Nations to matter would in an era of globalization. redefine their identities. resources would be East The Middle

ders, territory, arms?had A new age had dawned. Borders would would become shared. Massive

be opened. Water arsenals would a single economic

and natural be dismantled.

to the cooperative zone, devoted "I feel that I have to of prosperity.2 earned the right pursuit wrote I dreamed Peres in his memoirs. in "So much that dream," as fantasy the past was dismissed but has now become thriving reality."3 From across the "New to the "new Middle dreamers East," Society" have imagined the transformation of the Middle

East

this century into a zone of peace, prosperity, and cooperation. The dreams are familiar to the West, of the Jews because been they have in translation. But similar dreams have been written dreamt and

in Arabic, In these visions, and Persian. nations Turkish, spoken to the house is retired live in harmony, and religion of worship. now neutralized, cease to divide; The forces of division, the diverse East form around of the Middle peoples the diverse of Europe. ing peoples a shared interest, emulat

And have not the peoples of theMiddle East usually followed the lead of theWest? The national projects of this century were all
inspired by European of Europe, and Jews state that would take Turkish models. its leaders Zionism worked first among emerged to collect the Jews the in a

of its place among the secular nation-states a to remake not only nationalism Europe. attempted into a secular nation-state but sought Muslim recognition society as part and parcel of Europe. Arab nationalism in all its for Turkey forms drew as did in some eral, nationalisms its inspiration from Western liberal models, Not Iranian nationalism. all of these Middle banished role. old But and illib Eastern

gion the European Even

reli and most incorporated loyalties, was in every case, their point of departure is now If the new point of departure nation-state.

the idea of Europe, is this not the next model

the name

for theMiddle

East?

a willing the Middle of the region, East, suggests terms. An American ness of its peoples to be redefined in new wrote his coined the term the same year Herzl naval strategist East it was aWestern the Middle Altneuland: invention, defining vis-?-vis graphs.4 the West Yet it was as a transit only zone for of a matter ships, a few and railroads, before decades tele the

The Middle

East, Old and New

to describe the part to be there be a more

91
of the

the term, of the region adopted peoples world inhabited. Could they themselves to the willingness of these testimony transformed, And yet, East have ism. But name cate resists. been and as the A integrated twentieth

persuasive

peoples in the networks of

redefined, the world? the Middle but there is

"new Middle

of century closes, much East" does exist in places, xenophobia, East, secular and

still an "old Middle

filled with places places, There In some in other of God. from

East" of tradition. The gaps between them

dictatorship, in the Middle fundamental flourishes. kill in the communi culture

live, die, and occasionally people are those in the Middle East who

their computer their place could be any place. terminals; in fervent Others communicate from holy ground; their prayer can be no other place. In the West, War place post-Cold politics In the is no longer the competition of ideologies, but of interests. Middle This is also the competition of identities. East, however, politics sometimes obsessive search for authenticity does not fit the

neat models of the political scientists and has left the politics of the Middle East difficult to understand and predict.
eco of identities, the prospects for democracy, and peace look uncertain. Western and the experts growth, treat the region have been preoccupied doctors of diplomacy who with economic economic process: elections, reforms, sanctions, In this crisis nomic But time and again, their ships run aground peace negotiations. currents of unsettled amidst the swirling identities. French political a model crafted scientists electoral for Algeria?and ush process

ered in a ruthless civil war. The IMF and World

Turkey East?and Nations Libya?and institute the most successful economic reform now has an Islamist prime minister. Turkey most sanctions the world's drastic imposed their on in defiance.

Bank helped
in the Middle The United on Iraq and

leaders rule peace Norwegian a compromise between Israel and processors agreement engineered the PLO?and killed Israel's prime minister and brought opponents seems to defy down its government. If the Middle East sometimes the best-laid plans to determined

for its renovation, it is also home this is because who seek to implement other plans?those people or in the Bible or the Qur'an, first revealed in Nasser's speeches sermons. Khomeini's

92

Martin Kramer
East will not make only one choice. that different The as before, its peoples a mosaic?an are bound is tired region but still It

The Middle remains, true?and

analogy to make many

choices.

is composed of four major Israel, the Arab lands, Turkey, parts: are distinguishable and Iran. They from one another by a combi nation of differences?cultural, linguistic, religious, geographic,

and political. The history of their formation can only be told at

In these few pages, length.5 the present map disposition debate about itself. of is more the purpose in the Middle forces immediate: East's to great

ISRAEL: CHOICES OF THE CHOSEN

InHerzl's Altneuland,
inhabitants the new sought museum: running of what and made

the Old City of Jerusalem is vacated of its

In September 1996, a Binyamin Netanyahu into just such City Hasmonean wall on

into a giant museum. of Prime Minister Israeli government a small part of the Old to transform it opened a two-thousand-year-old the

perimeter alongside long-buried call the Haram and Muslims Jews call the Temple Mount in the midst of a stalled The tunnel al-Sharif. peace opening, a Palestinian Palestinian and process, police explosion. ignited Israeli
ties.

tunnel, the west side

forces tunnel

fought

pitched

battles;

there were

dozens

of casual

The dilemmas Zionism The well

in its incidental the two way, epitomized episode, the birth of political that face Israel a century after since the establishment of the state. and half a century is the resistance of Palestinian obvious, that Herzl, with nationalism literary license, could in either had to confront, but that Israel has always the most

first, and nationalism?a battle

ignore or in negotiations. is contested coveted Jerusalem ground, in its narrow confines and every by both Israelis and Palestinians, to apart from archaeological has explosive digs potential, change ment for the of symbols It is also the reservoir construction. conflict stymied, as a whole, every and when political symbol in Jerusalem are stirred or aspirations to political becomes subject

manipulation.

But beyond this, the digging of the tunnel exposed another inner
dilemma, not between Israelis and Palestinians, but between Israe

The Middle
lis and

East, Old and New

93
inter "heri tunnel of the

Israelis. Some Israelis came to the tunnel as tourists, a recovered remnant in surveying of their national came as Jewish pilgrims: the water tage." But other visitors stone" allowed them to pass still closer to the "foundation ested Temple Mount, the First and Second site This fervent visitor's were The today point stands in the where the inner Temples, the Muslim tunnel

the "holy of holies" of sanctum, stood two millennia that ago. (On shrine of the Dome of the Rock.) where offered many It depended the upon the tunneling Israelis

a place became site or holy place? prayers. Heritage own identity. And in their identities,

founded by a secular national movement to persuade a nation that sought the Jews that they constituted and not Herzl (Volk, wrote Herzl) just a religious community. treatise on Zionism, in entitled his programmatic first published Der Judenstaat, But he did not "The State of the Jews." 1896,

sharply divided. state of Israel was

envision that itwould be a Jewish state, governed in its policies by the legal precepts of Jewish law. Neither did Herzl's heirs, from
Chaim Weizmann orthodox giously Israel for precisely a false Jews was But after Ben-Gurion.6 through David a dim view of Zionism took that reason: in their view, Many and of the state the reli state of for the

a secular

redemption.7 in full force a religious Zionism there emerged 1967, that did sense the approach In that year, of redemption. Israeli arms seized the most sites: East Jerusalem, important Jewish holy

site of theWestern
Tomb that East And of Israel's "return" and

(Wailing) Wall,

and Hebron,
Zionists Judea

location of the
themselves and

the Patriarchs.

Jerusalem they made not

definition This tion" peace make chosen Party unique of

Samaria? a sign of God's intent. in these territories settlements the very Jewish but of Judaism itself.8 only of Zionism the West Bank?was in the "restora seeing the hand of God of Israel to the Jews, also rejected any A nation like any other nation may compromise. concessions. one of the But leaders cannot concede people Israel's National Religious to the Land of Israel is connection of different) from the ties a chosen

Religious in 1967 to the biblical

convinced

religious Zionism, the entire Land on

based

territorial land. As put it:

"Israel's

national

among

the nations?it

is (radically

binding the French, English, Russian and Chinese people to their

94
lands. land, By distinct

Martin Kramer
... For us the Land not the of Israel be no is the just an existentially there could 1980s, cultures, itmany within one defined land of destiny, homeland."9 that other there the a chosen two Each

doubt

existed

secular, religious. over there are important subcultures; incorporates must be qualified. But in the and any generalization always laps, broadest terms, secular Zionism regards the citizens of Israel as the legitimate arbiters elected of Israel's fate. The decisions of their

Zionist

only

are the only laws that obligate governments democratically In contrast, Zionism the "House of the state. regards religious as the instrument is the sole legitimate of God, who arbiter Israel" over man's law must take precedence of Israel's fate. God's law, and government
mate.

decisions

that negate

divine

law cannot

be

legiti

It was these

to paper over the inherent contradiction possible two Zionisms until the government 1993, when

between of Israel

recognized the PLO and signed a "Declaration of Principles" that

an Israeli withdrawal in the West Bank from territory promised to the settler movement acted Rabbis close and Gaza. swiftly, the government's ruling rejecting right to make issuing a religious any concession by citing divine law:

to the laws of the Torah, it is forbidden to relinquish the According over any part of sovereignty and national ownership political rights of the historic Land of Israel to another authority or people. All of is now in our possession the historic Land of Israel which belongs to the entire Jewish people, past, present and future, and therefore no can give away that to which he [alone] does one in any generation to do so is null and void, not have title. Therefore any agreement obligates It was no one, has no moral or legal force whatsoever.10

to the claim that the only one step from this position an instrument had com of secular Zionism, of Israel, government a punishable of control law for ceding divine sin against mitted the assas such a logic inspired of the land to non-Jews. Just parts sin of Yitzhak of signature the accords, Until the Israeli Arabs: in the Tomb of the Israeli prime minister Rabin, the state of Israel to the agreements Jewish settler who the Patriarchs extremists massacred in Hebron had vented Palestinian (and whose who with their the put the PLO. rage on

worshippers own tomb

The Middle East, Old and New

became turned That

95

one form of a religious shrine for extremists) personified this same resistance resistance. But after the Israel-PLO accords, inward, struggle in a struggle between Israeli Jews over the relation

ship of their peoplehood

Israelis living be addressed becomes

to the land.

is not over, for it is not abstract: there are 150,000 in dozens of settlements, and their future has yet to in the negotiations. But as the Palestinian Authority

seems unavoidable. in reality, The the outcome over the terms differs from its predecessor government Netanyahu to accept but has chosen the prin of Israel's historic compromise of compromise all the same. The Hebron agreement, provid ciple rooted ing for a series of further Israeli redeployments, expresses the

broad Israeli consensus behind the principle of exchanging

land

to be a people for peace. Most Israelis wish like all peoples: they from their neighbors, the same certainty seek the same recognition in their permanence, and Chi that the French, English, Russians, nese enjoy. If peace demands no other territorial compromise?and formula to make all of the has ever worked?then more of than Israel" the majority a generation, has vanished. of Israelis the dream The are willing it. After "Land of possessing still peace process has been made: the

a new policy or separation? it seek integration toward the region. Will The idea a "new Middle was greeted of East" articulated Peres by Shimon means most If integration with dour skepticism Israelis. allow by or the entry of many more of Palestinian, thousands ing Jordanian, other Arab workers then Israelis to fill the have lower economy, workers" rejected rungs it. Their of Israel's expanding for "guest preference and the Philippines is

faces many but the crucial decision hurdles, land will be partitioned. to formulate Once that occurs, Israel will have

from Nigeria, Rumania, Thailand, established. (In this, Israel differs not at all from the Arab firmly oil states of the Gulf, who also prefer non-Arab foreign workers.) means If integration closer economic ties and opportunities, this

has more

but limited promise. Israel's economy appeal, developed are in its high-tech Arab and its great strengths during boycott, to the vast markets of Europe, and Asia. As a exports America, now at $15,000, has gross domestic result, per capita product, in absolute Israel's GDP exceeds that of all terms, grown rapidly; its next-door neighbors combined?Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Leba

96
non, were

Martin Kramer
and

Even if the entire Arab market the Palestinian Authority. to open to Israel, it is no larger than a combination of the and Belgium. Netherlands The Arab market is unlikely, certainly to offer in the short the opportunities Israel has found term, elsewhere. Culturally, of all Israelis descendents. attenuated forced West by are slim. Perhaps the prospects for integration half are Jews from Arab or their and Muslim countries But their cultural the region grows more affinity with rein The other half, recently with each passing year. immigration, Jewry is culturally define effectively that with East" the exit of the of

the West, as America.

Russian Jewish large-scale and the ties to American It is not the

Shimon almost region The ing debate. has of

Peres, slogan disappeared from Israeli political Israel's place in the discourse. entirely is now much less debated than the nature of Israel itself. of Palestine emergence the borders between Since alongside them?is Israel?and the final fix that It

then, surprising, of a "new Middle

favored

already intensifying its inception, Israel has been a state for the Jews. in the law of return, guaranteeing Jews, most notably

immediate citizenship to any Jewish immigrant (although the defi nition of a Jew is the subject of continuing controversy). Might
this change? Today, one while Zionist, Zionist. peace longer Arab? Will should a state "There part of of every the Jewish Left defines itself is an Arab?and five Israelis as post a non

to persuade that Israel at the majority they manage a fully secular and denationalized state?no become the Jews but a state of its citizens, and Jewish as there is no Islamic is no Jewish democracy, just a Jewish veteran "A state with writes of the Left. of

democracy,"

if not racist laws, like the 'who is a Jew' law, or the discriminatory serious law defining the still?a law of return, or?more present not a state of state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people (and as in any normal is not a democratic state."11 its citizens, state), Post-Zionism but so far has been in a state limited to marginal could circles widen. of intellec tuals, for the opposite But pressure will direction, a Jewish state: its public Israel is a state of the Jews, it is not while an alliance are secular. Will of religious law and state institutions have the believers traditional Zionists, Jews, and ultra-Orthodox political clout to Judaize the institutions of the state? The same its appeal of peace, from also be exerted

The Middle
rabbis who warn culture which once warned "the

East, Old and New

97

against here which will which

the PLO also with compromise against a secular to create that aims trend present East'?a into a 'new Middle trend is to blend The Israel of more definition clearly of Israel's from politi its neighbors, defined cultural

lead to assimilation."12 will separate enhance role the appeal

strongly the centuries. by Judaism through saw an increase in the support for Israel's May this choice. just advocating parties It still relies on the strongest Israel thus stands at a crossroads. borders?a long played 1996 elections national, cohesion and consensus in the Middle East?the and cultural social, in hostile Its democratic of a small people surroundings. are resilient, critical press, institutions and its multiparty politics, free markets define it as aWestern an- expanding edge. its own has been Ballast country. main and Israel's military economy, makes This underlying self-confidence identity far more open, and much less But tests in neighboring countries. that the greatest suggest

cal borders, could well

by provided tains a comparable over Israel's debate

than the struggles violent, underway are close ones, and they the parallels of Israeli democracy still lie ahead. THE ARABS: DIVIDED In Cairo distant IN INDECISION events

two last summer, time when Arabism 1990.

stirred

Binyamin Netanyahu June, the first since celebrated heads-of-state the event

still moved an Arab prompted The

the memory of a not-so the Arabs. The election of summit conference Nizar in

in verse, in Cairo:

poet Syrian-born Qabbani to the assembled in a poem addressed

has been able to remind you of Netanyahu of the place and date of your birth, to your identity, restore to you your Arab nationality, it is how beautiful If Binyamin what he has done. has been able to restore and the children of stones the Arabs to their to their childhood,

If this man Arabism,

If he has been able to remind us of our names, and the names of our fathers, and the names of our children,

98

Martin Kramer
A thousand welcomes to his arrival. of love open to you

this is the last occasion Gentlemen, before you become extinct.13 This was not the only summer of Gamal spasm Abdul

anniversary of the Suez Canal, there premiered celluloid maneuvered saga followed

the fortieth

of nostalgia. On July 26, Nasser's nationalization a new film, Nasser '56.

in Cairo

The film packed theaters in Egypt and other Arab countries. The
the and Israeli French, no license: the film made too, there was Here, aggression. literary mention of Nasser's failed Arab the regime's sordid socialism, or the later debacle to tell a clean tale It preferred of 1967. prisons, of Arabism's
tears.14

Arab Nasser, Egypt's combined forces of British,

paladin,

as he out

golden

moment

in a drama

that

left many

viewers Israel? most

in

Arab steadfastness socialism, unity, Arab in Arabic these were the slogans that resounded this The Arabs constituted a nation, their division

Arab

against through

of

century. argued never accept and must nationalists, by foreign pow some I division War ers?the that created twenty post-World states. Nor should they accept the alien presence of Israel, separate or the economic models of the imperialist West. The Arabs should draw only on authentic that made the same sources them sources, powerful to achieve through history. Arab it, the Arab peoples never had came. nationalism put The up with and power, dictator deprivation, promised

the Arab

ship, and war. But the reward each Arab its own became lence dry well: collectively proved selves, Arab state

its own

privileges a cover

of Arabs

to preserve. for bullying against Arabs. became became

schemes did not work: unity to defend, interests each regime had In many the slogan of unity places, and aggression, Arab socialism more As legitimizing also proved the vio to be a

some Arabs

poorer. they and dangerous, and nearly costly in spirit and in resources.15 both

equal with for the war broke

one another, but to break Israel, it the Arabs them

the battered of an entire genera nationalism, preference still inspire poetry and films. But to feed mouths, the tion, may states now must The latest "Unified look elsewhere. Arab Arab Economic Report" summarizes the problem.16 Between 1980 and

The Middle East, Old and New

99

1994, the population of the Arab countries grew by 48 percent (from 165 million to 245 million?as though the Arab world added another Egypt and a half). Its gross domestic product grew
a decline 15 percent. in the This has meant of 22 percent a in real terms, domestic from $2,600 per capita gross product a year. As a result, to $2,000 states have become the Arab year on the outside world more to for goods and the means dependent them. Food production is now billions of dollars short of acquire by only consumption; can no longer rapid expansion source a part of the world that was do so. Both oil and non-oil of debt. diminished end up very If the gross sometime close once able to feed have itself seen a producers domestic product

continues

to decline?and
energy lands could For stood

it could plummet

if the centrality of oil as an

in the next Arab century?the of humanity. hour, a truth under Hosni Mubarak.

to the bottom

the Arabs, then, it may be the eleventh nowhere better than in the Egypt of President

Last November,
Summit. assembled

Cairo hosted

the third Middle

East Economic

"the New Here, to do business: with

as one journalist called Arabs," them, "The New Arabs lined the corridors of

the Congress Center in [the Cairo suburb of] Heliopolis

hundreds, English. Many equipped of tailored ties and them

in their

suits, quiet exceptional over Arabic even when prefer English an themselves."17 the Egyptian among True, speaking organizers to create more Arab-to-Arab nounced that the objective was links, and that regional not depend economic on would cooperation "one particular were Israel. But Israelis, too, country"?meaning

in Cairo, and there could be no doubt that even Arab-to present Arab links now depended Eastern peace?and Israel. upon Middle Yet while Arab pragmatists behind there is put ideology them, in Arab still an unease flammable lands, a sense that the most fabrics of variously made sparks same premises could identity called Islamism be or set ablaze. Islamic In many is places, what fundamentalism has already lands rests upon many of the

in Arab fly. Islamism as Arab nationalism: it too claims that a return to sources to strengthen authentic is the only way the Muslims and confer power them. But Islamism to more authen upon pretends Arab nationalism, its anti-impe ticity than even Arabism. despite rialist posture, its idea of the nation borrowed from Europe: Arabs one thus Arabs formed one nation. But Islamism spoke language,

100
avows

Martin Kramer
that

not is the basis of identity. The religion, language, of Muslim believers constitutes the nation and the community as it did for the first millennium focus of natural of solidarity, Islam. hood, This who idea in Arab lands first organized and it has become divorce to Brother goes back to the Muslim in Egypt between the world wars. Since

the mid-1970s,
countries, to do with Islamism "The

Islamism has found a following

the most from widespread realities.

in most Arab
form Most of dissent.

But the appeal of Islamism also has its limits. Much

a certain proposes extermination intensify of the Jews Syria, they have changing the Arab

of this has

notably, Israel. against struggle on is a specific obligation placed Egypt their and Lebanon," land." Islamic says law

the people

of Palestine, "because

Jordan, occupied

the exiled
statement, from been the

leader of the Saudi Islamist opposition

in a typical it

obliges Muslims
its roots translated deeds

to "destroy the Jewish entity and annihilate

Such words of 1996. sometimes have in the Hamas

in the heart

through holy war."18 into deeds, most strikingly of Israel's cities in the spring not without

bombings The words and

there be a sympathizers: long will sense among of the Arabs that Israel is the offspring profound and usurpation. But far fewer Arabs the Islamist accept aggression of God, would claim that a pragmatic compromise defy the will war" would risk the and most know well that an Islamist "holy are destruction have peace ceded But of the Arabs sometimes themselves. Islamists that concluded, ruefully, that has parted aside, most Arabs to live in it is preferable and from some territory

an Israel alongside some power. Islamism also stirs

Islamism many Arabs. lim and non-Muslim, does not simply Islamism it also erects

even deeper resistance among another, between Mus is an ideology of difference: men and women. believer and secularist, erect barricades between Islam of and and Is through those differences, Islamists Today, the heart society. so car

rael; right it arises, it exacerbates Everywhere it the potential of civil war. ries with it in one Arab country, Sudan?and between Islamists Muslims came of close the north

barricades

hold power torn by civil war, is a country of the south. and non-Muslims

to power in one other Arab country, Alge Islamists that too is a land ravaged by civil war, between ria?and to unify, in practice which and secularists. Islamism, pretends

The Middle
divides ruined Arab societies have the costs

East, Old and New

101

that has happened, and where themselves, against in lost lives, devastated and been immense, homes, economies. the Islamists over the past few regimes have rallied against back in their hands. Much But of their it is also of their suppression. of millions of dispossessed resist the siren call of Islamism, and Algeria. "Islam Arab Muslims enough by the Islamists, down the same

is now years, and the initiative success is due to the effectiveness due lest in no small measure too people who suffer the the Islam, and alienated they

to the choice nevertheless fate of Sudan

is the have

solution," concluded

chant that

but Islamists; as understood Arabism

is one more to failure,

problem.19 If Islamism what choices on offer

now are

follows left? One Israel

road

is the "Middle

put by For a brief moment, macy. we are Arabs, the argument Eastern of which "system" ment with elites, as a framework to establish

and

Easternism" previously American peace promoted by diplo the Arabs entertained the option. Yes, to aMiddle but we also belong went, Israel is also a part. But as disillusion into the Arab regarded conspiracy (In book process seeped It is now discredited. over the Arabs.

the pace of the peace "Middle Easternism" became that privileges Israeli economic

Israel and even as a dark hegemony

stores in Arab capitals, The New Middle East has been spotted often alongside The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.) At best,
"Middle Easternism" areas such specific for a new mula For that some links them is seen as a necessary in plane of Arab policy control and water As a for sharing. no resonance.20 level of identity, it has almost as arms lands, the preferred the West. level with and novelist Taha solution The idea is an identity is not new. published a

in the Arab at some

In 1938,

the Egyptian

critic

Husayn

book entitled Mustaqbal al-Thaqafa fi Misr (The Future of Cul ture in Egypt). Husayn argued that Egypt and the neighboring
countries culture. in the Levant Their true to Europe at the deepest level of belonged as Europeans had been suppressed identity by the East. But the eastern Mediterranean drew

from conquerors as Europe: reservoirs the same cultural Greek upon philosophy, Roman to rejoin Christian time had come The law, morality. the artificial division between East and West.21 Europe and demolish

102

Martin Kramer

form of what Sixty years later, this idea takes the much modified some Arabs have called their "Mediterranean Its discus option." sion was above the Barcelona Conference of all, by prompted, November European southeastern what promote culture. 1995, Union the members of the brought together twelve from the southern and "partners" Mediterranean. The Barcelona Declaration initiated and the "Euro-Mediterranean in the fields of partnership," designed to and which

is called

cooperation Its most ambitious

Mediterranean the partnership loans to Arab The the Arab idea of debate.

economics, security, is the creation of a Euro objective zone by the year 2010. In the meantime, free-trade avenue has become the principal for EU aid and now has moved to the fore of than "Middle is not Israel balanced

countries.22 "Mediterraneanism" In every respect, it is less threatening In a broad Mediterranean framework, partner, giant but one more effectively

Easternism." an economic

by also marginalizes The "Mediterranean the United option" Europe. States and offers a flicker of hope that some kind of great power into the region and enhance be reintroduced Arab rivalry might But when is vis-?-vis Israel. "Mediterraneanism" maneuverability discussed every Arab alternative does not go far, since nearly the discussion to emphasize is at pains that it cannot be an analyst to Arab-Islamic Since the advent of Islam, identity.23 not a bridge, and so between the sea has been a boundary cultures, it remains. identity, Indeed, promote southern for Europe, separation, Mediterranean the point not of the Barcelona process is to provide is to as

the integration: Europe with sufficient food, housing, jobs, and so that its multitudes the sea as migrants. do not cross hope as the tension so exposes the myth of the Mediterranean Nothing societies of Arabs and the host between filled relations migrant institutions work If the Mediterranean's southern Europe. emerging as they are intended, free-trade the Euro-Mediterranean especially will open a bridge over the sea for trade and aid?but area, they it to people. close Still, middle is now the hope with Europe this cooperation shores of the Mediterranean. classes on the Arab of elites For and these

by burgeoning besieged people, from of resources the infusion

and Islamist populations across the sea might make

threats, a differ

The Middle
ence. All their tions will indications not are that economies

East, Old and New

states that have

103
liberalized

the Arab

"Mediterranean eventually themselves

are poised and that popula for modest growth, as rapidly in the next decades. If so, the expand the region and may could jump-start option" the cultural dimension it now lacks.

develop

But if there is one abiding obstacle

to the Arabs

imagining

as part of the post-Cold War West, of Arab the parameters still determine life who to break ists tried that monopoly, but their reinforced or more leaders decades have it, and the men who to rule. With continue

it is the leaders-for The Islam politics. own indiscriminate ruled each the Arabs for

violence two these

younger. is likely followed

year, passing the populations grow ever grow one year older while is little sign that the rule of one man and one party There are elections to collapse in any Arab nowhere country;

held that could be described as free and fair. The Gulf War
of governance, But whatever the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is evidence which of one thinks of Arab had no effect its tenacity. authoritarianism?and

that

on this pattern its fail

is responsible for one basic transformation. It ings are legion?it has established the primacy of the state in the hierarchy of loyalties in Arab lands. For now and for the foreseeable future, no other can compete the separate with pro identity effectively identity are states. Yes, moted each of some twenty Arab these people by are Muslims. But for purposes and the great majority of Arabs, most to call themselves identification, political prefer Egyptians and Iraqis, Jordanians and Moroccans, Palestinians and Syrians. In Arab lands, the state is stronger patronage, dispenses of these states loyalty choice guarantees powers ex nihilo, the focus of yet they have become or subjects. most for is a of their citizens This to avoid than society: order.24 Western it displays power, created

many

practical pragmatic Given

it is identity by default. choice; of past ideologies, is this resolute pragmatism the one option that has not been tried and found wanting. If it leaves even some parts of the Arab world more productive, peace the failure

ever it will have surpassed ful, and stable, every populist ideology in modern framed Such an outcome Arabic. would itself constitute a new order?not a borderless but a place where borders utopia, are finally respected, where state is legitimate, where reasons every

104
of state it is not

Martin Kramer
open room too for compromise. late. The formula might work?if

already

TURKEY AND The Sofya builder, massive

IRAN: GROWING

DOUBTS is now in 537 the museum as a cathedral of Aya by its

pinkish in Istanbul was

that building first consecrated

the Byzantine the Ottoman Justinian. Emperor Following in 1453, Mehmed of the city the Conqueror transformed conquest into a mosque. the church Mustafa Kemal Atatiirk ordered into a museum in 1934. the many reforms complemented a secular nation-state that Turkey was But of Aya secularizing Sofya meant to proclaim of Atatiirk, all The and

it

made

Aya

in the 1990s, voices be made Sofya again

were into An

a part of Europe. in Turkey demanding a mosque. An Islamist party, raised was marked

that the off

Refah

(Welfare) Party, had gained strength in Istanbul, capturing

area of the museum its minarets to broadcast the call

began to prayer. This was but a prelude: in December 1995, the Islamists ever in parliamentary and their strongest made elections, showing Necmettin the spring, Turkey had its first Islamist prime minister, by Erbakan. It was a striking paradox. in favor of secularism

in 1994. the municipality for Muslim worshippers;

had made the most resolute Turkey in of any Muslim country. Beginning to set aside intellectuals the long the nineteenth century, began to advocate emulation. of conflict with "We are Europe history or not, we one to Europeanize," wrote like it whether bound, choice influential Arab can shall books fill our find thinker and brains at the turn of embrace with the "Let us leave those the century. the modern books which passionately sciences and Surely, we techniques. in the West."25 Atatiirk

made

but the Arabs, these not among a political and ideological this preference program, declaring state that to be a basic principle national of the Turkish secularism from the ruins of the Ottoman he constructed Empire. Republican

Turkey's constitution

(Article 24) forbids "even partially basing

and legal order of the the fundamental social, economic, political, on religious state class was also tenets." The Turkish political to make modern after determined part of Europe?and, Turkey

The Middle
the outbreak of the Cold War, part

East, Old and New

of the Western alliance.

105
In

1952, Turkey was admitted to NATO as a full member. But the identity chosen by republican Turkey in the first half of
One in the latter half. has come under mounting this century pressure is the part force has been rapid population Istanbul growth. in Europe; of Turkey it has always worn Europe's that lies physically most In 1970, Its transformation is telling. comfortably. garb was in 1985, over five million; Istanbul's three million; population and today, over ten million. It will soon have be the most come from populous in Europe, but its new across Anatolia, towns religion and rural inhabitants where villages in Islamic the reason city and

tradition.

is still rooted identity masses are These mobile

in Europe in refuse to entertain the inclusion of Turkey why many are quick to summon Union?a in the European fact the Islamists in turn, should reject Europe. Another their argument that Turkey, an factor has been the rise of Kurdish separatism, disintegrative often tion reminder violent as a homogeneous two Over the past eroded. A that Turkey nation-state decades, has not achieved full integra been of Turkish-speakers. consensus the Turkish

has

has cushioned the economy slowly rapidly expanding to in the past and the military, which has intervened impact, maintain in barracks the core principles of the state, remains for now. But the uneasy power-sharing between Islamist and secular ist parties has brought the competition of identities into the cabi out over domestic it is now in battles where and net, played Islamist The half of the Turkish has government foreign policy. its NATO especially angered its American ally by flirtations a bloc of Muslim put together to Libya, and partners by overtures Iran. Now it is busy trying to with with Turkey countries, developing the present trade

at its core, as an alternative to the EU?although these countries is minuscule. among Turkey percent parties character knows of

has not gone Islamist. The Refah Party won just over 21 voters the vote; the vast majority of Turkish chose over many not over that divide issues but the secular of the state. themselves this well, Even in polls half of the Refah due as "secular." shown has now Party's voters prefer Prime Minister Erbakan But the sharing of rhetoric

to describe

and he has

caution.26

of power by the Islamists Turkish and Turkey politics,

the already changed emits mixed signals to its neigh

106
bors confidence

Martin Kramer
and the world. in the A choices minority significant made by Atatiirk of Turks and his has lost

generation; throw open the issue of Turkey's for renego they would identity tiation. If Turkey's its secular democracy, parliamentary public are ever cast into question, and its Western alliances this order, would Islamism's since Iran's revolu represent greatest triumph the Cold War, may irony is that the West, having won to see Turkey drift towards Islam than see more Turkish prefer cities. drift into Europe's migrants Iran's own Another when irony is that this comes at a moment tion. The identity has been cast into doubt. There are no in Iran, the electoral for this generalization: menu not include avowedly The hopefuls does secular candidates. to run in the March who wished 1996 parliamentary elections choice reliable barometers were first vetted; them permitting the cause secular But evasion Iranians The for Los Angeles. press and, only 60 percent to run. Needless strictures themselves received the stamp openly of approval championed to say, none of an Islamic

of de-Islamization. of Islamic conduct is rampant. Behind as they would society regime does closed doors, or in London to re is impossible

clandestine

secular

not try. While the can enforce of morality authorities, police, in the streets, they cannot them on people's Islamic norms impose a broad-based But still has minds. The revolution constituency. the most part, the tens of thousands with beneath what As the surface, they value. in Turkey, Iranians seem divided over who they are and

secularism

in Iran had

In many instances, early Iranian and even anti-Islamic anti-clerical disestablishment learned men wrote able has of

roots. nineteenth-century a militantly secularists adopted for the complete tone, calling

and "The existence of philosophers religion. of prophets existence the rendered unnecessary," is more honor "They say that science to understand it is better than to be went hand-in-hand with Iranian

a leading secularizer. than faith, and that militant

lieve."27 This

secularism

the nationalism, millennia people represented tive Arab

a racially-based Iranian idea that there existed In this view, Islam of Islam. before the advent

of a great Iranian civilization the corruption by primi at no cultural cost.28 It could be discarded influences.

The Middle
The Pahlavi dynasty

East, Old and New

107

izing reforms failure may be attributed the enduring ernization, of the monarchy?but gance angry living at this forced traditions and

to do just that, through secular attempted to those undertaken in Turkey. Their comparable to many causes?a smaller base of West the arro authority by the mid-1970s, The and of the Muslim clergy, Iranians had grown of their denigration of forgotten on their self displayed

redefinition.

and memories, lost civilizations,

regime's its celebration that

dynasties esteem. One two

constituted Islamist wrote

an assault

revolutionary characteristics:

Iranians

or even in some instances from "self," (1) alienation, "hatred," from their own religion, culture, worldview, and character; and (2) or even boastful pretension a deep, obsessive, to attachment to the and rootless and vulgar modernism.29 West, Khomeini assured to restore the lost self-esteem. As Muslims, he were God's chosen people, this earth them, they put upon to right the wrongs In a swift revolution, done by the arrogant. an Islamic state, and its leaders told its Iran became that as people promised The was the they had first decade assumed of the Islamic history. decade? republic?Khomeini's to remake Iran in the image of attempt even Khomeini realized the dangers of the leading role in human

Muslims

dominated ideal

by a radical Islamic state. But

too far, and the effort was transformation pursuing revolutionary reason was abandoned Khomeini's heirs. The most by important economic. Iran's population from 35 mil probably skyrocketed lion in 1979 to more so than 60 million increase was The today. that Iran's clerical leaders had no choice but to encourage rapid birth control, companies neurial expatriates Ali Akbar that seek foreign had been who investment and Western the nationalized, had fled. Under and woo loans, privatize back entrepre impetus of President

Hashemi-Rafsanjani, of the state. Clerics ing principle Islamization has been restricted

has become the guid expediency to rule Iran, but effective continue to public morality and some as

pects of foreign policy.30 so the Islamization And of Iran, like the secularization of Tur is an uneven mix of success and failures. In Iran, the failures key, are easier to conceal: are more its elections to read, and difficult discontent is not allowed to show itself too openly in the street or

108

Martin Kramer
most not of Iran's its makers.

soon approach the press. But the day will when mature inhabitants will be heirs to the revolution, Today, teen?a

45 percent is under of the population the age of seven massive born after the revolution. Have the generation, in terms of Islam? Are of identity a new ever? Or might they embrace to Iran and Islam? There of allegiances East more speculative than

the redefinition young accepted more West-stricken than they an amalgam nationalism, are no questions about these.

the Middle

MIDDLE Is there

EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO a "new Middle itself has East"

in the making, the fact that despite in of ridicule and suspicion con Eastern of the Middle East's every Middle language? Many con flicts have subsided. The Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israeli the term become the subject flicts, the Lebanese civil war, the Iran-Iraq war?these costly struggles

largely exhausted themselves by the close of the 1980s. The end of

the Cold War did much from great power rivalry States as the dominant invading become back to promote these resolutions by removing local equations and establishing the United arbiter. Saddam Iraqi president too late that the United status has quo. reigned Hussein, States in had

discovered Kuwait, a guarantor of the in isolation,

and put

regional and order

driven Iraq was ever since.

Today

it can be said of the Middle

East that nearly all its

states on the map self-determination. The enjoy peoples enjoy more are clearer. are still keen their borders There legitimacy; to rivalries and suspicions, and some states are using the moment rearm for the next bout. The civil wars in by Islamism, engendered run on; the Kurdish an open Sudan and Algeria, remains question wound. But Now for the most East are more they must part the Middle century.
pete.

the peoples of places, than at any time in this independent if they are to com redefine themselves The aid, those large em

and

in most

is a ruthless master. compete they must. Globalization was once irrigated by a rich flow of oil revenues, Middle East But and their illusions and arms; ideologies grew luxuriant. And days are gone. The Middle East strains under that must be fed, clothed, housed, populations the weight schooled, of and

The Middle

East, Old and New

109

ployed. If the Middle East is to take off, it cannot wait much longer. At the beginning of this century, the Middle East stood
more America. In most or less on It has places, the fallen same starting line far behind and must as East Asia and Latin run a much swifter race. are pragmatic ones.

the preparations become at least to survive. secularize were

underway That means,

The Middle
who that

East is home to millions

of people who will become

if not in this global era, themselves.

they must they must

their policies, submerged the

The

inhabitants of the Middle

ancient waves identities

East have redefined themselves

under completely Christian Romanization, turn The centuries, of Westernization, has been process in fits and starts. un Its

their before; successive the ization, marketed derway destructive compromise tion. Now individuals Wherever The latter are and

of Hellenization, It is now Islamization. as modernization. East For for two

generically in the Middle of

peoples have tinkered with it in the hope that it could be made less
the most part, the result has been a or preserve to sustain modernity tradi cannot be deferred much and many the choice longer, it. have already made tradition. that has failed the is underway, there are winners and losers. their religion, faith from ideologizing transforming to the whole it while of that faith identity reducing element?the "Law" race

for Muslims, the "Land" it will the secular choice: setting, they challenge do too little for too few of us; better to run a different race, from we cannot create a rich society, us establish the inside track. If let a just one, for we have a blueprint in the Qur'an; if other peoples refuse Bible. One cannot violent ment is not weakness of this kind across cooperate deeds by aMuslim one another, but is that those who make it of appeal the region's cultural boundaries. Any two and a Jewish fundamentalist may comple authors cannot coordinate a kind their ef to love us, let us love the land, for we have a title deed in the

a part of their to one unalloyed for Jews. In each

their

forts, because they are divided by the deepest of all hatreds. This
so for their opponents. the region, strung out across fer, debate, erate. They, cannot They linked inhabit by whirring faxes. of archipelago, con They

disagree, exchange too, are not above only

information, nationality and

be defined

by nationality

communicate, coop and religion, but they and they now religion,

110
appear But

Mart?n Kramer
to have that a slight edge in the debate over the future course of

theMiddle
antagonists the Middle constant produce

East.
debate will East be able if it can be won at all. The over, local victories here or there. But has always been a zone of unsettled of identities, new religions that once produced and that now is far from to claim If the

to be sub is not archipelago must produce more growth, its denizens merged, more and more In the timeless than their rivals. progress, hope Middle that will be a race against time. East,

quests new resurgences. if it is to expand,

ENDNOTES
Theodor lishing 347-351. Old-New Herzl, and Herzl Press, Land, 1960). trans. For Lotta the book Levensohn Bloch Pub (New York: at in its context, and the reactions

the time, see Amos Elon, Herzl

(New York: Holt, Reinhart andWinston,

1975),

2Shimon Peres with Aryeh Naor, The New Middle East (New York: Henry Holt, 1993). 3Shimon Peres, Battling Weidenfeld & Nicolson,
4On the early the Middle

for Peace: Memoirs, 1995), 355.

ed. David

Landau
and (New

(London:
of

Yale

London of the term, see Roger Adelson, history East: Money, 1902-1922 and War, Power, 22-26. Press, 1995), University

the Invention Haven, Conn.:

5For an ideal telling, see Bernard Lewis, The Middle East: 2000 Years of History from the Rise of Christianity to the Present Day (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995); for the last two centuries, Bernard Lewis, The Shaping of the Modern Middle East (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). 6On the different strands of Zionism,
(Hanover, N.H.: University Press

see Gideon
England

Shimoni, The Zionist

for Brandeis University

Ideology
Press,

of New

1995).
7On this view in the pre-1967 period, see Emile Marmorstein, Heaven at Bay: The

Jewish Kulturkampf 8On the post-1967 period, see Ehud Sprinzak, The Ascendance of Israel's Radical Right (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). Another convenient point of entry to the subject is the five collected volumes produced by The Fundamental ism Project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and published by the
University of Chicago Press under the editorship of Martin E. Marty and R.

in theHoly Land (London: Oxford University Press, 1969).

Scott Appleby. 9Hanan Porath, writing in 1986, quoted by Ian Lustick, For the Land and the Lord: in Israel (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, Jewish Fundamentalism 84. 1988),

The Middle East, Old and New

111

10Ruling by the Union of Rabbis for the People and Land of Israel, 11 November 1993, quoted by Samuel C. Heilman, "Guides of the Faithful: Contemporary Religious Zionist Rabbis," in Spokesmen for the Despised: Fundamentalist Leaders of theMiddle East, ed. R. Scott Appleby (Chicago, 111.: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 350-351.
nYosef Ben-Tal, "A Painful Separation from the Consensus," Ha'aretz (Tel Aviv),

10 January 1997. 12Quoted by Heilman, "Guides of the Faithful," 351. (London), translated in The New Republic
Post, nationalism, 28 August see Martin 1996. Kramer, "Arab

13NizarQabbani, poem in Al-Hayat (Washington), 15 July 1996.

14For a report 15For a fuller on the film,

see The Washington of Arab

discussion

of the crisis

Nationalism: Mistaken

Identity," Dcedalus

122 (3) (Summer 1993): 171-206.

16The report is analyzed by Rami G. Khouri, "The Arab Nation: Trends, Assets, Directions," Jordan Times (Amman), 2 April 1996. 17Ehud Ya'ari, "The New Arabs," The Jerusalem Report, 12 December 18Dr. Muhammad al-Mas'ari in Al-Huquq don), 22 June 1996.
19For an interpretation Publishers, see Gilles of of Islamism, 1996), Kepel, entry, see Martin 141-159. "Islamists For versus

1996. (Lon
and Is

(London), quoted in The Times

Kramer, recent Arab Awakening

lamic Revival: The Politics of Ideas in theMiddle East (New Brunswick, N.J.:
Transaction tant settings, developments in Egypt the State of The in two impor and Algeria,"

Dcedalus
a convenient Project. 20For the

124 (3) (Summer 1995): 109-127. The literature on the subject is vast;
point again, is the volumes Fundamentalism

current Hal

state hiya

of

Awsatiyya:

al-khiyar

see the debate, al-wahid? of Culture of Learned

Salama

Ahmad

Salama, al-Ahram,

ed.,

(Cairo: Markaz trans.

Al-Sharq 1996).

The Future 21Taha Husayn, D.C.: American Council

in Egypt, Societies,

1954).

Sidney Glazer (Washington, For the many Egyptian

criticisms of the book, see Israel Gershoni and James P. Jankowski, Defining the Egyptian Nation 1930-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995),
51-52. 22For the "The state of the Barcelona "process" Partnership," 1997), on 157-163. "Mediterraneanism" in Al-Siyasa al-Duwaliyya from an EU point see Juan of view, and J?rgen Prat, Bask

Euro-Mediterranean

in Anders

Jerichow

Simonson, eds., Islam in a Changing World: Europe and theMiddle East (Rich
mond, 23See the Surrey: "file" Curzon, of articles

(Cairo) (124) (April 1996): 70-137.

24The argument that the Arab state is not "strong" argues society. but "hard" ismade by Nazih cannot be N.

Ayubi, Over-Stating
(London: seated, but I. B. Tauris, can neither

the Arab State: Politics and Society

1995). they True, transform Ayubi, the

in the Middle

East
un

regimes

112

Martin Kramer
of Secularism inTur
Islamist

25H?sayin Cahit, quoted by Niyazi Berkes, The Development key (Montreal: McGill University Press, 1964), 299.
26For two interim assessments, see Sabri Sayari, "Turkey's

Challenge,"

Middle

East Quarterly 3 (3) (September 1996): 35-43; and Alan Makovsky, "Assessing the Intentions of Turkey's Refah Party," Muslim Politics Report 10
(November-December 1996): 1-2, 5.

27Mirza Aqa Khan Kirmani, quoted by Mangol Bayat, Mysticism and Dissent: Socioreligious Thought in Qajar Iran (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1982), 158.
28On the attempt to justify this nationalism through historiography, see Mostafa

Vaziri, Iran as Imagined Nation: York: Paragon House, 1993).

The Construction

of National

Identity (New

29Ali Shari'ati, quoted by Hamid Dabashi, Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundations of the Islamic Revolution in Iran (New York: New York University Press, 1993), 122.
30On the revolution's compromises, see Ervand Abrahamian, Khomeinism: Essays

on the Islamic Republic (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1993), 132-143; and Anoushiravan Ehteshami, After Khomeini: The Iranian Second Republic (London: Routledge, 1995).