Reza Aslan, a California-based academic, has been speaking to Jimmy Carter about the Middle East. It is the kind of interview which all politicians dream about. Aslan bolsters rather than challenges Carter, leading him to his favorite topics and themes with dutifully worded questions. Two of Carter’s answers actually commence with the words, “That’s exactly right.”
But even in soft-focus, Carter’s answers are deserving of critical scrutiny. Much of the interview is taken up with a discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, presumably because Carter has just published his second book on the subject.
Substantively, Carter does not depart from his established positions. Israel, he says, has set up a system of apartheid in the West Bank and peace will only come to the region once Israel withdraws from the West Bank (interestingly, he doesn’t discount the possibility that this could happen under a Netanyahu government.) The parochial idea that the road to regional peace runs through Jerusalem is one to which Carter energetically subscribes.
In doing so, he both obscures and distorts. Obscures, because his excessive focus on the Israeli-Palestinian track means that other critical regional questions fade from view. Iraq is mentioned only in passing by Carter, while Afghanistan is not mentioned at all. Yet the presence of US troops in these countries, the question of oil ownership and dividends in the case of Iraq, the proximity of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and the resurgence of the Taliban in the case of Afghanistan, mean that both states, at least in strategic terms, are far more important than Palestine. Whether a two state solution is arrived at matters not one jot in Mosul or Waziristan.
Distorts, because overemphasizing Israel and the Palestinians deemphasizes other considerations. Here’s what Carter has to say about Iran. “The best way to constrain Iran’s potential movement towards nuclear capability,” he tells Aslan, “is to have peace in the Middle East, peace between the Israeli (sic) and the Palestinians. To end the official war that still exists between Israel and Syria, Israel and Lebanon.”
There are two problem with this view. Firstly, as the late Conor Cruise O’ Brien astutely observed, “a negotiated solution - being by definition an outcome that offers some satisfaction to both parties - will be inherently distasteful to terrorists and their admirers, accustomed as these are to regarding one of the parties…as evil incarnate.” Hamas, Hezbollah and their Iranian sponsor are not engaged in violence because of frustration at the failure of the two-state solution to come about. One of their principal aims is to prevent a two state settlement. Just as one person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter, so one person’s solution is another’s sell-out.
What Carter doesn’t seem to understand is that a negotiated agreement won’t spell the end of the conflict. He might reply that such an agreement would weaken the revanchist currents among the Palestinians, but that’s a very risky assumption to make. Nothing in the behavior of Hamas or Hezbollah suggests that they will fall into line once an agreement is inked. In fact, as Iran’s strength is boosted they have less reason to do so.
Which brings me onto the second problem. Iran’s nuclear program is not a reaction to the failure of the peace process. It is not defensive. Rather, it is a bid for regional dominance. It is aggressive. Which means - contra Carter - that even limited success in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations could accelerate rather than retard these ambitions, positioning Iran as the key confrontation state against the machinations of Israel, the US and the conservative Arab regimes.
Arguably, Carter’s biggest defect is his tin ear when it comes to ideology. Those in the Islamic world who cry “No Surrender” have lots of strategic reasons to maintain their position, but what holds it all in place is their belief system. Like some of the academic realists who write about the Middle East, Carter either ignores what they say or doesn’t take them at face value. Nonetheless, their words are both toxic and pervasive, and you cannot sensibly discuss the Middle East without acknowledging this fact. The sight of a furious Turkish Prime Minister, someone traditionally regarded as a model of how Islamists can engage with the political process, presenting a crackpot antisemite as an authority in front of an elite audience in Davos, should give Carter pause for thought.
“Turkey’s prime minister has stormed off the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos after a heated debate on Gaza with Israel’s president.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan clashed with Shimon Peres, whose voice had risen as he made an impassioned defence of Israel’s actions, jabbing his finger. ”
This is how the subject was introduced last night on the BBC world service, on my PBS station. Note please that Erdogan’s tantrum is directly attributed as caused by Peres’ aggressive presentation.
Which is why I’m not so sure anymore about this:
“The sight of a furious Turkish Prime Minister, someone traditionally regarded as a model of how Islamists can engage with the political process, presenting a crackpot antisemite as an authority in front of an elite audience in Davos, should give Carter pause for thought.”
When it comes to defaming Israel, Carter’s, and I suspect European, fastidiousness, can become terribly elastic.
Here is the link to the BBC transcript:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/davos/7859417.stm
Carter is incapable of learning such lessons. Carter’s is reflective of a certain obduracy that, in qualitative terms, is not entirely different from the obduracy of his Hamas-styled friends and associates. It runs too deep because it has ideological and socio-religious sympathies and underpinnings in general.
Beyond a certain point, such obduracy is incapable of being corrected, excepting by the most grievous of otherwise unforeseen realities.
As with Carter, much the same is reflected in the BBC’s depiction of the event and other events still, obviously enough.
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Also, not directly on-topic, but this PJtv interview of Leon De Winter on the Geert Wilders situation is well worth a listen (free, w/registration, an informative twenty minutes). You were much to severe with Wilders here, recently.
And, of course, there is always the issue of Turkey’s Armenian genocide, which really puts the lie to his statements.
Michael, thanks for your comment. On Wilders, the thrust of my argument was one I assume you agree with; namely, that prosecuting him is the height of hypocrisy, given the shocking incidents of antisemitism in Holland which have been ignored by the Dutch courts. Just because I oppose this legal harassment doesn’t mean I have to view him as an ally. I think he’s a crude racist whose dislike of Islam spills into contempt for immigrants. His proposal to ban the Qu’ran makes a mockery of his free speech credentials and is utterly ludicrous. Surely you must see that one could pick passages from the Old and New Testaments and make exactly the same case. Explain to me, please, what you think I’m missing.
Here in Vienna our 2 “quality newspapers” have reported, that the “moderator did not let R.T. Erdogan to reply”. However one paper omitted the question which Peres asked Erdogan “What would you do if somebody fired rockets on Istanbul?” This was the question, that Mr. Erdogan did not like.
As a matter of fact, Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Amr Mussa had plenty of time to attack Israel and the General Secretary of the UN was also not very friendly to Israel. So the moderator was fair, when he pointed out that delegates have to have their lunch.
Of course one could have asked where was all this big worry about human lives when Turkey destroyed in East Anatolia about 150 Kurdish villages? And why did the Turkish air force bombard places in Iraq?
Ben,
Thank you for the measured reply. I hope to give you at least some sense of where my own thinking and intuitive sense lies, while also being brief.
I do agree Wilders goes overboard, unquestionably so in one or two areas, and perhaps I’m giving him too much credit, attempting to sympathize/empathize with him over-much, beyond what he is more truly deserving of. My intuitive sense, formed from reading and listening to a dozen-plus interviews with and reviews of Wilders, is in fact intuitively formed to a noteworthy degree. I do not pretend to have a more authoritative grounding than that allows.
I also base some of my sympathies - from afar, here in Denver, Colorado, USA - upon wider readings and comprehensions of what Europeans with more classical liberal and “traditional” attachments are experiencing societally, from extremists on the Left and from some Islamicist quarters, together with wider, so-called “moderate” Muslims who are variously sympathetic with more radical Islamicist interests - and who likewise are variously “not interested” in assimilating within western culture, mores and forms of governance. (All that is an attempt to very briefly cover what is deserving of a nuanced and lengthy explication, so some indulgence will be needed here.)
So, I tend to view Wilders with some tentative but nonetheless decided sympathies. I tend to view him through, if you will, a Mark Steyn type of prism, Steyn writing in a more measured sense than Wilders (if also trenchantly), but also writing largely from the North American continent and not having to experience the (constant) “up front and personal” confrontations that Wilders is experiencing. Hence the recommendation of the Leon De Winter interview at PJtv. (Not that Steyn is in some type of protective cocoon, e.g., he experienced his own legal battle in Canada and is obviously a sophisticated observer.)
In terms of your own criticism (here), I’ll note merely one example that, imo, presumes far too much. When you state, “[n]ot unreasonably, some of Wilders critics see parallels between his film and the insidious tactics of antisemitic propagandists,” I cannot agree that the term “parallel” is apt. (I’m not attempting here to nitpick and nag about a single term, I also sense this example reflects the general tone your piece conveyed.) Parallel is suggestive of something exacting, which in turn would suggest Jewish culture - broadly understood, c. 1930’s Germany - can be conceived as a parallel to Islamic culture in Europe presently. Can the Jewish diaspora of that era be conceived, in some more limited sense, with immigrant populations presently? Yes, but only within more limited bounds, imo.
At any rate, I will leave it at that “scratch pad” or generalized level. There are so many “nuances,” contingencies, caveats, etc. that come to mind that I’d need five to ten thousand words minimum to better articulate my views. I’ll spare you that much output, not least of all because I’m not the best writer around, but perhaps that gives you a flavor, a sense, of my tentative but still decided sympathies/empathies with Wilders. I do not view him as being on the far-right. I have some differences with him, but listening to him in three or four interviews, my sense is that he is amenable to reasoned, cogent arguments, to sound forms of moral suasion, and is not an arch ideologue who is somehow “ossified” and intractable - and I sensed your expression served to characterize him in a more intractable and far-right vein. Thank you.
Michael, I think you could have made that argument about Pim Fortuyn, the late Dutch politician who was assassinated by a demented animal “rights” activist. I’m less convinced that it applies to Wilders.
I won’t argue my case further herein. I’ll more simply point to a recent piece co-written by Robert Spencer and Wilders, a piece we can presumably mutually agree with, 2009: A Year to Defend Free Speech - or Lose It. I believe that piece is further suggestive of the idea that Wilders is entirely consonant with classical liberal forms of governance and shared responsibility for helping to maintain such forms, which in turn is the only positive argument I forwarded.
Well let’s have a little perspective here.
Yes, Wilders is beyond provocative and has questionable credibility as a free speech absolutist, and like Ben, I think Fortuyn is a better example to hold up. But test cases that erode civil rights are never taken up against perfect angels and we don’t and oughtn’t expect them to be. An aggressive prosecutor seeking to extend his or her domain isn’t going to go up against Snow White, he or she’s going after the wicked step-mother for the easy score no matter how right Neil Gaiman was about that “sweet little girl.” More still, aggressive prosecutors with a mission, with a little help from their friends, can easily make Mrs Claus into Cruella DeVille, right down to the puppy fur coat (hey she already has a horde of creepy henchmen, just watch Polar Express). So the “perfect victim” will likely never be truly realized even when he or she is sitting right in front of you.
Defending Wilders against malicious prosecution no more makes you an apologist for right wing ideologues than supporting the Miranda ruling makes you pro-kidnapping-and-rape.
Re, free speech absolutism. When entire polities indulge a compliant self-censorship, as they did in the face of the cartoon jihad c. 2005, “free speech absolutism” becomes nothing more than a slogan and even an oxymoron. An idea, however worthy, that cannot be reified, that cannot be put into political practice, remains an idea only. At what point such ideas then become large scale political delusions - that point then becomes the more debateable issue.
That too hints at the problem Wilders, also Hirsi Ali, Theo Van Gogh, Pim Fortuyn and others attempted - with varied degrees of lack of success - to come to terms with. It’s in Wilders’ Fitna that Theo Van Gogh is quoted - because of his naive faith in free speech absolutism and in response to the question “Don’t you think that someday there will be an idiot who wants to kill you?” - firmly stating, “No, I can’t imagine that.”
Then, of course, of the quartet mentioned above, two require bodyguards and the other two are dead - and all four of them voiced strong criticisms against Islam itself and militant Islamicists in particular. Pim Fortuyn himself said “I want to live together with the Muslim people, but it takes two to tango,” also indicating he was “in favour of a cold war with Islam,” further stating he sees “Islam as an extraordinary threat, as a hostile religion,” so it’s difficult to view him much differently from Wilders.
(The latter quotes are taken from the wiki entry of Pim Fortuyn.)