The Complex Nature of Middle Eastern Problems

In the aftermath of World War II, several changes had to be made to the map of the world. For example, the boundaries between Germany and Poland were adjusted, and what used to be East Prussia became part and parcel of Poland. The Indian subcontinent was partitioned in 1947 by Great Britain into India and Pakistan. That resulted in great upheavals and bloodshed. Many Muslims left India for the new Islamic state, while most Hindus who found themselves in what became Pakistan, had to relocate and settle in India. Eventually, almost all of the old and new nations learned to accept each other’s existence. Not so in the Middle East where one situation has defied solution. I refer to the Palestinian-Israeli problem.
Back in 1946, the United Nations decided to divide the land of Palestine between its Arab and Jewish populations. The Palestinians and their Arab neighbors opposed the partition plan. So, when the State of Israel was born on May 15, 1948, war broke out between the nascent Jewish state and its Arab neighbors. Since then, several wars took place between the antagonists. Now, more than half a century later, peace in the Holy Land remains elusive. It is very hard to believe that eleven United States presidents have had to deal with this problem, from Harry Truman to Barack H. Obama!
Personally, I have been aware of this unending crisis since my youngest days. One of my earliest recollections is my attempt to decipher the Arabic script of a headline in a Beirut newspaper in 1936 that dealt with a Palestinian leader, a forerunner of Yasser Arafat, who was leading a rebellion against the British administration in the Holy Land under a mandate given by the League of Nations. He and his followers were resisting the influx of European Jews into Palestine after the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany.
Why has this problem persisted, defying all attempted solutions undertaken by well-meaning world leaders? I have not stopped reflecting on this subject, reading about it, and around it. I say around it, since quite often, we tend to isolate this problem from its larger context. You see, this matter does not just involve Palestinians and Israelis; it has to do with the Islamic concept of the world. After the first Arab Islamic armies conquered the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain, they regarded the world as being either within Daru’l Islam, (i.e., the Household of Islam) or falling into the domain of Daru’l Harb, (i.e., the Household of War.) Once a specific area came within their domain, it had to remain Islamic for ever!
This brings me to comment on a very helpful book. The author is Bernard Lewis. For several years, he lectured at the University of London. Then he moved to the USA where he taught at Princeton University. He retired in 1986, but continues to write and lecture on Islam and the Middle East. He has authored more than two dozen books on this subject.
Professor Lewis’ book, “The Multiple Identities of the Middle East,” was published by Random House, NY, in 1998. It offers some needed background for the understanding of the people and politics of the Middle East. One of its main themes deals with a complexity that arises from the fact that Middle Easterners identify themselves both ethnically and religiously. However, the religious element is and remains the dominant one. The root for this outlook is embedded in the history of the last 1400 years.
Within the vast Islamic empire, the conquerors classified people according to their religions affiliation. One was either a Muslim or a follower of one of the earlier religions. Muslims enjoyed all the rights and privileges accorded to them by the Islamic Shari’a Law. As for others, such as Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians, they were given the status of dhimmis, i.e., the “protected ones.” This “protection” was actually a mere euphemism as it entailed many restrictions imposed on non-Muslims. Thus, one’s identity was not primarily defined by an ethnic or geographic factor, but by one’s religious faith. This classification continues to the present day. A Middle Easterner’s primary identity resides in his or her religious faith; secondarily it is defined by the state within which he happens to live.
For example, the President of Lebanon is a Maronite Roman Catholic; the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, and the Speaker of the Parliament, a Shi’ite Muslim. Usually, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs went to a Christian of the Greek Orthodox Church! This sway of identifying Middle Easterners created a serious crisis whenever relations between the various religiously-defined groups become strained. Quite often, Muslims even though living within a distinct country such as Lebanon, felt that their ultimate identity (and therefore loyalty) resided elsewhere, within the Islamic Umma. That kind of allegiance practically nullified the modus vivendi that had existed in Lebanon since the 1920, and led to spread of political instability in a country that was regarded as the “Switzerland” of the Middle East. At the end of 2014, no president of the republic had been elected, and parliamentary elections had been postponed!
As Bernard Lewis put it:
“During the centuries-long confrontation between the states of Europe and the Ottoman Empire, the Europeans always saw and discussed their relations in terms of Austrians, Frenchmen, Germans, Englishmen, and other nationalities versus Turks; the Turks saw it in terms of Muslims versus Christians. In pre-modern Muslim writings, the parochial subdivisions of Christendom are given scant importance. In the worldview of Muslims, which they naturally also ascribed to others, religion was the determinant factor of identity, the focus of loyalty and, not less important, the source of authority.” P. 22
In these words, we notice how the religious factor is of utmost importance in our relations with the Middle East or any nations within the vast Islamic world that surrounds it. Secular Western writers tend to ignore the critical importance of religion in Islam and what constitutes a Muslim’s ultimate loyalty. They tend to forget the fact that in contrast with Christianity, Islam is an amalgam of religion, politics, and culture, in one indivisible entity. If this thesis is correct, and I believe that the history of the last 1400 years supports it, then we may ask: why do some writers and politicians continue to ignore this fundamental fact about Islam? Islam is more than religion, and has always maintained an exclusivist political worldview. It has no room for non-Muslim entities (i.e., states) to freely exist within the context of the Household of Islam.
The history of Pakistan affords us a modern example of why Muslims believe that they ought to live in an environment that is officially and legally Islamic. Before the end of the British rule, the most outspoken representatives of Indian Muslims requested the Raj not to leave before the partition of the subcontinent. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, this is why the Islamic state of Pakistan was carved out of India. That event signified that at the end of European colonial presence in Asia and Africa, Muslims would not tolerate living under non-Muslim rule. Since they identify themselves primarily as Muslims, their first loyalty goes to the Islamic Umma. Ideologically, Muslims feel at home only within Daru’l Islam.
Back to the book of Bernard Lewis
“In the modern world, the political role of Islam, internationally as well as domestically, differs significantly from that of its peer and rival, Christianity. The heads of state or ministers of foreign affairs of the Scandinavian countries and Germany do not from time to time foregather in a Lutheran summit conference. Nor was it customary, when the Soviet Union still existed, for its rulers to join with those of Greece and Yugoslavia and, temporarily forgetting their political and ideological differences, to hold regular meetings on the basis of their current or previous adherence to the Orthodox Church. Similarly, the Buddhist nations of East and Southeast Asia, the Catholic nations of southern Europe and South America, do not constitute Buddhist or Catholic blocs at the United Nations, nor for that matter in any other political activities.
“The very idea of such a grouping, based on religious identity, might seem to many modern Western observers absurd or even comic. But it is neither absurd nor comic in relation to Islam. Some fifty-five Muslim governments, including monarchies and republics, conservatives and revolutionaries, practitioners of capitalism and disciples of various kinds of socialism, friends and enemies of the United States, and exponents of whole spectrum of shades of neutrality, have built an elaborate apparatus of international consultation and even, on some issues, of cooperation. They hold regular high-level conferences, and, despite differences of structure, ideology, and policy, have achieved a significant measure of agreement and common action.” P.26
“There are also large and growing numbers of Muslims living as minorities in countries with non-Muslim majorities in Asia and Africa, and latterly also in Europe and the Americas. For these minorities, especially in the democratic West, the question of relations between Muslims and others arises in a new and largely unprecedented form.” P.112
As we focus our attention on the Palestinian-Israeli problem, we have to recognize that the basic identity of a Palestinian Muslim is intimately connected with his religion. And since his religion has supplanted both Judaism and Christianity, neither of these faiths possesses any legitimate claim to land of Palestine. The underlying problem is theological, thus it remains radically different from all other international problems.
The secularized West cannot and does not understand this basic religious motif for the Palestinian’s refusal to accept Israel as a valid political entity within the vast Islamic world. It is up to Christians to speak boldly about this subject, and to point out to all parties in this conflict that genuine coexistence in our globalized world is a must. The continual refusal to accept the existence of Israel as a sovereign state leads to more violence and to acts of terror that spill beyond the borders of the Holy Land.
@AntiNwo How about we stop lying about Israel? Israel has not helped either side as no side is on the side of Israel. They only help Israels have give is medical help to those who come to see it and they don’t ask which side they are.
@ Tolerance.
Why do you think it was harsh to hand that land to the Jews? The land belonged to them so they repossessed them. After the revolution in Iran several people lost their homes. Now if this regime is toppled, would it be unfair to restore the houses of these people to them or to their inheritors?
Please read the history of Palestine. Several orientalists who traveled through that land in the 19th century wrote it was a desolate empty land.
The Arab inhabitants of Israel came from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan to work for Jewish settlers and after the formation of Israel they taught Jews should not build their county of a land once conquered by Muslims.
You don’t have to believe me but you should believe this guy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwBSWN4s9JU
Sina, I find Islam repulsive. But Israel and Palestine issue should have been handled better by the UN in 1948. It was harsh to hand the land to Israelis (Jews or any other people) like that without a referendum of the population in that land. What is your thought?
@Ali Sina,how about Isreal and Us stop aiding terrorists in Syria and Iraq to destablise Assad regime?Is it too hard for you to comprehend or are you delusional?Zionist will never want a stablised middle east..Isreal and It’s puppet Us government’s support to terrorists in FSA in syria attest it..
Thank you Jacob. This is a superb insight into the Islamic mind and why Muslims will never accept co-existence. Frankly I can see only two solutions. The first is that Muslims leave Islam and the second is that they should be expelled from non-Muslim countries.