Iraq No Longer Exists

Civil wars in Iraq and Syria have merged, with one Islamist group, ISIS, fighting government forces regionwide. ISIS, fundamentally, is not a terrorist organization (like Al Qaeda in Iraq, e.g.), but is rather an old-fashioned insurgency. With perhaps 1000 Chechens in its ranks, ISIS has proved to be more than a match for the Iraqi military, routing federal forces in central Iraq, and now targeting Iraqi Kurdistan, while pushing west and south of Baghdad. They also control one-third of Syria, despite the efforts of the Assad regime and other insurgents.

Iraq no longer exists. Iraqi Kurdistan might as well be called Kurdistan: it’s an independent country in all but name. (Turkey has signaled its willingness to accept a Kurdish state on its southeastern border.) It is also democratic, and reasonably liberal by the (low) standards of the region, enjoying substantial popular support. Quite unlike the government based in Baghdad, Iraqi Kurdistan has a functional military. During ISIS’s Northern Iraq Offensive, Kurdish Peshmerga forces entered and repelled ISIS from Kirkuk, and has held it ever since – while the government based in Baghdad lost Tikrit and Mosul.

More than 8 years since it took power, Iraq’s Baghdad-based, Shia-dominated central government remains weak and corrupt. While Iraqi politicians squabble over who their next prime minister should be, ISIS has taken control of the majority-Sunni central region in and around the cities of Tikrit and Mosul (about one-quarter of Iraq), leaving Iraq’s federal government in control only of the majority-Shia area running southeast from Baghdad. Ominously, the Iraqi military has been almost completely ineffective against ISIS, losing ground to them steadily since June.

Though Syria is a battlefield, with ISIS controlling one-third of the country, Assad’s forces have held together through more than 3 years of fighting. Unlike Iraq’s military, Syria’s has proved effective in the field, albeit that they have no qualms about sacrificing civilians to gain ground. The government of Syria likely has the personnel, hardware and will to remain in the fight through at least the medium term.

Demographics tell much of the story. Though it was dominated for decades by (secular) Sunnis under Saddam Hussein, Iraq has a Shia majority, concentrated from Baghdad southeast to the Gulf; a large Sunni minority (35%) in the center, running to the Syrian border; and a significant Kurdish minority (15%) along the Turkish and Iranian borders in the mountainous northeast. Inversely, Syria has a Sunni majority – though it’s been dominated for decades by the (secular) Shia-Alawite Assad family. Syria also has a Kurdish minority (9%) along the Turkish border.

Not surprisingly, ISIS, a fanatical Sunni organization, has quickly gained ground in central Iraq and northeastern Syria, amidst a majority-Sunni population. ISIS is now moving against the Yazidis, a Kurdish group stuck in no man’s land, in an area somewhat outside of Iraqi Kurdistan. Though they are under the nominal authority of Iraq’s federal government, the Baghdad-based regime is unable to come to their aid. Indeed, Baghdad is itself at risk of being encircled, as ISIS captures Sunni towns on its western and southern flanks.

The facts are grim – on Monday the Field Guide moves on to its analysis, to formulate a coherent US foreign policy in the post-Iraq era.

 

Refs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Northern_Iraq_offensive

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_Kurdistan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Iraq

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Syria

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Civil_War

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-makes-further-advances-in-syria-while-west-vacillates-over-iraq-9670037.html

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/12/world/middleeast/the-iraq-isis-conflict-in-maps-photos-and-video.html?_r=1

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/11/world/middleeast/iraq.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/turkey-may-support-independent-kurdistan-2014-7

http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-weiss-kurdish-official-not-joining-iraqi-army-2014-7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs

 

 

 

 

Liberalism v. Democracy, Round 3

The US invaded Iraq ostensibly to bring democracy to the Middle East. But the Middle East was more in need of liberalism than democracy – then and now. Lying at different points along roughly the same developmental track, Jordan and Tunisia together illustrate a better course for political evolution. Jordan is today an autocracy, under the liberal rule of King Abdullah II. Tunisia had for many years also been a relatively liberal autocracy, until the Arab Spring brought democracy. For decades, both countries have had excellent economic growth – but they are at different stages of development: Tunisian per capita GDP is 50% greater. (Egypt and Libya, which also became democracies in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, are also substantially wealthier than Jordan.) History gives us every reason to hope that Jordan will also, eventually, become a liberal democracy, as its citizens grow wealthier, and demand a larger voice in their own governance.

We might be less hopeful that Egypt will blossom into a liberal democracy, because liberalism did not do especially well under Mubarek. Though the economy grew, extreme wealth inequality kept the middle class relatively small, and corruption was ubiquitous. As for Libya, the present state of affairs is as complicated as was Gaddafi’s leadership. Americans only know Gaddafi for his role in international terrorism, and his regime’s extraordinary repression. Few are aware of his economic reforms – good and bad – which lifted Libyan living standards and life expectancy to among the highest in the region.

Unfortunately, the so-called “rise of the bourgeoisie” that brought democracy to the United States, France and England – and as well to Singapore, Taiwan and Chile – does not occur in countries whose economies are based on mineral wealth, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Brunei and Bahrain. Wealth tends to remain in the hands of the few. Oil gives the state a source of cash, which allows them to keep taxes low and their oligarchs content.

Kuwait – the most liberal and democratic country in the Middle East (including Israel) – is no exception to the rule. Unlike many of its neighbors, Kuwait was a commercial center long before oil was discovered. As in the West, liberalism was born and nurtured in Kuwait among merchants, which yielded a culture that respects rules of trade and property rights. Kuwaitis now enjoy the full gamut of civil and political liberties. Importantly, the example of Kuwait allows us to dispose of the absurd, racist theory that Arabs are somehow ill-suited to democracy.

One cannot fail to mention Hugo Chavez – democratically elected and reelected, and fairly liberal – who in the US was often regarded as illegitimate, or mischaracterized as a dictator. His many policies were a mixed bag and cannot be thoughtfully summed up in the space we have here. But even if you reject them, regimes such as his should be tolerated as hiccups that naturally occur within the framework of the democratic process. (Europeans surely did their best to endure Bush Duh’s two terms with the same sentiment.) The US should not have hesitated to condemn the coup that temporarily removed Chavez from power – because in the long term, Americans are safest and most prosperous in a world of liberal democracies. Once a government evolves to that stage, its perpetuation must be a major US policy goal, overriding the short-term advantages that regime-change might offer.

When time and space permit, the Field Guide will compare and contrast the US response to Chavez’s short-lived coup with its response to the 2014 Ukraine Revolution. And while we’ll revisit the tension between liberalism and democracy in the near future, this coming Friday has been reserved to offer liberals guidance in choosing the best course in the mounting crisis in Iraq.

 

Refs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_spring

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwait#Politics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Libya_under_Muammar_Gaddafi#Economic_reforms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Egypt_under_Hosni_Mubarak#Economy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez#Presidency:_1999.E2.80.932013

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Ukrainian_revolution

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Liberalism v. Democracy, Round 2

On Friday, the Field Guide delved into the distinct – and often divergent – traditions of liberalism and democracy. Today we bring them to bear on current events.

The struggle today in the Middle East is eerily familiar. After World War II, with the collapse of colonialism, many countries gained independence, and people across the world got the right to vote for the first time. Going with the political fashion of the day, many voted for socialists. This was extremely troubling for the US and for US business interests: socialist governments were more likely to align themselves with the USSR; and property rights were less secure under socialist democracies than they were under liberal dictators. Largely over the concern of US businesses, the US instigated at least 3 revolutions that overthrew democratically elected governments (Iran 1953; Guatemala 1954; Chile 1973), all of which led to the installation of brutal dictators. Right into the 1980s, Reagan was funding a terrorist organization in its effort to overthrow democratically elected socialists in Nicaragua; while propping up dictatorships from El Salvador to Egypt – including Guatemala and Chile. (Iran deposed its American-sponsored dictator in 1979.)

Analogously, as some in the Middle East vote for the first time, many are going with the most popular political movement in the region today: Islamism. That’s how the Muslim Brotherhood came to power in Egypt, and how Hamas came to power in Gaza – by democratic processes. Elections held today in Iraq or Syria might produce a similar result. And so, once again, the US is finding itself at odds with democracy because of the results it’s producing – while the US is reminded again and again of the usefulness, and-or the lesser evil, of authoritarians.

From a policy standpoint, when judging illiberal democracies and liberal authoritarians, each case must be taken on its own merits. A good rule of thumb for US foreign policy would be that a democracy is good to the extent that it respects minority rights. Given an open and unfettered debate in the marketplace of ideas, one has every reason to believe that such a democracy will naturally find its way to liberalism, simply because it offers the greatest good for every facet of life: economic, health, happiness, and of course, freedom.

What this means is that the US should be tolerant of Islamist-led democratic governments if they allow opposing parties to organize, operate and compete for votes. One must note, however, that parties based on religion, and not reason, tend to be especially intolerant of competing viewpoints, because they often believe that their “truths” are handed down from on high, and thus are not open to debate, much less compromise. The ineptitude of the Tea Party in the US legislature is a fine illustration of this problem. Democracy simply cannot function in the absence of rationality – dogma is anathema to democratic processes.

One might further posit that liberal dictatorships are acceptable, because history has shown that, with time, liberalism begets wealth, and a wealthy populace comes naturally to demand a political voice commensurate with its material well-being. This is the dynamic that brought democracy to much of Europe, and to countries all along the Pacific Rim – and, of course, to the US as well. One hopes the same will happen in China, where an increasingly wealthy class of industrialists should – if history teaches us – also come to demand a role in their own governance. To make a bolder point: within a given polity, it seems constructive for liberalism to precede democracy – for a population to first learn respect for procedural fairness, before taking on self-governance.* That’s how it happened in most of the developed world, perhaps not coincidentally.

Liberal dictatorships, simply put, are not so bad because they tend to be self-eliminating – and liberals should be tolerant of such states as necessary stepping stones toward liberal democracy. Illiberal democracies, by comparison, can be much more persistent, to the considerable expense of their persecuted minorities. The West Bank is a modern example: its Arab population has had no civil or political rights, nor has it known procedural fairness, during nearly a half-century of domination by “democratic” Israel. The Jim Crow South endured for well over 100 years – vestiges are still apparent today, 150 years since the Civil War.

The Field Guide continues Wednesday on the themes of liberalism and democracy, with a look at individual regimes in the Middle East and elsewhere.

 

Refs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._intervention_in_Chile#1973_coup

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_Freedom

* CT thanks Fareed Zakariah for making this and many other acute observations in his excellent book, The Future of Freedom. While the work of many pundits is dated a month after publication, this 2003 work is as compelling and relevant today as ever.

 

Liberalism v. Democracy, Round 1

Sure, everyone wants both. But throughout most of human history, you’d have been fortunate to have one or the other. And forced to choose, many prefer the security of liberalism to the dignity of democracy.

Not to be accused of splitting hairs, we can agree that, for certain purposes, democracy is an indispensable part of modern-day liberalism. But each tradition – liberalism and democracy – has its own independent history. For the purposes of this essay, when we use the term “liberalism”, we mean procedural fairness: that cops and courts are neutral in their application of the laws, and specifically that property rights are sacrosanct. This form of liberalism does not encompass the right to vote, which of course is the sine qua non of democracy. One must however recognize that rights of speech, assembly and petitioning the government are not guaranteed by democracy, but by liberalism! Majorities, after all, like nothing more than to illegalize the speech, gathering and petitioning of minorities, as occurred in the US during the McCarthy era, e.g., and in every other democracy at some or another time.

The fact is, an illiberal democracy isnt a very fun place to be. Saying the wrong thing in Classical Athens, Revolutionary France, or modern-day Egypt could get you killed. 4 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank can tell you first hand what it means to be a disenfranchised minority in a democracy whose majority has enshrined into law imperialism, colonialism and apartheid. More than 100,000 Japanese-Americans could have pointed out the shortcomings of democracy from their WWII internment camps – as could millions of slaves in the antebellum American South.

Meanwhile, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Colonial America and England were, for many years, liberal dictatorships, and pleasant places to live and work. Talk to a few Syrians about life under Assad, before the civil war, and they’ll tell you that as long as you didnt spout off on politics, life was peaceful and predictable. You went off to work, you came home to family; the streets were safe; the crazies with bad hair and weird beards were few and far between.

It’s not that the right to vote isnt precious – but rather that the right to live your life and be left alone is no less precious. We tend to make a fuss over democracy wherever it flowers – to be too often reminded that it doesnt always smell sweet. Liberalism, distinct from democracy, also deserves its due. A liberal government, democratic or not, guarantees procedural fairness – what Americans call “due process” and the Brits have called “the law of the land” since 1215. You may not get to vote, and printing op-eds can put you in the clink – but if you have a contractual dispute, you can rely on the courts for a fair adjudication. If you pay your taxes, you dont have to worry about the state taking your home away. Many countries have grown rich and prosperous in the absence of democratic processes, because they were fortunate to have a liberal leadership that understood the economic importance of respecting and upholding property rights.

By contrast, democracies can be excruciatingly illiberal. Today across the American south, majorities, if they had their way, would pack minority children into separate, inferior schools, if only to teach them how 6000 years ago, Jesus and His Angels buried faux dinosaur bones to confuse archaeologists. They’d deny rights to gays and women, while stripping away numerous rights of the accused. One American political party, whose sole objective was the perpetuation of segregation, revealingly called itself “The States’ Rights Party.” Their protest, in the end, was that of a majority, frustrated by Constitutional limitations on what majorities are allowed to do. Liberalism, after all, is what protects us from democracy run amok.

The Field Guide resumes this line on Monday, exploring the sometimes competing traditions of liberalism and democracy, and how tension between the two informs US foreign policy today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Executive Orders

If consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, conservatives should rest easy – they are free of the hobgoblin threat. For them, on odd-numbered days, Obama is a weak leader, overwhelmed by Putin and paralyzed over Syria; on the evens, Obama is a dictator, ramming through the ACA via a backdoor reconciliation, conducting an unauthorized war in Libya, and ruling the country by executive order.

In foreign affairs, among policy experts, Obama is in fact lauded for taking a measured approach amidst turmoil in the Middle East, where the US must steer between the rock of democratically-elected Islamists, and the whirlpool of old-school Arab authoritarians. And he’s praised for his steady management of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, despite a lack of support from cowed European allies.

As for Obama’s use of executive orders, quantitative measures are imperfect, because many orders are on mundane, uncontroversial matters. But the image of Obama-qua-dictator, issuing executive orders on a daily basis, is at odds with the most basic facts. To date, Obama has issued 183 executive orders, putting him on track to conclude his presidency with 266. His average of 2.77 executive orders per month is lower than any president since the 19th century. (Grover Cleveland averaged 2.35 per month during his 1st term, 1885-89.) Obama’s totals are significantly lower than other recent 2-term presidents: Reagan issued 381, Clinton issued 364, Bush Duh issued 291.

Remarkably, the only executive order from Obama that Congress has seen fit to challenge is one delaying implementation of an ACA provision that requires corporations with more than 50 employees to obtain health insurance for their employees. It can hardly be questioned that Obama could have used his prosecutorial discretion to not enforce the provision anyway. But an executive order is a far more efficient tool to achieve the same end, since companies can rely on it and plan accordingly, and not be forced to operate under the threat of enforcement. One must also note that the House voted to repeal the entire ACA 54 times, revealing that Congress has no objection to the substance of Obama’s policy; their issue is strictly procedural. Finally, given that the delayed provision should go into effect in 5 months, the case will likely be mooted before the courts can resolve it. Bottom line: the House’s objection to even this one executive order is no more than an election-year dog and pony show. If that’s the worst executive order they can find, the unavoidable inference is that Obama has not overreached.

Obama’s restraint is all the more notable in light of the fact that this Congress is among the most unproductive ever, abandoning the president to manage one crisis after another on his own. Case in point: shortly after voting to sue the president over his executive order on the ACA, the House again failed to work out a legislative compromise to address the flood of children across the southern border from Central America. Congress’ subsequent message to the president: he should manage the situation with executive orders.

In the storied history of executive orders – over 13,000 issued since the Washington administration – only 2 have been struck down in courts. The first time it happened made for one of the greatest Constitutional crises of the 20th century. In 1952, while US troops were fighting in Korea, a labor dispute in the US was threatening the supply of steel needed for the war effort. With labor and ownership far apart, a strike imminent, and supplies to the US Army jeopardized, Truman seized control of the nation’s steel mills via an executive order. The Supreme Court struck it down. Truman, in his memoirs, expressed shock at their decision. Hugo Black, the Justice who authored the opinion, felt so bad about it that he invited Truman over to his house for dinner afterward.

Obama’s use of executive orders is quite in line with the practice of US presidents since the 18th century. The big change is with Congress, which now prefers posturing to legislating. And while legislation only issues when Congress is in session and comes to an agreement, the executive has no such luxury – his administration must govern in real time, without pause, whether Congress deigns to lead, follow, or fail to get out of the way.

 

Refs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youngstown_Sheet_%26_Tube_Co._v._Sawyer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federal_executive_orders

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101369574

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/03/us/clinton-order-discouraging-striker-replacement-is-voided.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/02/03/how-congress-became-the-most-polarized-and-unproductive-its-ever-been/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Law of Return v. Right of Return

Over the past two weeks, the Field Guide has taken the ongoing conflict in Gaza as an occasion to reflect on Israel’s numerous shortcomings with respect to liberalism. Though it may be the only western democracy in the Middle East, Israel too often exemplifies the very worst of the West: using its military to further colonial schemes; using apartheid to advantage one ethnic group over others; offering lame security arguments to justify its denial of human, political and civil rights to millions of people subject to its authority, for decades.

Having already discussed conditions in Gaza, the West Bank, and within Israel itself, today we conclude with an analysis of Israeli immigration policies – the face that Israel shows the world.

Liberalism’s most basic principle – procedural fairness – does not make clear what a state’s ideal immigration regime should be. Few argue for fully open borders between all countries, because when movement of people is too rapid, infrastructure and support systems can be overwhelmed, and health and safety can be impacted. And so we begin with the simple observation that regulations on immigration are neither good nor bad per se, but should be judged on their particularities.

Israel’s distinguishing immigration regulation is its “Law of Return,” which grants not merely legal residency, but Israeli citizenship, to any Jew who requests it – along with their spouse. Children and grandchildren of Jews are also entitled to citizenship.

Analogous to Israel’s “Law of Return”, several other liberal democracies offer citizenship to foreigners whose recent ancestors lived in that country. Italy, Ireland and Spain (among others) have a special citizenship track for people who can trace their roots back to those countries. While such laws are discriminatory, it is not unreasonable to preferentially offer a home to people who share an affinity for a place. Israel’s policy is however unique in that it is not based on ethnicity or nationality, but on religion. While converts to Judaism have an immediate right to Israeli citizenship, anyone who voluntarily renounces their Jewish faith does not.

The “Law of Return” has several aims. It is not only to offer a safe haven to Jews worldwide (laudable), but also to counter the demographic threat that Arabs pose to Israel’s tenuous Jewish majority (dubious). And the “Law of Return” has an important exception: spouses of Israeli citizens from certain Muslim-majority countries, as well as residents of the West Bank and Gaza, are not granted automatic citizenship. This law primarily discriminates against Arab Israeli citizens, who are far more likely to have spouses who fall under the exception.

The “Law of Return” must also be evaluated in light of Palestinian refugees’ claimed “Right of Return.” The 1948 Arab-Israeli War caused 700,000 Palestinian Arabs to flee what would shortly become Israel. They became refugees all across the region. Their departure from Israel was not necessarily voluntarily – many were coerced by Israeli military forces. Arab villages were destroyed, several massacres have been documented, and the sum total of Israeli policies vis-a-vis Arabs during and immediately following the 1948 War can be fairly described as a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

It is quite common and sensible for civilians to flee a war zone. Most uncommon was Israel’s refusal to allow Palestinians to reenter Israel and return to their homes and villages after hostilities ended. Compounding that injury, Israel expropriated, without compensation, the land owned by Arabs who fled, and has been using it for the past 65 years to settle Israeli immigrants. By one estimate, about 70% of all the land in Israel was stolen from Arab owners without cause or consideration.

And so it is today that the “Law of Return” allows a person to claim Israeli citizenship, simply by virtue of their being Jewish, even if they had never visited Israel; while other laws deny the right to enter Israel to people who lived there all their lives, as their ancestors had for centuries – simply because they are Arabs. Descendents of those 700,000 refugees now number upwards of 5 million, living in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and other countries. Most of them still lack citizenship anyplace. Some refugees today are the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of refugees.

In immigration policy, as in all government functions, citizens deserve equal treatment. It is not reasonable for Israel’s Jewish citizens to have an easier time in bringing their family members from abroad, compared to Israel’s Arab citizens. And while It is not clear what precisely the government of one country owes the people of the world when it elaborates an immigration regime, the contrast between the “Law of Return” and the “Right of Return” is a gross injustice. Israel’s refusal to allow Arab civilians to return to their homes is an ongoing crime against humanity, which has only been exacerbated by the passage of time.

 

Refs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Return

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_and_Entry_into_Israel_Law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_right_of_return

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Palestinian_exodus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_1948_Palestinian_exodus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Dalet

 

 

 

Israel’s Own Arabs

American liberals are divided over Israel. On the one hand, Israel is a democracy, plunked down in a part of the world where no other democracy has flourished. On the other hand, Israel has been brutal in its treatment of 4 million Arabs living in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel has turned Gaza into a ghetto, and is meanwhile colonizing the West Bank, using apartheid to control the region’s Arab population. Israel’s poor treatment of Palestinians cannot be excused by security concerns.

But putting aside conditions and policies in Occupied Palestine, what about the Arab citizens of Israel, who comprise 20% of Israel’s population? It is sometimes observed that minorities within Israel – whether ethnic, religious or LGBT – are treated much better than minorities in neighboring countries. Israel’s Supreme Court is quite liberal, and quick to strike down most (if not all) of the biased laws that issue from Israel’s legislature. If one had to be a minority in the Middle East, one could do much worse than to be an Arab citizen of Israel proper.

Nonetheless, discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel is significant, widespread and systemic, across all sectors of society. To cite a few examples: Arab schools are severely underfunded compared to Jewish schools. Arabs are badly under-represented in government service. Arabs tend to receive harsher sentences and be denied bail. Arab protesters are occasionally killed by security forces – but not one Jewish protester has been killed in Israel, going back to 1949. While Jews the world over have a right to come to live in Israel with their spouses, and be granted automatic citizenship, the law excludes spouses from occupied Palestine, and several other Muslim-majority countries, which works to discriminate against Arab Israelis. While Jews are given the right to reclaim land in East Jerusalem that they abandoned because of war, Arabs are denied the analogous right to reclaim land anywhere in Israel. Much worse, Israel wont even let Palestinians refugees – who fled Israel during war – return to their own country!

Even in the absence of discrimination, the bare conception of Israel as a “Jewish State” is at odds with the most fundamental principles of liberalism, and an affront to the rule of law. The bedrock of liberal governance is procedural fairness, with laws that are neutral in word and application. A state cannot be committed to the benefit of a specific, identifiable group without undermining the political and civil rights of other groups living within its borders.

This point is not especially contentious – the chief response to it isnt an explanation, but rather an excuse: in light of centuries of oppression, culminating in the Holocaust, a “Jewish State” is needed to provide Jews with a safe haven – a homeland they lacked for millennia. Thus it is that many of Israel’s most discriminatory policies – in immigration and land management – bear directly on the maintenance of Israel’s majority Jewish population. However the best protection from tyranny in the long term – not merely for Jews, but for all people – is liberalism, democracy, and the rule of law. Carving out exceptions to our most precious rules of justice and fairness inevitably makes the world less just and less safe – for everyone.

 

Refs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_the_apartheid_analogy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_and_Entry_into_Israel_Law

 

 

 

 

 

 

Imperial Israel

American liberals too readily give Israel a pass on its outrageous human rights abuses, excusing Israeli brutality as a necessity for survival in a volatile region. But the security arguments once relied upon to justify colonization of the West Bank are no longer valid; Israeli policy in the West Bank today is nothing more than naked imperialism – a land grab for its own sake, to the considerable detriment of the land’s native Palestinias.

Israeli occupation of the West Bank does not effect a buffer between hostile states. Israel and Jordan made peace 20 years ago, and have become good neighbors, with relatively open borders and joint economic projects. To the north, Syria’s military is barely able to cope with its own civil war, much less project power beyond itself. Egypt and Israel have enjoyed peace for 35 years. Simply put, there is no conventional military force in the region posing a threat to the state of Israel, neither now nor in the foreseeable future, bordering the West Bank or otherwise.

And yet Israel continues, more aggressively than ever, its colonization of the West Bank. 25 years since Jordan renounced its territorial claims, and 20 years since Jordan and Israel made peace, Israel has tripled its colonial population.

The Field Guide eschews use of the neutral terms “settlement” and “settler” to describe Israeli imperialism in the West Bank and elsewhere. These terms hold a certain romance for Americans, evocative as they are of America’s own Westward Expansion. The analogy could hardly be more inapposite. The West Bank is not some sparsely populated hinterland – it is more densely populated than any US state. Though the West Bank is only the size of Delaware, its Arab population is greater than was America’s Native American population during the 19th century. Thus every inch of Israeli expansion comes necessarily via the theft of land privately held by the region’s centuries-old native Arab population, causing extraordinary misery and economic hardship for a people who were already poor.

Colony and colonist are fitting terms for recently constructed Israeli towns in the West Bank and the Israelis who people them. Imperialism is a fitting term to describe Israeli practices in the West Bank. Here’s a definition from Wikipedia:

Imperialism… is an unequal human and territorial relationship…, based on ideas of superiority and practices of dominance, and involving the extension of authority and control of one state or people over another. “Regressive imperialism” [is] identified with pure conquest, unequivocal exploitation, extermination or reductions of undesired peoples, and settlement of desired peoples into those territories.

As a matter of fact, Israel is the West Bank’s colonial power: delegating some authority to Palestinians for their own limited self-rule; while retaining plenary power for the most important matters – expropriating Palestinian lands without compensation on an ongoing basis, while controlling water rights and Palestinian movements. As a matter of international law, Israel is the military occupier of the West Bank – and the Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits an occupying power from transferring people into occupied territory, a practice commonly know as colonization.

Israeli colonization of the West Bank has been extremely aggressive, not just in the number of people Israel has moved into the region (more than 500,000 – of whom more than 300,000 have arrived in the past 20 years), but in the way it’s structured its colonies – as if calculated to maximize the disruption of life for the region’s 2.2 million Palestinians. Israel begins by seizing land – much of which is privately owned by Palestinians – offering no compensation. On that land, it builds a new colony, enclosing it in security walls. Then it builds a highway connecting the colony with Israel itself, and walls in the highway too. Palestinians are not permitted entry into colonies, nor are they permitted to cross – much less use – the highways.

Typically, Palestinians will live in a village, but will own olive orchards a few kilometers away. Many such villages have gone virtually unchanged since the 15th century. Suddenly, a newly constructed wall will cut villagers off from their orchards, destroying their livelihood. Israeli colonists also like to practice a form of economic terrorism: cutting down Palestinian olive orchards, in an attempt to drive them away. As a consequence, West Bank Palestinians are increasingly moving to cities, which have been growing more populous, and are coming more and more to resemble Gaza-like ghettos, isolated from surrounding areas and from other Palestinians cities by Israel’s system of walled colonies and highways. Israel presently controls more than 40% of the West Bank – but that Israeli presence disrupts the economic life of the entire region for Palestinians. The following time-series of images, from Wikipedia, conveys the story most compellingly:

One might hope that Israel would take Gaza as a cautionary tale for the failures of military occupation and oppression. In 47 years since the 6-Day War, Israel has, though its own actions, replaced the military threat once posed by Syria, Jordan and Egypt – with the threat of terrorism arising from 4 million disaffected Palestinians, now in their third and fourth generation of Israeli domination. Like Gaza, the West Bank’s Arab population also has extremely high rates of fertility, poverty and unemployment; and is teeming with youth with few economic prospects and little hope. The area is ripe for a Hamas-, ISIS- or Al Qaeda-style movement to take hold – and if Israel continues its present course, one might regard the rise of violent, fundamentalist Islam in the West Bank to be all but inevitable.

 

Refs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93Jordan_peace_treaty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Moreh#History

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlements

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Palestinian_territories

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gaza: An Israeli-Made Ghetto

Gaza today isnt like a ghetto – it is a ghetto: a discrete area, cordoned off, populated by a group Israel deems undesirable, with Israel controlling everything and everyone going in and coming out. Its blockade is so restrictive that it’s devastated the economy and undermined the life and health of Gaza’s 1.8 million Palestinians. Gaza is approximately the size and density of a large US city – about 10% larger than Philadelphia, but with 20% more people – and so must depend on imports for food and other vital goods. The unfortunate residents of Gaza – more than 99% of whom are Sunni Arabs – suffer one of the lowest living standards in the world. Malnutrition is common among Gaza’s many children; shortages of fuel and water are chronic.

This situation is entirely attributable to a blockade so tight that smuggling isnt merely profitable – it’s essential to the life of the region. The more Israel constricts the movement of goods above ground, the more the network of tunnels below proliferate – and once built, they can be used for munitions as readily as for food, medicine, fuel and other ordinary goods. Poverty, unemployment and desperation, along with an extraordinarily large number of young people, has turned Gaza into what Israel feared most: the ideal breeding ground for terrorism. This is why some today suggest that the elimination of Hamas would likely lead to something even worse in its place, akin to Al Qaeda or ISIS.

For 20 years, under Israeli military administration, Gaza was poor, densely populated, but relatively tranquil. Palestinians largely accepted the indignity of Israeli occupation, as Israelis and Palestinians became more and more economically integrated, with tens of thousands of Arabs traveling from Gaza into Israel on work permits every day, and goods moving freely between Israel and the occupied territories.

However Israel never sought to normalize the status of Gaza’s then 1 million (now 1.8 million) Palestinians. In fact, numerous policies only made the occupation more and more harsh, with Israel resorting to Nazi-style “Iron Fist” tactics in the face of any incipient Palestinian unrest or organized resistance. Palestinians were frequently arrested, beaten, subject to collective punishment, and otherwise harassed by their military occupiers. Palestinian lands were seized (20% of all of Gaza), and on them, Israeli colonies were built. (Lacking other prospects, Palestinians supplied the bulk of the labor for the building of those colonies.) The first intifada began in 1987 as a surprise to everyone. It had no leadership – rather, it seemed to coalesce from a common dissatisfaction shared by Palestinians about the unfairness of the conditions that Israel had forced upon them. And so it is that present-day Gaza is the product of failed Israeli policies of apartheid, oppression and colonization.

Israeli tactics today are no less awful. In response to the killing of 3 Israeli teenagers, and (generally non-lethal) rocket attacks out of Gaza, Israel has, in its ongoing incursion into Gaza, killed 1000 Palestinians, of whom up to 900 are civilians, and 200 are children. The massacre will serve only to feed the culture of violence, which has gestated during what will soon be a half-century of Israeli military occupation. Violence is now part of Gaza culture – and a culture cannot be met and destroyed on the battlefield. It took decades for Hamas – and Gaza’s many other political factions with a violent bent – to be born in an environment that Israel created. It will take decades more for them and the culture that sustains them to fade away.

The long term cure will only come through open borders, commerce, economic opportunity and, ultimately, Israeli recognition of an independent Palestinian state in Gaza. Instead of rolling in tanks, Israel, if it wants peace, should be liberalizing trade, and investing in Gaza infrastructure and youth programs. Given Gaza’s high poverty rate, sky-high birth rate, unfathomably high unemployment, and utterly desperate living conditions, the cycle of violence may well continue indefinitely – with every act of Israeli aggression leading only to the alienation of moderates within Gaza, and the strengthening of groups like Hamas, and worse.

 

Refs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Israel%E2%80%93Gaza_conflict

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli-occupied_territories

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Palestinian_territories

 

Israel: Illiberal Democracy

The reason liberals are divided over Israel is that Israel is a democracy – but it is not liberal. Democracy and liberalism have distinct histories, and people in the West today are fortunate to have the rare opportunity to enjoy both. Israel, relative to its region, is to be commended for at least being democratic. But it does not get a free pass for establishing a colonial system of apartheid, denying equal protection of the law to 2.2 million Arabs living in the West Bank; or turning Gaza into a ghetto for what it deems to be its region’s undesirables.

47 years ago, Israel defeated Syria, Egypt and Jordan in the 1967 6-Day War. By the end of hostilities, Israel had taken territory from all 3 countries, including the West Bank from Jordan and Gaza from Egypt. Since then, the residents of the West Bank have been subject to Israeli rule, but have never been granted citizenship, allowed to vote, nor have any voice in Israel’s government, which continues to exert enormous control over many aspects of their lives. Arabs and Israelis are not treated equally under the law. Arabs – some of whom are now third and fourth generation subjects of Israeli rule – are excluded from driving on certain roads, have limited rights of movement, and restricted access to water resources in an especially arid region.

Israel seems intent on treating the West Bank as if it were its very own Louisiana Purchase. Like the US, it shows no regard for the region’s indigenous population, from whom it has stolen land in a grand colonization effort. Since the Oslo Accords 20 years ago, Israel’s colonial population in the West Bank has tripled. The problem is not that Israel has stolen land from another country. (Jordan relinquished its claim on the West Bank years ago.) The problem is that about one-third of the land taken by Israeli colonizers is privately owned by Arabs – Israeli “settlements” constitute a theft committed by the state of Israel, to the detriment of one ethnic group, for the benefit of another.

As America did with its Native American population, Israel continues to shutter up West Bank Arabs into a shrinking territory, which every day more closely resembles a system of reservations – while controlling their movements between designated spaces, and denying them access to water. After attempts to colonize Gaza failed (Gaza is too dense, and Hamas is too incorrigible), it was turned into a ghetto, with Israel straining to control everything and everyone that goes into and comes out, severely harming the economic life and health of its inhabitants. In the cycle of violence of Gaza rocket attacks on Israel, and Israeli retaliation, people in Gaza suffer ten times as many casualties, a large fraction of whom are innocent women and children. Such an analysis must also consider the severe impact of Israel’s blockade on Gazan life expectancy and infant mortality.

Pragmatically, Israel remains a close and vital US ally. But no matter the expedience of maintaining a pro-western government in the heart of the middle-east, the US’s long term interest is in the proliferation of liberty, human rights, and the rule of law – not merely democracy. Israel is an unfortunate example of one problem democracies too often succumb to: tyranny of the majority. Liberals are therefore right to continue their criticism of the state of Israel – until Israel follows rule of law, and treats all people subject to its authority equally.

 

Refs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_the_apartheid_analogy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli-occupied_territories

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlements#Land_ownership

The Field Guide thanks the US State Dept for furnishing invaluable information and insight toward the composition of this article.