What actually happens at each of these 'moments of truth'—and we may be approaching another one—is nothing much; only the same old cyclical conflict which always restarts when peace is about to break out, and always dampens down when the violence becomes intense enough. The ease of filming and reporting out of safe and comfortable Israeli hotels inflates the media coverage of every minor affray. But humanitarians should note that the dead from Jewish-Palestinian fighting since 1921 amount to fewer than 100,000—about as many as are killed in a season of conflict in Darfur. ...
Yes, it would be nice if Israelis and Palestinians could settle their differences, but it would do little or nothing to calm the other conflicts in the middle east from Algeria to Iraq, or to stop Muslim-Hindu violence in Kashmir, Muslim-Christian violence in Indonesia and the Philippines, Muslim-Buddhist violence in Thailand, Muslim-animist violence in Sudan, Muslim-Igbo violence in Nigeria, Muslim-Muscovite violence in Chechnya, or the different varieties of inter-Muslim violence between traditionalists and Islamists, and between Sunnis and Shia, nor would it assuage the perfectly understandable hostility of convinced Islamists towards the transgressive west that relentlessly invades their minds, and sometimes their countries.
Arab-Israeli catastrophism is wrong twice over, first because the conflict is contained within rather narrow boundaries, and second because the Levant is just not that important any more. ...
The third and greatest error repeated by middle east experts of all persuasions, by Arabophiles and Arabophobes alike, by Turcologists and by Iranists, is also the simplest to define. It is the very odd belief that these ancient nations are highly malleable. Hardliners keep suggesting that with a bit of well-aimed violence ("the Arabs only understand force") compliance will be obtained. But what happens every time is an increase in hostility; defeat is followed not by collaboration, but by sullen non-cooperation and active resistance too. It is not hard to defeat Arab countries, but it is mostly useless. Violence can work to destroy dangerous weapons but not to induce desired changes in behaviour.
Softliners make exactly the same mistake in reverse. They keep arguing that if only this or that concession were made, if only their policies were followed through to the end and respect shown, or simulated, hostility would cease and a warm Mediterranean amity would emerge. Yet even the most thinly qualified of middle east experts must know that Islam, as with any other civilisation, comprehends the sum total of human life, and that unlike some others it promises superiority in all things for its believers, so that the scientific and technological and cultural backwardness of the lands of Islam generates a constantly renewed sense of humiliation and of civilisational defeat. That fully explains the ubiquity of Muslim violence, and reveals the futility of the palliatives urged by the softliners.
The operational mistake that middle east experts keep making is the failure to recognise that backward societies must be left alone, ... With neither invasions nor friendly engagements, the peoples of the middle east should finally be allowed to have their own history—the one thing that middle east experts of all stripes seem determined to deny them.
That brings us to the mistake that the rest of us make. We devote far too much attention to the middle east, a mostly stagnant region where almost nothing is created in science or the arts—excluding Israel...
The middle east was once the world's most advanced region, but these days its biggest industries are extravagant consumption and the venting of resentment. ...
Unless compelled by immediate danger, we should therefore focus on the old and new lands of creation in Europe and America, in India and east Asia—places where hard-working populations are looking ahead instead of dreaming of the past.
Luttwak has been writing about the Middle East for a lifetime, and if he persuaded us with this argument, he (and many of his successors) would be out of a job.
It's hard to know how many layers of irony may be packed into this piece, but it is interesting to reflect on the press ink devoted to Israel/Palestine relative to other trouble spots (and other issues) around the globe that may be "inherently" (if that has any meaning) more consequential in Luttwak's terms. Why does this little piece of (very historical) dirt, and the limited (however tragic) amount of blood and rhetoric spilled over its control, get the media attention that it does, compared to other stories?
James Baker and friends, and an increasing segment of the political and media elites, seem to buy the line that this dispute has enormous sway over the Arab and Muslim masses of much of the world, and is responsible for a large proportion of the troubles roiling that part of the world. I'm still inclined to believe that while Israel/Palestine provides a highly effective rhetorical rallying cry, it mostly covers other profound strains in the Islamic world's confrontation with modernity, and that a plausible peaceful resolution (however desirable in its own terms) would do little to lower tensions around the world, and might in fact exacerbate some.
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