Living In A Dangerous And Changing Neighborhood

Oct. 28, 2016

Karen and I spent a recent weekend visiting Dearborn. We spent time at the beautiful Arab-American National Museum (the only one of its kind in the U.S.), ate at Middle Eastern restaurants, and shopped at a Meijersized supermarket devoted to Arab and Middle Eastern food. We were enveloped by women who almost uniformly wore some form of covering and by the sound of Arabic mixed in with English.

The neighborhood in the vicinity of the museum was well kept and suggested financial success, and we saw an emphasis on families and children. More than one family seemed to be playing host to perhaps more recent immigrants. A father tossed a football to a half-dozen would-be receivers. Unfamiliar, delicious aromas rose from backyard barbecues.

What we didn’t feel was any sense of danger – either physically or to our sense of being American. While there are no doubt plenty of dangerous neighborhoods in the Detroit area, the "Arab-ness" of this area did not strike us as intrinsically different than any other.

So what "dangerous neighborhood" do I refer to in my title? I’m actually thinking about the profound changes that are occurring in the Middle East and the challenge for the new American administration to construct successful policies there. Inevitably, any policy in the region requires a serious examination of our most complicated relationship in the region: with Israel.

We view the State of Israel in classic geopolitical terms. As a nation/state and member of the United Nations, Israel is obliged and authorized under the UN Charter to protect its citizens from attack. Israel demands that its neighbors recognize its right to exist and, by so doing, work cooperatively to address the region’s problems and resolve its controversies. In the past, Israel has had some success that has delivered decades of co-existence: peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, and a deal with Syria that has ensured stability since 1974.

But since the "Arab Spring" in 2011, the neighborhood has been changing in ways that amount, in some cases, to a rejection of the very concept of the nation/state. Former colonial borders drawn after World War I are being erased. Conflict in Yemen, Libya, Nigeria, Somalia, Iraq and Syria all question the very viability of formerly existing nation/ states. In its place, the Islamic State, the Muslim Brotherhood, Boko Haram and hundreds of other smaller factions believe that the Holy Koran provides all that is needed to conduct the affairs of the Muslim "Umma," the global community of believers.

This political construct is inherently different than the international model that we have been used to. The "Umma" knows no borders other than the geographic reach of the believers. The concept of the nation/state actor is gone. Thus, in the case of Islamic State, we have made no attempt to establish a diplomatic dialogue with ISIS. When ISIS is finally expelled from the lands it controlled, there will be no peace treaty or armistice. Instead, the surviving ISIS believers will simply take up new residence elsewhere.

If political statements, treaties and the like are immaterial, what does this mean for state actors, particularly ones that share the same neighborhood, such as Israel? For one, the peace treaties already in place seem likely to become relics of history. In Egypt, we cannot delude ourselves into thinking that the military dictatorship of President al- Sissi is certain to withstand the competing narratives of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic State that many young Egyptians support. In Jordan, the King is confronted by millions of Syrian refugees and by the more than a million Palestinians who settled there. In Syria, while the Assad regime now seems likely to hang on for some years (with Russian and Iranian help), the Sunnis who end up in eastern Syria aren’t going to disappear. But neither are they likely to identify with or support the discredited rule of President Assad’s Shiite-Alawite minority clan.

Thus, surrounding Israel are three weakened and unstable regimes and millions of disaffected Sunni Arabs. In that context, Israel is approaching the 50th year of control over the predominantly Sunni and Christian West Bank and Gaza. Israel faces these geopolitical realities with deep skepticism about any prospects for a negotiated solution. The Israeli-Palestinian talks, which have been dormant, depended on a quasi-nation/ state, the Palestinian Authority (PA). But most young Palestinians identify with the non-state actor Hamas as their rightful representative. Would Israel negotiate with Hamas? Would Hamas ever meet Israel’s minimum conditions for entering into negotiations – acceptance of Israel’s right to exist, an end to anti-Israeli propaganda, and acceptance of the Jewish character of the State of Israel?

The next U.S. president inherits a policy toward Israel that has been undermined by President Obama’s and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s mutual dislike. But policy is not based solely on personalities, so the U.S and Israel agreed in September to a Memorandum of Understanding that allocates $4 billion per year over the next ten years to Israel’s military security. What is clear is that more weapons cannot solve the political challenges that the upheaval in the Middle East has created for Israel, the U.S. and the region.

The next president must see the new neighborhoods of the Middle East in a new light – a region of non-state actors with deeply conflicting objectives, in a world where outside nation/states still hold most of the cards. This challenge gets more urgent by the day and demands serious, experienced leadership on all sides to have any hope.

On November 10 at the State Theater, Jack Segal will moderate a question and answer session after a showing of the TCFF 2016 film, "Disturbing the Peace," and the IAF will host Steve Simon, former NSC Director for the Middle East on November 17 at Milliken Auditorium.