Zionists are eager beavers, but all the chewing in the world won't help if the forest rots, notes Shahid Alam* Certainly Zionists have worked hard and cleverly for their successes, but their cause has been greatly advanced at each stage by the logic of imperialism itself and the way a Jewish state in the heart of the Islamicate meets its needs. Zionism created a geopolitical realignment of great importance. It fused two forces of the Western world, previously at odds -- Christians and Jews -- and turned them against the Islamic world. At every stage in its history, Israel has ratcheted up its power by unleashing forces, negative forces, that it has then turned to its advantage. Power, intelligence and luck have played into this. Israel's birth radicalised important segments of the Arab world, creating anxiety among Arab Jews about their future. Israel fanned this anxiety, with help from agent provocateurs -- aided unfortunately by myopic Arab policy -- to force a Jewish flight from the Arab world. As a result, Israel doubled its Jewish population -- and fighting force -- within a few years after its creation. Arab nationalism, if properly harnessed and directed, could end the Western and Jewish state's hegemony in the Middle East. Defiantly, seemingly unafraid, Israel actually took steps to fan this nationalism and use it to push the US to embrace Israel, firmly and openly, as the West's bulwark against the Arab world. The plan worked, and by the late 1950s, if not earlier, the US was unswervingly on Israel's side. Defeating the Arab nationalists carried a risk. By eliminating the threat of Arab nationalism, Israel risked losing its strategic value to the US. Considering the payoff in terms of its immediate security, Israel nonetheless proceeded to work to undermine the Arab nationalists. As for the risk, the Jewish lobby in the US, energised by Israel's victories, ensured that US would draw Israel tighter to its bosom. Apart from the advantage of Arab nations turning against each other, a generally weak civil society in the Arab states also helped Israel. As the nationalists ebbed and the mantle of resistance passed to the Islamists after 1967, they were not able displace any of the discredited Arab regimes not least because of US and Israel support for them. With US prodding, Israel returned a demilitarised Sinai to bring Egypt onside, giving a huge boost to the secular regime. In time, most of the Arab regimes came to serve as Israel's first line of defence against the Islamists. This was a self-reinforcing arrangement. As US-friendly Arab regimes lost legitimacy and became more repressive, they could only survive by drawing closer to the US and Israel. At this point, luck too favoured Israel, as it often has in the past. In 1979, Iran, the second pillar of US hegemony in the region, fell to Islamists who openly opposed US presence in the region. Instantly, Israel became once again essential to the US as the rampart against the rising Islamist tide. In the wake of the Iranian Revolution, the Zionists also made renewed efforts to resurrect the old Western animus against Islam. Next to communism, Islam was now the principal threat to "civilisation". After the Soviet collapse, the Neocons began drumming a new civilisational thesis. War between the West and Islam became inevitable, with Israel once again the catalyst. Israel's creation and military successes energised Christian Zionists in the US. In their millennial theology, the gathering of Jews in Palestine would be a precursor to the Second Coming. This theology demanded unconditional support for Israel. Over time, the Christian Zionists became the second organised force, next only to the Jews, that firmly backed Israel. The end of the Cold War did not dent US commitment to Israel. It should have, since Israel had positioned itself as America's leading ally against Soviet influence in the region. On the contrary, as if miraculously, despite the absence of the Soviet presence, pro-Israeli forces tethered the US more firmly then ever to Israeli demands. Israel now had a completely free hand in dealing with its foes. No Arab unity, no threat from Egypt, and total Western backing. It proceeded to use the Oslo Accords to neuter the PLO and assigned it to police the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank and Gaza. With the PLO neutered, Israel accelerated its colonisation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. This was a signal for Israel to pursue even more ambitious goals. In a 1996 document, the Neocons announced their plans to "engage" Hizbullah, Syria and Iran, "as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon". Iraq, however, was their first target. The 9/11 attacks offered the occasion to put these plans into action. Working in concert, Israel and its backers convinced Bush to invade Iraq. There would be more wars to redraw the map of much of Middle East. Israel would emerge from these wars as the undisputed regional hegemon, a truly world power. But just when Israel was grasping for the moon, history took a number of "wrong" turns. Iraq became a quagmire for US troops. Iran's Shia allies gained control over much of Iraq, barring the Kurdish region. Soon, Iran had extended its influence into eastern Afghanistan. Israeli policy had boomeranged. In a strange reversal, Iran now casts its shadow over much of the Middle East. It mocks Israel, stands up for the Palestinians, shows up the pro- American Arab regimes for what they are, forcing them to openly identify with Israel. In bitterness, some Arab commentators blamed the US for resurrecting the ancient Persian empire. Now, suddenly -- or so it appears -- even the US love fest with Israel has run into a spot of trouble. In a reversal of its previous policy, the US is insisting that Israel suspend new settlement construction in East Jerusalem to pave the way for "peace" talks with the Palestinian Authority. For a change, the US is countering Israel's "No" with tough talk not heard in a long while. On 9 March, when the US vice president was greeted in Tel Aviv with news of new settlements in East Jerusalem, he was furious. Privately, he told Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel's settlement activity "undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us, and it endangers regional peace." This was not a message right-wing commentators could shout down. Joe Biden was echoing the message delivered by General Petraeus, commander of US troops in the Middle East, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the US Armed Services Committee. Hillary Clinton too reiterated this message in her speech to AIPAC. What has occasioned this open rift between two spouses in this heavenly marriage? There have been tiffs before between them, but never before has a US administration told Israel that its policy endangers American troops or American interests in the Middle East. This talk is serious. It belies decades of rhetoric that has boosted Israel as America's unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Middle East. It appears that the past is beginning to catch up with Israel. Adversaries it had long suppressed, forces it had harnessed for its expansionist policy, blowback from decisions made in hubris have now converged to limit Israel's options. Is the Zionist logic that had brought endless successes in the past now working in the opposite direction? Is Israel running out of its fabled resourcefulness? To find answers, we must go back to Israel's stunning victory in June 1967, which produced two destabilising results. Having solved its "native" problem in 1948, Israel had inwittingly created it anew in 1967 by its decision to retain the West Bank and Gaza. The June War also swelled the ranks of extremist Jews who began to colonise East Jerusalem, West Bank, and Gaza. Unable to drive out the Palestinians, this new round of colonisation would turn Israel into an apartheid state. Worse, by the 2000s, international civil society started taking notice. Movements were launched to divest from, boycott and sanction Israel. Activists began to use Western legal systems to prosecute Israelis for war crimes. Israeli leaders visiting Western campuses are now heckled routinely. Slowly, Western publics are turning away from Israel. Another answer is revealed in the 1982 invasion of southern Lebanon. The Lebanese Shia responded by creating Hizbullah, a multi-layered grass-roots resistance, the most formidable adversary Israel had ever faced. In 2000, they forced Israel to withdraw unilaterally, and in July 2006 repulsed a fresh Israeli invasion, giving Israel a bloody nose. No more was Tehran a distant threat for Tel Aviv: it was now positioned right next to Israel's northern border. Although Hizbullah spoke to the grit and discipline of Lebanese Shia, it could not have grown without Iranian support. Yet another answer is seen in the apartheid Wall Israel built as part of its strategy to defeat the Second Intifada, cutting through the West Bank, and its transfer of Jewish settlements from Gaza to the West Bank, sealing Gaza from outside contacts. With fewer suicide-bombers, "peace" talks with Palestinians lost their urgency and were shelved. This made the pro-US Arab regimes a bit nervous: they needed the charade of "peace" talks to shore up what little legitimacy they had with their home audience. The Egyptian-Israeli siege of Gaza now brought Iranian influence to Israel's southern border. The siege may have stopped Hamas from become another Hizbullah, but their homemade rockets reminded Israel that its "native" problem had not gone away -- that it would continue to haunt it. Yet another strand in the answer is that by the 1990s Zionist "logic" spawned Al-Qaeda, a group that would use terror to lure the US to wage war against the Middle East. After the Cold War, the Zionists too, led by the Neocons, pursued the same goal. Using the same shopworn thesis of the "clash of civilisations", Israel now had to urge the entire Western world to wage war against the Islamicate. To take out Iran, Syria and Iraq. This was a departure from Israel's long- standing war strategy, ultimately a sign of weakness. Israel took US money and weapons, but in the past fought its own wars. This had several advantages. It built Israel's military strength and prestige; it kept the US military out of Israel's path to hegemony over the Middle East. Also, American support for Israel might wear thin if they saw their troops dying in Israel's wars. If Israel was ready to abandon this strategy in the 1990s, that must mean that it could not take on Iran, Iraq and Syria on its own. And so the die was cast. When Al-Qaeda struck on 9/11, Israel saw its opportunity. The Zionists began to press full steam for the US to invade Iraq and succeeded. Few Israelis worried that the chickens too would come home to roost. In April 2008, Netanyahu said, "We are benefiting from... the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq." Now, some ten years later, the chickens are scurrying home. The Iraq War has achieved little for Israel. It removed a defanged Saddam Hussein, but extended Iran's influence into Iraq and it has brought Iranian proxies to its northern and southern borders. Iran now uses Palestine to undermine pro-US Arab regimes. More ominously, the US military has finally turned against it, however hesitantly. It has warned that Israeli policy raises tensions in the Middle East and endangers US troops on the ground. It will not be easy for Israel and its backers to shout down US generals with charges of anti-Semitism. That is why so many Zionist commentators look alarmed. One Israeli commentator warns that "Obama and Netanyahu are at point of no return." Others are saying worse. It appear unlikely that this flap between the US and Israel will blow over soon. If it does not, attacks by Jewish groups inside and outside Israel against Obama will become more frequent and nastier. The loyalty of some Americans, both inside and outside the Congress, will be tested. It is hard to predict where this will go. However, this much should be clear. Even if US-Israeli differences over the Middle East are finessed for now, that will not be the end of it. The pressures that have persuaded the US to insist on a "solution" to the Palestinian problem will persist. The realities that have produced the present flap are not going away. * The writer is professor of economics at Northeastern University, Boston. He is author of Israeli Exceptionalism (Palgrave, 2009) and Challenging the New Orientalism (IPI, 2006).
