By Dr. Miklos K. Radvanyi
The greatest threats to all societies, more often than not, have not come from invading armies, hostile ideologies, or superior foreign powers, but they have arisen from within. History has repeatedly demonstrated that societies seldom perish solely because of external attacks. Instead, they first exhaust themselves through internal rivalries, ideological-religious polarization, political vanity, and the inability of their leaders to distinguish between genuine enemies and domestic competitors. Foreign powers frequently deliver only the final blow to societies already disintegrating from within.
Among all historical examples, none illustrates this recurring phenomenon more vividly than the stubborn enmity between the Arabs and the Jews. The roots of the modern Middle East conflict span millennia. From ancient narratives of slavery to the twentieth-century wars for territories, the demons of Anti-Judaism, Antisemitism, and Anti-Zionism were summoned under the religious battle cry of “Globalize the Intifada.” This “shaking off” of the alleged occupying power, namely the State of Israel, in the gestalt of two Uprisings between 1987 and 2005, has demonstrated the limitless barbarism of religious-political fanaticism. This enmity is especially compelling because it is not simply ancient history. It is a study in how societies can mistake regional competition for the highest political objective. The present state of permanent wars between the Arabs and the Jews started in earnest on November 29, 1947, when the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 181, recommending the partition of the territory called “Palestine.” The Jews accepted Resolution 181 by emphasizing its legitimacy derived from international recognition, the right to national self-determination, and a willingness to coexist with all the Arab states. In uncompromising opposition, the Arabs emphasized the inviolability of the unity of the territory called Palestine, the illegitimacy of a Jewish sovereign state, and the Arabs’ absolute political-religious obligation to resist the partition by military means.
Arab efforts to escalate the tensions between themselves and the Jews, and the former’s extreme hatred toward the latter, produced the immediate military intervention of Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. The declared objectives were the protection of the Arab population within Israel, the restoration of Arab sovereignty over a Muslim land based on the legal principle of the Waqf, and the annihilation of the Jews “illegally” residing on this land. In spite of their collective military action, this coalition lacked unified political and military leadership. By early 1949, the State of Israel prevailed. As a result, for Israel independence was secured and international recognition became permanent. For the Arabs, defeat was also global political humiliation, becoming the source of future political instability, military coups, and the beginning of national destruction. The subsequent wars, all initiated by various groups of Arab states, have established a legacy of global inferiority in the minds of the Arabs, coupled with the political, military, economic, and cultural superiority of the Jews.
The core weakness of the ubiquitous Arab hatred toward the Jews is their Qur’anic idolatry of victimhood. Mixing Jihadist ruthlessness, intellectually numbing incompetence, and martyrial impunity, Arab leaders have made challenging government failures almost impossible. The revoltingly inhuman affordability crises of the majority of the people in the Arab world have led to diminished politics that have materialized in subpar policies. The divisive spectacles of suffering Arabs on television and in propaganda have become blunt trump cards. Allowing this victimhood cult to occupy a sacred status in Arab domestic as well as foreign policies is ignoring reality by Arab leaders as their states’ failures, which are united opprobrium. The repeated apocalyptic an-Nakba that is much older than the twentieth century, and appears in Arabic literature long before the creation of the State of Israel, or the so-called “Palestinian” movement, has meant through centuries catastrophe, disaster, calamity, or great misfortune. Thus, the Arab propaganda that the word itself was invented in 1948 is a complete lie, as are all the other deceitful fabrications surrounding the Muslim globalization of the reintroduction of genocidal Naziism. In reality, this word became politically (in)famous through the Syrian intellectual Constantin Zureiq, who published Ma’na an-Nakba – The Meaning Of The Catastrophe – in 1948. In his book, for Zureiq “an-Nakba” meant the defeat of the Arab states in the 1948 war and a call for Arab modernization and reform. Thus, “an-Nakba” originally had nothing to do with the so-called “Palestinians.” The word was resurrected as anti-Israeli Soviet propaganda in 1964 by the then-KGB.
However, the most damaging political-religious Achilles’ heel of the Arab Ummah is the subjugation of individuality. The mandate of the Qur’an 4:59 “Obey God, obey the Messenger (Mohammed), and those who possess authority among you,” is the source of absolute inequality in a political order that religiously preaches the most perfect equality. In this sense, the presently prevailing political culture across the Ummah is a top-down tyranny that renders political reforms of modernization impossible.
And herein lies the greatest paradox of the Middle East. While all Muslim states in the Middle East and beyond are autocratic or even tyrannical, in which rulers advise and “victims” decide, a universe exists in which these “victims” are impelled to hopelessly argue with each other over the future of their societies. This real universe is an active suicidal abandonment of the people by their rulers that has continually led to global failures domestically as well as internationally. Moreover, this culture of leaderless paralysis, coupled with the culture of absurdly surreal lies, are the roots of the murderous instability in the Middle East. Finally, it is not the State of Israel that is the cause of the never-ending inhuman suffering, but the barbaric call for the destruction of a culture that is the cradle of Western civilization.
With the oversized provincial ambitions of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Republic of Turkiye (Turkey), the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the Arab Republic of Egypt, grave problems lie ahead in the Middle East and beyond. Establishing lasting peace throughout the region is a noble aim, but it will surely be complicated if the Islamic Republic of Iran can tap the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for funds. Decision-making among NATO and Israel, which must also include the signatory monarchies of the Abraham Accord, must be agiler. Safeguards against individual actions not agreed to collectively are important, but must not erode the mutual trust among the member states and beyond. In particular, the United States of America must take heart and recognize its own strength. Its military budget is already larger than the combined strength of the previously mentioned three states. Its economy is also larger. Far from shying away from a global contest with all three, the United States of America and its allies must embrace – and win it.