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President Bush and his advisers, the president's recent endorsement
of a Palestinian state is simply a continuation of long-standing
U.S. efforts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict in a just and
reasonable way. Hence, it should bring us a greater measure of understanding
and support in the Arab world. But to most Middle Easterners, it
is further confirmation of America's cowardice and corruption: Faced
with a serious threat to his well-being, "Great Satan"
responds by heaving "Little Satan" overboard. Hence, the
more terror is directed at America, the more concessions will follow.
One obvious
reason why Middle Eastern perceptions differ so radically from our
own is because the problems Arabs wrestle with are very different
from the issues we focus on. For over a century, Muslims have been
trying to account for what they regard as a disaster of near-cosmic
proportions: Arabdom's alarming and precipitous decline. How can
it be, they ask themselves, that the Arabs, despite the self-evident
superiority of their religion and culture, have been overtaken and
humiliated by the once-barbarous Christians and — even more
embarrassingly — by the despised and dispersed Jews?
For a while,
the two most widely accepted Middle Eastern answers to this agonizing
riddle were Nasserism and Islamism. Nasserists believed that the
Arab predicament was the result of political disunity and technological
backwardness. Thus, if the Arabs set aside their political differences
and united in a single state under a modernizing dictator, such
as Egypt's Nasser, they would once again become a force to be reckoned
with.
Islamists,
on the other hand, argued that the Arabs' decline is Allah's punishment
for their having abandoned the straight-and-narrow path laid out
in the sharia (Islamic law). Only when corrupt Arab governments
— both secular and nominally religious — are replaced
by truly Islamic regimes will Arab glory be renewed.
At one time,
Nasserism and Islamism were seen as genuine alternatives. Today,
however, Nasserism is largely discredited. Not only did Nasser's
Egypt suffer an ignominious defeat at the hands of Israel in the
1967 Six-Day War, but also present day Egypt, despite $2 billion
in annual U.S aid, is a social and economic basket case. As for
the other "progressive" Arab dictatorships — Iraq
and Syria, Algeria, and Libya — they're in even worse shape.
In short, the Nasserists had their historic chance — and they
blew it.
By contrast,
the Islamists had their chance in the wake of the 1979 Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan — and to everyone's astonishment, they won.
A handful of vastly outgunned jihadists (Holy Warriors) brought
the fearsome Red Army to its knees. So having defeated Superpower
# 2, Islamists reason, they have only to defeat Superpower #1 (America),
and the whole world will be theirs.
But can a handful
of jihadists seriously believe themselves capable of humbling the
world's mightiest power? The Islamists derive confidence both from
selected verses of the Koran ("How many times has God allowed
a little troop to beat back a huge army! God is with the steadfast
who persevere."), and from the memory of past victories. Just
as, in the 7th century, Arab armies seized vast lands from Christendom,
and established an Islamic empire that was the wonder of its day,
so now a handful of steadfast and persevering jihadists will defeat
a decadent America and inaugurate a new Islamic millennium.
Winning the
world for Islam is the Islamists' long-term goal. Their more immediate
objectives are overthrowing corrupt Arab governments and destroying
the hated "Zionist entity" (Israel) whose very existence
is an affront to Islamist sensibilities. (Islamists believe that
any lands conquered for Islam remain Islamic forever; hence, even
if there were no Palestinians, Israel would still be occupying Muslim
lands.)
Unfortunately,
by endorsing the creation of a Palestinian state in the immediate
aftermath of the September 11th attack, the Bush administration
has played into Islamist hands. Although State Department officials
are undoubtedly telling the truth when they assert that the U.S.
was preparing to endorse a Palestinian state even before September
11th, to the Arab "street" it will seem obvious that a
cause-and-effect relationship exists between the attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon, on the one hand, and the President's
initiative, on the other. Throughout the Middle East, Osama bin
Laden will be blessed for forcing America's hand and bringing the
replacement of Israel by Palestine a step closer to realization.
Thanks entirely to the president and his team, the jihadist David
appears to have wrested yet another major victory from the superpower
Goliath — and the campaign to defeat the Islamist challenge
has gotten off to a singularly inauspicious start.
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