Slate's Bizbox
foreigners: Opinions about events beyond our borders.

How the World Has Changed, Part 2

By Anne Applebaum
Posted Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2001, at 11:30 PM ET

Has the world changed since Sept. 11? As I've said, it's difficult to give a straight answer—and if you are staring hard at the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it's almost impossible. I doubt very much whether ordinary people living in Israel or the Palestinian territories are much more frightened or more worried now, going about their daily lives, than they were three weeks ago. Suicide bombers are a well-known phenomenon in that part of the world, and sudden outbursts of violence of the sort that turn average workdays into tragedy are horrifyingly common.

But terrorism in the United States has, among other things, suddenly shuffled diplomatic and media priorities. As a result, fairly or unfairly, Israel and Palestine are once again placed squarely in the central spotlight. Quite a lot of people who haven't thought much about the Middle East recently are suddenly interested again. Because this conflict was internationalized long ago, all the relevant leaders instantly realized what was happening and adjusted their rhetoric. Yasser Arafat—horrified by the public relations implications of the widely televised pictures of young Palestinians celebrating in the streets—condemned the terror with more fervor than he has ever deployed to condemn terror closer to home. "Unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable" were the words everyone heard him use just before everyone saw him giving blood to help the victims. Ariel Sharon, on the other hand, stated that "Arafat is our Bin Laden," squarely equating the Palestinian suicide bombers who attack Jerusalem shopping malls with the Islamic suicide bombers who organized the attacks on Washington and New York.

But although it might have initially appeared as if Israel and the United States were suddenly in the same boat, I'm not so sure whether this sort of sentiment will last. For the record, I note that Sharon has suddenly started pulling away from outright condemnations of Arafat. On Monday he even gave a radio interview, "nonplussing allies and enemies alike," in the words of Ha'aretz, advocating, for the first time ever, a Palestinian state. "We are not fighting the Palestinians, we are fighting terrorism," he said. "The state of Israel wants to give the Palestinians what no one else has heretofore given them—the possibility of establishing a state. … All that Israel has asked—and Arafat has also committed himself to this—is to stop the terrorism, to live in peace, to live in calm."

Whatever you think of the man, Ariel Sharon did not get to be where he is by lacking keen political instincts. And what I suspect he sees coming is the debate begun in Slate by Jacob Weisberg and Mickey Kaus and continued this week in "The Breakfast Table": Is the Palestinian-Israel conflict at the root of some of the Islamic hatred of the West, or is it not? I also suspect that he knows that, outside of the United States—and I mean everywhere outside of the United States—this debate is over. Its conclusion, as a British politician described it privately last weekend, is that while Israel may not be the direct cause of the World Trade Center attack and is certainly in no way to blame, its conflict with Palestine is part of the "sea in which the fishes swim." Jack Straw, the British foreign minister, put it less poetically in a statement picked up by the Israeli press on the eve of his visit to Jerusalem: "I understand that one of the factors contributing to the growth of terror is the anger of many people in the region about the incidents in recent years in Palestine." The French foreign minister, Hubert Védrine, who is also in the Middle East, also told Le Monde that Israel's "implacable struggle against terrorism must be accompanied by political engagement." This sort of point was made before Sept. 11, but now you will hear it made more often, and louder.

Even inside the United States, others, although not yet a vocal majority, are reaching this same conclusion. I have so far heard or read similar statements from a senior middle-of-the-road State Department official, a Republican activist with close ties to the administration, and a former Democratic statesman (OK, it was Zbigniew Brzezinski). None are part of the traditional anti-Israel lobby, and what they are talking about is not withdrawing support for Israel but, in the short term, pressuring Israel to return to the negotiating table (as indeed the administration is already quietly doing) and, in the long term, increasing pressure on Israel to settle its borders with Palestine and—very specifically—to roll back the settlements.

I cannot predict how Israel will react to this newly charged international climate. Sharon's sudden enthusiasm for a Palestinian state, although it may have been intended to deflect some of this pressure, did not stop him from angrily canceling his planned meeting with Jack Straw. (Ha'aretz reported that Sharon later reversed this decision after Tony Blair asked him to reconsider.) Nor has it prevented the Jerusalem Post from printing one furious op-ed calling the British "appeasers" and another titled "Against Israel, Terrorism Is Kosher." In the past, the Israelis have never bothered to listen to Europeans, whom they consider to be fundamentally anti-Israeli, if not fundamentally anti-Semitic. There is no particular reason why they should start now—unless the United States itself, under the influence of its European allies in the war against terrorism, begins to change its tune as well.

Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
Anne Applebaum is a Washington Post and Slate columnist. Her most recent book is Gulag: A History.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES

Reader Comments From The Fray:


[Note from the Fray Editor: The post below produced an excellent thread.]


Suppose some settlements are dismantled, and negotiations do resume. How much will that reduce the "Arab anger" from which terrorism is supposed to flow? I hate to be a pessimist, but it is hard not to wonder if settlements, security checkpoints and boundary lines in the West Bank are really the source of that anger or just an excuse for it…

The list of situations where Muslims created problems they later blamed the West for is virtually endless. Afghanistan is certainly one--the United States may have armed Afghanis fighting the Soviets but no American ever told the Afghani fighters to start shooting one another after the Russians left. The American military presence in Saudi Arabia, which started when one Arab country invaded another (a development no other Arab country had the strength or courage to oppose without the United States) is another. The Palestinians could have had the West Bank, free of Israeli settlements, if they had sought it during the 1970s, but at that time nothing would do for the Palestinian leadership but to call for Israel's destruction. And the sad catalog goes on: Lebanon, the near civil war in Algeria, the disintegration of Somalia, the unending barbarism in Sudan…

For none of these, as far as I can tell, do many Muslims accept responsibility. Everything is someone else's fault. Western cultural influence is regarded the same way--and this in spite of the fact that many Muslim countries have successfully proscribed arguably the most potent source of Western cultural influence, that being Christian evangelism.

When someone convinced that all his problems are caused by others becomes very angry, he is liable to stay that way for a very long time. We may need to consider the possibility that anger in the Muslim world will continue no matter what America or the West does with respect to Israel or anything else; that only Muslims will ever be able to address its cause; and that in the meantime the best we can do is to keep the more murderous elements in the Muslim community as far away from our own people as possible

--Joseph Britt

(To reply, click here.)

 (9/27)


Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
Over the Line
Harold Ford Jr. | I know what it's like to be smeared by your opponent.
: The Positive in Negative Ads
PLUS » Milbank: The President's Lullaby