In the Mideast, history’s not on our side

Rashid KHALIDI is arguably the foremost U.S. historian of the modern Middle East. The current director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University, he is a superb scholar who has written books on Arab nationalism, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the prize-winning “Palestinian Identity.” Son of a Palestinian father and a Lebanese mother, Khalidi is, not surprisingly, especially interested in Palestinian affairs. He served as an advisor to Palestinian officials at the Madrid talks, with which the first President Bush revived the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in 1992, and on various occasions since then. But this book is no rant against Israel or a defense of Yasser Arafat’s corrupt rule.

Troubled by the invasion of Iraq, Khalidi in “Resurrecting Empire” warns fellow Americans not to attempt to build an empire in the Middle East. The people of the region will not see the U.S. invasion of Iraq as the benign liberation promised by Washington, he writes, because they have heard it all before from the Westerners who dominated them in the 1920s and ‘30s.

Khalidi reviews the history of British and French colonial expansion into Arab lands, focusing ultimately on the Iraqi experience with British imperialism between world wars. He notes that many Arab -- and Iranian -- intellectuals were attracted to Western ideas of parliamentary democracy only to have their efforts to create democratic governments undermined. He concedes readily that most Arab governments are appalling where democracy and human rights are concerned but argues that the European states that controlled them before decolonization are at least partly responsible. Nor does he spare the U.S. role in the region during the Cold War.

The United States, which became a major force in the area only after World War II, played a key role in stifling democracy in Iran in 1953. When Iran’s elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq nationalized oil and flirted with communists, the Eisenhower administration helped orchestrate a coup, enabling the shah to establish his authoritarian rule.

Why should Iraqis believe that America’s purpose today is to foster democracy in the region? Even if they did, and Khalidi says that is unlikely, do Americans have any idea what policies a democratic Baghdad would pursue? A popularly elected Iraqi government probably would demand that U.S. forces leave the country, seek the removal of U.S. bases on the Arabian peninsula and throw its support behind the Palestinian cause, to the detriment of Israel’s interests. No one in the Arab world can imagine that this future scenario is what the American people have spent billions of dollars and the lives of hundreds of their children to accomplish. Khalidi insists that Americans must realize that the people of the Middle East perceive U.S. actions in terms of their own recent history as victims of British and French imperialism. They have not forgotten their tradition of resistance to foreign intervention and occupation. To them, the United States is reprising the British role in Iraq. Invasion and occupation have not furthered the cause of democracy in the past, and Khalidi is not optimistic about Washington’s present effort.

Historically, foreign efforts to control the countries of the Middle East have stimulated nationalism and given rise to regimes in which military officers have played important roles. They and their civilian partners then succeeded in using nationalist rhetoric to mask their denial of human rights and democratic politics, blaming external pressures for their failure to build equitable and successful economic systems. The leaders of the oil-producing states have worked assiduously to remind their people of the days when they were being exploited by Western oil companies. Today’s U.S. occupation of the Iraqi oil fields raises that specter anew -- and concern is intensified by rumors there that the Americans intend to use Iraqi oil to undermine the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and keep oil prices down. On the other hand, when Middle Eastern governments nationalized oil, Khalidi notes, most used the proceeds to create a vast network of patronage and corruption.

Alone among the Western powers, the United States was viewed favorably by the Arabs, Iranians and Turks of the Middle East through the end of World War II. Some were aware of President Wilson’s call for self-determination, one of his famous “Fourteen Points” for peace, presented to the world in 1918. Others noted that the United States had no colonies in the region and opposed European imperialism. That perception of a benign America faded rapidly after World War II, initially as a result of Washington’s support for the state of Israel and, as the years passed, because of indications of American indifference to the plight of the Palestinians. Moreover, during the Cold War, the United States supported reprehensible authoritarian governments in the region as long as they did not interfere with the flow of oil and helped keep the Soviets at bay.

Readers accustomed to learning about the plight of democratic Israel struggling to survive in a sea of hostile Arabs may find Khalidi’s criticism of Israel and of American policy toward Israel troubling. They should be aware that most of what he writes can be found as well in Israeli newspapers such as Haaretz, the English-language version of which is circulated in Israel with the International Herald Tribune and is readily available online. He echoes criticism voiced constantly by some Israeli intellectuals and the Israeli peace movement. Efforts by American supporters of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to deny these arguments to a U.S. audience are reprehensible. The Palestinian cause is entitled to a fair hearing -- in general easier to obtain in Israel than in America.

Khalidi makes no effort to disguise his sympathy for the suffering of the Palestinian people -- and he makes no effort to deny the fact that their own leaders contribute to their suffering. He has no use for Arafat, whom he accuses of deliberately obstructing efforts to establish the rule of law in the territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority. And he writes off the Palestinian Authority as “corrupt and ridden by debilitating cronyism.”

Khalidi is as appalled, as any decent human being would be, by the suicide murders of Israeli civilians and other acts of terrorism committed by Palestinians. There is no question that he is correct, however, when he reports that people in the Middle East perceive that the current administration in Washington focuses exclusively on Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians and ignores the fact that the Israeli military has killed far more Palestinian civilians -- a perception he clearly shares. The reason, he suggests, is strong pro-Zionist support not only among American Jews but among American Protestants as well, reinforced by the powerful Israel lobby in Washington.

Less persuasive is Khalidi’s dismissal of the Oslo accords of 1993 as unsatisfactory. He argues that, although the Israeli negotiators gave the PLO the recognition it craved, the accords achieved little for ordinary Palestinians because of the ignorance and incompetence of the PLO negotiators -- as opposed to the West Bank and Gazan negotiators who followed his advice at Madrid. Similarly, he is too harsh in his contempt for the terms of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s offer, rejected by Arafat in 2000. Unquestionably, Barak failed to satisfy the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people, but it is equally evident that he was offering more than the Israelis had ever offered before, and probably more than the Israeli people were willing to concede. Khalidi is doubtless correct in pointing to the January 2001 Israeli-Palestinian negotiations at Taba as more promising, but Sharon’s election ended all hope of a peaceful resolution.

It was, of course, Sharon, who, in an election maneuver, deliberately provoked the Palestinian uprising that became the second intifada. This is one transgression for which the feckless Arafat should probably be exonerated. But it really matters little whether Sharon or Arafat is held responsible. Khalidi sees no hope as long as these two men lead their people. And he argues that it is absurd for Washington to expect any Palestinian leader to launch a civil war to pacify Hamas and other militants while under attack from Israel and in the face of the expansion of Israeli settlements into Palestinian territory.

Confronting the question of why the United States is so unpopular in the Middle East, Khalidi insists it is not because of who we are. Many of the region’s people admire American freedom and democracy and yearn to have it for themselves. Their hostility derives from misguided American policies -- and these can be changed. Khalidi makes a powerful case for a more evenhanded policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- and for the rejection of the dangerous ambition of making the United States an imperial power in the Middle East. *