By Ira Sharkansky
JERUSALEM — The 250,000 Syrians heading toward the borders of Jordan and Israel are a small part of what’s been happening in the Middle East for several decades.
It isn’t the equivalent of the population movements that occurred as the result of WW II and the end of colonialism that came along with it; or maybe not the movements resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union. But movements out of Syria, Iraq, from Africa through the porous state of Libya, and the chaos of Afghanistan and Yemen will reshape, or at least influence many things for some time.
Movement is part of history. Palestinians are an anomaly, having the support of others in their flakey concern to move things backward to an idealized past.
The mess being created has a number of antecedents. Overall, an arousal of Islamic extremists is somewhere at the center. However, there are different kinds of extremists, and there’s enmity and violence among them.
One of the sources was in the overthrow of the Shah, the radicalism of Shiites that came along with a hatred of America, at least in part because of US support for the Shah. Later was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and Reagan’s Cold War recruitment of Muslims from throughout the Middle East to counter them. Perhaps separate was the arousal of extremists in northern Nigeria, and a rebellion against Muammar Qaddafi that unsettled yet another Muslim country. A long and bloody war between Iran and Iraq morphed into an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and an American war. 9-11 came from intense opposition to the US and brought the Americans full tilt to the Middle East. Barack Obama’s juvenile effort to democratize the region contributed to Arab Spring that quickly became Arab Winter, and mass movements out of Syria.
Neither Iraq nor Syria seems likely to revert to centrally governed countries in anything like the borders that prevailed from when the colonial powers set pen to paper. The ethnicities, religious groups, tribes, and clans cobbled together have left, moved, been slaughtered, or ascended in what may become. Libya is less populous, but its chaos has eased the way through to the Mediterranean and onto Europe for Africa’s hopeful. Afghanistan remains a place rather than a country, having gone through an upsurge of several decades in an unsettled history. Yemen is suffering from the rivalry of Iran and Saudi Arabia. And what looks like a different leadership in Saudi Arabia may bring about more than women drivers.
Jews’ concentration in Israel and the post-war and post-colonial development of a modern country—arguably the richest, most powerful, and most successful in the large area from Western Europe and on to the Far East—reflects both tragedies and mass movements at least as impressive as anything more recent. A growth of population to more than 10 times its number since 1948 has come along with much more. Absorption of miserable refugees from the Holocaust and then flight from Yemen, Iraq, North Africa, with significant inputs from Romania, Iran, Ethiopia and especially the former Soviet Union, and lesser movements reflecting personal choice from well to do and stable countries produced a country still defining its principal traits.
To what extent is Israel threatened from the current points of unrest on its borders?
By all the signs the country has the capacity to defend itself. What it’s facing now is less awesome than what occurred in 1948, 1967, and 1973.
At least some of its strength comes from changes in the Middle East since 1973. An overt military alliance with Egypt, and something more covert with Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates takes the place of what Israel enjoyed with Iran before that country’s revolution. Instead of the Russian-Egyptian alliance against Israel in 1967 and 1973 is a beefed-up Israeli population with a million migrants from the Soviet Union, and Russian-speaking government ministers helping to manage working relations with the important Russian military and political inputs to Syria.
There’s also something of a love-fest between the tops of American and Israeli governments. Along with that, however, is some tension over Israel’s connection with Russia.
We can wonder how close to President Trump was the Republican Senator Lindsey Graham when—during yet another summit meeting between Bibi and Vladimir Putin—Graham tweeted: “To our friends in Israel be very careful making agreements with Russia re Syria that affect US interests. I don’t trust Russia to police Iran or anyone else in Syria. US must maintain presence in Syria to ensure ISIS doesn’t come back and to counter Russia/Iran influence.”
Against Graham’s red flag, optimists see the prospects of a Russian-Israeli-American deal that could produce a workable and non-threatening regime in Syria.
Middle East cynics are less convinced, with Turkish-Kurd complications, along with Iranian-Israeli problems likely to make life difficult for any outsiders seeking to shape what becomes of Syria.
Commentators are puzzled about Donald Trump’s claim to have put US-Russian relations on a positive track in a four hour meeting with Vladimir Putin. Some ask how the Americans came to select a low quality stand up comic as their president.
Israel’s stability may render it a rarity in the Middle East and a good slice of Africa not under direct pressure from one or another variety of aggressive Islam or Arab tribalism. Its links and flexibility, as well as its military power and centrality in the region should lead the US and others to view it as an asset more than a liability.
Whatever it contributes is unlikely to be worse than the follies of the US in its aspirations to bring democracy and/or good government to Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan.
And still to be determined is the extent and impacts of all those migrants on Western Europe, North America, and wherever else they reach.
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Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University. He may be contacted via ira.sharkansky@sdjewishworld.com