Israel, Iraq and the Role of the Shari'a
A few days ago Thomas Friedman had an editorial in the New York Times discussing an incident at an Egyptian mosque in which an Iraqi had said that only two democracies existed in the Middle East--Iraq and Israel. He was roundly booed for that. (In case it is not crushingly obvious why, it's because any good thing said about Israel, or Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, is not received well in Egypt as a general matter. Human rights violations, it is said. Praise Saddam though, and all that human rights talk evaporates, which to an Iraqi Shi'i like me is nothing short of infuriating.) The editorial then spun off to discuss Iraqi reconciliation or something I can't remember, but the real question that was left unanswered is, why would an Iraqi find it unobjectionable to compare Iraq to Israel, or suggest that Israel is a democracy? This is really something unusual in the Middle East.
Lest the reader think we are just talking about one Iraqi in one Egyptian mosque who might be unrepresentative, I offer a more interesting parable. Ahmed Chalabi ran in the last elections and failed to win a seat for his group. When discussing the elections at a random forum on al-Jazeera, some Palestinian dude speculated that it might be because one of Chalabi's right hand men had visited Israel, and even though Chalabi tried to cut his losses by getting rid of the guy, the stain may have remained by association. That was his theory, but there is one problem. The person he kicked out of the party was a fellow named Mithal al-Alusi. He also ran a party in Parliament, and won seats. I think two or three. So the head gets none, and the lieutenant, who headed off to Israel, gets a few seats. The commentator hadn't checked this, it probably hadn't occurred to him that you could visit Israel and actually get votes. Which might be true in other places in the Middle East, but not Iraq.
To be clear, I am not suggesting Dr. Mithal got a seat because of his trip. I can't see how that would work, it's not a plus. Rather, I am saying that people really didn't care that he had gone there. It was received among portions of the electorate (not all, we'll get to that in a minute) with relative indifference. The younger generation don't really think very much of Israel at all, they even watch Israeli TV when a good show is on. Not knowing any Jewish people, they tend to be anti-Jewish, an earlier post points to that, but for the most part, their attitude tends to be that far too much Iraqi blood and treasure has been wasted on an ungrateful set of Palestinians. Discussions of Saddam's payments to Hamas suicide bombers is a source of particular Iraqi anger, not on the basis of their morality (nobody discusses that, even when I ask what they think of it, they shrug their shoulders and ignore it). However, they feel it was a terrible misuse of Iraqi resources, when so many Iraqi widows and orphans are left uncared for.
In addition, even in comparison to most Middle Eastern countries, Iraqis are deeply, fundamentally anti-Palestinian, particularly the Shi'a and Kurds who currently run the country and are 80% of the population (though it should be said Sunni Arabs aren't really strong supporters of the Palestinians either). The feeling is that they helped prop up the former regime, they received benefits in Iraq denied Iraqi nationals, and they are obsessed with their own victimization to the exclusion of others. That Palestinian dominated Jordan tends to treat Iraqis remarkably poorly at the border doesn't much help matters, nor do the repeated pro-Saddam demonstrations you see on the West Bank. (To be clear, I am describing here. Don't attribute any viewpoints on any side of any of this to me.) I'm surprised at how that comes out sometimes, when I hosted a Iraqi legal professionals event in DC, when the topic turned to Israel, all in Arabic, no foreigners present, all Iraqis from Iraq in fact (sponsored trip), it was stuff that would make the most hardened ultra Zionist smile.
"The Palestinians sold their homes to the Jews, and then wanted to come back when the war was over and take it again, that's how they are, even in Basra they take over homes and then don't pay rent, and Saddam never let us kick them out." So went one story, and others sort of chimed in to the same result. Another theme was along the lines of "they deserved getting kicked out of Kuwait when Saddam invaded, why did they take his side when Kuwait had treated them so well? They wanted Saddam, the Kuwaitis gave them Saddam." Basically, the idea was that everything that has happened to them is their fault, and we're tired of hearing about it. The backlash against the Palestinian population in Iraq when Saddam fell was, as a result, swift and severe. Their situation in Iraq is precarious an unenviable right now.
As a result of all of this, I think it's pretty fair to say I can't think of any law being more likely to be shouted down in Parliament in Iraq than the idea that donations should go to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Gay marriage has a better shot.
Weighed against this indifference, what are the counterfactors towards vigorous and continuous confrontation with Israel? First, as noted, anti-Semitism, discussed earlier. Also the remnants of the Nasserites and the Arab nationalists of the older generation, who view this as part of the Grand Arab Cause. Younger Shi'a tend to think of it as a Grand Arab Delusion, a means to subjugate the Shi'a in a mythical larger polity in which they find themselves a minority, but the strength of the Nasserite vision among older Iraqis is important.
Finally, and really most importantly, there is Islam. As I've said in about a thousand posts now, the shari'a in our times cannot be understood as an extension of medieval doctrine unless its role as a vehicle for resistance against the West is put into its proper context. This is a perfect example of that phenomenon. At times orthodox doctrine is used to justify the fight against Israel, some stuff about invasions against the House of Islam forcing a defensive jihad, but as some have pointed out, that alone will not suffice, or one would have to explain why it is that the fight against Israel must continue yet we can normalize relations with Spain when both, plainly, at one point belonged to the House of Islam. The extension from the classical, standing alone, seems puzzling, selective, difficult to justify. But add the broad and deep dissatisfaction in the Muslim world with the modern West (not the medieval West when Spain was relevant) and the use of shari'a in modernity as the resistance to all of that, the region's authentic voice to combat the West's infiltration, and it comes together. The conclusion that so many modern Muslim authorities seem to have reached, that no peace can be made with a Jewish state in the Levant, is thus a combination of the two, the doctrine and the resistance that informs and drives particular permutations of the doctrine.
It doesn't mean that peace cannot be reached, only that this is an obstacle that exists--the shari'a is resistance, that's how it is understood in the modern world, and to make peace is to violate the shari'a. A secularist like Mithal al-Alusi is fine with that, secular Iraqis who are his base might be happy with it too, but religious figures are going to have a harder time making peace. This is why the only time you really see the Iraqi Prime Minister mentioning Israel is when there is a fight with Hizbollah (not as much Hamas, the Lebanese Shi'a carry more weight than the Palestinians), why the accusations that Israel is behind something, or other, tend to come from the Sadrists, an Islamist group, and why it is hard to find authoritative religious figures in Iraq who will say openly that Israel can be recognized under any conditions.
So then what happens in Iraq, with so many forces viscerally opposed to any more confrontation and yet Islam clearly making it difficult to sue for peace and remain Islamically legitimate? Largely, to ignore the issue. The Iraqi fellow in the Egyptian mosque might not have been really thinking about Israel, he just figured he's name the two democracies, proudly pointing to Iraq as one, and adding Israel as the other because that's how he saw it. I've sat in and witnessed almost exact conversations among Iraqis, in which I did not participate, that have gone that way, particularly Kurds. "Iraq is the only democracy in the Middle East, and they say we aren't legitimate in the Arab League." "What about Israel?" "Right, Israel too." "Iraq and Israel." Then it's back to Iraq. These conversations aren't really about Israel, they are about Iraq. Nobody, not even Dr. Mithal, talks about Israel, nobody raises an issue about it, religious forces know that even talk about confrontation bothers Iraqis, who would actually be torn if asked to pick a side between Jews and Palestinians (they deserve each other is the common view), secular forces would rather marshal resources to fight for something like a modern family law than waste time on Israel, and it's dropped. Perhaps waiting for another day, or perhaps left alone, ignored and undiscussed, for some time to come, as a refutation of the principle that what happens in Israel, and the occupied territories, is really what everyone in the whole Middle East spend time thinking about. It's just not true, in the case of Iraq.
HAH
Lest the reader think we are just talking about one Iraqi in one Egyptian mosque who might be unrepresentative, I offer a more interesting parable. Ahmed Chalabi ran in the last elections and failed to win a seat for his group. When discussing the elections at a random forum on al-Jazeera, some Palestinian dude speculated that it might be because one of Chalabi's right hand men had visited Israel, and even though Chalabi tried to cut his losses by getting rid of the guy, the stain may have remained by association. That was his theory, but there is one problem. The person he kicked out of the party was a fellow named Mithal al-Alusi. He also ran a party in Parliament, and won seats. I think two or three. So the head gets none, and the lieutenant, who headed off to Israel, gets a few seats. The commentator hadn't checked this, it probably hadn't occurred to him that you could visit Israel and actually get votes. Which might be true in other places in the Middle East, but not Iraq.
To be clear, I am not suggesting Dr. Mithal got a seat because of his trip. I can't see how that would work, it's not a plus. Rather, I am saying that people really didn't care that he had gone there. It was received among portions of the electorate (not all, we'll get to that in a minute) with relative indifference. The younger generation don't really think very much of Israel at all, they even watch Israeli TV when a good show is on. Not knowing any Jewish people, they tend to be anti-Jewish, an earlier post points to that, but for the most part, their attitude tends to be that far too much Iraqi blood and treasure has been wasted on an ungrateful set of Palestinians. Discussions of Saddam's payments to Hamas suicide bombers is a source of particular Iraqi anger, not on the basis of their morality (nobody discusses that, even when I ask what they think of it, they shrug their shoulders and ignore it). However, they feel it was a terrible misuse of Iraqi resources, when so many Iraqi widows and orphans are left uncared for.
In addition, even in comparison to most Middle Eastern countries, Iraqis are deeply, fundamentally anti-Palestinian, particularly the Shi'a and Kurds who currently run the country and are 80% of the population (though it should be said Sunni Arabs aren't really strong supporters of the Palestinians either). The feeling is that they helped prop up the former regime, they received benefits in Iraq denied Iraqi nationals, and they are obsessed with their own victimization to the exclusion of others. That Palestinian dominated Jordan tends to treat Iraqis remarkably poorly at the border doesn't much help matters, nor do the repeated pro-Saddam demonstrations you see on the West Bank. (To be clear, I am describing here. Don't attribute any viewpoints on any side of any of this to me.) I'm surprised at how that comes out sometimes, when I hosted a Iraqi legal professionals event in DC, when the topic turned to Israel, all in Arabic, no foreigners present, all Iraqis from Iraq in fact (sponsored trip), it was stuff that would make the most hardened ultra Zionist smile.
"The Palestinians sold their homes to the Jews, and then wanted to come back when the war was over and take it again, that's how they are, even in Basra they take over homes and then don't pay rent, and Saddam never let us kick them out." So went one story, and others sort of chimed in to the same result. Another theme was along the lines of "they deserved getting kicked out of Kuwait when Saddam invaded, why did they take his side when Kuwait had treated them so well? They wanted Saddam, the Kuwaitis gave them Saddam." Basically, the idea was that everything that has happened to them is their fault, and we're tired of hearing about it. The backlash against the Palestinian population in Iraq when Saddam fell was, as a result, swift and severe. Their situation in Iraq is precarious an unenviable right now.
As a result of all of this, I think it's pretty fair to say I can't think of any law being more likely to be shouted down in Parliament in Iraq than the idea that donations should go to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Gay marriage has a better shot.
Weighed against this indifference, what are the counterfactors towards vigorous and continuous confrontation with Israel? First, as noted, anti-Semitism, discussed earlier. Also the remnants of the Nasserites and the Arab nationalists of the older generation, who view this as part of the Grand Arab Cause. Younger Shi'a tend to think of it as a Grand Arab Delusion, a means to subjugate the Shi'a in a mythical larger polity in which they find themselves a minority, but the strength of the Nasserite vision among older Iraqis is important.
Finally, and really most importantly, there is Islam. As I've said in about a thousand posts now, the shari'a in our times cannot be understood as an extension of medieval doctrine unless its role as a vehicle for resistance against the West is put into its proper context. This is a perfect example of that phenomenon. At times orthodox doctrine is used to justify the fight against Israel, some stuff about invasions against the House of Islam forcing a defensive jihad, but as some have pointed out, that alone will not suffice, or one would have to explain why it is that the fight against Israel must continue yet we can normalize relations with Spain when both, plainly, at one point belonged to the House of Islam. The extension from the classical, standing alone, seems puzzling, selective, difficult to justify. But add the broad and deep dissatisfaction in the Muslim world with the modern West (not the medieval West when Spain was relevant) and the use of shari'a in modernity as the resistance to all of that, the region's authentic voice to combat the West's infiltration, and it comes together. The conclusion that so many modern Muslim authorities seem to have reached, that no peace can be made with a Jewish state in the Levant, is thus a combination of the two, the doctrine and the resistance that informs and drives particular permutations of the doctrine.
It doesn't mean that peace cannot be reached, only that this is an obstacle that exists--the shari'a is resistance, that's how it is understood in the modern world, and to make peace is to violate the shari'a. A secularist like Mithal al-Alusi is fine with that, secular Iraqis who are his base might be happy with it too, but religious figures are going to have a harder time making peace. This is why the only time you really see the Iraqi Prime Minister mentioning Israel is when there is a fight with Hizbollah (not as much Hamas, the Lebanese Shi'a carry more weight than the Palestinians), why the accusations that Israel is behind something, or other, tend to come from the Sadrists, an Islamist group, and why it is hard to find authoritative religious figures in Iraq who will say openly that Israel can be recognized under any conditions.
So then what happens in Iraq, with so many forces viscerally opposed to any more confrontation and yet Islam clearly making it difficult to sue for peace and remain Islamically legitimate? Largely, to ignore the issue. The Iraqi fellow in the Egyptian mosque might not have been really thinking about Israel, he just figured he's name the two democracies, proudly pointing to Iraq as one, and adding Israel as the other because that's how he saw it. I've sat in and witnessed almost exact conversations among Iraqis, in which I did not participate, that have gone that way, particularly Kurds. "Iraq is the only democracy in the Middle East, and they say we aren't legitimate in the Arab League." "What about Israel?" "Right, Israel too." "Iraq and Israel." Then it's back to Iraq. These conversations aren't really about Israel, they are about Iraq. Nobody, not even Dr. Mithal, talks about Israel, nobody raises an issue about it, religious forces know that even talk about confrontation bothers Iraqis, who would actually be torn if asked to pick a side between Jews and Palestinians (they deserve each other is the common view), secular forces would rather marshal resources to fight for something like a modern family law than waste time on Israel, and it's dropped. Perhaps waiting for another day, or perhaps left alone, ignored and undiscussed, for some time to come, as a refutation of the principle that what happens in Israel, and the occupied territories, is really what everyone in the whole Middle East spend time thinking about. It's just not true, in the case of Iraq.
HAH
Fact: Egypt (where they still mostly like Saddam and dislike Iraq), Jordan (same case but add up the Palestinians), Mauritania (full of Pro-Saddam and Baathist movements), and Qatar (home to the notorious Al-Jazeera and two giant US bases next door) all have Israeli Embassies, and are full of Israeli tourists &/or businessmen!
Fact: All the Iraqi Sunni and Shiite clergies and politicans would unite in refusing one idea: Recognizing Israel.
Fact: Yes, Iraqis nowadays don't really care about Palestine, or the Arabs. Just a reminder, Arabs did nothing to Palestine since 1948 except blah blah blah! Now, Arabs send suicide bombers NOT to fight the "occupation", but to kill Iraqis! Now who would that really serve?!
Fact: Iraq has much more important issues to deal with rather than dealing with issues of those who really didn't give Iraq anything.
Fact: Nonetheless, Iraq's government expresses every once in a while that it has a "political and ethical obligation" for all the Arab causes; but that doesn't make the Arabs happy or well-behaving!
Fact: Mithal Al-Alusi has turned out to be a good member of Parliament, much better than Sunni or Shiite members, for he speaks without a pre-cooked agenda, so to speak; but an agenda for Iraq as a nation. I might vote for him next time, or Allawi, but definitely not anyone of religious background. They destroyed us until lately!
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Z, do you think if you said Mithal al-Alusi down and asked him, if it was completely up to him and there were no political consequences, he would not recognize Israel? I agree with you he won't fight for it, won't do anything about it, would rather focus on Iraq, feels he has better things to use political capital on, and probably hasn't spent three seconds thinking about it (as with most Iraqi politicians), but I don't know if he'd refuse recognition out of principle. I think he's happy to ignore, but I don't think he has a principled position against recognition. Religious forces do, but don't emphasize it, he might prefer recognition, but won't emphasize it, the tacit agreement I agree is this is not our problem and we aren't going to spend time doing anything about it, but I don't know if there is unanimity on the principle of nonrecognition, as opposed to willful neglect, best stated in your words "Iraq has much more important issues to deal with rather than dealing with issues of thise who really didn't give Iraq anything".
HAH
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Please excuse the dumb question, but what did Iran use to justify the Grand Bargain offer to the US which included, as far as I know, an offer to recognize Israel?
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It's a good question, I don't know. Of course the Saudis have also in the past offered to recognize Israel under certain conditions, but since these have all been tentative, nobody has offered any Islamic justification from the orthodox authorities on the subject. The most we've really gotten from Islamist groups is Hamas' notion of a hudna, or respite, which is discussed in an earlier post.
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Thank you.
How insulting was it that the US didn't even respond to the offer?
I may be way off on this, but I sensed that Iran's cooperation and friendly gestures were genuine after 9/11, and that the US may have found Iran in a mood to negotiate in good faith.
Also, if you don't mind me asking something:
I read your "Law and Politics in Iraq and Saudi: Non-Muslim Troops on Muslim Soil" and found it fascinating. I wish people would understand how deep many seemingly simple issues go in the Mid-East.
We're not just an occupying force, but rather our presence is potentially an affront to core principles.
My question is, do you think Bush knows what he's asking when he asks for military bases in Iraq and long-term commitments? I think he thinks it's just a piece of land.
I feel bad for Maliki because I don't see how he can yield very much on the matter, and it's probably good for the US if he doesn't. I this as a potential flash-point, and not way out in the future.
If my questions are too hot, then no reply necessary.
Thanks again
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Thanks for the comment.
I don't imagine President Bush appreciates the sensitivities of permanent bases. I think he and his negotiators realize enough not to call them permanent bases, but the whole anticolonial regional liberation fervor that all of this stirs up I think is lost largely on them.
I don't know however if twisting Maliki's arm will be enough. There is still parliamentary approval and most importantly Sistani's approval, because he can kill the deal if he chooses to. I think the final of these is going to be the most difficult hurdle. I don't know how easily it can be overcome. Perhaps they'll sign a very short term agreement (one year, two max) and Sistani will let it pass. Maybe, though his blood does seem up on this.
HAH
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