To win the March 17 Israeli elections or to postpone them (because he
may lose), Benjamin Netanyahu is turning heaven and earth. Last month’s
Israeli air strikes killed six Hezbollah commanders and an Iranian
general in the Syrian town of Quneitra.
The purpose was to
invite retaliation. Warlike atmosphere would block Secretary of State
John Kerry with his skates on towards a nuclear deal with Iran.
What
will be his next gambit? Some big skirmish in Gaza or Southern Lebanon
or further afield. But after his March 3 meeting with Obama?
One
may be forgiven for asking what came of the meeting of 21 world leaders
in London, who swore to fight the ISIS? Those fighting the ISIS on the
ground are Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, precisely last month’s Israeli
targets. And now Jordan has been dragged in. At what possible cost?
American public see the ISIS is the biggest threat to US interests, not
Iran as Netanyahu does.
Whether Netanyahu wins or loses, Israel
for the time being looks the most secure real estate in the region. But
how long does a nation look safe when everything around it is falling
apart?
Israel was once a softer place, with gentle Kibbutz and,
in the shadow of Mount Hermon, Fa Giladi seemed a wonderful place to
read, reflect, write. Peace was broken occasionally by shelling from
Habbariya in Southern Lebanon. Both, Palestinian resistance and Israeli
determination, seemed reconcilable - at some future date.
Then,
suddenly, everything began to look irreconcilable once the Soviet Union
collapsed in 1990. Even before that date, Ariel Sharon had moved into
Lebanon. That was the beginning of the gradual decline of the world’s
most elegant city - Beirut. Nabi Beri’s Shia Amal gave way to the
religious, militarized Hezbollah. So, Israeli action splintered Lebanon
into its religious components.
A decade later when Bosnian
brutalities were daily fare in the global media, a senior French
official told me in Paris: “The balance of power had shifted against the
Christians in Lebanon; it was now shifting against the Muslims in
Bosnia.â€
At the time that Sharon was in Lebanon, the Soviets were
in Afghanistan. Began the biggest manufacture in history of Islamist
Jihadists on a scale that would match Pope Urban’s crusades beginning
1095. Zbigniew Brzezinski said he would not worry about some “stirred up
Muslims†so long as the West won the Cold War.
That may have
been Brzezinski’s perspective. But various world capitals, New Delhi
included, were gripped by deep anxiety. The Indian Foreign office, like
the rest of the establishment, was split down the middle. The Foreign
Secretary was waiting for the coup to succeed in Moscow, while his
colleagues celebrated when Boris Yeltsin appeared atop a tank in Moscow.
The
inauguration of bandit capitalism in Russia was a benign act, we were
told. The other day I saw Bill Clinton sharing his deep understanding of
Russia with Fareed Zakaria. “Yeltsin was a much better President than
Vladimir Putinâ€. The entire New York Times reading public of the free
world would agree.
Was it Western triumphalism or pique, I cannot
be sure, but one by one targets were picked from among the Arab states
once in the Soviet bloc. Saddam Hussain’s picture appeared on the cover
of Time magazine as Hitler. He may have been worse than Hitler, but the
thousand mile road he laid from Amman to Baghdad was like a continuous
billiard table. Hospitals, schools, colleges, universities thrived.
The
best fish in the world, Masgouf, caught from the Dajlah (Tigris) and
roasted on open fires along the river is now a delicacy lost. When I
looked for my favourite Masgouf hut two years ago, I was told they now
get their fish from a nearby lake because the river fish had turned
scavenger. This was discovered by a customer who found a baby’s finger
in the stomach of the fish.
I would not miss my delicacies if
there were other compensations. But no. Totally secular Baath socialism
was replaced by acute Shia-Sunni divisions.
After a decade of
what Obama thought was a pointless involvement in Iraq, he was, at work
again, this time in Damascus and then in Tripoli, destroying a secular
and a moderate society to be replaced by rampaging Islam.
Nothing
will ever measure upto Beirut, but Damascus too was quite a “markazâ€
for gracious living. Tripoli would not be boring if it had bistros and
bars lining up the splendid boulevard. But it could boast being a city
without Mullahs; the most educated in the neighbourhood could lead the
Friday prayers. Its military academics for women, an efficient cradle to
grave welfare system were not to be sniffed at.
Iraq, Syria,
Libya, possibly because of their earlier Soviet affiliations, needed to
be cleansed more thoroughly. In the new landscaping of the region,
Israel looks fine. But, is it really? Surrounded by dysfunctional
societies which were once the region’s most efficient states.
Dictatorships, yes, but functional, unlike Afghan democracy where the
winner is declared CEO and the loser, President.
Israel must know
that a sort of fatigue is setting in all around at its persistent
intransigence. I commend to my Israeli friends that they read Shibley
Telhami’s opinion poll on shifting ideas in the US about Israel,
something even Thomas Friedman is worried about. There may be a shaft of
light.
(07.02.2015 - A senior commentator on diplomatic and
political affairs, Saeed Naqvi can be reached on [email protected].
The views expressed are personal.)
