A Stir of Echoes

by Eric Martin

As mentioned in a recent post, the military assault on Gaza, together with the attempted coup and the punitive blockade of food, medicine and commercial goods that preceded it, has the potential to either strengthen hardline factions within Hamas at the expense of more politically moderate groups, or to provide a foothold (or increased popularity) to groups that are even more radical than Hamas (such as al-Qaeda).  Or, unfortunately, both. 

These undesirable outcomes will likely stretch beyond Israel's borders in some form or another:

Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip is boosting the popularity of Hamas and other Islamic groups in the Arab world where people are dismayed by the passiveness of their regimes, analysts said on Sunday. [...]

"This is a repetition of the major crises seen in the region during the past few years," which strengthened Islamism in the Arab world, Rashwan told AFP.

He highlighted Israel's war on Lebanon in July 2006 which failed to destroy the military might of the Iran-backed Shiite Hezbollah, and the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq, which brought Islamism to the forefront of the resistance.

"Opposition in the Arab world has become led by Islamist movements... Public opinion is led by these movements," at the expense of Arab nationalists and liberal oppositions who are losing ground."

Meanwhile, "the gap between Arab regimes and their people is being widened all the time," Rashwan added.

Abdul Aziz al-Sager, head of the Dubai-based Gulf Research Centre (GRC), agreed that Islamists are reaping a windfall of popularity from the Gaza war.

"Injustice serves the Islamist movements, putting them in the vanguard through their support for jihad" or holy war, in the Arab world, he told AFP.

The article also mentions this in passing:

"Islamist movements, born out of the void created by the collapse of the Arab nationalist and leftist ideologies, are the only ones capable of protecting the region from the madness of US politics and Israel," said the former Arab nationalist.

Ah, to reminisce about the halcyon days when the US worked (through coup attempts - some successful, some not- and other dubious means) to stifle nationalist movements in the Arab world largely on the basis that those movements threatened the considerable oil wealth being generated by ARAMCO and similar US and British concerns.  This excerpt from a review of Robert Vitalis' diligently researched America's Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier is relevant:

The American government, meanwhile, had similar worries. With Middle Eastern monarchies being toppled or threatened by nationalist movements [such as Nasser's], Washington wanted stability preserved in Saudi Arabia, whose regime not only served as a bulwark against communism but had a direct bearing on the future of "our largest single overseas private enterprise," as presidential advisor Walt Rostow described ARAMCO. But since the preservation of monarchies was not one of America's public goals, King Saud found himself hailed instead as a great modernizer, even as he squandered oil revenues on military hardware and empty palaces; likewise, Saud's successor, Crown Prince Faisal, who was proclaimed a reformer even as he clamped down on the press, locked up dissidents and shut down the country's fleeting experiment with local elections.

In the vacuum left behind as a result of direct, anti-democratic interference to preserve narrow, self-referenced interests - and the effort to prop up undemocratic, oppressive allies to secure same - something more pernicious and threatening emerged.  History echoes, and those plagued by deafness (willful and otherwise), stand poised, again, with hands cupped to mouth.  

Comments

[Peter G.]

Radicalization is a concept that works both ways. The use of suicide bombers and unguided anti-personnel rockets and mortars on Israeli population centers drives Israeli public opinion towards the inflexible right wing parties within Israel. What shall we dine on first: the chicken or the egg.

[barrisj]

Please, may we please consign to history's dustbin the term "Arab moderates"? This is a conceit of the West (and Israel), where autocratic and undemocratic regimes such as those in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, et al have been anointed as lackeys and flunkies for their paymasters in London and Washington, and are expected in return to censure "radical Islamist" groups held to be "terrorists" and "rejectionists" by the West (and Israel). And, for God's sake, let's retire Mahmoud Abbas quick-smart as the "moderate" choice for leader/spokesman for all things Palestinian. He is either a quisling or a Petain figure, at the head of a corrupt and discredited Fatah/PA organisation, and who is no more than a tool of the Israelis and a useful idiot who presided over a civil war engineered by Israel and America.