The U.S. and its Western allies are at war in five countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. The U.S. Special Operations Command has covert operations in 134 countries. Half the world. Today we call it a right and an obligation to be the world’s policeman. Kipling called this the “White Man’s Burden” in a poem published in American papers during the U.S. invasion of the Philippines.
Before we became a nation, our founders were busy building British Empire. Colonialism is in our national genes. Whether unabashed Exceptionalist or Neoliberal Realist, the “White Man’s Burden” has always been to “bring order and stability” to “savages,” as John Quincy Adams described it in so many words.
Today’s version of the “Burden” teaches that the West is only trying to “stabilize” and bring “democracy” to troubled nations. Authoritarian and heavily militarized nations like Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are supposed to be a solution. Model “democracies” like the U.S. and Israel are supposed to show off our best values. A letter echoing this basic notion appeared in “Israel more likely to be part of the solution, not the problem.”
The author is right about one thing: “Israel represents the West in the Middle East.” When Israel attacked Egypt during the “Suez Crisis” it signaled its willingness to join the colonial club. Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is indeed “Western” in mirroring what the U.S. did to Native Americans, the Spanish and Portuguese did in Latin America, the French did in Africa, the British did in the Middle East and India, the Australians did to the Aboriginals, and Dutch and British settlers did in South Africa.
What we euphemistically call “interventions” others see as naked aggression. When others resist it can only be “evil,” not a normal human reaction. We dismiss the messages that al Qaeda and ISIL send us because they kill with knives (and not with drones), but the main reason is that we just don’t want to listen to anything anyone else has to say.
When the Christian Coalition speaks, it’s often not praying. Like their American and Israeli cousins, Muslim fundamentalists too wrap political views in the language of scripture. By dismissing political motivations, the writer ignored how Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians angers many when he wrote: “Osama bin Laden didn’t have Palestinians on his radar at all.”
Wrong.
Bin Laden’s “Letter to America” was published in the Guardian newspaper in November 2002. The 4000-word piece addresses two issues: why al Qaeda opposes the West and what it wants from it. The very first answer to the very first question addressed Palestine: “As for the first question: Why are we fighting and opposing you? The answer is very simple: (1) Because you attacked us and continue to attack us. a) You attacked us in Palestine…”
Bin Laden’s remaining points concerned Western adventures in the Middle East and the exploitation of the world’s resources to satisfy a Western consumer culture he regarded as immoral. The West’s coddling of Israel, its UN vetoes in support of Israel, nuclear hypocrisy, lavish military aid, and its neglect of Palestinians – all angered bin Laden and still rankle Muslims throughout the world – as Professor Brian Glyn Williams alluded to recently. But not only fighters in the Middle East sympathize. Asian, African, and Latin American countries also suffered Western colonialism and see the old South Africa reflected in today’s Israel.
The Sykes-Picot agreement carved up the Ottoman Empire among Britain, France, and Russia. Britain began subdividing its “mandate.” An old photo shows three architects of this division sitting on camels. One, T.E. Lawrence [“of Arabia”], arranged for the Wahhabist al Saud family to create an Arab kingdom. Another, Winston Churchill, had just cabled London to approve the deal. The third, Gertrude Bell, from England’s 6th richest family, drew up the map.
The West unleashed Wahhabis against the Ottomans. The West built Al Qaeda as a proxy to fight Russia in Afghanistan. “Western” Israel formed Hamas to challenge the PLO. The West decided to leave Shias to die in one Gulf War and disenfranchise Sunnis in another. The West indirectly armed ISIL.
It was the West whose “coalition of the willing” destroyed and destabilized Iraq, Syria and Libya through regime change masquerading as defense of civilians suffering state terror. The U.S. betrays its hypocrisy when it acknowledges such human suffering in Syria but none in Gaza.
The Middle East is a tough neighborhood. Israel may not be the only problem, but it is hardly a solution. 4.5 million Palestinians live – not under Israel’s Basic Laws – but under perpetual colonial-era martial law.
For Palestinians and much of the Middle East, the colonial era never really ended. Only when the West stops cultivating empire while calling it “help” will real solutions emerge.
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