It should be added, however, that Western
anti-Arab racism is so extreme that it often isn't even concealed, because
it isn't noticed; it's like the air we breathe. For example, a western
"secular hero" like Irving Howe is highly praised for urging that Israel
send settlers to the "underpopulated Galilee" -- underpopulated because it
has too many Arab citizens and too few Jews. That shows what a passionate
advocate of a just peace he is. Again, try an experiment: suppose someone
were to call for more settlement of white Christians in "underpopulated
New York City," which has too many Jews and Blacks. And there are much
more extreme cases; I've sampled some of them in "Necessary Illusions."
None have any impact, because of the extreme racism of the intellectual
culture, Arabs being probably the last "legitimate" targets.
Returning to Egypt, anti-Semitism is found
all over, along with warm welcome for Jews. E.g., I'm regularly asked to
write for "Al-Ahram" (the main newspaper, theoretically government but
rather independent), and sometimes do (same in Israel, incidentally). And
that's no exception. It certainly makes sense to inquire into Egyptian
anti-Semitism, and other aspects of Egyptian culture, for example, the
considerable contempt for Arabs (Egyptians commonly regard themselves as
non-Arab, representatives of a higher and older civilization than the one
introduced by desert warriors 1300 years ago); that shows up in many ways,
right now. With regard to Egypt-Israel, the current attitudes no doubt
draw in part from recent history, as Egptians perceive it. Something like
this.
As the Middle East (Egypt included)
struggled to free itself from debilitating and murderous Western control,
a new Western enclave was established in its heart, the Levant, separating
the North African from the West Asian Arab-speaking areas. This was
achieved by virtue of the intervention of the Western imperial powers from
whom the people of the region were seeking to free themselves. In the
course of the conquest by European settlers, the indigenous population was
displaced and marginalized. The fact that the European settlers had
suffered horrendous brutality in Europe was invoked to demand that
Palestinians compensate by giving up their land to them; there was no
proposal for a Jewish state in Bavaria or New York (where there was a
considerable Jewish population, even a majority in parts): it was
Palestinians who were to pay for the crimes of the Europeans against Jews,
an arrangement which seemed less than just to many people in the region.
The new Jewish state reduced its own Arab citizens to second-rate status,
with severe discriminatory laws and practices that would be considered an
utter outrage in any Western democracy; imagine the reaction here if 92%
of the land in the US were effectively under the control of an
organization dedicated to work for the benefit of people of "white
Christian race, religion, or origin," hence excluding Jews, Blacks, etc.,
from the land. The newly-established state was also violent and aggressive
beyond its borders. It immediately expanded illegally into the
demilitarized zones, forcefully expelling thousands of Bedouins, and
carried out murderous terrorist attacks against villages implicated in no
anti-Israel actions. It proceeded to invade Egypt in collusion with the
traditional imperial masters (England, France), doing so again with US
support a decade later. It refused Egypt's offers for a full peace
settlement in 1971, agreeing in part only after the 1973 war deflated its
triumphalism. But that later (Camp David) agreement, brokered by the US,
was designed to remove Egypt from the conflict, leaving Israel free to
integrate the occupied territories and attack Lebanon, as it proceeded at
once to do with huge US aid. It invaded Lebanon again shortly after,
killing 20,000 people while devastating large parts of the country. Etc.,
etc., on to the present. That's only a small sample of course, and it
leaves out more complex interactions along the way: I'm outlining the
basis for perceptions, not writing a history.
Anti-Semitism and other forms of racism are
always to be exposed and deplored. And understood.
As for your questions, it's impossible to
assign a "measure" to the degree to which "anti-semitism in the Arab world
[is] a function of Israel's policies," just as it's impossible to assign a
measure to the various sources of the rampant anti-Arab racism here and in
Israel. We can discuss the factors and seek ways to alleviate them.
Does the support of the leading Arab
countries for a peaceful settlement (not for 2 decades, but since 1971)
cloak "nefarious intentions like the far-right opines i.e. eventual
destruction of Israel?" The question is not really answerable in that
form. I don't doubt that many Mexicans hope for the eventual destruction
of the US -- which, after all, sits on more than 1/3 of Mexico, which it
stole by violence. Same with France and Germany. One would be hard put to
find an area of the world where there is no irredentism or jingoist
demands and hostilities. Some kind of international order has slowly been
constructed by efforts to accommodate these, eliminating the worst
festering sores. The US/Israel (near unilateral) rejection of diplomatic
settlement since 1971, and their program for establishing a
Bantustan-style settlement in Israel-Palestine since Madrid/Oslo, is
guaranteed to keep these sores festering, or worse. Recall that, contrary
to current self-serving propaganda, these programs are not due to the bad
Netanyahu: they are programs of the US and the Labor/Meretz coalition, now
being implemented and in some ways extended by Netanyahu/Likud.
"Even if the Arab leaders did genuinely
support peace, doesn't the popular anti-semitism and growing
fundamentalism undermine the ability of the Arab leaders who want peace?"
I don't think that's the way to pose the
question, any more than it would be proper to ask whether the extreme
anti-Arab racism in Israel and the growing fundamentalism there
"undermines the ability of Jewish leaders who want peace" (if one can find
any, where "peace" means something other than a Bantustan-style peace).
The way these questions are posed mistakes the dynamics. Moves towards
genuine peace would undercut -- to some unknown degree -- the pressures
that lead to anti-Semitism and anti-Arab racism, and the growing
fundamentalism that is (on the Arab side) in large part a reaction to the
complete failure of secular movements to achieve anything, failures for
which we bear considerable responsibility.
How can I "blame Israelis for not wanting
to perhaps lower their guard (i.e. stabilize or lessen military
expenditures, enter into economic and technological relations that could
help Arab countries)"? I don't quite understand the question. Israeli
leaders are eager to enter into economic and technological relations that
could (incidentally) help Arab countries. That's Peres's "New Middle
East," the point of the Qatar summit last December, etc. True, Israel
doesn't care that much about them, because they are mostly poor and
underdeveloped; it's eyes are on trade and interactions with the richer
East Asia area. And Israel thinks nothing of providing sensitive military
technology to China (over the vociferous objections of the US) which is
very likely being used for Iranian missile development. But if you mean
that one can understand why Israelis should be concerned about their
security, you're pushing an open door. I've been arguing for many years
that their policies have been greatly increasing their security risks, and
may well lead to their ultimate destruction. To take one simple
illustration, not long after Israel rejected Egypt's offer for a full
peace treaty in 1971, the first Katyusha rockets began to land, a fact
noted in the (Hebrew) documentary literature. Or to take an earlier case,
Israel's terror attacks in Gaza in 1955, designed to kill Egyptian
authorities who were seeking to cut back Fedayin attacks, surely increased
the likelihood of such attacks (again, documented in the Hebrew archival
literature). That goes on right to the present, with regard to
Palestinians and Lebanese.
On internal Arab government documents, no
one is privy to them; these are basically totalitarian countries that do
not release documents. As for the Arab languages and cultures (the plural
is necessary), one can learn about them the way one could learn about
others. The Hebrew government documents, Hebrew press, etc., are available
in principle, but they are scarcely used, just as US records are scarcely
used, because they tell an ideologically inappropriate story. Simply ask
yourself how often (and where) you have seen an account of the extreme
US/Israeli rejectionism that barred any diplomatic settlement of the
Arab-Israel conflict from 1971 (I've personally been writing about this
for over 20 years, but it has yet to reach any source that could be read),
or of the quite explicit Bantustan-style character of the Oslo project, or
of the most important record of internal Israeli government deliberations
in the crucial 1967-77 period (Yossi Beilin's Hebrew dissertation/book,
which again, I've written about since it appeared), etc. Or comparable
information about the US.
The point is that official censorship,
while intolerable, is often not needed to accomplish similar effects; a
well-designed doctrinal system and an obedient intellectual class can
often suffice, as we should know well enough.
Noam Chomsky