Edward Halper
Professor of Philosophy
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602

In response to an Anti-Zionist Professor's letter

You have an Islamism list and you've done a lot of reading about this topic, but I think you've missed the point here: there are people who want to kill us, not for being Jewish, Christian. Not for America's support of Israel or the Shaw, but just for being American. They feel humiliated by America and threatened by Western values. It is just the things we are most proud of that they are most disturbed by-our freedoms, our political autonomy, and, yes, our technology. They have not asked to negotiate; they do not want us to do or not do some particular thing.

The issue is not Israel. The problem will not go away or be diminished by Israel's demise. On the contrary, terrorists now working to murder Israelis will turn their attention to Americans. You should have learned from Chamberlain's mistake. Hitler could not be appeased with Czechoslovakia, nor will bin Laden and company be appeased with Israel.

The Arabs always painted Israel as an outpost of Western imperialism--suggesting that they hated Israel because of their hatred of the West, rather than the other way around. Bin Laden was more concerned with American troops on Saudi soil fighting Iraq for Kuwait's independence. And why was that? Infidels on sacred Arab soil, or rather the humiliation that Arabs should have to depend on the west?

Ask the question, what is so upsetting about Israeli "settlements"? Suppose some Japanese were to come to your town, buy a tract of empty land, and put up a factory or an apartment complex or suppose they developed it into farm. Most American communities would welcome them, even give them a tax break. Would you feel threatened or humiliated? I have not supported Israeli developments on the West Bank, but my view was changed during a bus tour of Jerusalem some years ago. We were on the outskirts of the city and could just see what was the PA autonomous region of Bethlehem in front of us. On one side of the road was heavily developed West Jerusalem; the other side was just barren hills. Then someone pointed to one of the barren hilltops and announced that it was the site of a planned settlement then in the news. The media had been speaking of an Israeli incursion into a Palestinian "neighborhood." You'd have to go pretty far to find any neighbors! Now keep in mind that the existence of Israeli owned housing, farms, or factories has nothing to do with political autonomy. The PA could in principle take political control of the entire west bank and Gaza (though is there anyone who would expect even minimal attempts by the Palestinian Authority to preserve the lives, much less the rights of minorities such as Jews in their midst?). The sensible thing for the PA would be to allow Jews to live (as a political minority) on land that (after all) they have purchased and developed. So what is the fuss about the settlements?

The answer, I think, lies in the word that is to be heard most often from all Islamists--"humiliation." It is perceived to be humiliating to allow settlements, that America sent troops to fight Saddam Husein, and that American has the power to influence events in the Middle East. You and I may well share some criticism of American foreign policy with them. It is fashionable now to talk about American arrogance. But I suggest that you try to think about this more deeply. I suggest that what is most disturbing and humiliating to Arabs about Israeli "settlements" is that they take barren desert and develop it. The development is possible because of technology. It is this sense in which the settlements and Israel itself are outposts of western imperialism: they use western technology to develop land that would not otherwise support development. It is this that Palestinians and all Arabs find humiliating. You might well object that the technological development has benefited the Arabs--it has provided them with jobs in Israel and elsewhere and in several oil rich areas with enormous wealth. But, I suggest that these benefits of technology exacerbate the problem by making the Arabs more dependent on the west. The more they benefit, the more humiliating it is because the more they realize their dependence on the west.

There was a segment on NPR last August in which a Palestinian boy from Ramallah described the humiliation of having to wait at an Israeli checkpoint. His father had suffered a heart attack and the Israelis insisted on searching the ambulance before they would let it through to an Israeli hospital. He said the humiliation was so great that he sympathized with the suicide bombers. Just think about this: here is a Palestinian dependent on Israeli medicine who thinks about destroying Israel because Israelis delay his access to Israeli medicine. He is and remains dependent on Israel; he thinks of destroying Israel *because* of his dependence.

If the source of humiliation is western technology, then bin Laden's approach has a certain irony: to use technology against technology. But it is clear that he cannot be successful--because this would deprive him of what he needs and indeed wants.

Although I'm not generally a big fan of Leo Strauss, you might have learned this much from his students at the University of Chicago: thumos, the source or pride and humiliation, plays a major role in political movements. Yes, people really do put their pride against their self-interest to the extent of blowing themselves up to destroy others.

I'm writing this from Germany where I've been for the last several months. I've yet to meet anyone here born after WWII who is not deeply embarrassed by his country's history. A movement born from the humiliation of defeat in the First World War, a movement that aimed to restore Germany's pride led to still deeper humiliation. (At the end of the war, when the trains could not always run, the Germans decided to use them to ship Jews to death camps rather than re-supplying their troops at the front.) German society had to be completely destroyed before it was able to deal with modernity. Sooner or later Arabs will realize that nothing is more humiliating that murder or condoning it. I hope very much that they will not need what Germany needed to come to this realization. In this respect I agree with you: the problem is ideological. Islam needs to be reconciling itself with modernity and, in particular, with technology. The possibility for gratifying the senses that technology offers is deeply threatening; the possibility for the exercise of power is deeply humiliating to Islam. Yet, so far as I know there is no intrinsic reason Islamic thought will not be able to accept technology. Unfortunately, though, we cannot do this intellectual job for them.

Edward Halper