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The 2012 Intra-Muslim Predicament

At the outset of 2012, irrespective of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian issue, the defining geopolitical and religious schism in the Middle East is boiling, exacerbating violent intra-Muslim fragmentation, religious, tribal, ideological and geographical.

The Syrian death toll is approaching 7,000, trending toward Papa Assad’s 1982 massacre of 20,000 Sunni rebels. The Turkish-Kurdish confrontation has shifted to a higher gear, exceeding 40,000 casualties since 1984. During the first week of January, a series of sectarian-driven bombings devastated Baghdad and Nasiriyah in Iraq, murdering more than 140 persons. More were killed in the Sunni stronghold of Mosul. Car bombs, suicide bombing and improvised explosive devices have become daily routine in Iraq, whose Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is a Shia Arab, President Jalal Talabani is a Sunni Kurd and Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi is a Sunni Arab. Iraq has become an explosive platform for its vindictive Shia Arab majority (60%), which was dominated and oppressed by the Sunni Arab minority (20%) since the seventeenth century. The historic conflict between Iraq’s Arabs and Iraq’s 15% Kurdish minority – which claims independence in northern Iraq, where it also confronts the Turkish military – further complicates matters.

The Sunni-Shia confrontation, which has traumatized the Mid-East since the seventh century, has re-emerged in Iraq in the aftermath of the US military evacuation, fueled by Iran’s policy of expansion. The US withdrawal from Iraq, its expected departure from Afghanistan and the perceived US abandonment of Mubarak – simultaneously with the Islamists’ victories in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia – have emboldened Iran, escalating the anxiety level of the highly vulnerable pro-US Muslim regimes in the Persian Gulf and throughout the Mid-East.

The seismic Arab Winter has triggered a political earthquake effect by violently destabilizing and weakening the three traditional ideological and military power houses of the Arab world –Cairo, Damascus and Baghdad. The fact that Mubarak, Qadaffi and Ben Ali – who were perceived to be invincible dictators – were trounced decisively, attests to the expected violent intra-Muslim volatility, civil unrest, terrorism and wars during the coming months and years. Civil war is raging in strategically-located Yemen, where Ahmed Saleh, the oldest son of the deposed Ali Abdullah Saleh, commander of the Republican Guard, is participating in local tribal and religious conflicts, fanned by Saudi military intervention. The House of Saud is heavily involved – as is Iran – in Bahrain’s sectarian strife, pitting the subordinated Shia plurality against the ruling Sunni minority of the Khalifa family. Although the island of Bahrain is small, the outcome of its civil unrest could determine the fate of Kuwait and other Gulf States, including Saudi Arabia. The tectonic intra-Muslim turbulence is further agitated by the artificial boundaries of all Arab countries, which were drawn by the Ottoman, French and British empires.

The Turkish journalist, Burak Bekdil, put the current intra-Muslim turmoil in historic perspective in an August, 22, 2011 article in the Turkish daily, Hurriyet: “Let’s ignore the genocide [in the Sudans]. Let’s ignore, also, the West Pakistani massacres in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) totaling 1.25 million in 1971. Or, 200,000 deaths in Algeria in war between Islamists and the government in 1991-2006…. One million deaths in the all-Muslim Iran-Iraq war; 300,000 Muslim [Shia and Kurdish] minorities killed by Saddam Hussein; 80,000 Iranians killed during the Islamic revolution; 25,000 deaths in 1970-71, the days of [Jordan’s] Black September; and 20,000 Islamists killed in 1982 by the elder al-Assad in Hama. The World Health Organization’s estimate of Osama bin Laden’s carnage in Iraq was 150,000 a few years earlier…. In 2007, Gunnar Heinsohn from the University of Bremen and Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, found out that some 11 million Muslims have been violently killed since 1948, of which 35,000, (0.3 percent) died during the Arab wars against Israel, or one out of every 315 fatalities…”

Intra-Muslim violence is gleaned through entrenched hate-education and Islam’s attitude toward apostates. According to Prof. Bernard Lewis, the world’s leading authority on Islam, “Apostasy was a crime as well as a sin, and the apostate was damned both in this world and the next. His crime was treason – desertion and betrayal of the community…. He was a dead limb to be excised.” A December 2, 2010 Pew global poll found that “the majority of Muslims would favor changing current laws in their countries to allow stoning as punishment for adultery, hand amputation for theft, and death for those who convert from Islam as their religion. For instance, 76% of Pakistanis agree – and 13% oppose – that apostates are to be killed. In a country with a population of 172,800,000 (96% of whom are Muslim) that would be 126,074,880 individuals in a single country. They are not simply a fringe group.

The delusions of the Arab Spring, the “Religion of Peace,” the Arab Coalition, and Arab peaceful coexistence are rapidly dissipating. 2012 could deteriorate into one of the most unstable years ever in intra-Muslim confrontations, completely independent of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian issue.




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Open letter to Prime Minister Bennett ahead of visit to USA

(Hebrew edition in “Israel Hayom,” Israel’s largest circulation daily)

During your first official visit to Washington, DC, you’ll have to choose between two options:

*Blurring your deeply-rooted, assertive Israeli positions on the future of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), which would be welcome by the Biden Administration, yielding to short-term political convenience and popularity inside the beltway;

or

*Tenaciously advocating your deeply-rooted, principle-driven positions, which would underscore a profound disagreement with the Biden Administration and the “elite” US media, while granting you and Israel long-term strategic respect, as demonstrated by some of your predecessors.

For example, the late Prime Minister Shamir honed the second option, bluntly introduced his assertive Israeli positions on Judea and Samaria, rebuffed heavy US pressure – including a mudslinging campaign by President Bush and Secretary of State Baker – suffered a popularity setback, but produced unprecedented expansion of US-Israel strategic cooperation. When it comes to facing the intensified threats of rogue regimes and Islamic terrorism, the US prefers principle-driven, reliable, patriotic, pressure-defying partners, irrespective of disagreements on the Palestinian issue.

Assuming that you shall not budge on the historical and national security centrality of Judea and Samaria, it behooves you to highlight the following matters during your meetings with President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, National Security Advisor Sullivan, Secretary of Defense Austin and Congressional leaders (especially the members of the Appropriations Committees):

  1. The 1,400-year-old track record of the stormy, unpredictable, violent and anti-“infidel” Middle East, which has yet to experience intra-Arab peaceful-coexistence, along with the 100-year-old Palestinian track record (including the systematic collaboration with anti-US entities, hate-education and anti-Arab and anti-Jewish terrorism) demonstrates that the proposed Palestinian state would be a Mini-Afghanistan or a Mega-Gaza on the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria.

It would dominate 80% of Israel’s population and infrastructures in the 9-15-mile sliver between Judea and Samaria and the Mediterranean, which is shorter than the distance between RFK Stadium and the Kennedy Center.

Thus, a Palestinian state would pose a clear and present existential threat to Israel; and therefore, Israel’s control of the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria is a prerequisite for its survival.

  1. The proposed Palestinian state would undermine US interests, as concluded from the Palestinian intra-Arab track record, which has transformed the Palestinians into a role-model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism and ingratitude. Arabs are aware that a Palestinian state would add fuel to the Middle East fire, teaming up with their enemies (e.g., Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey’s Erdogan) and providing a strategic foothold to Russia and China. Consequently, Arabs shower Palestinians with favorable talk, but with cold and negative walk.

Hence, during the October, 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty ceremony, Jordan’s military leaders asserted to their Israeli colleagues that a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would doom the pro-US Hashemite regime east of the River, and lead, subsequently, to the toppling of all pro-US Arab Peninsula regimes.

  1. There is no foundation for the contention that Israel’s retreat from the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria – which are the cradle of Jewish history, religion and culture – is required in order to sustain Israel’s Jewish majority. In reality, there is unprecedented Jewish demographic momentum, while Arab demography – throughout the Middle East – has Westernized dramatically. The Jewish majority in the combined area of Judea, Samaria and pre-1967 Israel benefits from a robust tailwind of fertility and migration.
  2. Israel’s control of the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria and the Golan Heights, bolsters its posture of deterrence, which has daunted rogue regimes, reduced regional instability, enhanced the national security of all pro-US Arab regimes, and has advanced Israel’s role as a unique force-multiplier for the US. An Israeli retreat from Judea and Samaria would transform Israel from a strategic asset – to a strategic liability – for the US.
  3. As the US reduces its military presence in the Middle East – which is a global epicenter of oil production, global trade (Asia-Africa), international Islamic terrorism and proliferation of non-conventional military technologies – Israel’s posture of deterrence becomes increasingly critical for the pro-US Arab countries (e.g., Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan), who consider Israel to be the most reliable “life insurance agent” in the region.

Contrary to NATO, South Korea and Japan, Israel’s defense does not require the presence of US troops on its soil.

  1. Sustaining Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge is a mutual interest for the US and Israel, which serves as the most cost-effective battle-tested laboratory for the US defense industries and armed forces. Thus, Israel’s use of hundreds of US military systems has yielded thousands of lessons (operation, maintenance and repairs), which have been integrated, by the US manufacturers, into the next generation of the military systems, saving the US many years of research and development, increasing US exports and expanding the US employment base – a mega billion dollar bonanza for the US. At the same time, the US armed forces have benefitted from Israel’s military intelligence and battle experience, as well as joint training maneuvers with Israel’s defense forces, which has improved the US formulation of battle tactics.

Prime Minister Bennett, your visit to Washington, is an opportunity to demonstrate your adherence to your deeply-rooted strong Israeli positions, rejecting the ill-advised appeals and temptations to sacrifice Israel’s national security on the altar of convenience and popularity.

Yours truly,

Yoram Ettinger, expert on US-Israel relations and Middle East affairs

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