Palestinian front is the only one in which Israel controls its fate, Mideast scholar tells INSS panel.
Israel’s regional standing is as precarious as at any time in its history, a leading Mideast scholar said at a panel discussion Thursday, but the country can cut its losses by waging a unilateral “disengagement” from the Palestinians.
Speaking at the Institute for National Security Studies, Asher Susser said that although Israel’s ability to influence regional events is severely limited, its relations with the Palestinians is one arena in which it still controls its own fate. Susser said a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement may never be signed, but a unilateral disengagement would help Israel avoid becoming a binational Jewish-Arab state.
Susser – a fellow and former director of Tel Aviv University’s Dayan Center for Middle East and African Studies – said the past year’s Arab upheavals represent the reemergence of sectarianism, tribalism and above all political Islam.
Susser disputed the view – one he described as the prevailing conventional wisdom in Israel – that the country should bide its time indefinitely in hope the region’s volatility eventually subsides. Instead, he called for a unilateral initiative to secure Israel as a Jewish, democratic state rather than risk letting it become a binational state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.
Susser said the term “Arab Spring” is inaccurate to describe the region’s recent upheavals. The phrase, he said, “reflects the unwillingness of many in the West to look at the Middle East and accept the ‘otherness’ of the other” – particularly regarding the role of religion in society.
Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, agreed that terms like “Arab Spring” and “Arab awakening” are misnomers.
“We’ve had a series of intifadas – uprisings, either violent or nonviolent, whose outcomes are uncertain,” he said. “Except for Algeria one could travel from Morocco to the Persian Gulf encountering only Islamist leaders. This is what I call the ‘new Middle East.’” Still, Satloff warned, prognoses of US irrelevance in the region may be premature.