Lounsbury: My Thoughts on Israel, Arabs and the Occup of S. Liban, c. 1980s

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November 04, 2003

My Thoughts on Israel, Arabs and the Occup of S. Liban, c. 1980s

My dear Publius asked me:
" Actually, I do have a bit of a special request: what do you know about the attitudes of the Lebanese Shi'a towards Israel during and after the '82 invasion of Lebanon? In particular, I'm curious as to why you feel the Shi'a turned against the Israelis so decisively after initially welcoming them as liberators from the PLO and its cronies (or so I've read). Was it just inevitable that the the honeymoon period would end, or was it a matter of unnecessarily heavy-handed Israeli policy (i.e., that unpleasant incident during the Imam Hussein celebrations in Nabatiyeh) backfiring on the invaders? Also, any comments on how this might apply to Iraq?"

Well, now you're delving into an area where I expect your reading is as good as mine (or so your comment indicates), so let me give a sort of qualitative overview type answer.

A couple things I think explain the dynamic.

First, however much the Shi'a hated the PLO's crony shadow government, their corruption and violence, once there was a Jewish occupation, it was inevitable that things would turn. Had the Israelis come in quick and gone, there would not have been the same dynamic - regardless of what the Israelis did. The issue of the Jewish state touches raw nerves in the region, even among the most moderate. Xian or Muslim, the Arabs generally feel like they got fucked over (which they did, although of course their sheer idiocy, tribalism, incompetence and general stupidity in the period did much of the fucking over, a self fucking over if you will - but then many Arabs are aware of this and feel shame, and in this region, shame must be externalized on the other.).

Second, as I believe you can see in the Occupied Territories, it strikes me that Israel is stuck with a number of unreconstructed neo-Colonialist habits. I think of this in terms of parallels between East and West Germany and de-Nazification. A loaded comparision, I know, by the way, but it's the best one I can think of. Actually an altnerate might be American attitudes towards race versus Latin American. But let me get back to the E. and W. Germ. analogy.

Generally speaking it's fairly widely agreed that the uprooting of Nazi ideology, above all racism, has been far more thorough in the West than it was in the East. In the West, in a democratic context, the Germans were forced and chose to confront the demons of the past - not to say anything or anyone is perfect by the way. In the East, under Sov. occupation, the New Soviet Man was ipso facto, by virtue of the socialist system, etc., "free" of such things - actually another parallel arises in my mind, between the emerging respect for minorities and confrontation with racism in the West, versus the denial, coverup and frankly in my view rampant racism in the Soviet Union.

The analogy I am drawing here then is with the Israeli experience, where esp. the Ashkenazim fleeing from Europe and genocide, obviously imported much of Europe's racialist-cultural superiority thinking with them. It certainly showed up early on in intra-Jewish tensions between Sephardim and Ashkenazim, but also in their writings about the Arabs, I believe the Israeli historian Beny Morris drew attention to parallels btw early cap. Z Zionist settlers oddly mixed feelings towards the Arabs, largely as prim. savages, and those from the Americas re the Indians. Might not have been Morris, btw, could have been another Isr. hist. I read.

Now, this is not to paint with two broad a brush, but generally my sense is that Israelis never confronted a certain 19th cent. quasi-racialist dehumanization of the Arabs, as they were in part quite rightly protected by their own very legit sense of suffering.

At the same time, it strikes me that the habits of Israeli security apparat. dealing with Arabs show this: e.g. as I comment on a few months back here, the use of snipers with live ammunition to break up demos (even if unruly) of Israeli Arab citizens is truly extraordinary and very much suggests a deep dehumanization of even their Arab citizens.

Now, this is not to fall into the trap of just condemning the Israelis - I focus on that here bec. it is rarely heard in reasonable terms in the West.

The Arabs suffer from very similar blindnesses: e.g. in re race and ethnic discrimination, very often Muslim Arabs use the pretext of Quranic injunctions against discrimination to declare themselves free of discrimination, although if you speak to any dark skin Muslim dealing with lighter skinned Arabs, they will (if there is a degree of trust) bitterly complain about prejudice.

Blindness.

So, returning to the issue of the occup. of Southern Lebanon, I suggest that the unconscious habits of the Israeli security apparat. made tensions inevitable.

Further to that, as we see in Iraq, an occupier has an uneviable position in this modern era of political consciousness, where it is easy for a violent minority to push the occupying forces into a set of habits in response to attacks, that progressively alienate the population.

Actually, in regards to the US forces and shall I say, not very well prepared soldiers in a strange cultural climate, I can see much of the above playing out.

November 04, 2003

My Thoughts on Israel, Arabs and the Occup of S. Liban, c. 1980s

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