Academic Year 2008-2009

Israel in the New Middle East?
Tuesday, April 7, 2009, 5:30PM
The Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies & The Charles Francis Adams Lecture Series
Speaker: Joel Midgal

Summary

Joel S. Midgal, the Robert F. Philip Professor of International Studies at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies of the University of Washington, gave a lecture on Israel’s place in the Middle East and its contemporary relationship with the United States. Midgal believes that Israel had a strategic relationship with the U.S. during the twentieth century, which weakened as strategic concerns changed. His remarks attempted to answer if, at this juncture, Israel and the U.S. are ready to forge a new partnership in the Middle East.

Midgal analyzed Israel’s geo-strategic position by explaining how three significant wars–only one in which it was a combatant–affected the country. In 1970, King Hussein of Jordan attempted to use the Jordanian Army to quell an uprising of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which had relocated to the country following the Six-Day War. While Soviet-proxy Syria aided the PLO, King Hussein pled to the United States for assistance. Henry Kissinger called on then-Israeli ambassador Yitzhak Rabin for help. In response, Israel moved its tanks and infantry troops to the border near Jordan and Syria, and no bombs were dropped. As a result, the U.S. began to recognize Israel as a strategic asset. This special bond with America “became a kind of working assumption of relations between the two countries by political, diplomatic, and religious leaders thereafter.”

Next, Midgal discussed the 1991 Gulf War, a time when the U.S. has not yet determined what position it wanted to occupy in the post-Cold War world. However, American leaders were clearly alarmed by Iraq’s actions and quickly assembled a coalition of 34 countries, from which Israel was purposefully excluded. Saddam Hussein made clear indications he would attack Israel, but the U.S. informed Israel that, if attacked, it could not retaliate. Instead, the U.S. military provided Israel with some arguably ineffectual Patriot missiles. As a result, Israel felt its importance to the U.S. decline sharply. Midgal supposes that Israelis were “worried immensely” by this uncertainty of position with regards to the U.S. As a result, Israeli foreign policy “went in several directions at once,” looking for a strategic position that would alleviate its vulnerability. The 1990s were spent “lurching towards peace,” and Israel became ready to seriously negotiate, leading to the Oslo Accords.

After gaining its strategic position during the 1970 Jordanian-PLO conflict and losing it during the 1991 Gulf War, Midgal surmises that in 2009 there might now be an opening for Israel and the U.S. to establish an alternative relationship. However, the Gaza War brings to light all of the opportunities and pitfalls facing Israel if it once again becomes a new strategic partner. During the first part of this most recent war, Israel experienced very muted criticism from Arab countries, which privately felt Hamas had provoked the war. Some were thankful to Israel for disrupting what they saw as an expanding “Shiite crescent.” However, the second part of the war created a humanitarian catastrophe that exposed people across the world to horrible pictures of tremendous personal destruction. For this reason, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas soundly distanced themselves from and criticized Israel. To Midgal, the actions of these countries conveyed to Israel the message that it must solve the Palestinian problem if it wishes to become a regional partner.

Israel can reestablish itself as a regional strategic asset to the U.S. if it can succeed in interpreting how the regional system has changed from the twentieth to twenty-first centuries. No longer are Egypt, Iraq, and Syria the most important regional players. While Saudi Arabia became important financially during the last century, it has always displayed a tremendous reticence to engage in the power politics of the region. Today, the big powers are non-Arab: Turkey and Iran. Egypt remains significant but greatly diminished from its previous role: as Midgal says, “Arab nationalism is not dead, but it’s on life support. It’s as close to dead as you can get.”

Israel has become the third major power in the Middle East. In this new balance of power, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, and Egypt are counterweights to Iran and Turkey. As a result, Israel will become absolutely essential for the U.S. as a strategic asset. It will experience a great deal of pitfalls in the process, and integrating itself into the regional system will require strong Israeli leadership. Midgal is hopeful about these changes, but cautious about the influence of non-state actors such as Hezbollah, which could potentially destabilize any balance of power in the region.

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