Via SharkBlog: Ha'aretz - Article - Enemies, a post-national story


Joffe is the editor of the German weekly Die Zeit. He gave a lecture recently at Ben Gurion University in Israel. Ha'Aretz has a summary that's very interesting and worth reading in full.


Here are a few choice bits:

[...]According to Joffe, Israel and the U.S. share basic traits that prompt many Americans to identify with Israel and also generate common hostility against them by circle in Europe and the Arab world. "They are the two most successful states in their surroundings - the U.S. in global surroundings, and Israel in the Middle East. Israel is in fact a constant reminder to the Arab world of its failure in economic, social, political and gender-related development. So much so that it is difficult to decide whether the Jews are hated because of their close alliance with the U.S., or whether the U.S. is hated because of its alliance with the Jews."


The often hostile attitude of Europe toward the U.S. and Israel has another deep cause as well, Joffe says: "Some of the Western European countries are leading the post-national age. Even their soldiers, who are stationed in various parts of the world, are there within the framework of international or multinational forces. After all we have gone through in the past several centuries, these states are also interested in not using their force for the benefit of national interests. All this gives them a feeling of moral superiority over societies that still remain in the national age. Both the U.S. and Israel are in that category. They have a strong national consciousness and a strong ideological identity. In the post-national age of blurring, they are countries that know who they are and what they want to be. They are also societies that define themselves by means of charter documents and not through nationalism: the Jews through the Torah and the Americans through the Constitution."[...]


[...]Concerning Europe's attitude toward the concept of the "clash of civilizations" (the title of Samuel Huntington's well-known book) as the basis of the confrontation with Islamic fundamentalism, Joffe remarks, "The Europeans do not believe in that because they do not want to believe in it. Because the implication of such an idea is very grave for states that have such large Muslim communities, such as Britain, France and Germany. They believe there should be a way to deal with the threat without a sharp confrontation."


In his lecture, Joffe said the Europeans do not really understand what happened on September 11. What happened, he said, is a complete transformation of American policy. According to Joffe, Bush said to himself that for the past 50 years the West lived more or less reasonably with the pathology of the Middle East. As long as the pathology did not spread to the outside and did not endanger Israel's existence, the West could live with it and even forge alliances in the region to counterbalance the Soviet Union. However, on September 11, it became clear that this pathology is definitely spreading outward, and therefore the time had come to attack it head-on.[...]


[...]But there is also another factor, he notes: "The Europeans know the U.S. guarantees Israel's security, so it is easy for them to play the `Arab game.' If it were not for that American guarantee, I think they would be far more cautious."[...]