Minorities in the Middle East - Moving Beyond the Nation-State

A New Policy Model for the Middle-East

For most people, the middle east is made up only of Arabs and the Jews that live in Israel.

But with the rich history of the region, there are many peoples, if not nations that have survived the various invasions from the Hittites to the Egyptians, the Sea Peoples, and the Persians to Alexander the Great to the Romans, Arabs, Crusades, Ottomans and finally the French and British. As a tribal, mostly borderless region, the middle east is rich not only in oil and war but in culture as well. As we have written, the fall of Assad has brought the demise of the Arab nation-state, as the Baathist prisons that were Syria and Iraq show the real horrors of the colonialist borders and ideas of the European nation-state. The Baathists were not unique in their cruelty, but they were able to import the two versions of socialism that ruled Europe in parts of the 20^th century – the International and the National brands.

While some on the west welcomed the “stability” that Saddam and the Assads brought – except when they fought wars and invaded neighbors – they tended to ignore the internal workings of regimes whose oppression and cruelty rivaled their National and International socialist ideological brothers in Europe and thereby underestimate the stability and overestimate their military prowess.

As the nation-state crumbles in the Arab middle east in Mesopotamia as well as Northern Africa we can look at the minorities that make up a large part of the middle east and see if that can clue us in on what the middle east can look like.

Some of this is based on a short, recent video in Hebrew, by the Arab and Islam scholar Moredecai Kedar, formerly from IDF Intelligence and then Bar Ilan University. Kedar feels that there is a possibility of an alliance of minorities in the middle east with peoples who don’t necessarily hate each other. We can examine the groups – religious and ethnic or sometimes religio-ethnic and see if this is possible, let alone probable. But besides an alliance of minorities, the more likely event is their move to break up the old borders.

The Kurds, more than any other in the middle east deserve, if not a state, then at least control over their lives. The Kurds have two strikes against them. The first is that their homeland covers four different countries – Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey – and each country hates and fears them. The second strike is that they are not fighting Israel. Surely, if Israel was their main enemy they would be sitting in the UN now – maybe even in the Security Council. The Kurds are now up against a NATO country, Turkey and have been supported by another NATO country, the US. Israel has been on their side, but geography, more than anything else, prevents a closer relationship. Had they been able to attain autonomy or independence then Israel would probably have relations with them similar to those it has with Azerbaijan.

The Kurds always see opportunities in the fall of Baathists – in Iraq and now in Syria, but they usually get subsumed under the “territorial integrity” meme that Western diplomats and Arab and other Moslem dictators love so much.

Syria, Lebanon and Israel cover a land that the Ottomans just called Greater Syria, In Syria the Sunnis are a majority while in Lebanon the Christians were originally a majority (which is why the French created the country). The Druze are an interesting group in that their religion consists of secret teachings that cannot be given over to the adherents – but only to the clergy. They also are, by religious value, loyal to the country in which they live. They serve valiantly in the IDF as well as in the armies of their other countries of residence, Lebanon and Syria. There are about 800,000 Druze in Syria, over 300,000 in Lebanon and around 150,000 in Israel. There are smaller populations in Jordan and Egypt.

When the French were drawing their preferred borders the Druze in Jebel Druze (which now borders Syria and Jordan) rebelled so as not to be part of the new country called Syria. This past week, the Druze leaders there approached Israel with a desire to be annexed by the Jewish State. The Druze, maybe due to their small population have never clamored for independence but they desire to live by their own traditions and will fight bitterly to protect that right.

Lebanon has a constitution that guarantees its four main groups – Christians, Sunnis, Shiites and Druze – specific offices in the government. Lebanon had a civil war in the late 1950’s where, ironically, the Shah of Iran gave Israel arms to give to the Shiite villages in southern Lebanon – those same villages from which Hezbollah planned on slaughtering the Israelis in the upper Galilee. And of course they are the same villages Israel has reduced to rubble. The civil war broke out again in the 1970’s at the instigation of Yassir Arafat and has, for the most part continued since then.

Back to Syria, in an ironic turn of events the Alawis, who occupy the Mediterranean coast north of Lebanon have reportedly turned to Israel to help them avoid slaughter by those they slaughtered. There are even reports – not proven but that make sense – that the Alawite, Bashir Assad gave Israel the location of his army’s major arms caches in exchange for not having his helicopter be shot down. If so, this is a deal worthy of the Art of the Deal. If not, it is still a great story. In any event, an Alawite state is not out of the realm of imagination. But with Bashar’s brother Maher still apparently there, Iran might still have a foothold in the country.

Israel is majority Jewish with 20% of the population Sunni Arabs. There are Druze as we mentioned above a key, loyal, but small minority and a there is a Christian and Bedouin population that has no real interest in independence. The Palestinians are of course the wild card in just about everything to do with Israel as they strive, violently, to revive the UN’s colonialist decision to grant them a state.

Iran is the most interesting part of this minority puzzle because they have borders with two countries (Pakistan and Afghanistan) that are as fanatical about their Sunni beliefs as the Islamic Republic of Iran leaders are about their Shiite faith. The borderland between Iran and their two Sunni neighbors is called Baluchistan – and the Baluchis are not quite loyal Iranian citizens, and they border their Sunni fanatic neighbors, Pakistan and Afghanistan. There has been constant combat there for the past year and more.

In addition, Iran has other ethnic minorities that are not happy with the Islamic Republic – there are the Bahai’s who are persecuted miserably and larger groups are ethnic Arabs, Azeris, Turkmenis and of course the largest group – the above mentioned Kurds.

Moving to North Africa which has every country at war with itself the Berbers are an ethnic and linguistic minority that live in mountains and oases in Morocco, Algeria, Tunesia and Libya as well as in Mali and Niger. The Berbers, specifically King Masinissa of Numidia, were allies of the Romans –during the Third Punic War when Rome put an end to Carthage and its empire. They were the main indigenous group in North Africa until the Arab conquest and although many have adopted Islam and Arabic culture there is still a strong linguistic and cultural Berber element in these countries. Not to say they about to split apart only adding them to the list of minorities in the middle east.

So where do we stand? Before the United Nations messes up yet again maybe its time to look at the broad middle east and all of its varied ethnic and religious groups instead of the artificial countries in which they reside. The Palestinian issue is always on the front burner in the UN and the West – including the US State Department and the outgoing administration, but maybe looking around and trying to figure out how minorities attain control of their lives without falling to the irrelevant concept of the nation-state, is the way forward.

We have spoken many times about a Confederated Emirates of Palestine (also a Kedar idea) as a model steeped in Arabic and Islamic culture – as opposed to what will surely be the Terrorist State of Palestine – but that might also be a model for Iraq and Syria. Jordan is also a shaky kingdom and the Islamic Republic of Iran holds little loyalty of its citizens.

Oddly, when the French and the British took over much of the middle east after WWI they decided that the best way forward was to create countries such as Jordan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and put minorities or at least non-natives in charge. Jordan and Iraq were given to the descendants of the Sheriff of Mecca who the British double crossed by giving Mecca and Medina and the entire Arabian region to the Ibn Saud’s instead of those that fought with them against the Turks. Iraq overthrew their King, Faisal II, in the 1950’s and King Abdullah (the first) was assassinated in Jordan in 1951 at Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem (while the monarchy continued under King Hussain).

In Syria, the Alawites were given center stage and in Iraq, the minority Sunnis.

First and foremost, the middle east will be better off if the UN packs up and goes home and with them the French and the British who love to claim they have historical ties to the region (while often doubting the Jew’s historical ties). Its time for colonialism to end – and the country to take center stage in the ending of the colonialist mistakes is that one country the global left likes to call “settler colonialists”. Israel can be a model for how a majority treats minorities in the middle east and although Israel is a Western nation-state with western style systems (something not applicable to most of the Arab middle east), it includes respect for minority religions and ethnicities in its laws and practices. It is far from perfect but when dealing with people there is no perfection. Taking Israeli tolerance as an example, Arab regions can form voluntary confederations or autonomous regions without the baggage of the Western nation-state.

Iran is one of those countries that, with a rich political culture of its own might be able to adapt the western nation-state to its own religious and ethnic groups. Of course, regime change will be necessary for that to happen.

This is no grand solution to the middle east’s many problems but maybe it can be food for thought for the incoming Trump administration that, while it drains the swamp in DC might base its foreign policy on draining the swamp in other areas of the world, too. It could start by downgrading, if not eliminating, the power of the UN and then move to strengthen allies and abandon the falsities that have formed the foundation of most of post-cold war foreign policy in the middle east and elsewhere.