I. Understanding Power
Middle Eastern international political culture is often dominated by one question: which state is more powerful? This question is often most visible when looking at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Since the start of the conflict, each side’s actions can be looked at through a model of realism. However, this realism is grounded within the cultures of each side, which dictates that the pride of each side is dependent on the amount of power shown. The more power a side shows, the more pride each side can have. Thus, it is because of this grounding that the dream of peace in the Middle East can only be solved through understanding and working within the Israeli and Palestinian cultures.
The Middle East largely responds to hard power—the ability to show physical strength—which explains why so many Middle Eastern states spend such a large percentage of their GDPs on the military. In the CIA World Factbook on military expenditure, seven of the top ten greatest spenders are Middle Eastern countries. Israel ranks as the fifth highest spender, spending 5.64% of its GDP on the military in 2016 (1). And while there is no data available on Palestine through The World Factbook, it is still likely that the Palestinians value hard power since they often use military strength against Israel (for example, rocket attacks).
II. The American Disconnect on the Home Front
With these statistics and understandings, it becomes clear that peace in the Middle East could only ever be achieved through acknowledging and adhering to the Middle Eastern cultural factor of power. However, Americans largely do not understand how intrinsic the cultural ideal of power is to the political reality of the Middle East. They try to apply their own political cultures without realizing that the world does not operate in the same way as America.
This was particularly prevalent during the Obama era in which the American political culture was grounded in constructivism. Politics were based on trying to accommodate everyone by forcing an equal playing field. The political regime wanted people to understand the invisible factors that caused inequality, but many Americans were not ready to accept this reasoning. American political culture became so focused on accommodating everyone, that it did not realize it was trying to force sections of the American populace into feeling shamed. This led to a lot of anger and resistance amongst groups, such as middle-aged, cisgender, white men, who felt like their identities were being attacked. Many political battles were suddenly being hinged on the unfair advantages that cisgendered, white men received. People were constantly being told to “Check their privilege,” and this did not sit well with many Americans. American culture is based on an ideology of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps, and ideology of gritting one’s teeth and just working as hard as possible to move forward in life. However, ideas of constructivism were supposed to flip this ideology on its head, and when they were expressed in politics, they manifested as affirmative action. Because of this, many Americans felt like the opportunities they had worked so hard for were being disregarded as simple privilege; they felt as though they were robbed of their rights, which led to a significant shift in the American political landscape.
III. The American Disconnect Beyond the Borders
The Obama regime did not see the discord on the home front because it was too enamored with the idea of accommodating everyone. Thus, when the Obama regime tried to export its constructivist understanding of the world to its Israeli-Palestinian policy, it was highly improbable that things would have changed for the better. Israeli-Palestinian politics did not respond to constructivism; they did not care about looking towards the complexities that create inequality. Israeli-Palestinian politics respond to hard power—what creates power and what causes power to diminish. Each military strike by the Israel Defense Forces and each attack from the Palestinians—Hamas or Palestinian Authority—is an attempt to display the greater power of one side over the other.
For example, from the beginning of his term, Obama was optimistic that his brand of international policy could fully install peace. He assumed that people on either side were willing to compromise, saying “I think that players in the region understand the compromises that are going to need to be made” (2). However, in the history of the conflict, there is little evidence of compromise being made, demonstrating a lack of understanding of the importance of pride and power in the Israeli and Palestinian cultures. This reasoning seems contradictory to any sort of peacemaking effort, making the theory of the importance of power in Israeli and Palestinian cultures seem moot. However, if one carefully looks at the history of Israeli and Palestinian peace negotiations, then this cultural factor only becomes more important.
People point to Oslo as the ability for Israelis and Palestinians to make peaceful compromise, however this peace would have never held. During that time, Israeli and Palestinian politics were very much tied to their realist images. While Rabin may have seemed more dove-ish and thus more willing to break away from the realist nature of Israeli politics, it seems naïve to consider that Arafat was willing to shirk his realist nature. Arafat was practically the poster child for Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation—he was never seen without his military uniform and even showed up to the United Nations in 1974 with his gun. How could a man who symbolized strength and resistance against the Israelis to his people ever truly be accepting of peace? Oslo was never going to work, evidenced by the string of events following its signing in 1993. Following its signing, Israeli settlement building continued, PLO terrorist attacks continued, a right-wing demonstration was held in Zion Square in Jerusalem during which people depicted Rabin as a Nazi for selling out his people, and Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli right-wing extremist. Rabin’s assassination shows that many Israelis are extremely attached to hard power and that making peace with the enemy by legitimizing it was never going to be an acceptable solution.
The importance of power in culture can be seen most prominently in two other instances. The first instance is during the 1991 Madrid Conferences. The Madrid Conferences are largely regarded as unsuccessful in hindsight because the delegate’s speeches were all so bombastic and hard-lined. Each delegation to the party was playing a two-level game—they were trying to appeal to both their own citizens as well as present logical reasoning to the other delegations in attendance at the Conference. They did not want to appear as though they were willing to give up their power because such an appearance would have been disastrous for both their legitimacy de facto and de jure. If they appeared dove-ish and willing to make peace, then their de facto legitimacy would have suffered because their citizens would have felt that they were selling out to the enemy and forgetting the cause. If they appeared dove-ish and willing to make peace to the other delegations, then they would have lost their de jure legitimacy because other states would no longer recognize them as powers to respect.
The second instance of the cultural factor of power being evident is during the 2000 Camp David Summit when Ehud Barak pushed Yasser Arafat through a door. This occurred when Barak and Arafat were both trying to appear cordial, telling each other to go through the door first. Such an instance of back-and-forth was regarded as meaningless to many people in the West, but to Arafat, it signaled that Barak did not respect his power and pride. Being forced through the door was deeply insulting for Arafat, and because of that, the peace talks were doomed before they even truly began. Arafat felt like Barak did not treat him as an equal when he pushed him, and so, he was never going to allow peace negotiations to be completed with Barak. Such a move would have appeared weak and practically like a sell-out to the Palestinians.
Moving forward to the Obama era, just four years after Obama said that he thinks Israelis and Palestinians know they must make compromises, Israel launched Operation Pillar of Defense, which it described as a way to reduce the number of rocket attacks coming from Gaza (3). Hamas was using rocket attacks to show Israel how much hard power they could wield; it was meant to tell the Israelis that they should bow down to Hamas’ greater power. However, Israel was not going to bow down because that would have read as a sign of weakness, thus causing the Operation to be launched. Israel and Palestine do not often negotiate with each other to fix their problems; they instead engage in bloody conflict to show the power they have. If they did not respond to each other with conflict, then they would not be satisfying the intrinsic factor of power in their cultures that demands pride from power. In the Israeli-Palestinian context, pride and power do not come from negotiation and giving up what one thinks is rightfully theirs. Pride and power come from an actual show of strength.
IV. Moving Forward
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict will not be solved without an understanding of the importance of power and pride within those cultures. Therefore, the Obama regime was never going to create peace in the Middle East. However, even today with the Trump administration, peace in the Middle East will not be realized. While Trump understands the importance of power and pride more than Obama did, he has wounded Palestinian pride too much, namely by moving the embassy to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the third most important city to Muslims after Mecca and Medina. It is where they want to place the capital of any future Palestinian state. While the capital of Israel is Jerusalem, and this should not be denied, Trump did not pick the right time to make this move. The current conditions are not right: the Palestinians are too upset over seventy years of al-Nakba (the Arabic used to describe the 1948 Palestinian exodus from Israel), the Israelis are too angry over the continued attacks against their civilians, and people are too divided in their opinions of Trump.
Peace can happen, but only if the correct conditions and understandings of the cultures are met. If US policymakers expect to help the Israel-Palestine conflict, then they must understand the strong importance of power within Middle Eastern cultures. US policymakers cannot expect constructivism to work in the Middle East when those cultures’ prides are contingent on power struggle. Peace in the Middle East will only be realized when the Israelis and the Palestinians both feel like they are maintaining their pride and not sacrificing their power.
1 “The World Factbook,” Library, Central Intelligence Agency, last modified 2017, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2034rank.html
2 Chemi Shalev, “Israel’s New Gaza Honeymoon With Obama (And Why It May Not Last Very Long)” Haaretz, November 19, 2012, https://www.haaretz.com/.premium-israels-new-honeymoon-with-obama-1.5199097
3 “Operation Pillar of Defense, 2012,” Israel Defense Forces, accessed January 13, 2019, https://www.idf.il/en/minisites/wars-and-operations/operation-pillar-of-defense-2012/