Brilliant. True. I am a citizen of the United States and have never been educated to think about the long horizons that you invoke. This column was the introduction to a way of thought that I hadn’t ever considered. Thanks, Nachum.
Very good observations and one that should be studied by everyone who works in any policy role involving the middle east (state department, dept of war, etc.). Another dimension is that martyrdom (of the population not the leaders) is constantly promoted. The religious dimension is something the west cannot grapple with nor understand as they are many centuries removed from movements like the crusades where religious fervor was put to use by the monarchs and governments. Nachum's observation that hard power is needed to survive in this region seems obvious, but to the western world such a view is an anathema. In fact, it is the lack of such understanding that may be the undoing of western countries as they continue to assume that those coming from such cultures will moderate when living in the west.
Kaplan once again offers plenty of food for thought. Over the past two generations, the "West" has become accustomed to thinking like a merchant: don't think beyond the next trade transaction and ensure your "customers" trust you. Kaplan describes the new era, that of the farmer who thinks in terms of generations and has only the interests of the family at heart. That's why Trump's US no longer belongs to the "West." Some would call this state of affairs "regression."
The US is not Trump’s. He’s just passing through; but in the meantime, you would do well to avoid statements such as yours. It serves no useful purpose.
1) "Consider the Muslim Brotherhood. Founded in 1928 by Egyptian schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna, the Muslim Brotherhood was not conceived as a protest movement, but as a civilizational project."
Hassan al-Banna was a Nazi collaborator just like Haj Amin al-Husseini. The first in Cairo the second in Berlin. To hell with "The Ikhwan."
2) "The ultimate Western misunderstanding of the Middle East is not about borders or settlements. It is about time. The West believes history is winding down into managed stability. Much of the Middle East believes history is an unfinished contest."
Some in the West like Francis Fukuyama with his "End of History" a viewpoint from The Left took those views. Samuel Huntington also of The West took the opposite point of view from the Right with his "Clash of Civilizations" and proved correct.
The Middle Eastern countries may think long term, but Western countries are free societies that at least historically are far more open to disruptive ideas. Bibi Netanyahu thinks precisely that way (then again he was raised and schooled in America) and that is why he decided to get rid of the sclerotic economic ideas of Ben Gurion and his Mapai/Labor Party Communism/Socialism - also two ideologies that pride themselves on their inevitable triumph by patiently thinking long term.
I frankly don't care if Trump or Netanyahu think very long term or medium term or short term. I care that they instinctively identify a mortal enemy when they see one and are crushing Muslim Iran that also thinks in long millenial terms but is getting its ass kicked and deservedly so.
Le rapport au temps est fondamentalement différent entre l’Orient et l’Occident: l’Orient à une préférence (très) marquée pour le temps long tandis Que l’Occident se caractérise par une préférence pour le temps (très) court.
The Orient was an expression I believe created by Edward Said in his book Orientalism. His notion is flawed and false. The Middle East, pillaged by Islam, is so very different to the Eastern way of life of the Buddhists, Hindus and others.
Excellent! Thank you for laying out exactly what the clueless West, in our comfortable democracies, refuses to understand at best, or ignores by projecting our own views onto, at our peril. I wish more western leaders would wake up and smell the coffee.
Nice essay! Very Bernard Lewisian. Lewis's two slim books released in the years after 9/11 go into this idea of different clock time (one was called What Went Wrong? and I think the other was called The Crisis of Islam). Of course, when the ISAF mission was ongoing in Afghanistan, the Taliban saying went, they have all the watches and we have all the time. (Turned out they got to keep some pretty nice watches too.)
This is very interesting. It's such a different way of viewing time and, and thinking about demographic shifts in Europe, their patience appears to bear fruit.
"Smotrich . . . speaks the language of destiny. He believes that Israel will ultimately exercise full sovereignty over Judea and Samaria — and perhaps beyond . . . . This sounds extreme, unrealistic, and inflammatory to Western ears because they misunderstand the clock."
Two observations:
For context, Judea and Samaria were conquered in a war launched by Hostiles whose declared intent was to drive Jews into the sea. Another background piece of information: Judea is the very portion of ancestral Jewish territory which gave Jews their name and their identity.
Thus, the question since when is fully reintegrating the heart of your homeland expansionism?
The second observation concerns Western reaction to Jews wanting to fully reintegrate their liberated lands (Judea Samaria). Western ears hear Jews seeking to conquer other countries to establish a "Greater Israel" despite the documentary evidence from their own Declaration of Independence that they have no such ambitions and that during all the wars they fought, they never attempted any such territorial expansion though they had ample opportunity to do so. Perhaps it is another version of the West's myth about the infernal Jew seeking world domination.
Thus Smotrich's "Israel that consolidates sovereignty across disputed territories" is entirelylegally defensible if one were to consult International Law, the Law of Warfare, Customary International Law rather than as Israel's adversaries do, merely alluding to them as if that gave their pronunciamentos weight of authority. Moreover, because another ethnicity claims your national territory as its own does not automatically confer legitimacy to that claim.
"regional actors calculate differently. They absorb blows, wait, and preserve doctrine"
Is recovering your historic, ancestral homeland "preserving doctrine" or the right of indigenous peoples to their ancestral homelands as recognized in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)?
"An armed Jewish state is the logical response to a region — and a world — in which patience and ideology often converge."
anarmedJewish state is the outcome of implacable hatred by your surrounding neighbours (Khartoum 3 NOs ring a bell?) aided and abetted by a world which constantly questions your legitimacy as a people and your right to the revitalization of your national identity.
"The West . . . prefers universalist narratives about integration, coexistence, and post-historical peace."
For its former colonies, but not for itself. There is no question of France or Ireland or China or Mexico giving up their national identities.
I really love your text, which I completely agree with. In the West, the blind spot regarding the Middle East (I am thinking in particular of Islam) is very much a matter of cultural anthropology. The French project their own representations onto the Islamic world, seemingly incapable of grasping the temporal logic that underlies Mohammedanism... That said, those who resist Sharia law in France are also beginning to think in the long term...
The United Arab Emirates is a model of what the New Middle East proponents are aiming for (it's not perfect, but what is?) The UAE has managed to change Medieval theological/ideological thinking and timelines around and took aggressive leadership to accomplish this: They changed what imams are allowed to preach and teach, they aggressively went after terrorists, they banned all groups with radical Islamist leanings, and turned toward modern/Western thinking. They have no First Amendment issues to grapple with, so hate speech and writings toward any group is banned. As one UAE official said a year or so ago, "Right now, it is safer to be a visible Jew in the UAE than a visible Jew in New York City." I believe that the New Middle East is going quickly in the direction of the successful UAE.
@Nachum, a very succinct way of confirming that the modern Western way of life, is a very different culture to the medieval Muslim way of life that inhabits much of Africa and the Middle East.
Brilliant. True. I am a citizen of the United States and have never been educated to think about the long horizons that you invoke. This column was the introduction to a way of thought that I hadn’t ever considered. Thanks, Nachum.
Very good observations and one that should be studied by everyone who works in any policy role involving the middle east (state department, dept of war, etc.). Another dimension is that martyrdom (of the population not the leaders) is constantly promoted. The religious dimension is something the west cannot grapple with nor understand as they are many centuries removed from movements like the crusades where religious fervor was put to use by the monarchs and governments. Nachum's observation that hard power is needed to survive in this region seems obvious, but to the western world such a view is an anathema. In fact, it is the lack of such understanding that may be the undoing of western countries as they continue to assume that those coming from such cultures will moderate when living in the west.
Kaplan once again offers plenty of food for thought. Over the past two generations, the "West" has become accustomed to thinking like a merchant: don't think beyond the next trade transaction and ensure your "customers" trust you. Kaplan describes the new era, that of the farmer who thinks in terms of generations and has only the interests of the family at heart. That's why Trump's US no longer belongs to the "West." Some would call this state of affairs "regression."
The US is not Trump’s. He’s just passing through; but in the meantime, you would do well to avoid statements such as yours. It serves no useful purpose.
1) "Consider the Muslim Brotherhood. Founded in 1928 by Egyptian schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna, the Muslim Brotherhood was not conceived as a protest movement, but as a civilizational project."
Hassan al-Banna was a Nazi collaborator just like Haj Amin al-Husseini. The first in Cairo the second in Berlin. To hell with "The Ikhwan."
2) "The ultimate Western misunderstanding of the Middle East is not about borders or settlements. It is about time. The West believes history is winding down into managed stability. Much of the Middle East believes history is an unfinished contest."
Some in the West like Francis Fukuyama with his "End of History" a viewpoint from The Left took those views. Samuel Huntington also of The West took the opposite point of view from the Right with his "Clash of Civilizations" and proved correct.
The Middle Eastern countries may think long term, but Western countries are free societies that at least historically are far more open to disruptive ideas. Bibi Netanyahu thinks precisely that way (then again he was raised and schooled in America) and that is why he decided to get rid of the sclerotic economic ideas of Ben Gurion and his Mapai/Labor Party Communism/Socialism - also two ideologies that pride themselves on their inevitable triumph by patiently thinking long term.
I frankly don't care if Trump or Netanyahu think very long term or medium term or short term. I care that they instinctively identify a mortal enemy when they see one and are crushing Muslim Iran that also thinks in long millenial terms but is getting its ass kicked and deservedly so.
Very well said .. 💪
Thank you. Hopefully more Westerners will understand the actual historical differences.
Le rapport au temps est fondamentalement différent entre l’Orient et l’Occident: l’Orient à une préférence (très) marquée pour le temps long tandis Que l’Occident se caractérise par une préférence pour le temps (très) court.
The Orient was an expression I believe created by Edward Said in his book Orientalism. His notion is flawed and false. The Middle East, pillaged by Islam, is so very different to the Eastern way of life of the Buddhists, Hindus and others.
Excellent! Thank you for laying out exactly what the clueless West, in our comfortable democracies, refuses to understand at best, or ignores by projecting our own views onto, at our peril. I wish more western leaders would wake up and smell the coffee.
Nice essay! Very Bernard Lewisian. Lewis's two slim books released in the years after 9/11 go into this idea of different clock time (one was called What Went Wrong? and I think the other was called The Crisis of Islam). Of course, when the ISAF mission was ongoing in Afghanistan, the Taliban saying went, they have all the watches and we have all the time. (Turned out they got to keep some pretty nice watches too.)
Excellent reminder that we are just passing through.
As the British say, “well done you.” Brilliant and incisive.
This is very interesting. It's such a different way of viewing time and, and thinking about demographic shifts in Europe, their patience appears to bear fruit.
🦋 insightful, it’s true
"Smotrich . . . speaks the language of destiny. He believes that Israel will ultimately exercise full sovereignty over Judea and Samaria — and perhaps beyond . . . . This sounds extreme, unrealistic, and inflammatory to Western ears because they misunderstand the clock."
Two observations:
For context, Judea and Samaria were conquered in a war launched by Hostiles whose declared intent was to drive Jews into the sea. Another background piece of information: Judea is the very portion of ancestral Jewish territory which gave Jews their name and their identity.
Thus, the question since when is fully reintegrating the heart of your homeland expansionism?
The second observation concerns Western reaction to Jews wanting to fully reintegrate their liberated lands (Judea Samaria). Western ears hear Jews seeking to conquer other countries to establish a "Greater Israel" despite the documentary evidence from their own Declaration of Independence that they have no such ambitions and that during all the wars they fought, they never attempted any such territorial expansion though they had ample opportunity to do so. Perhaps it is another version of the West's myth about the infernal Jew seeking world domination.
Thus Smotrich's "Israel that consolidates sovereignty across disputed territories" is entirelylegally defensible if one were to consult International Law, the Law of Warfare, Customary International Law rather than as Israel's adversaries do, merely alluding to them as if that gave their pronunciamentos weight of authority. Moreover, because another ethnicity claims your national territory as its own does not automatically confer legitimacy to that claim.
"regional actors calculate differently. They absorb blows, wait, and preserve doctrine"
Is recovering your historic, ancestral homeland "preserving doctrine" or the right of indigenous peoples to their ancestral homelands as recognized in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)?
"An armed Jewish state is the logical response to a region — and a world — in which patience and ideology often converge."
anarmedJewish state is the outcome of implacable hatred by your surrounding neighbours (Khartoum 3 NOs ring a bell?) aided and abetted by a world which constantly questions your legitimacy as a people and your right to the revitalization of your national identity.
"The West . . . prefers universalist narratives about integration, coexistence, and post-historical peace."
For its former colonies, but not for itself. There is no question of France or Ireland or China or Mexico giving up their national identities.
I really love your text, which I completely agree with. In the West, the blind spot regarding the Middle East (I am thinking in particular of Islam) is very much a matter of cultural anthropology. The French project their own representations onto the Islamic world, seemingly incapable of grasping the temporal logic that underlies Mohammedanism... That said, those who resist Sharia law in France are also beginning to think in the long term...
The United Arab Emirates is a model of what the New Middle East proponents are aiming for (it's not perfect, but what is?) The UAE has managed to change Medieval theological/ideological thinking and timelines around and took aggressive leadership to accomplish this: They changed what imams are allowed to preach and teach, they aggressively went after terrorists, they banned all groups with radical Islamist leanings, and turned toward modern/Western thinking. They have no First Amendment issues to grapple with, so hate speech and writings toward any group is banned. As one UAE official said a year or so ago, "Right now, it is safer to be a visible Jew in the UAE than a visible Jew in New York City." I believe that the New Middle East is going quickly in the direction of the successful UAE.
@Nachum, a very succinct way of confirming that the modern Western way of life, is a very different culture to the medieval Muslim way of life that inhabits much of Africa and the Middle East.
It is a clash of civilisations.