The Gaza Break Out

My first reaction to the breaching of the border wall separating Gaza from Egypt was to regard the event as a strategic disaster for Israel. This may very well turn out to be the case, but the course of events has become complex indeed. However one looks at the break out, the event is extremely important. No Israeli government can agree to an American-brokered peace with Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian authority if Hamas, dedicated to Israel's destruction, continues to control Gaza and has a realistic chance of controlling all of the Palestinian territories and, as Bret Stephens suggests in his column below, stands a chance of controlling Egypt.

Three views of the Gaza break out appear worth of note. (All are required reading for WREL 374.) They are:

a. Steven Erlanger, "Israel's Experimental Pressure Backfires," Sunday New York Times Review of the Week, January 27, 2008. Erlanger has been following the story on the scene from the start. He has a pro-Palestinian bias although in true liberal style, he would probably say that he is only trying to be fair to all sides. His account can be found

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/world/middleeast/27mideast.
html?scp=7&sq=steven+erlanger&st=nytat:

b. Daniel Pipes, a Harvard PhD in Middle Eastern Studies, who writes a column for the New York Sun and is regarded as a reliable analyst of the Middle East and its conflicts, has offered his own ideas as to how to solve the problem of Gaza. His essay is "Jordan to the West Bank; Egypt to Gaza." He rejects the idea of an independent Palestinian state and argues for a Jordanian take- over of the West Bank and an Egyptian take-over of Gaza. His views reflect those of a number of influential Israelis. His analysis can be found at:
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog_pf.php?id=484

c: Bret Stephens is a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board. In my opinion, he has written one of the most insightful analysis of the consequences of the breakout for both Israel and Egypt, "The Gaza Breakout." It can be found at:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120156765863623885.
html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

Iran's Threat to Destroy Israel

No Muslim nation has been as overtly hostile to Israel as the Islamic Republic of Iran. With a population of more than 65,000,000, one of the world's highest literacy rates (80%), and 10% of the world's known petroleum reserves, Iran has the potential to become the dominant power in the Middle East. Even apart from Iran's disputed efforts to develop a "civilian" nuclear capacity and its undeniable efforts to develop medium and long-range ballistic missiles, such as the Shahab-3 and 4, its potential ability to carry out its threat cannot be underestimated.

Currently, Iran is sending out mixed signals. Speaking to Israel Radio from the World Economic Conference at Davos on January 26, 2008, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said, "Iran is not threatening Israel and does not want nuclear weapons." He added that it was Israel that possessed nuclear weapons and "it is threatening Teheran." (Jerusalem Post, January 26, 2008).

The same day, Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor of the Iranian daily newspaper Kayhan who is close to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and often reflects the latter's views, called on Muslims worldwide to unite in "retaliatory" attacks on American, European, and Israeli "sensitive centers" because of "the war crimes that these countries are committing in the Gaza Strip" and because of their support for Israel.

In his op-ed, "The Defenders of the Enemy," Shar'iatmadari stressed that American and European civilians must be harmed in these attacks, so as to make the U.S. and the European countries change their policy towards Israel. He also called for harming Israelis worldwide, and explained that Islamic regimes that prevent an Islamic attack on Israel must be toppled, because they are defending the enemy. He further stated that such attacks are legitimate according to Islamic law, both Shi'ite and Sunni.

Whom are we to believe?

WREL 374 Syllabus

WREL 374: The Middle East Conflict
Class Readings and Syllabus

Richard L. Rubenstein, STM, PhD
Office hours: By appointment only
E-mail- rlr@bridgeport.edu
Blog- http://21stcenturytheologian.blogspot.com/

Class Calendar

January 16- Introductory session, “What is at stake in the Middle East Conflict?"

http://21stcenturytheologian.blogspot.com/2008/02/assassination-of-imad-mughniyeh.html
Reading assignments

• “The Charter of Hamas”
• “Is the Peace Process Realistic?-Max Boot, “Of Braveheart and Bush,” Wall Street Journal, January 5, 2008.
(Both documents are available at the blog, Religion, History and Theology http://21stcenturytheologian.blogspot.com/ )

January 23- Bernard Lewis, Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice

• Introduction, pp. 11-24
• Ch. 1: The Holocaust and After, pp. 25-41
• Ch. 2: Semites, pp. 42-57
• Ch. 3: Jews, pp. 57-80
• Ch. 4: Anti-Semites, pp. 81-116

January 30- Lewis, Semites and Anti-Semites

• Ch. 5: Muslims and Jews, pp. pp. 117-139. For a darker view of Islamic tolerance, especially Islamic anti-Semitism, see Andrew Bostom, “The First and the Last Enemy,” Front Page Magazine, http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/10/the_first_and_last_enemy_jewha.html

See also my postings, Iran's Threat to Destroy Israel and "The Gaza Breakout". Both are posted in this blog. (Both are required).

• Ch. 6: The Nazis and the Palestine Problem, pp. 140-163.

• For an important essay, translated from the German, conserning recently discovered Nazi plans to exterminate the Jews of Palestine upon the expected victory of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps over the British in North Afrika in 1942, see Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Kuppers, “’Elimination of the Jewish National Home in Palestine’: The Einsatzkommando of the Panzer Army Africa, 1942”, (Jerusalem: Yadvashem, 2007), http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_holocaust/studies/vol35/Mallmann-Cuppers2.pdf. This is a required reading.

• Ch. 7: The War Against Zionism, pp. 164-191.

February 6- Anton LaGuardia, War Without End: Israelis, Palestinians, and the Struggle for a Promised Land

• Ch. 1: A Small Country with a Big History, pp. 1-16.

• Ch. 2: One God, Many Religions, pp. 17-61
Read the text of the brief, but historically important, Balfour Declaration of 1917 in which the British Government declared that it viewed with favour "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."

There is a very useful Wikipedia article on Theodore Herzl. (Required reading for WREL 374)

February 13- LaGuardia, War Without End

• Ch. 3: Every Man Under His Vine, pp. 62-104.

• Ch. 4: The Hundred Years War, pp. 105-153

February 20- LaGuardia, War Without End

Ch. 5: Victims of Victims, pp. 154-212

Ch. 6. The Tribes of Israel, pp. 212-260

Quiz on Bernard Lewis

See also my postings The Assassination of Imad Mughniyeh and "Hamas: The Strategic Use of Rocket Attacks."







http://21stcenturytheologian.blogspot.com/2008/02/
hamas-strategic-use-of-rocket-attacks.html

March 5- LaGuardia, War Without End

Ch. 7. The Curse of Peace, pp. 261-370

Ch. 8. Among the Nations, pp. 371-391

Epilogue, 392-401

Mid-term Exam

May 7- Final Exam

Further details forthcoming.

The Charter of Hamas

One of the most important documents of the conflict in the Middle East is the Charter of Hamas, dated August 18, 1988. In view of the fact that Hamas now controls the Gaza strip, no realistic exploration of the prospects for Middle East peace can ignore this document. Of especial importance is the fact that the Charler is formulated as a non-negotiable religious document.

The Avalon Project of the Yale Law School has made this reliable translation available on the Web. It can be accessed at: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/hamas.htm.

Is The Peace Process Realistic?

Max Boot, Senior Fellow for National Security Studies has written an important essay on the viability of the "peace process" for solving the conflict between Israel and the Arab/Muslim world:

Of Braveheart and Bush

Author:	Max Boot, Senior Fellow for National Security Studies

January 5, 2008
Wall Street Journal

President Bush will travel to the Middle East next week, where he will become the latest U.S. president, going back to the 1940s, to make a major push to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It is hard to see what in the current situation—with the Gaza Strip in the hands of a rabidly anti-Israel group and the West Bank in the hands of only a mildly less anti-Israel group—makes him think he will succeed where his predecessors failed.

Those who insist on pursuing the “peace process,” notwithstanding the low probability of success, claim that we have no choice. “What is the alternative?” they ask. “Perpetual war?”

Well, yes.

To be skeptical of the peace process is not to suggest that such never-ending strife is desirable, but merely to acknowledge that it may be inevitable. The contrary view—that even a conflict as intractable as this one should end soon—rests on a sunny, if ahistorical, Enlightenment faith that peace is the natural order of things and war a temporary aberration.

To view the entire article, go to:http://www.cfr.org/publication/15180/of_braveheart_and_bush.html.