The civil wars of the Semites
Nasser's death is tidy if not timely. We now may look again towards the hills, away from Egypt and the valley of the Nile, and consider the tragic and ancient civil wars of the Semites: and the city of David and the Win city, on the other side of the Jordan, where the lightning has struck and the Abomination of Desolation now abounds.
GENESIS XI: And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech . . . 4 And they said one to another, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth . . . 6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do(and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their lan- guage, that they may not understand one another's speech. 8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth ... 27 Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.
GENESIS XII: Now the LORD said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: 2 And I will make of thee a great nation ... 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son . . . and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan . .. 10 And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt ...
GENESIS XIH: And Abram went up out of Egypt, he and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him . . . 5 And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds and tents. 6 And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together. 7 And there was a strife between the Iferdmen of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle . 8 And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren. 9 Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to thy right; or if thou depart to the right, then I will go to the left. 10 And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan . . . 11 Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east; and they separated themselves the one from the other.
GENESIS XDC: 29 And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he over- threw the cities in the which Lot dwelt. 30 And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters. 31 And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth: 32 Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve the seed of our father . . . 36 Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father. 37 And the firstborn bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites unto
this day. 38 And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Ben-ammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day.
II SAMUEL X: And it came to pass after this, that the king of the children of Ammon died, and Hanun his son reigned in his stead. 2 Then said David, I will show kindness unto Hanna the son of Nahash, as his father showed kindness unto me. And David sent to comfort him by the hand of his servants for his father. And David's servants came into the land of the children of Ammon. 3 And the princes of the children of Ammon said unto Hanna their Lord, Thinkest thou that David doth honour thy father, that he bath sent comforters unto thee? bath not David rather sent his servants unto thee, to search the city, and to spy it out, and to over- throw it? 4 Wherefore Hanun took David's servants, and shaved off the one half of their beards, and cut off their garments in the middle, even to their buttocks, and sent them away. 5 When they told it unto David, he sent to meet them, because the men were greatly ashamed: and the king said, Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown, and then return. 6 And when the children of Ammon saw that they stank before David, the children of Ammon sent and hired the Syrians of Beth- rebob, and the Syrians of Zoba, twenty thou- sand footmen and the king Maacah a thousand men, and of Ish-tob twelve thousand men.
II SAMUEL X: 15 And when the Syrians saw that they were smitten before Israel, they gathered themselves together. 16 And Hadarezer sent, and brought out the Syrians that were beyond the river: and they came to Helam; and Shobach the captain of the host of Hadarezer went before them. 17 And when it was told David, he gathered all Israel together, and passed over Jordan, and came to Helam. And the Syrians set them- selves in array against David, and fought with him. 18 And the Syrians fled before Israel; and David slew the men of seven hundred chariots of the Syrians, and smote Shobach the captain of their host, who died there. 19 And when all the kings that were servants to Hadarezer saw that they were smitten before Israel, they made peace with Israel, and served them. So the Syrians feared to help the child- ren of Ammon any more.
AMMAN was known in Biblical times as Rabbath Ammon, the city of the Am- monites, descendants of Lot, Abraham's much loved nephew. The' Romans knew it as Philadelphia, brother-loving, and built there a fine amphitheatre which still remains, Amphitheatres are difficult to destroy, even with modern weapons. To read the worn old words of the Bible is to realise that however much things change, they still remain much as they were on either bank of the river Jordan.
Tribal ancestries and feuds, made more guiltful by historic remembrances of kin- ship, and corrupted by religious practices and beliefs so that brethren have long since become each other's chief enemy, straddle the lands we now call the Middle East, and particularly the lands to either side of the river Jordan. This mythopoeic belt has a lot to answer for. It is, however, during the present tragic and disastrous days, more appropriate to offer sympathy than to apportion blame, and less perfunc- tory to strive towards the glimmerings of a distant solution than to dwell upon the immediate mess with no other comment than a shrug. It does not really help matters much to argue that the Jews have a 'historic' right to Jerusalem, or that only through the satisfaction of their racial and religious yearnings for a return to the Promised Land can they, and their one-time hosts and persecutors, rid them- selves of the shameful memories of the past. Nor is it particularly helpful con- tinually to emphasise that the dispossessed Jews have dispossessed the Palestinians, that the persecuted have become the per- secutors. A very prominent Israeli recently remarked that as between the Israelis and the Palestinians, it is not a matter of rig.ht and wrong, but of right and right; and one could do worse than leave the matter as far as morality is concerned there.
Occupation is, and always has been, nine if not ten points of the law, so-called, of nations. There are few people west of China and north of the Sahara who are not where they are by virtue of their an- cestors' right of conquest; and although it would be tidier and more susceptible to understanding were Israel to claim its territory by right of occupation than by virtue of some United Nations resolution of Yahweh's decree, what matters is the fact, which becomes the right, of con- quest, of occupation, of possession. What also, however, matters, and matters very much, and is not likely to cease mattering, is that this right of Israel is and will in- creasingly be challenged by the right of the Palestinians to the same lands. The Ammonites and the Israelites are cousins, and have disputed the same lands since Abraham came out of Egypt with his nephew, Lot, and their herdmen fought.
There is one aspect of the situation which is essentially post-colonial. When European colonialists forced their ways into the Near and Far East and Africa they not infrequently discovered dominant warrior tribes or castes ruling over subject peoples. The Europeans fought or bought the warriors, and were as often as not welcomed by the subject peoples who he' came their, and not the warriors', servants. The subject peoples often learned the white men's skills much better than the warriors who, whether they had been fought or bought had in any event been defeated and displaced from their ruling positions. With the end of colonial im- perialism, it frequently was the case that the one-time subject peoples, having learned far more from the whites than their one-time warrior overlords, were bet- ter placed to inherit power. The warriors, enfeebled by colonialism, became, in the post-colonial situation, dominated by the skilled people who in the pre-colonial time had been their subjects. The British, in particular, preferred the warriors—the noble savages, the Moslems, the Bedouin, and tended, in their settlements, to hand power back to those from whom they had originally usurped it. But the skills they had taught their servants usually proved superior. Israelis and Palestinians (and Lebanese) are indeed natural allies. In particular, it is extremely difficult to tell some Pales- tinians from some Israelis. The Pales- tinian guerrillas of today are very exact counterparts of the men of the Stern Gang and Irgun Zwei Leumi; and to meet and talk with them—very often lawyers and doctors and the like who were born and grew up in Palestine under the man- date, and who frequently speak Hebrew and number Israelis among their friends —is much like meeting and talking with Israelis. Many of the Palestinians are Christians, the rest Moslem: but it is not their religions, or hatred of the rival Juda- ism, which informs their activity: rather is it the natural desire to return to their homeland. Within Israel, also, the prime motive is surely to hold on to what they have rather than is it religious. By and large the Jews outside Israel are more zealous and orthodox than those within: and since Judaism is not proselytising, Mohammedism is tolerant, and Christi- anity is in a minority position, there is no reason to suppose that, now the Jews are back in Israel, religious belief will con- tinue to keep apart the descendents of Abraham from the descendants of Lot. Left to their own devices one might, within a generation or so, expect the Israeli and Palestinian cousins to come to some sort of terms with each other, one consequence of which would be the assertion of their joint leadership over the tribes of the de- serts. And in this light, the last weeks' civil and therefore vicious warfare between the Jordanians and the Palestinians may be construed as yet another post-colonial struggle in which the battle may have been won by the Jordanian army but the even- tual victors in the war can only be the Palestinians.
Natural allies are often present enemies, and the friends of present enemies; and the Middle Eastern situation is peculiarly confounded by the friendships of the pre- sent enemies. It is force of circumstance, the want of anything better, rather than natural inclination, which induces the Palestinians to look towards China for support. Jordan, itself a British creation, and the Hashemite monarchy, originally a British satrapy, with an Army largely officered with Sandhurst men and almost entirely equipped with British arms, in- stinctively has looked towards Britain for support. But Britain's chief ally is the United States; and the United States, never unconscious of the presumed voting strength of New York jews, and regard- ing Israel as its most reliable con- nection in the Middle East, has become Israel's chief bulwark. The Soviet Union, seeking throughout the area to succeed by force, aid, cajolery and flattery to the traditional British hegemony in Arabia and the Gulf, has principally and expensively endeavoured through Egypt to achieve this end. Thus any Egyptian-Israeli war has also amounted to a Russian-American confrontation, confused further by the am- biguous relationship between Britain and Jordan, and further exacerbated by the Chinese connection with the Palestinians, themselves very often personally Anglo- phile. In all this fearful stew, the only small consolation to be found is that France has largely stopped messing about in Syria, although the fundamental insta- bility of that country remains a constant ingredient in the pot.
The traditional preoccupation of the Great Powers with the Middle East, after successive waves of conquerors trampled over the lands on either side of Jordan since Abraham and Lot divided it up, is not foolish: if the world has a pivot, here- abouts will it be found; and here the trade routes have always crossed, and still cross; and here there is oil as well. But to be pre- occupied with something is not necessarily to meddle with it: a man may be very preoccupied with knowing the right time, but would be very foolish to start tinker- ing with his watch. The trouble has been, and remains, that a natural and proper preoccupation, a genuine interest, in the Middle East has in practice always also produced irresistible urges to tinker with its works. There now is some evidence, largely circumstantial, that both the Soviet Union and the United States are realising the larger dangers of a more general war that could flow from any initially localised conflict in the Middle East. A drawing back, if not a complete withdrawal (which is unthinkable), is possible and desirable. A recognition that many countries have genuine interests in the area need not exclude an agreement not to interfere excessively, and an undertaking to restrict the supply of arms.
There is not, and has not been since 1947. a direct Imperial authority in the Middle East; and what has been happen- ing since then has been internecine strife to determine who shall inherit. It may sound callous: but it could be the most humane as well as the wisest course in the long run for those not directly involved to stand aside, as what may well prove to be the last of the civil wars of the Semites continues its sporadic and bloody course. The only ending to this war, and therefore the only prospect of peace in the Middle East, will come about when the children of Abraham and the children of Lot, when the Israelites and the Ammonites. when the people of Jerusalem and of Amman, lay down their arms; and regard the river Jordan as a river running through their land; and bring under one liberal and secular rule their own ancestral land of Palestine and Transjordan.
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