The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

00:00:00.240 Hello, and welcome to the second episode of RealPolitik with me, your host, Firas Mardad.

00:00:05.340 Today, I wanted to talk about something cheerful, not controversial, and very easy.

00:00:10.040 Israel, the geopolitical reasons for the existence of Israel,

00:00:13.920 why we have these seemingly endless wars between Israel and its neighbors,

00:00:19.220 why was the state of Israel created, why does the West support Israel,

00:00:23.480 and where is this conflict going?

00:00:25.860 As you can see, very easy questions, nothing too complex.

00:00:29.260 So let's start.

00:00:30.540 The easiest play to begin always is the map.

00:00:33.680 And so I thought I'd pull up a map of the Middle East and show you where Israel is,

00:00:37.820 and that might help us understand the importance of its location,

00:00:42.020 and therefore its importance to both its allies and its enemies.

00:00:46.000 The first point to make is that Israel is sitting in what is literally the holy land,

00:00:51.820 land that is holy to all three religions, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.

00:00:56.160 Jerusalem is the place where Christ died, obviously.

00:01:01.980 The West Bank and Jerusalem are the center of the Jewish faith.

00:01:04.940 Jerusalem is also, according to Muslims, the place from where the prophet of Islam supposedly

00:01:10.560 went up to heaven to speak to the prophets and to God.

00:01:15.560 It's a particularly important location for all three religions.

00:01:20.140 It didn't always have that much significance, but it's been a site for pilgrimage for the

00:01:26.640 Christians for a very long time, and that gives it an emotive importance that we will mention

00:01:35.220 and discuss a little bit in this episode.

00:01:37.480 But now let's move to the geopolitical importance.

00:01:40.860 Geopolitically, Israel is sitting between Syria or greater Syria, including Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon,

00:01:48.740 and Palestine itself, or Israel itself, and Egypt.

00:01:52.760 This makes it prime real estate, really, because the way that empires have often developed in the region

00:01:59.380 is by tying together the population and agricultural potential of both Egypt and Syria, creating a great power.

00:02:09.380 Most Muslim states that were able to threaten the West, the Umayyad Caliphate, the Abbasid Caliphate, 1.00

00:02:16.420 the Ottomans, these managed to control both Egypt and Syria.

00:02:21.660 And any political entity that manages to control both under the banner of Islam instantly becomes a threat to the West. 0.99

00:02:31.460 So the solution, so to speak, was to create a blocker state in between Syria and Egypt 0.94

00:02:40.840 that would be by default allied with the West,

00:02:45.000 and that would therefore prevent the emergence of a unified polity, political entity,

00:02:52.200 that then becomes a threat through the Eastern Mediterranean to first Cyprus and then Greece and then Italy.

00:02:59.060 This is the strategic logic behind it.

00:03:02.220 Around the end of the Ottoman Empire, when the Ottoman Empire was in decline in the late 19th century

00:03:09.240 and before it ended completely in 1918, different empires had taken a stake in different communities

00:03:17.720 that were subject to the Ottomans.

00:03:20.580 So the French presented themselves as the protectors of Catholicism. 0.77

00:03:24.700 This meant that they had influence in, obviously, Jerusalem itself,

00:03:29.580 but especially in Lebanon, where the Maronite community remains steadfastly Catholic

00:03:36.520 and an important ally, natural ally of France and of any Catholic power, really.

00:03:43.240 The Russians, for their part, were allied with the Orthodox Christian community.

00:03:48.600 These were dispersed throughout the cities of Syria and Lebanon.

00:03:53.020 Unlike the Maronites, which mostly took to the mountains,

00:03:55.660 the Orthodox tended to remain in the cities.

00:03:57.700 So the British found themselves not really having a significant ally.

00:04:02.360 So there were periods where they were allied with the Druze in Lebanon,

00:04:07.280 but then the rise of nationalism imposed the rise of the Jewish question.

00:04:14.180 The rise of nationalism and the rise of liberalism really imposed the Jewish question.

00:04:20.300 And it was basically as follows.

00:04:22.580 When Europe was very obviously ruled as Christian Europe, 0.85

00:04:29.420 with a very strong connection between the state and religion,

00:04:34.220 the Jews were seen as outsiders.

00:04:36.440 And as a result, they were given certain spaces that became ghettos or that were ghettoized.

00:04:42.040 And in those spaces, they were isolated from the rest of society.

00:04:46.760 But with the rise of the idea of the nation-state,

00:04:50.620 there emerged a problem.

00:04:51.800 There were these citizens that belonged, in their view, to a different nation, to Israel,

00:04:58.220 who spoke the same language of everybody around them, but were different.

00:05:03.960 And it became hard to figure out a way to deal with Jews in general, 1.00

00:05:10.960 especially as the emancipation of the Jews in Europe progressed

00:05:14.920 with the ideas of liberalism and nationalism,

00:05:17.780 especially as they were allowed into new professions,

00:05:22.160 especially as, in some cases, they became pretty important families in finance and in mining and in other industries.

00:05:31.620 And so, what was to be done with those Jews? 0.98

00:05:35.480 Were they to be treated as equal citizens,

00:05:38.440 even though they often had families in hostile countries,

00:05:44.600 say, a French-Jewish family with a presence in Germany or with a presence in Britain?

00:05:50.020 Or were they to be treated as a separate nation?

00:05:54.140 And it wasn't clear, really, what the answer was.

00:05:58.100 And so, as Britain became in an important position to influence the Middle East,

00:06:03.180 this question of what to do with Europe's Jews

00:06:07.460 also began to have a strategic, imperial answer.

00:06:14.100 And that answer was,

00:06:15.900 why not help them migrate to the Middle East, 1.00

00:06:20.140 and then they would have no choice but to be allied with Protestant Britain?

00:06:24.620 It helped that there was some religious support for the idea

00:06:28.540 among some evangelical Protestant communities.

00:06:33.300 Not all Protestants supported this idea, obviously.

00:06:36.600 And it helped that it suited Britain's interests 0.80

00:06:39.540 to try to establish some kind of presence in the region.

00:06:44.640 And so, during World War I,

00:06:46.260 given the importance of Jewish families in finance and in mining

00:06:50.800 and their perceived or real political influence,

00:06:55.120 the British decided to announce the Balfour Declaration on 2 November 1917.

00:07:02.060 And that declaration said that His Majesty's government

00:07:06.840 would support the establishment of a national homeland for the Jews in Palestine,

00:07:14.240 so long as this did not affect the civil and religious rights

00:07:19.180 of other communities in that country.

00:07:22.380 Vague statement.

00:07:23.700 It didn't specifically say that Britain's policy would be to support a Jewish state.

00:07:28.880 It didn't explain what it meant by civil and religious rights of other communities.

00:07:37.160 But it was enough to make Lord Rothschild happy.

00:07:42.820 And the consequence of that was obviously Jewish support in World War I.

00:07:51.360 And then when World War I ended and the Ottoman Empire was defeated,

00:07:55.980 Britain made good on her promise through the various peace conferences

00:08:00.020 that followed the First World War

00:08:01.820 and through the establishment of a mandate under the League of Nations

00:08:07.580 that gave Britain control over what were then known as Palestine here

00:08:14.080 on the area, all of the west bank of the Jordan River and Transjordan,

00:08:21.400 a country that had never existed before,

00:08:24.600 but that was established under a British mandate

00:08:29.300 with the aim of establishing a state thereafter.

00:08:33.220 The British ended up in control of Iraq, Jordan and Israel.

00:08:40.000 They had allies in Saudi Arabia

00:08:43.640 and the French ended up in control of Lebanon and Syria.

00:08:49.300 And this was the beginning of the existence of those states.

00:08:53.080 Now, it should be mentioned here that these states

00:08:55.400 didn't really have a history as states as such.

00:08:59.020 For the previous 400 years, they had been provinces of the Ottoman Empire

00:09:03.820 with its capital in Istanbul, Constantinople,

00:09:08.120 whatever you wish to call it, which dominated that whole region.

00:09:11.640 The Ottomans were an interesting bunch, to put it mildly.

00:09:15.720 Islam, to its credit, knew how to rule minorities. 1.00

00:09:19.940 It gave them a special protected status

00:09:23.480 where the state wouldn't really be unnecessarily aggressive towards them,

00:09:30.220 so long as they understood that they were second-class citizens

00:09:33.600 and that they were not equal to the Muslims.

00:09:36.400 So it was a functional arrangement, so to speak.

00:09:41.100 And for the previous 400 years, since 1517, I believe,

00:09:46.020 these countries or these localities hadn't really governed themselves.

00:09:49.780 There was some form of municipal authority,

00:09:54.180 but it was obvious that the state was in the hands of the Ottomans

00:09:58.700 and their bureaucrats and their slaves and what have you. 0.82

00:10:03.300 So new states were just drawn on a map and created.

00:10:07.820 There was some historic reasoning for it,

00:10:10.420 in that, for example, in Iraq, Basra and Baghdad were always connected.

00:10:15.180 In Syria, the string of cities going from Aleppo through to Hama,

00:10:25.220 through to Homs, through to Damascus were always connected.

00:10:28.740 But there was also a bit of lack of logic to it,

00:10:32.880 in that Tripoli was a port associated with Homs,

00:10:36.260 not so much really with Lebanon.

00:10:39.900 Lebanon was just the mountainous part of Lebanon here.

00:10:44.120 It never had the Bekaa Valley or Tripoli or Tyre or even Beirut as parts of it.

00:10:52.560 So these countries were assembled with some logic,

00:10:56.020 but the lines differentiating them were completely new.

00:11:01.760 This is why the lines are perfectly straight

00:11:04.920 and look like they were made with a ruler,

00:11:07.260 because they hadn't existed in the past.

00:11:10.000 These were all just provinces of the Ottoman Empire,

00:11:14.860 each one with some kind of distinct identity,

00:11:19.240 especially Mount Lebanon,

00:11:21.340 especially the Syrian coast or the tribal areas between Iraq and Syria.

00:11:27.440 But they weren't really countries.

00:11:29.700 And then all of a sudden they were.

00:11:31.940 Like I said, Israel fulfilled this function. 0.95

00:11:35.200 And part of the reasoning for its establishment

00:11:38.760 was to address the Jewish question in Europe

00:11:41.880 and to create a natural ally

00:11:45.460 that would justify Britain's presence in the Middle East.

00:11:50.540 As Britain took control,

00:11:52.220 it basically opened the door to Jewish immigration

00:11:54.880 into the land of Palestine or the land of Israel

00:11:59.680 or whatever you want to call it.

00:12:01.780 And the numbers of Jews kept on growing.

00:12:04.260 Naturally, this led to friction with the Muslims 1.00

00:12:07.200 because they saw that the objective was to establish a Jewish state.

00:12:11.640 This was the publicly stated policy.

00:12:14.760 And they didn't want one.

00:12:17.160 Understandably so, one would argue.

00:12:19.620 The early Zionists all pretty much understood 0.99

00:12:22.140 that they would have to impose the state by force of arms

00:12:26.860 on the local population and on the surrounding Arab population.

00:12:31.620 You had outspoken people like Jabotinsky 0.88

00:12:35.560 who made that extremely clear.

00:12:38.660 And others were of the view that eventually,

00:12:42.160 after enough defeats,

00:12:43.880 and if shown the economic benefit,

00:12:46.380 the Arabs would one day accept peace with Israel

00:12:49.660 and accept that the Jews weren't going anywhere.

00:12:52.680 And therefore, they would just deal with Israel 0.95

00:12:55.380 as a new fact of life.

00:12:56.520 And they would accept her existence.

00:12:58.720 As the number of Jews in this territory increased, 0.78

00:13:04.160 eventually, they became around 26% of the population,

00:13:09.080 30% of the population of the total area.

00:13:12.840 And after World War II, two things happened.

00:13:15.580 Firstly, the massacre of the Jews in the Holocaust

00:13:19.120 made it much more important to have a state for the Jews.

00:13:25.560 It was seen that even the democratization of Europe

00:13:29.640 and the transformation of Europe

00:13:31.160 that had happened after the First World War

00:13:34.380 was really not going to be enough to keep the Jews safe.

00:13:38.700 And therefore, the number of migrants 0.74

00:13:41.100 that were trying to get into the land of Palestine

00:13:45.340 increased dramatically.

00:13:46.980 This obviously led to even more conflict.

00:13:50.900 And this contributed to the decision

00:13:52.940 by some Palestinians and a lot of Arabs

00:13:56.360 to align themselves during the Second World War

00:13:59.880 with the Axis powers 0.62

00:14:01.140 on the promise that the Axis powers 0.98

00:14:03.960 would help get rid of the British Empire.

00:14:08.180 And therefore, that would end the project

00:14:10.760 of Jewish colonization of Palestine.

00:14:12.920 This didn't work.

00:14:14.380 The Axis powers were obviously defeated 0.92

00:14:16.380 and, you know, thank God for that.

00:14:18.840 The result was the strengthening

00:14:20.720 in the minds of the West

00:14:23.260 and in the minds of the Jews themselves

00:14:25.160 of the case for Zionism.

00:14:27.300 In 1947, the nascent United Nations

00:14:31.500 tried to figure out a solution for this.

00:14:34.260 So they decided to agree to the partition of Palestine

00:14:39.260 into two states, one for the Arabs

00:14:44.320 and one for the Jews.

00:14:46.400 And this is a nice map of that planned partition.

00:14:52.000 It gave a big chunk of the north of Palestine,

00:14:55.400 the area around Akka or Accra, to the Arabs.

00:14:59.720 It gave the West Bank and more to the Arabs. 0.99

00:15:05.440 It gave Gaza and the border with Sinai to the Arabs.

00:15:09.260 The objection from the Arab side

00:15:12.300 was based on two premises, really.

00:15:16.820 One premise was that this partition favored the Jews too much

00:15:23.380 because the Jews were around a quarter

00:15:28.040 to a third of the population

00:15:29.380 and they got 53% of the land,

00:15:33.080 whereas the Arabs, who were at least two thirds

00:15:35.780 of the population, only got 47%.

00:15:38.740 More importantly, it basically acknowledged something

00:15:44.000 that the Arabs had always rejected.

00:15:46.460 From their perspective, they weren't adequately represented

00:15:50.140 in the conferences that followed the First World War.

00:15:53.240 Even though there was some Arab representation,

00:15:56.600 the Palestinians themselves,

00:15:58.200 or the people who would then eventually

00:15:59.600 call themselves the Palestinians,

00:16:01.860 were not present and they were not represented.

00:16:05.320 And so why should they accept this imperial diktat?

00:16:09.100 Just because a large number of Jews 1.00

00:16:12.320 had been imported into their country

00:16:15.580 under the auspices of a foreign empire,

00:16:18.500 why would that be a legitimate case

00:16:22.260 for them to surrender so much territory?

00:16:25.400 A third argument would be perhaps

00:16:27.620 that for Muslims, the surrender of the Holy Land 0.99

00:16:31.340 and specifically of Jerusalem would never be accepted.

00:16:35.060 Jerusalem is the third holiest place in Islam

00:16:37.700 after Mecca and Medina.

00:16:39.820 So why should they accept this compromise

00:16:43.240 when there was no righteous cause for it,

00:16:47.840 at least from their perspective?

00:16:50.220 The UN at the end of the day,

00:16:53.000 or the League of Nations,

00:16:54.520 or whatever you want to call it,

00:16:55.960 wasn't something that the Muslims

00:16:58.440 had been an active participant in.

00:17:01.200 And it didn't reflect the values

00:17:04.760 and the understanding of Islam.

00:17:07.100 So why should this concession be made?

00:17:10.540 For the Jews themselves,

00:17:12.060 even this partition plan was not acceptable.

00:17:15.940 They said that they would accept it,

00:17:17.940 but the reality is that if you looked at this map,

00:17:22.060 this entity in blue would very easily

00:17:26.040 be defeated in the first war

00:17:27.900 because it didn't have any strategic depth.

00:17:31.400 More importantly,

00:17:32.660 or to some equally importantly,

00:17:35.540 it didn't give the Jews anything in Jerusalem.

00:17:38.940 As a matter of fact,

00:17:40.160 it kept them quite a distance from it.

00:17:43.340 And what is Judaism without Jerusalem? 0.94

00:17:46.700 How to justify this?

00:17:48.180 How should this movement be justified?

00:17:50.160 If you enjoyed this piece of premium content

00:17:52.860 from the Lotus Eaters,

00:17:54.180 head to our website where you can find more.

PREVIEW： Realpolitik #3 ｜ The Geopolitics Of Israel

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