By Yiftach Levy
SAN DIEGO –Dr. Daniel Pipes is a study in contrasts. He’s a Jewish American historian whose specialty is Islam and the Middle East. He’s a PhD who doesn’t work in academia. But perhaps no dichotomy is as jarring as his soft-spoken manner compared with his subject matter. Sitting across from him at lunch, one has to be careful not to chew too loudly lest you miss an almost-whispered insight on, say, the turmoil and violence in Egypt, the massacres being committed by Syrian authorities on their own people, or the imminent Iranian nuclear threat. Pipes painted a not-so-rosy picture of the Middle East in two appearances in San Diego Monday, at an intimate lunch at SDSU with several students and staff members, and at a well-attended evening lecture at Congregation Beth Israel in University City. Both events were hosted by the Jewish Studies Department at SDSU, chaired by Dr. Risa Levitt-Kohn.
As a historian, especially an expert on Islam, Pipes admonished his audiences to know more than just Israel. If we only talk about Israel, he noted, we’re going to be on the defensive pretty much all the time. But the ability to speak knowledgeably about other current and historical events in the region gives us the ability to put things in perspective and go on the offensive as needed. His message was well-received by the pro-Israel students who attended the luncheon, who themselves had been through the wringer recently on campus, defending Israel against demonization and delegitimization during the so-called “Palestine Awareness Week.”
The much older audience at CBI Monday evening heard a more formal lecture titled “The Threat to Israel’s Existence – Why It’s Back, How to Deal with It,” the first in a four-lecture series called “Israel in the 21st Century: New Hopes, New Challenges.” Coming as it did at the close of observance of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), his talk was particularly timely. As in his earlier appearance, Pipes didn’t mince words in talking about the most palpable threat, the Iranian nuclear program, saying that he believed that only force would truly curb this menace. International sanctions, he noted, had indeed deeply damaged Iran’s economy, but its leaders were not swayed by the Iranian currency’s weakness or their citizenry’s suffering. He also pointed out that the world’s (and the US’s) reactions to North Korea’s saber-rattling would be a powerful indicator to Iran’s regime of how far they could push the West.
Pipes addressed other threats as well, which he admitted were not yet existential, most of them in some way related to the uprisings in the Arab world of the last few years, beginning with Tunisia and spreading through Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, and other countries. However, knowing his audience, and sticking to the topic of threats and challenges to Israel in the 21st century, Pipes concentrated his evening talk on the thesis that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only end when one side wins and the other loses. His hope, he said, presumably shared by the audience, was that it would be the Israeli side that wins. For this to happen, he said, the Palestinians would have to give up their biggest stated goals and dreams, primary among them the right of return and a capital in Jerusalem. And the only way they’d give up is if they were convinced, by a combination of Israeli and US actions, that these goals were unattainable. So, for instance, if the US were to follow through on its long-standing commitment, enshrined in law since 1995, to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, the Palestinians would get the message that the US was truly committed to the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state with Jerusalem as its capital. Further progress would be made toward peace if the Palestinians recognize that they would gain more from it than they do from trying to destroy Israel. Their economy, their daily lives, everything would get better if the 20% of the Palestinian population which Pipes cited as being for coexistence with Israel were allowed to expand and take charge of the Palestinian people’s future.
Pipes admitted to somewhat mixed feelings about the Obama administration’s approach to Israel and Middle East policies in general. He flatly stated that the newly minted Secretaries of State and Defense (John Kerry and Chuck Hagel, respectively), along with the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (John Brennan) – positions he said were critical to determining the US government’s positions vis-a-vis Israel – are “all distinctly worse than their predecessors.” That said, though, while Pipes had long been suspicious of Obama’s positions on Israel due to his past associations with people who were known to be hostile to the Jewish state, he was “flummoxed” by Obama’s recent visit to Israel. During that visit, Pipes pointed out, the American president showed a shift in tone, and possibly attitude, that in some ways went farther than any previous American leader. Specifically, Pipes said, Obama demanded that the Palestinians accept not only Israel’s existence, but its being a Jewish state in its ancestral homeland.
Ultimately, and perhaps not surprisingly considering the subject matter and the messenger, Pipes painted a picture of contradictions. The BDS movement is gaining ground in some academic circles and major institutions in the west, yet the proportion of the general population in the United States is at least five to one in favor of Israel. In geopolitical and macroeconomic terms, Israel is an island of stability and prosperity in an ocean of chaos and stagnation. Looking ahead, the much-ballyhooed two-state solution seems dead in the water, yet a majority of Israelis and diaspora Jews still support the idea. Thus one can leave a lecture that began with the statement “the Middle East is aflame” feeling positive because Israeli men have the longest lifespan on earth, and Israel’s energy reserves are equal to those of Saudi Arabia.
You can stay up to date on Daniel Pipes’ analysis of the Middle East by visiting his website, www.danielpipes.org.
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Levy is a freelance writer based in San Diego. He may be contacted via yiftach.levy@sdjewishworld.com