Book Review: The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East (2005) by Robert Fisk

It takes a strong stomach to read this massive history of the Middle East from the Iran-Iraq war up to the second invasion of Iraq in 2003, and not just because it's filled with graphic descriptions of the atrocities inflicted on millions of people with weapons as various as knives, cluster bombs and poison gas. What's really stomach churning is the litany of stupid, racist, cynical and plain old murderous political decisions that have turned the Middle East into a perpetual battleground of competing ideologies, religions, sects and dictators.

Fisk takes a scattershot approach to his history of the region, jumping backwards and forwards in time to chronicle the wars and conflicts in Algeria and Aghanistan and everywhere in-between. This non-chronological approach has drawn disapproving frowns from some critics, but this structure is, I think, intended to reflect Fisk's career as a journalist; always leapfrogging from one bloody crisis to another in the Middle East and North Africa. Also, this is primarily a work of journalism rather than a historical document, although Fisk certainly provides all the needed historical background to the various conflicts he's covered. And his history of the Armenian Genocide strikes a perfect balance between brevity and telling details.

There are several themes that Fisk returns to throughout the book, chief amongst them is the fact that the modern Middle East is largely the creation of the West, and therein lies the root of many of its problems. Today's national borders in the region reflect decisions made by colonial powers in 1919, and despotic regimes in Iraq and Iran were, at various times, installed or approved of by the US and the UK, the chief power brokers in the area after WW II. And of course the most contentious Western creation is Israel, which was essentially imposed on a politically helpless Palestine. But more about Israel later. It's almost a  given that frictions and conflicts in the region have their basis in reckless or ignorant decisions made in Washington or various European capitals.

In relation to the above point, Fisk makes it clear that the West has shown a remarkable ability to befriend any and all dictators who are willing to side with Western interests. Saddam Hussein is the poster boy for this Machiavellian strategy. Once the Shah of Iran was deposed from his throne and his role of favoured regional "strongman," Hussein became the new strongman in town and was toasted and feted in world capitals of all political stripes. He tortured and gassed his own people and started a war with Iran? No problem, as long as he's got oil to sell and arms to buy, and as a bonus he's eager to kill lots and lots of Iranians by any means available. This diplomatic formula has been repeated with a score of dictators in the region, which has simply led to a hardening of anti-Western attitudes in the general population. The average citizen of the Middle East can see very well who's propping up or applauding his local despot so it should come as no surprise that Islamist and nationalsit parties (the political groups most likely to be loathed in the West) are able to attract support in the region.

Fisk's book also makes it clear, even if he doesn't say so directly, that the Middle East is, perhaps, ungovernable in the sense that we in the West think of "good" governance. The region is so riven with religious, ethnic and sectarian conflicts, not to mention sub-layers of conflicting tribe and clan loyalties, that it's hard to see how stable government can exist for any length of time, particularly when so many of the societies are nursing toxic fears and grudges leftover sfrom recent wars. Even Israel, which is reflexively offered up as model of statehood in a sea of corrupt and dictatorial regimes, is beginning to fracture along ultra Orthodox and secular lines. As bad as the recent past has been for the Middle East, the future, it seems, could be even worse.

Speaking of Israel, Fisk misses no opportunity to record Israel's crimes and misdemeanors within and without its borders and its tail-wagging-the-dog relationship with the US. His harsh criticisms of Israel have, predictably, caused him to be branded both an anti-semite and an enemy of America. The fact that Fisk's criticisms are no different than those voiced by Israel's homegrown critics (see Ilan Pappe's book on the ethic cleansing of Palestine here) is ignored by Fisk-bashers. Fisk eloquently and relentlessly makes the point that Israel's policy of displacement, colonization and persecution of its Palestinian citizens is glossed over in the West, and its war crimes are held to a different standard than those committed by Palestinian groups. More dangerously, Israel's iron hold on US decision-making in the region has hopelessly compromised any diplomatic initiatives the US undertakes.

The book's defects can be boiled down to two issues: the first is that Fisk's tone is sometimes too hectoring, too much the sarcastic Old Testament prophet. The other problem is that Fisk picks some cheap and easy targets for his wrath. Is anyone surprised that arms merchants don't give a toss about what happens to their deadly merchandise once it goes out the factory door? Apparently Fisk is, and so two sections on the so-called merchants of death end up feeling rather pointless. Other than those issues, this is, as they say, essential reading for any understanding of what has made the Middle East the cockpit of the world.

Book Review: A History of Modern Palestine (2004) and The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006) by Ilan Pappe

Many nations have foundational myths, and for the most part they're the equivalent of corporate PR; a bundle of warm and fuzzy half-truths that spin a positive message about a country's character and roots. The US has loads of myths about its founding fathers, various presidents, and the aspirations and struggles of the early settlers, all of it used to build of a portrait of a nation that's resourceful and determined. France looks to the revolution of 1789 to define itself as the bastion of liberty and equality. Britain reaches all the way back to the signing of Magna Carta to help define itself as a land resistant to tyrannies and proud of its individual liberties. But then there are the countries that use or create a myth to rationalize or justify contemporary political policies, and that's where danger lies. Dictators as different as Hitler and the Kims of North Korea have constructed myths to justify the most heinous crimes. The most fascinating revelation in these two books, at least for those who haven't paid a lot of attention to goings-on in the Middle East, is that Israel's foundational mythos has been used as a tool and a smokescreen to facilitate the colonization and exploitation of Palestinian land that was, for the most part, either stolen or conquered.

Ilan Pappe is one of Israel's "new historians", a group of academics who have started examining the dirty secrets of Israel's short history. One of the key Israeli myths is that in 1948, as the British Mandate in Palestine was expiring, the Jews in Palestine were outnumbered and outgunned by surrounding Arab countries intent on massacring them. Pappe neatly exposes this as a grotesque exaggeration. Neighbouring countries were more interested in a land grab than any kind of pogrom, and in military terms the Jewish forces were their equal in numbers and superior to them in training and quality of arms. Myth number two that Pappe demolishes is that the Palestinians who fled the land during the 1948 made the choice to abandon their land because they feared being caught up in the conflict. In fact, Jewish forces were busily engaged in a policy of ethnic cleansing before and during the conflict. Palestinian villages and communities were subjected to intimidation tactics that ranged all the way up to full-scale massacres of civilians. In short, many Palestinians fled their land because of Jewish terror tactics.

From its earliest days, Israel's politicians and supporters have used the myth of Israel as a David surrounded by Goliaths to curry favour and support from the West. Israel has cast itself as an underdog faced by bullies in order to justify oppressive security restrictions on Israeli Palestinians as well as military attacks on anyone, individuals or nations, deemed a threat to Israel. The idea that Israel might be a threat to its own (Palestinian) citizens and neighbours isn't talked about much in the West. The fiction that Palestinians fled Palestine in 1948 to escape invading Arab armies is the most pernicious of the two myths because it covers up crimes committed by Jewish forces and is used to justify Israel's refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their land.

Don't think that these two books are merely opinion pieces; these are solidly researched works of history with citations for every damning fact and statistic. I've concentrated on Pappe's unraveling of Israel's foundational myths, but he has a lot more to reveal, all of it damaging to any view of Israel as a benign and democratic nation. I have to say that the two books make for depressing reading, given that so much suffering by Palestinians has been ignored or dismissed thanks to the relentless promotion of Israel's foundational myths in the mainstream media. This also explains why Israel, and lobbying groups working on its behalf in the West, react so hysterically to honest critiques of Israel's history. They know that these myths are one of the pillars of Israel's claim to moral superiority in the Middle East, and they'll do and say anything to defend them. And it seems Pappe is also one of the victims of those who fight to safeguard mythology: in 2007 he left his teaching position at Haifa University due to criticism from within and without the university. He now teaches at the University of Exeter in England. These two volumes don't make for pleasant reading, but they're essential for any unfiltered understanding of Middle Eastern politics.