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Isaac & Ishmael, III

Rather quixotically, the Center for Economic and Social Justice - which in many particulars manages to transcend the tired Left-Right divide - proposes to unriddle the Israel/Palestine puzzle by securing the existence of three states: Israel, Palestine and - initially on/within the most disputed territory, perhaps eventually to incorporate the other two states - the "Abraham Federation."

'[P]resent hostilities must not be ignored. This should be obvious. But any proposed solution would rest on political quicksand unless it recognized existing hatreds and fears of Jews and Arabs, as well as their legitimate hopes and aspirations. To overcome these hostilities to the point where Arabs and Jews can work out their differences, we must look to the past for a common bond.

'Arabs and Jews have a point of unity both can understand: Abraham, the Old Testament patriarch.

'Arabs trace their ancestry to Abraham through Ishmael, whom he fathered through his wife's servant Hagar. Jews trace their bloodlines to Abraham through his son Isaac and grandson Jacob, who, according to the Bible, God later renamed Israel. The name "Abraham" literally means "father of many nations." Having once separated the descendants of Ishmael from the children of Israel, 3,800 years later, Abraham could fulfill the biblical prophecy not only of their unification but also of the eventual unification and harmony of all nations and peoples.

'Symbols of the past often serve as useful symbols for charting the future. A federation of the spiritual and blood descendants of Abraham could offer a bold political framework for taking small steps in a new direction. Thus, rather appropriately, the new nation could be named the "Abraham Federation." '

Such a conception, unapologetically embracing what strikes the modern temper as the "mythical past," is a far cry from the usual nostrum of a "democratic, secular state" (which would fail, as per de Jouvenel's meditation in Part I).

Perhaps the reply to de Jouvenel's pessimistic outlook would then be: there might be a solution, along the general lines of the "Abraham Federation" idea - and it isn't "rational."

December 15, 2005 | Permalink

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Comments

Paul, not only are you back, but you are in full flow. Great!

I've long contended, myself (being a man who contends where others fear to tread) that the Palestinian state and Israel would have to devise some transnational institutions -- particularly a court system that could punish both Palestinian bombers and run amock Israeli soldiers. I just don't like it being called the Abraham institute, however. Much too religious for me. I have doubts that the religious phase of Middle Eastern history is really going to last twenty more years -- I mean, the secular/socialist phase lasted what, from the forties to about the seventies? And it collapsed because it failed to deliver on its promises.
So why burden secular institutions with religious sounding names?

Posted by: roger at Dec 17, 2005 9:33:01 AM

Roger,

Thanks for the comment.

I, too, dislike the "Abraham Institute." However, the Abraham Federation is another matter[!].

The main issue, as I see it, is that only by virtue of a substantive connection - a myth, if you like - can Hebrews and (Muslim) Arabs live together with any kind of harmony.

I think your point about a "transnational" system underscores the insight in de Jouvenel's assertion - two 'nations' (in the older sense of the term) cannot co-exist amicably in a (soley) representative milieu. Thus, barring an historical-religious connection, only an imperium, or complete separation of the populations, can bring "peace" of a kind.

I'm a bit non-plussed about the assertion that the "secular ... phase" collapsed. Has it in Israel? Certainly in the Muslim Middle East, where it has nearly always appeared as a police-state.

I'm similarly puzzled that you foresee an end to the "religious phase" even though on your reckoning the secular one is spent. Isn't this a matter of an excluded middle?!

Anyhow, in that region we've got a couple thousand years of a religious "phase" with a recent, secular interregnum.

Posted by: Paul Craddick at Dec 17, 2005 12:05:09 PM

Paul, I'm not sure that the Persian Empire of the 16th century -- I just read, in the History of the Mughals, about the reception they gave to Babur's son in about 1590 -- was any more religious than Elizabethan England. A whole lotta drinking and speculating going on. And certainly in the 19th century, the bright Middle Eastern intellectual didn't look to religion to guide him on the way...

A form of militant secularism collapsed by 1979. And theocratic impulses -- including Israel's - have grown strong since then. But one always overestimates a trend when it is upon one, which is how we go from false prophet to false prophet (he said, falsely prophecying).

I'm much more doubtful about the invariant structuralism of de Jouvenal than you are, I think.

Posted by: Roger at Dec 17, 2005 3:44:46 PM