I discovered a long time ago that politics and religion don’t mix, especially in the Middle East. I predict that, following his recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state, Donald Trump will painfully discover the same truism. My discovery dates back to 1977. Trump was enjoying the playboy lifestyle in New York. I was the diplomatic correspondent of a large chain of British newspapers, and, despite the Balfour Declaration, the British press was not known for a pro-Israeli stance.
Their reporters seemed more attracted to the wild open spaces and the vast starlit skies of Arabia than the Biblical lands.
I, however, am an American. I had absorbed a pro-Israeli stance at my mother’s teat. The Arabs were in bed with the Reds and the plucky democratic Israelis had seen off repeated attempts to push them into the Med. The Jews were the ones to back; at least that was how I was raised.When I visited Israel everyone was still arguing about the outcome of the 1967 War in which the Israelis managed to secure the rest of Jerusalem, the West Bank of the Jordan and the Golan Heights in just six days. It was a triumph. The poster of the year in America was of a bearded weedy-looking Hasidic Jew bursting out of a public phone box while tearing off his black coat to reveal a superman costume.
Ten years later the world was demanding that Israel seek peace by withdrawing to its pre-1967 borders. No, said Israel. We need “defensible borders.” That was the diplomatic mantra: “defensible borders, defensible borders.”I arrived in the heat of the summer and the Israelis were determined to build on the foundation stone of a young almost genetically engineered pro-Israeli American working for the British media. I was whisked through a special channel at passport control and into an air conditioned limousine before I had a chance break sweat.
The car had its own driver and a friendly young Israeli guide/minder from the foreign ministry. I was his first assignment. After the mandatory tour of Jerusalem, and dinner with the prima ballerina of the Israeli National Ballet, we started a week-long road trip with a drive to the Lebanese border. Lots of wire and guards. We then turned south and drove along the Jordan River through the Hula Valley and Jordan Rift Valley.
It was—still is—a rich and fertile land whose kibbutz farms churn out thousands of tons of oranges and other fruit every year. As we drove south towards the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, I was shown the Golan Heights that gently rose in the East—the left side of the car. On the western side of the valley there was an almost vertical wall of mountains. I mean, they went straight up. My young guide directed my attention to the Golan Heights. “You can see,” he explained, “why we need to occupy the Golan Heights. Before the Six-Day War the Syrian-backed Fedayeen would just sit on the heights lobbing mortars into the Kibbutz below. We could do nothing to stop them without crossing an international border and sparking off a war. Thousands of families lived under constant fear of attack and death. It was an impossible situation. We need to occupy the Golan Heights to secure defensible borders.” There it was, the Israeli diplomatic mantra of 1977.
I rolled down the window, leaned out and studied the layout of the Golan Heights as the car sped south. I then looked past and around my guide; through the other window to the mountains in the west.
In all innocence I blurted out the results of my observation: “Have you ever thought that the mountains might be an even more secure defensible border than the Golan Heights?” My guide’s eyes opened wide. His lower jaw dropped. I ignored him and ploughed on. “Think about it,” I said, oozing reasonableness. “You could offer to return the Golan Heights and relinquish the valleys in return for peace and the most defensible borders possible.” The blood started to rise from his collar.
I added, as his ears turned bright red: “I think the international community would be astounded by such a grand gesture in search of a lasting peace.”The diplomatic mask slipped. The guide exploded. He banged his fist so hard on the leather armrest divider that the driver jumped and nearly drove off the road. “We will never,” he bellowed, “relinquish one square millimetre of Eretz Israel. This land was given to us by God.”
I had encountered the brick wall intransigence of a national policy based on religion. It was not a pretty sight and played a major role in reversing my pro-Israeli stance. Political consensus was not on Israel’s negotiating table. Neither was compromise or any discussion of any kind. Why should it be? God was on their side. God is infallible. Their national policy, their very existence for being, is based on the word of God. Therefore, as clearly as night follows day, their national policy is infallible.
Unfortunately, the Islamic world believes just as firmly that God backs them. This makes the Arab-Israeli conflict the most intractable and difficult to resolve in the world. Donald Trump’s recognition of the Holy City of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has just made it more difficult.
tom.arms@lookaheadtv.com