The Arabization of American Politics

As soon as the truce in Gaza went into effect, reports began to emerge of armed factions confronting Hamas and, soon after that, of Hamas’s reign of terror. The fighting was described as a rebellion against Hamas or as Hamas’s revenge against those who had betrayed it. No one who has watched Gaza closely could be surprised. Violence is endemic to Arab politics.

The phrase “Arab politics” requires some explanation. Why call violent clashes “politics”? Isn’t violence a sign of the absence of politics? Is violence unique to Arab societies? “Arab politics” certainly sounds like a misnomer for factional clashes.

I will argue here that it is not. Arab societies have a special place for violence in their political activity. As barbaric as this sounds, violence is an accepted part of the political landscape in Arab countries. This mode of politics is, I think, becoming increasingly common in the U.S. For many years, Americans hoped to spread democracy to the Middle East—the Gulf Wars arguably had this as their goal. But Arabs proved unreceptive. Now, alarmingly, Arab politics has come to America, and it threatens our democratic institutions.

The recent assassination of Charlie Kirk is a case in point. Kirk held no political office. He was murdered because he expressed his political views. Americans of all stripes should have been appalled at a suppression of free speech of this abhorrent kind and the attack on the rule of law. Yet, many people who thought of themselves as “progressive” took to the Internet to announce that Kirk’s views were reprehensible—as if that could somehow justify his murder. We saw something similar when Brian Thompson, the head of United Healthcare, was murdered on a street in New York, and people came forward to criticize health insurers and laud his alleged murderer—as if violence were somehow a legitimate expression of political and economic opposition. Of course, violence in America is nothing new, but it now receives a wide embrace as a political tool.

That is how it functions in Arab societies. Of course, no Arab nation has a democratic government. Even where there is a parliament or other political structures in place, political decisions are mostly autocratic. Nor do the citizens of Arab nations have any of the human rights that are the hallmark of Western democracies: free speech, free political assembly, free press, the right to a trial by jury or impartial judge, and the ability of citizens to elect a new government or to turn out their own government. Lacking both the institutions of self-government and the human rights necessary to engage in them, Arab nations would seem to have no politics. But this conclusion is a mistake. Arabs have an active and intense political life, one that is in some ways richer than the political lives of most citizens of Western democracies. Arabs rarely complain about their lack of the freedoms Western societies used to cherish. The reason, I think, is that incorporation of violence into the political landscape gives them the sense that they have more options for action than law-abiding Westerners.

How, though, could this be politics? How could there be politics when the circumstances are so inhospitable? In March of 2019, significant increases in prices sparked by America’s cut in aid and Hamas’s increases in taxes provoked rioting against Gaza’s Hamas government. Hamas suppressed the rioters brutally even as it promoted its own sanctioned violent demonstrations against Israel on its border. But Hamas also made concessions to the rioters. It sought and received additional aid from Qatar to distribute to Gazans. Riots occurred frequently in Gaza though they are rarely reported, and they have often had some success. Loss of life as the riots are suppressed seems a small and acceptable price to pay for change.

The pattern is familiar throughout the region. In 1929, there was horrific rioting in Hebron. It was incited by the Mufti of Jerusalem by claiming, falsely, that the Jews were planning to destroy al-Aqsa mosque. Famously, 67 Jews were murdered in Hebron and the community was evacuated. The British controlled Palestine at the time, and the rioting was a message or, rather, a threat to them: they would either limit Jewish immigration into the region or bear with more rioting. The British capitulated. The consequences were disastrous for Jews trying to flee the Nazis a decade later. Some rioters lost their lives, but, again, that was deemed an acceptable price for political victory.

Long before this, the medieval sect called the Assassins became famous for murdering their political foes—so famous, that we still refer to political “assassination.” The Assassins originated in Persia, but they spread throughout the region. Although they conducted many assassinations, just the threat of death must have deterred their opponents. As with the Mufti of Jerusalem, the leaders who ordered the assassinations disavowed them and escaped punishment.

From these few examples, we can see how violence and, especially, the threat of violence is central to what I call “Arab politics.” Every Arab regime faces the threat of violence, and those who survive move swiftly to suppress it. In 2012 in Benghazi, Libya, an Islamist militia, apparently aided by rioters, carried out attacks on US. .installations murdering four Americans. The Libyan government condemned the attacks and organized counter demonstrations of its own. This is Arab politics: threats of violence that spill over into actual violence and counter threats that often lead to violent retaliations.

For most Westerners, the potential for violence in politics is intolerable, as is the loss of life. But try to appreciate it from the perspective of those involved. Because politics is associated with the threat of violence, the population feels closer to politics than it would be in representative democracies. Since there is no limit on the expression of discontent, people can express themselves to a greater degree. In fact, they feel a greater sense of power and control than citizens of Western democracies often feel they have. Citizens of Western countries often complain about their inability to affect any real change. Not so those who live in Arab countries. Of course, the stakes are higher for rioters because they could be killed for expressing dissent and, indeed, some are, but their risking death makes their protest feel more noble and virtuous. They can and do effect real change.

At the same time, the constant threat of violence forces Arab governments to become more autocratic and repressive to maintain order. Yet, the increased repression serves merely to raise the threshold that provokes violence. Ordinary repressions can be tolerated because the population knows that it could retaliate with intense violence if pushed further. So, a governmental move needs to be extreme or, at least, seem extreme to provoke rioting. Because the rioting is relatively rare, when a governmental move does provoke it, the government must move quickly to mitigate the situation. That gives the rioters a sense of power and satisfaction. Far from feeling their lack of freedom, Arab populations seem to revel in their power: whereas Western protestors confine themselves to sedate marches and speech making, Arabs have the freedom to act to get what they want.

Rioting is dangerous. People get killed. Why do Arab societies tolerate the loss of life? The answer, I think, is that they have very strong class divisions. Mostly, the rioters come from the lower classes. They are expendable. They can be incited and controlled by the elite. This, too, gives the elite the sense that they are free to express themselves. The lower classes align themselves with powerful aristocratic leaders, and derive satisfaction from them in something like the way sports fans in the West celebrate their teams. (Hezbollah was outraged at Israel’s targeted killing of its commanders with pagers—in contrast to its proud celebration of martyrs when its lower-class soldiers are killed.)

When an opposition group manages to arm itself, it seizes some bit of territory and becomes a mini-state. The Palestinian Authority governs only part of the so-called “West Bank,” leaving the rest to be controlled by other armed groups. Lebanon is not so much a country as a loose confederation of armed factions each governed by its own warlord. So is Iraq, though its central government, sponsored by Iran, manages to exert more control. Given the authoritarianism and the class divisions, we should not take Arab calls for “socialism” seriously. The Ba’ath party that governed Syria and Iraq was socialist—in the mode of Hitler’s National Socialists.

In short, the Middle East is filled with authoritarian, oppressive governments that deny their people basic human rights. Still, it may seem wrong to call this “Arab politics.” Repressive regimes are widespread around the world; so is rioting by opposition groups. It was Machiavelli who counseled princes to instill fear in their subjects precisely to prevent political disruptions that he deemed worse than political oppression. The writers of the Federalist Papers worried that the newly formed nation would be undone by “faction,” but they argued that the Constitution would have adequate protections against it. Although concerns about political violence turned out to be well-founded, the vast majority of Americans have thus far deeply lamented it. Western democracies have generally set aside violence as an aspect of political life. In contrast, rioting and its violent suppression is an accepted and vital part of Middle Eastern life.

One would think that Arabs in the Middle East would readily embrace democratic government when they had the chance. The American overthrow of Saddam Hussein gave Iraq the chance. Overthrows of other dictators in the so-called “Arab Spring” provided still more opportunities. Yet no Arab state has a democratic government or basic human rights. Many blame their governments or the West for their economic malaise, but they do not long for democracy.

What I find truly remarkable is that Arabs who are exposed to Western democracies prefer Arab politics. Influential Islamist Sayyid Qutb spent two years in Colorado, but returned to Egypt in 1950 even more committed to the Muslim Brotherhood. Arabs on the “West Bank” and in Gaza see the freedoms enjoyed by Israelis, including its Arab citizens, but seem to have little desire that their own governments be democratic—perhaps partly because of the opportunities that democracies offer women and what Arabs perceive to be the consequent promiscuity. Nor do Arab students in the U.S. take back democratic values when they return to the Middle East. On the contrary, many Arabs seem to think that the West would be better off adopting the Arab model. This embrace of the threat of violence as a political tool is another reason to speak of “Arab politics.”

As bizarre as this sounds, increasing numbers of Americans have now come to accept this model even if they do not put their position in these terms. Of course, America does have a long history of political violence. However, its violence has mostly sought increased civil rights, freedoms, and the removal of inequities. Those “long, hot summers” of urban rioting in the 1960s were the other side of a mostly non-violent movement for equal rights under law, a movement that most Americans supported. The means were reprehensible, but the aim and, indeed, the result was a strengthened democracy. More recent rioting has arisen against police beatings and killings of minorities. The protests were against the violation of human rights and aimed to remove inequities. Even right-wing violence has been directed toward promoting freedom from tyranny. From the KKK to more recent perpetrators, a common mantra has been the preservation of white rights. In other words, although even right-wing rioters are generally seen as trying to suppress rights of minorities, they saw themselves as champions of freedom.

In short, the U.S. does have a long history of political violence. It is inexcusable. My point is that, until recently, its perpetrators saw themselves as somehow promoting democracy—however twisted their vision of it.

The current wave of political violence is different. Anti-Israel protests on college campuses have sought to build on resentment against racism by identifying Arabs as “people of color,” though few Blacks are involved in the protests. The protestors’ ostensible goal is ending their university’s cooperation with Israel, but their real target has been Jewish students who support Israel. In a number of academic institutions, Jewish students were so threatened that they could not come to their classes. These protests are sometimes compared to the anti-war protests of the 1960s, but the latter were mostly non-violent sit-ins and strikes that did not target fellow students. Then, it was not the students who were rioting but the police and National Guard, as the Commission examining violence at the Democratic Convention of 1968 concluded. Current protestors claim to be exercising their right to freedom of speech, but they are only appealing to democratic values to protect their own anti-democratic actions. In fact, they  have suppressed the speech of Israel supporters—and they have caused significant property damage and assaulted Jewish students. They are rioting—and the threat of further violence is very much part of their protests. That some face the possibility of arrest and deportation seems more a point of pride and heightened self-righteousness than a deterrent—a similarity with Middle Eastern rioters.

A significant portion of the protestors are Muslims, some present in the U.S. on student visas, others American citizens. They have the support of many professors and administrators who see Israel as a Western imperialist “settler colonial” state, “like” the U.S., and who see America’s capitalist society as intrinsically unjust. It is an odd coalition of the radical left with the far right: the former against any religion, but especially against a religion that belongs only to a particular group, and the latter outraged that non-Muslims occupy a “formerly” Muslim land, contrary to strict Islamic doctrine.

Though these two ideologies have very little support in the U.S., my concern here is not with what brings them together, but with their both embracing violence as a way to advance their anti-democratic political and social agendas. To be sure, they have tried to push their agendas by writing and speaking and through the arts, but this has not succeeded in convincing large numbers of Americans to embrace either ideology. Support for Israel remains strong—at least in some quarters—and faith in democratic government is high. The threat of ongoing violence is a desperate measure that reflects their lack of success with other forms of expression. Since it is an attempt for a minority to intimidate others for the sake of its agenda, it is anti-democratic at its heart.

There are ample and adequate laws in place to prosecute assault and property damage. University administrators have chosen not to call in the police or even to keep records of the perpetrators. This has cost several Ivy League university presidents their jobs. But their successors have been equally reluctant to act, and universities often lead the way. The legitimization and normalization of violence poses a direct threat to the continuation of democratic government. If it can happen at our best universities, it can happen anywhere—and it will.

Many of those who were quick to condemn January 6 rioters—rightly, I think—cannot bring themselves to condemn anti-Jewish violence. The administration’s cancelling of millions in grants and contracts to universities because they have failed to abide by “federal antidiscrimination laws” is a much needed measure. If our laws are not upheld, plenty of other extremists will seek to advance their agendas through the threat of violence. This is Arab politics. It is incompatible with democracy.

Our Constitution is supposed to prevent it by offering political outlets to express and, thereby, to moderate passions. But, if enough people regard the American state as irredeemably corrupt, these safeguards will be inadequate. If only those prepared to be violent will determine public policy, there can be no deliberation and debate, and our prized freedoms will cease to exist. We will live under an authoritarian state like those in the Middle East.

Immigrants to the U.S., especially those from Arab countries, have little or no experience with democracy. This fact was once widely recognized and efforts were made to help newcomers adapt to democratic values. However, such efforts ceased as the notion of “American exceptionalism” became disparaged. Today, immigrants become citizens with little knowledge or appreciation of democratic values. A former director of CAIR once said that that organization aimed to make Islam the official religion of the U.S.

The Arabization of American politics has begun, but its continuation is not inevitable. We need to affirm democratic values, enforce our laws, and educate our immigrants and visitors. America is indeed exceptional. We need to insure that it so remains.