Sunday, November 11, 2007
Opinion, Stephanie Ramage

The challenge of our time

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Speaking at Emory University on Oct. 29, Hanan Ashrawi, the intelligent, articulate and charming former Minister of Higher Education and Research for the Palestinian Authority, provided an update on Israeli measures to curtail the liberty and quality of life of Palestinians. Among these measures, in place for the past several years, are curfews that tear at the Palestinian social fabric; Draconian economic prohibitions that make it impossible for Palestinians to legally support themselves; and, of course, the monstrous wall designed to keep Palestinians out of noncontested areas of Israel.

Then, answering a question regarding whether she would publically denounce Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians, she said, “In fact, there have not been any attacks on civilians in the last several years.”

Ashrawi quickly moved on. The statement was a seeming bombshell of vindication for Israelis and their American counterparts, who would see it as proof that the stringent measures are working.

But it seems unlikely, given the area’s history, that the Israeli crackdown can be credited with snuffing out attacks against Israeli citizens. There is the infighting between Hamas and Fatah to consider, a conflict that is distracting those who formerly targeted Israelis. There is also the American presence in Iraq.

There hasn’t been a terrorist attack on American soil since 2001, and the right is correct that this is evidence that something we are doing is working. The left is equally correct that Iraq is a magnet for unemployed young Islamic extremists—with which the Arab world is rife—looking to hook-up with al-Qaida. The two facts are entwined.

For decades, terrorists around the world were aided by the then-pan-Arabist movement, and later by Islamic extremists. Today, Islamic extremists are focused on Iraq. They have neither the time nor the resources to be aiding terrorist groups in the Palestinian areas—especially given the Hamas-Fatah divide. Iraq is draining terrorist resources from the rest of the Middle East and the West.

What will happen, then, as a result of the eventual and inevitable end of the American occupation of Iraq? It is no accident that Al-Jazeera’s reporting in the past year has developed a broader thread of support for the United States remaining in Iraq. For Arab governments, the American exit means that many of the Islamic extremists who vexed them before 2003 will be returning home. These governments don’t want the terrorists/insurgents who are keenly opposed to their home governments.

But they won’t just be returning to the Arab countries from whence they came. Some will head for Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the International Security Assistance Forces are spread thin along the Taliban-infested border. Some will return to Israel’s “occupied territories.” Others will seek to engage the West on its own ground. For Europe, this will be more of the same.

Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, as the communist terrorist Carlos the Jackal spread a trail of deadly violence in Europe, we Americans resided safe and sound on our side of the Atlantic. Such things were not matters for us, we thought. Our culture, our politics, our economy and our national identity have all developed around the idea that we are separated from the troubles of the rest of the world by two great oceans, and whether we become involved in those troubles is a matter of choice.

Both World War I and our early involvement in World War II were deemed matters of choice: WWI was Woodrow Wilson’s war, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt was almost impeached in the days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor for shipping arms to the British very much against the wishes of Congress, which claimed he wanted to unilaterally declare war. But technology has long since bridged the seas, and our choices have narrowed. Personal technology did wonders for the logistics necessary to pull off a terrorist attack on American soil on Sept. 11, 2001.

In reaction, many Americans have become isolationists, believing that if we simply close our borders, raise tariffs on imports and pretend that we reside in a sort of Avalon that deals with the world only when it deigns to do so, all will be well. Would that it were so. Unfortunately, the oceans guard us no more. Some Democrats wistfully speak of returning to an era without fear. Some Republicans fan the flames of fear. But fear—to deny it or to nurture it—is not the answer.

By next summer, the U.S. will not have nearly as many troops in Iraq and, hopefully, its government will be more stable; terrorist resources will shift to Afghanistan, to Israel, to Europe (which explains French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s tough talk) and, yes, to us. What should we do to prepare?

The answer is to be more, not less, globally involved. We have a stake in promoting access to the free market both at home and abroad. Among the many lessons we have learned in Iraq—and as the world has learned in the Palestinian areas—is that without a stake in the economy, citizens cannot truly participate in real democracy. As was the case in the election of Chavez in Venezuela, their votes will be bought and their will subverted by violent thugs who monopolize and unlawfully seize resources. In addition to economic access there must be—again, at home and abroad—access to quality education.

Writing at the height of the British Empire, in “A Christmas Carol,” Charles Dickens described the specter of the Ghost of Christmas Future pulling aside a cloak to show a belly pregnant with withered twins—“they are Poverty and Ignorance,” Scrooge’s guide said, warning that his self-absorption would lead to a future that would give birth to them.

What was true in the British Empire is still true today everywhere in the world. Terrorism is not a new evil. It is only the latest guise of those two ancient evils. It is a bid for power by the violent, fueled by the misery of the poor and ignorant. Whatever one’s political leanings, it is better to live on a planet where ignorance and poverty are waning than on one where they are ascendant. For our own good and for the future of our children, we must not shrink from the challenge that is most essentially American: to actively engage in the battle against ignorance and poverty in a world that still desperately needs us. SP

Stephanie Ramage is news editor of The Sunday Paper.