Islamic Imperialism (2 Viewers)

[The Brucemaster]

Alright, following on from our tangent on the Liberal/Labor thread let us discuss people's views on Arab nations imperialism in the Middle East.
Fu Manchu brought up the examples of Palestine, Iran and Iraq.

This site has an OK overview of Arab Imperialism although it does a pkc and just uses random quotes to say what they're trying to say. Cant find much on the internet thats not extremely biased so it'll have to do for now.
For general information on the Arab-Israeli conflict (Israel and Palestine) just use [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab-Israeli_conflict']Wikipedia[/URL], its a bit of a mess but you should be able to find what you want.

Ok, so i don't actually know much about this yet so i can't voice an opinion but ill do a bit of research and see what i think.

In the meantime lets hear what the rest of you think.

 

[The Brucemaster]

What do you mean when you say the ethnic culture of the Persians is being destroyed by Islam? Same question for Lebanon.

Otherwise, no, i really dont think two imperialist powers can co-exist. They may be able to exist simultaneously for some period of time but eventually they will come in to conflict. Classic example is Germany/Britain in WWI.

 

[leetom]

Persians are Arabs. The rise of Islam was centuries ago, its appeal spread throughout the Middle-East and was readily taken up by the masses. You make out like Islam crushed some sort of distinct Persian culture. The Greeks crushed Persian culture.

Lebanon never used to be an Arabic land. Most Lebanese were Phoenecians + Greeks (tautology)+ French roots. Now there are lots of arabs living there.

You are idiotic! French roots?! You suggest that the French were in the region at the same time as the Phoenicians!! The Phoenicians were an ancient people, the French influence at best came about following the establishment of European garrisons in the Crusades. In this day, you cannot distinguish between a 'Phoenician' and an 'Arab'. All the little sub-races in the Middle-East have been amalgamated into 'Arab', much like the different ethnicities in China are Chinese, or just Asian. Hell, while I'm at it I can even call Arabs 'Asian'.

And for the record, the most warlike people of the middle-east were the Persians.

 

[The Brucemaster]

Persians are Arabs. The rise of Islam was centuries ago, its appeal spread throughout the Middle-East and was readily taken up by the masses. You make out like Islam crushed some sort of distinct Persian culture. The Greeks crushed Persian culture.

Not so, it was in fact the Romans that "crushed Persian culture." More accurately stated it was the Romans who conquered the Persians.

You are idiotic! French roots?! You suggest that the French were in the region at the same time as the Phoenicians!! The Phoenicians were an ancient people, the French influence at best came about following the establishment of European garrisons in the Crusades

Again, not so. The French originate from the Gallic people who inhabited a large portion of modern Europe pre-Roman times.

In this day, you cannot distinguish between a 'Phoenician' and an 'Arab'. All the little sub-races in the Middle-East have been amalgamated into 'Arab', much like the different ethnicities in China are Chinese, or just Asian. Hell, while I'm at it I can even call Arabs 'Asian'.

Well of course not thats because Phoenicia no longer exists but i think calling Arabs Asians is going a tad too far.

 

[leetom]

Again, not so. The French originate from the Gallic people who inhabited a large portion of modern Europe pre-Roman times.

I know that, I was correcting the other guy. You cannot deny the presence of French culture in modern-day Lebanon though, but indeed, the Gallic ethnicity does not originate from there.

Well of course not thats because Phoenicia no longer exists but i think calling Arabs Asians is going a tad too far.

No really, you can. It's a bit disparaging, but everything acorss the Hellespont can be called Asian.

 

[loquasagacious]

Persians are Arabs. The rise of Islam was centuries ago, its appeal spread throughout the Middle-East and was readily taken up by the masses. You make out like Islam crushed some sort of distinct Persian culture. The Greeks crushed Persian culture.

No time to do a full reply now because I have to go to work but in reply just to this:

Persians are not arabs. They are ethinically, culturally, liguistically etc distinct. They are muslim however are most certainly not Arab, indeed their history is one of conflict with, subjugation of and subjugation by the Arabs. They are not Arabs.

Trust me on this one we studied this very question as part of Politics in the Middle East - a course delivered by Australia's only dedicated school on the region.

 

[leetom]

No time to do a full reply now because I have to go to work but in reply just to this:

Persians are not arabs. They are ethinically, culturally, liguistically etc distinct. They are muslim however are most certainly not Arab, indeed their history is one of conflict with, subjugation of and subjugation by the Arabs. They are not Arabs.

Trust me on this one we studied this very question as part of Politics in the Middle East - a course delivered by Australia's only dedicated school on the region.

I accpet your correction then. You really studied the question Are Persians Arabs? What modern nation-state best represents the 'Persian'? Iran? Parts of Iraq I imagine?

And ANU is the best for such a subject?

P.S: what the fuck? I'm not suggesting at all what you think im suggesting.

you did say French roots.

 

[Frogurt]

As Bruce said Wikipedia is a real mess, and i would go even further to say to disregard it entirely even for a general overview, it's open source and as such highly subjective in an already highly contentious topic. that is not to say that Academic sources are not also subjective, rather they are founded upon research that you can follow up and even contest with other academic sources.

with regards to Israel/Palestine whoever designed the headline for this should do their research the conflict between Israel and any Arab group is based on Secular Nationalist principles, Herzl was very much in favour of establishing a Secular Zionist state based on European political systems. as for the Palestinians yes you had a Cleric at the head of their Nationalist movement but this was more due to the lack of other established leaders rather than the desire to establish Islamic Law and governance. ultimately they were both Secular and i direct your attention to the sources at the end to verify that. This being said Religion has come to dominate more and more in contemporary times but the conflict itself is rooted in Nationalistic conflict over claims to territory namely the region of Palestine. Loq and i dissagree as to when each nationalist movement emerged (i maintain it was the 1880's he seems to think Palestinian Nationalism didn't emerge until 67, i think, he'll have to confirm this) but i don't think i've ever come across anyone who seriously believed that the conflict was rooted in Religious divides.

Now onto the French, they actually didn't firmly establish their roots within the wider society until partitioning the Collapsed Ottoman Empire, yes there is still Krak de Chevalier in Syria but the cultural and linguistical roots we see in todays Lebannon and Syria did not occur until occupation and subsequently independence. even most of the Leb. Christians i think occured post Crusades, but i'm not entirely sure on that one.

Now as for Persians, there is no one defined Persian modern State, Iran is the largest representative of ethnic Persians but is not mutually exclusive to it. i'm not sure what else you are trying to find out from this could you expand further so i have a better idea as to what you are asking?

As i said i'm happy to answer any and all questions how i can, As Loq said the ANU is the leadin institute for this within Australia, and for Leetom's sake i will go further and point out that we also lead in Political Science, Asian Studies and any form of Security and Strategic studies (with the exception of perhaps ADFA but i'm talking about Civilian institutions).

Armstrong, Karen, Jerusalem: One City Three Faiths, New York: Ballantine Books, 1996.

Dowty, Alan, “A Question That Outweighs All Others” Yitzhak Epstein and the Zionist Recognition of the Arab Issue, Israel Studies 6, 2001

Fawcett, Louise, International Relations of the Middle East, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005

Dowty Alan, Israel/Palestine, London: Polity Press 2005

Gilbert, Martin, Israel: A History, London: Black Swan, 1999

Lewis, Bernard, The Middle East: A Brief History of the last 2000 years, New York: Touchstone Publishing, 1995

Lochery, Neill, Scholarship or Propaganda: Works on Israel and the Arab Israeli Conflict, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.37, No.4, October 2001, pp.219–236
Lustic, Ian, S., Changing Rationales for Political Violence in the Arab Israeli Conflict, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 20, No.1, Autumn 1990, p.54-79

Milton-Edwards, B. & Hinchcliffe, P. Conflicts in the Middle East Since 1945, London: Routledge, 2002

Saikal, A., Islam and The West: Conflict or Cooperation, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003

Shenhav, Yehouda, The Jews of Iraq, Zionist Ideology, and the Property of the Palestinian Refugees of 1948: An Anomoly of National Accounting, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 31, No.4, Nov 1999, p.605-630

 

[ihavenothing]

Persians are NOT Arabs, but trading roots even before the rise of Islam melded the boundaries a bit more. Though it is true Lebanon was a Phonecian based country.

 

[leetom]

Ok Fu Manchu, so we've established that Persians are distinct from Arabs, but I still fail to see how Persian culture is under threat from some sort of Islamic Imperialism. The Persians willingly deposed their Shah and installed that Grand Ayatollah chap as their leader, a full and complete embrace of Islam. Islam wasn't forced on them, and it is possible to be a Muslim and retain ethnic culture (eg South-East Asians).

 

[loquasagacious]

You really studied the question Are Persians Arabs? What modern nation-state best represents the 'Persian'? Iran? Parts of Iraq I imagine?

And ANU is the best for such a subject?

The question arose as a tangent of studying Irans modern history.

As has been said Iran is the most Persian state however is obviously not exclusively Persian. However we can still take it as the closest there is to a persian state.

And again as Frogurt said the ANU is indeed the best for this subject matter, those listed by Frogurt and for that matter all areas of International Relations and could also claim (though less strongly) to be the leading place to study Europe.

Loq and i dissagree as to when each nationalist movement emerged (i maintain it was the 1880's he seems to think Palestinian Nationalism didn't emerge until 67, i think, he'll have to confirm this) but i don't think i've ever come across anyone who seriously believed that the conflict was rooted in Religious divides.

My position is that whilst in the 1880's those peoples indegenous to Palestine rejected the zionists who were moving in and were strongly opposed to the zionists. They did not infact at that time constitute a people with a national identity of their own.

It was not an ethno-nationalist or religious-nationalist rejection of the zionists but rather a simple reactionary rejection of outsiders.

I take the 1967 war as the definitive emergence of a distinct palestinian nationalism for several reasons. At this point the Pan-Arab movement decisively failed, the Arab states had been demonstrated as incapable of liberating Palestine and now withdrew from the conflict and sought peace with Israel. This created a power vacuum into which the Palestinian movement could grow.

Previously they had as a group been largely dictated to and controlled by the Arab states. Indeed in the event of the Arab states liberating Palestine it is highly unlikely an independent Palestinian state would ahve emerged, more likely would have been a carve up between Syria, Jordan and Egypt.

The Palestinians were thus in 1967 abandoned by the Arab states and had to fend for themselves this necessitated the developement of a Palestinian nationalism. This development was compounded by two things:

1)The new independence of the PLO from the Arab states and the conduct of PLO/Fateh guerilla activities against Israel which helped create an 'us and them' mentality uniting the Palestinians as a nation against Israel.
2)The civil war with/in Jordan which created an 'us and them' against Jordan and thus the broader Arab world.

You can refer elsewhere to my theories on culture and identity evolving through conflict with others which necessitates a differentiation between the two parties. But basically here we see that Palestinian identity evolved in opposition to Israel and parts of the arab world, and that it did this around 1967.

Furthermore this process was given momentum by the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank which served to bring 'Israeli-Arabs' into contact with the Palestinian nation and was a catalyst for their 'palestinisation'.

To carry this story on I contend that it was not until 1983/4 that Palestinian Nationalism emerged as a potent and indisputable force. It was at this point that the first intifada cemented Palestinian nationalism as broad-based and potent. Furthermore it was in direct response to the intifada that Jordan renounced its territorial claim to the West Bank, thus recognising a distinct Palestinian people.

 

[banco55]

Ironically Hamas got some (covert) assistance from Israel in the early days as Israel was hoping the Islamist Palestinian groups would cause the (relatively secular) PLO lots of trouble. Israel is very lucky that the Arabs are so incompetent or they would probably have ceased to exist quite some time ago.

 

[zeek]

more like israel is very lucky to have shit loads of funding from the americans and their support

 

[loquasagacious]

Banco it is illusory to say Israel supported Hamas, the fact is they did not interdict incoming funding for Hamas but did so for the PLO - hardly active support.

Israel survives because:

Arab states failed to prepare, mobilise or attack sufficiently initially.

Subsequently because Israel has better arms, better training, better armed forces, better backing. And the Arab states are still not co-ordinated or organised.

 

[StGeorgeDragons]

http://phoenicia.org/phoeleb.html

 

[ZabZu]

Ironically Hamas got some (covert) assistance from Israel in the early days as Israel was hoping the Islamist Palestinian groups would cause the (relatively secular) PLO lots of trouble. Israel is very lucky that the Arabs are so incompetent or they would probably have ceased to exist quite some time ago.

Thats what i heard happened too.

 

[StGeorgeDragons]

i dont think its the arabs faults at all, which is why israel stil exists, if they were ever to "destroy" Israel, they would have to "destroy" USA, do you see the link now????? Terrorism??

 

[Frogurt]

Whilst Israel no doubt is the largest recipient of US aide it is niave to think that this is why Israel has survived. look at the wars that have occured in all cases you will find that the Israeli's had more numbers were better organised and ultimately were able to out manouver the Arab States. on the Flip side you had Arab states who were acting independent of each other, were under prepared, fewer in numbers and ultimately non-commital to the establishment of a Palestinian State.

anyone who truly believes that Israel survives due to the US alone either hasn't read anything about the topic or just fails to grasp the full dynamics of the issue.

 

[banco55]

Frogurt is correct. Israel didn't get substansial US support until after they had smashed the Arabs in 1967. Israel wins mostly because the Arabs aren't any good at building and operating modern militaries. Whole books have been written trying to figure out why the Arabs are so incompetent. Here's an excerpt from an article on it:

[FONT=Times New Roman,Georgia,Times]"Along these lines, Kenneth Pollock concludes his exhaustive study of Arab military effectiveness by noting that “certain patterns of behavior fostered by the dominant Arab culture were the most important factors contributing to the limited military effectiveness of Arab armies and air forces from 1945 to 1991.” These attributes included over-centralization, discouraging initiative, lack of flexibility, manipulation of information, and the discouragement of leadership at the junior officer level."

http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/AD_Issues/amdipl_17/articles/deatkine_arabs1.html
[/FONT]

And another one:

"Nevertheless, the fact remains that since the Arabs acquired political independence in the wake of the Second World War, they have not produced armed forces remotely capable of vindicating the ambitions of their political leaders. Arab armies have performed poorly not just against advanced Western opponents such as Israel, Britain, and the United States, but also against Kurds, Persians, Africans, and each other. It is impossible not to be impressed by this recurring pattern of mediocrity."

http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2004/jan/moranRvJan04.asp

It must be pretty embarassing to have a scholarly literature develop around trying to explain why you are so incompetent.

 

[StGeorgeDragons]

then how did israel get any miltary?? they started with nothing, they werent even a country. Someone must have been supporting them. Or they produced their own? Also in the arab israeli wars what exterior forces interfered?