Table Of ContentThe Contemporary Middle Eastern Scene
Schriften des Deutschen Orient-Instituts
The Contemporary
Middle Eastern Scene
Basic Issues and Major Trends
Herausgegeben von
Gustav Stein / Udo Steinbach
mit Beitragen von Derek Hopwood, Vdo Steinbach,
Nabya Asfahany, Zvi Yehuda Hershlag,
Michael Wolffsohn, Bassam Tibi, Vriel Dann,
Kamal S. Salibi, C. A. O. van Nieuwenhuijze,
Friedemann BUttner, Detlev Khalid,
Itamar Rabinovich, Elie Rekhess, Haim Shaked,
Stefan Wild, Werner Ende, Daniel Heradstveit
Leske Verlag Budrich GmbH,Opladen 1979
+
CIP-Kurztitelaufnahme der Deutschen Bibliothek
The Contemporary Middle Eastern scene: basic
issues and major trends / hrsg. von Udo Steinbach
u. Gustav Stein. Mit Beitr. von Derek Hopwood ...
- Opladen: Leske und Budrich, 1979.
(Schriften des Deutschen Orient Instituts)
ISBN 978-3-322-97147-0 ISBN 978-3-322-97145-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-322-97145-6
NE: Steinbach, Udo [Hrsg.]; Hopwood, Derek [Mitarb.]
© 1979 by Leske Verlag + Budrich GmbH, Opladen
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1979
Preface
The contributions to this volume are based on papers read at an international confer
ence held in Hamburg in May 1978. Some of them are reprinted in their original form,
others have been slightly modified in order to incorporate more recent findings. Since
the overall concern is Middle Eastern development the various contributions deal with
a wide range of problems.
Studies on the Middle East are more often than not one-sided because of the pre
dominating interest in the Arab-Israeli conflict and the economic factors relating to the
supply of oil. At the Hamburg Conference, however, the participants concentrated main
lyon examining such aspects of the situation as are far too often relegated to the side
lines. In order to illustrate what those neglected topics are one should refer to two
major examples: 1) the religio-cultural identity of Arabs and Israelis, 2) the tackling of
political issues in Arab and Israeli literature.
While outlining the topics to be covered by this volume of essays the authors pro
ceeded on the assumption that the Middle East was to be treated as a geographical,
geopolitical and cultural entity (with the exception oflsrael) and not to be divided into
smaller regions or dealt with countrywise. This approach made a certain degree of gen
eralization inevitable. However, it was thought that such a procedure might be justifiable
in view of the ever increasing contacts among Arab states at the political, economic and
ideological level. It is obvious that a detailed study of specific issues was beyond the
scope of the present volume.
The fact that the number of issues to be broached is so large and varied goes to prove
just how complex the Middle Eastern question is. This, however, is precisely the pur
pose of the authors, they endeavor to unfold the enormous complexity of the situation
and to point out to the fact that there is much more to it than meets the eye. The in
tention is to show that there are much deeper problems besetting the Middle East than
merely the political surface of the Arab-Israeli conflict - with all the suffering it in
volves - or our one-track research on questions affecting the supply of oil.
Hamburg Udo Steinbach
March 1979 Gustav Stein
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Contents
Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Part One:
The Middle East in World Politics .............................. 9
Derek Hopwood
Soviet Policy in the Middle East ............................... 11
Udo Steinbach
The European Community and the United States in the
Arab World - Political Competition or Partnership? ....... . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Nabya Asfahany
The Political and Economic Dimensions of
Arab-Africa Cooperation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Part Two:
Economic Development, Ideological Trends and
Social Evolution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Zvi Yehuda H ershlag
Economic Development in the Non-Oil-Producing
Arab Countries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Michael Wolffsohn
Israel's ,,New Economic Order" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Bassam Tibi
The Social Background of Ideologies in the
Arab Middle East ......................................... 84
Uriel Dann
The Iraqi Ba'th after ten Years of Power -
the Challenges of Dogma and Pragmatism ......................... 94
Kamal S. Salibi
"Right" and "Left" in Lebanon ............................... 97
CA. O. van Nieuwenhuijze
Social Change in the Arab Countries:
Motives and Thrusts ....................................... 104
Friedemann Bilttner
Trends towards Retraditionalization in Egypt ...................... 112
Part Three:
Religious and Cultural Elements in the Arab and
Israeli Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Detlev Khalid
The Relevancy ofIslam in Arab National Identity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
ltamar Rabinovich
Problems of Confessionalism in Syria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
EUe Rekhess
Attitudes towards Islam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 133
HaimShaked
Experience into Fiction: Israeli Writers on Jewish-Arab
Relations (The Case of Hasllt by Sammy Michael) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Stefan Wild
Social Problems in Contemporary Arab Literature ................... 150
Werner Ende
The Palestine Conflict as Reflected in
Contemporary Arabic Literature .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Daniel Heradstveit
Psychodynamics of the Middle East Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 168
List of Authors .......................................... 192
Part One:
THE MIDDLE EAST IN WORLD POLITICS
Soviet Policy in the Middle East
By Derek Hopwood
In this paper I want to try to demonstrate that there exists a historical continuity in
Russian interest in the Middle East, that Soviet activities in this century are partly a
continuation of Russian activities in the nineteenth. The revolution of 1917 was with
out doubt a watershed but Russia survived as a state whose historical memory and ex
perience could not be completely erased. This historical approach may help to explain
Soviet policy today.
Russia was for long essentially a land power based in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries on Kiev and Moscow. From there the state began a long process of expansion.
It was a process which absorbed into the state many peoples in addition to the Russians
- Tartars, Poles, Bashkirs, Turks and others. By 1700 the Baltic Sea had been reached
and St. Petersburg founded. To the North Russia extended to the limits of Siberia. In
the late eighteenth century Russia under Catherine the Great moved southwards
through Cossack territory to reach the Black Sea by 1794 when Odessa was founded.
This provided a warm water port but access to the Mediterranean was barred by the
Straits at Constantinople, the Bosphorous and the Dardanelles. Ottoman Turkey seated
at Constantinople could open or close the Straits at will. In the early nineteenth cen"
tury Russia acquired Trans-Caucasia including Georgia and Armenia and this conquest
was recognised by Turkey and Persia. In Central Asia Russia absorbed independent
Muslim states - Samarkand 1868, Bukhara 1873, Tashkent 1884 - reaching the fron
tiers of Persia and Afghanistan. In the Far East the Pacific was reached and Vladivostock
founded in 1860.
Thus Russia had reached the limit of her expansion for the time being. In the north
geography was the limiting factor; elsewhere other states imposed a barrier. But the
new empire needed secure frontiers and Russia looked for new areas of expansion to
protect her new acquisitions. However, in the Middle East, the other powers, Britain,
France, Turkey, Austria, resisted further expansion once the frontiers of Afghanistan,
Persia, and certain parts of the Ottoman Empire had been reached.
During the nineteenth century Russia was pursuing certain aims in her foreign policy.
One of her foreign ministers, Lamzdorf, claimed that "the entire policy of Russia was
first of all an Asiatic policy". While no doubt this is an exaggeration, and while Russia
was very clearly also concerned with her relations with Europe, her policy towards the
Ottoman Empire was often of prime importance. Her chief aim was to be recognised as
a Great Power by the other European states, as a power which was consulted and which
had a voice in determining the future of the Ottoman Empire. This meant accepting a
responsible role in the balance of power as well as asserting her rights. It was a system
based on self interest and on the belief that a balance preserved was better than a state
of instability, rivalry and war. Of course the system often failed, especially when one
power attempted to dominate another. As a result of the Napoleonic invasion and
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blockade Russia, in the nineteenth century, was seeking security and feared encircle
ment. She feared those alliances and powers which seemed to threaten her security.
The Ottoman Empire, Russia's chief neighbour in the Middle East, was a weaken
ing power during the nineteenth century watched anxiously by Europe. Russia was
awaiting its collapse or at times actively helping towards it, opposed by Britain who
viewed Turkey as a means of keeping Russia out of the Middle. East. One of Russia's
chief aims was to maintain free passage for her warships from the Black Sea through
the Straits. While this was not opposed by Britain, British statesmen did not. welcome
the growth of a strong Russian fleet in the Mediterranean which might threaten Egypt
and the passage of British ships through the Suez Canal to India. Russia was always
seeking such a passage and equally the access to a warm water port in the Mediterranean
or the Gulf. The Straits were also important as a trade route for Russian exports and
for a passenger line to the Near East.
Apart from her strategic and diplomatic interests in Constantinople Russia had deep
religious interests. She felt that on the fall of Byzantium she had assumed the leader
ship of the Christian Orthodox World and therefore had a responsibility for the Ortho
dox Christians of the Ottoman Empire, whether in Syria and Palestine, the Balkans or
Turkey itself. Russia thus considered herself spokesman and defender of these Ottoman
subjects and if she felt her prestige or their welfare at all threatened she was on occa
sions prepared to go to war.
This fellow feeling for Ottoman Christians - a Pan-orthodoxy - mingled with an
other current of thought in Russia, Pal)slavism which was in some ways the ideology of
Imperial Russia. It was a militant ideology which sought the union of all Slavs under
Russian hegemony and was adhered to by some men who had responsibility for Rus
sia's foreign policy. Such an ideology necessarily implied the "liberation" of those Slavs
in the Ottoman Empire and this "liberation" would even be offered to those who were
not Slavs but were nevertheless Orthodox Christians - Greeks and Arabs. Some Russian
eyes were set on a great Orthodox empire which would include Palestine, Jerusalem
and Constantinople. Catherine the Great in the eighteenth century had such dreams,
but any attempt to put such a policy into practice in the nineteenth would have been
bitterly opposed, not only by Turkey, but also by other European powers.
In pursuing her foreign policy Russia utilized those methods available to a great
power. It is important to note, however, that it is almost impossible to find great con
sistency or even perseverence in pursuing long-term aims. Foreign policy was hindered
by changes of personnel, interdepartmental rivalries, conflicting ideologies and even
personal quarrels.
Firstly, Russia used threats against other powers which could lead to war. Demands
were made for greater privileges in passage through the Straits, in influencing Ottoman
policy which on two notable occasions led to major wars, the Crimean in 1854 and the
Russo-Turkish war of 1876. When her demands were resisted or her armies defeated
Russia had to fall back on negotiation or conference when she had usually to recognise
that as a great power and a factor in the balance of power there were limits to her ac
tions. For example at the Conference of Berlin she was compelled to disgorge certain
of her territorial gains and the Crimean War was a means of resisting her claim to pre
ponderant influence in the Ottoman Empire. When thus blocked she would turn away
to other areas of Asia, but always watched by Britain who was a check to expansion.
Lord Curzon claimed that "A single Russian port in the Persian Gulf would constitute
a wanton rupture of the status quo".
Great powers attempt to gain access to and influence in any area by adopting local
clients. These can be a whole nation, a sect or a party of similar beliefs and ideology.
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