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Better
Mediterraneanism than Arabism
Plato compared the Mediterranean to a pond on whose banks
too many frogs croaked. That was then, in the days of ancient Greece.
Since then the croaking of the frogs has grown louder and
fiercer as Moors squared off with Spaniards, Ottomans with Greece and the
Balkans - just two of the many cases of blood and thunder that characterized
the region throughout history. In more modern times we have seen the enmity
between Turks and Greeks, Serbs and Croats and Albanians, Muslims and
Christians in Lebanon, Egypt and elsewhere and, of course, the continuing
strife between Arabs and Israelis. We witness daily the tensions between the
southern lands of the Mediterranean and the north as illegal immigrants make
their way to Spain, France and Italy, and from there to other countries in
Europe.
Commenting on the Mediterranean basin, a noted Italian scholar
declared, "There is no other part of our planet in which so many
contradictions and similarities, tensions and convergences, identities and
differences, have emerged across time as they have here."
On that basis, one is tempted to say that French President
Nicolas Sarkozy's effort to create a Mediterranean Union is pie in the sky. The
divergences appear to be too great to be reconciled under one unifying
umbrella. The skeptics will hasten to tell you that there is no such thing as a
Mediterranean identity, that Mediterraneanism does not exist.
From a purely political point of view such skepticism is
nonsense. The divergences are no less and no more than those that had existed
in Europe. Indeed, nothing in the Mediterranean area - with the possible
exception of our own conflict - can compare to the enmity that existed at the
end of the Second World War between Germany and the countries it had occupied.
Ask a Dutchman in the late '40s or early '50s if he would be willing to join
forces with Germans and he would have laughed at you. The rivalry between
France and Germany - or between France and Great Britain for that matter - went
back centuries. Europe was a hotchpotch of different cultures and languages,
whose peoples fought each other with a ferocity far exceeding anything seen in
the Mediterranean (with the exception of the atrocities committed by the
European Crusaders).
Moreover, in most Mediterranean countries climate, fauna,
landscape, food and drink and even music have a great deal in common. Compare
these same features between the Latin countries of southern Europe to the
northern members of the European Union - Portugal or Spain compared to Sweden
or Finland, for example - and you will find much more in common in the
Mediterranean basin than in the EU.
The great difference, of course, lies in the fact that all
members of the European Union are democratic countries dedicated to peace and
to human rights, while the same cannot be said for all the countries bordering
the Mediterranean. For Sarkozy's Mediterranean Union, therefore, to succeed it
must have as its fundamental aim the promotion of true democratic values and
the respect of human rights in those countries in which these beliefs are not
yet sufficiently embedded, and, even more so, it must actively encourage peace
efforts among those countries of the Mediterranean still engaged in conflict,
none more than Israel and its neighbors.
As an Israeli, I naturally prefer to see some of the Arab
countries looking toward the Mediterranean than having them as part of an
all-Arab bloc. I prefer Mediterraneanism to Arabism. An Arab friend of mine
from Bahrain told me some time ago: "The Middle East as a region is
becoming increasingly artificial. We in the Gulf are looking toward India and
Pakistan and can be said to be part of the Indian Ocean orbit. Egypt, Lebanon,
the Maghreb have become part of the Mediterranean orbit, and have more
contacts, economic and other, with other Mediterranean countries than with
us."
Another friend of mine, a prominent lawyer in Egypt, is
trying to set up a Mediterranean Businessmen's Club. His rationale is that
closer contacts between Egypt and the Mediterranean countries will help bring
about greater liberalism in Egyptian society.
Some time ago, a group of Italian bankers established a
Mediterranean Bank with the aim of helping Maghrebi businessmen set up shop in
Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. The rationale behind the bank was two-fold: to
create jobs in the North African countries and thus reduce the number of
immigrants flowing into Europe, and to underwrite Italy's predominant position
in the Mediterranean. The Bank achieved neither of these aims, and Sarkozy was
quick to pick up the gauntlet and show that France could lead a Mediterranean
policy.
Will we see one day a Mediterranean Union similar to the
European Union, with a Mediterranean parliament, a common foreign policy and
dozens of different fields in which the countries of the Mediterranean will be
working together? I doubt it, certainly not as long as the Arab-Israeli
conflict continues to exist, unless Israel would be excluded from the club,
which is something that no European country along the shores of the
Mediterranean could consider.
WE SHOULD not, however, underestimate the importance of what
happened in Paris this week. Sarkozy will do everything possible to make his
new Union a success. The Mediterranean is Europe's soft underbelly. The
immigrants keep coming in, and no way has been found to stop them. Large-scale
economic ventures in the North African countries may be one way to stem the
tide.
Our media were justifiably quick to pick on the Syrian
aspect of the Mediterranean conference. The Syrians had the most to gain. They
have been relegitimized - with the blessing of the French and the indirect help
of the Israelis. They have been brought in from the cold, which in France under
president Chirac had reached freezing point for them. Chirac was a close,
personal friend of former Lebanese prime minister Hariri, and Chirac vented his
rage following Hariri's assassination on the Syrians, whom he considered to be
responsible for the murder.
There were no handshakes between President Assad and Prime
Minister Olmert, no outward signs of a thawing of the ice. Yet if there is one
thing that Sarkozy wants to achieve with his Mediterranean initiative it is to
foster peace in the Middle East, between Israel and the Palestinians, between
Syria and Lebanon, between Israel and the Syrians. Without such an effort the
French Mediterranean Union project would have little or no meaning. France took
over the presidency of the European Union at the beginning of July. France has
been in the forefront of European acquiescence to the upgrading of Israel's
relations with the European Union. It will use the coming six months of its
presidency to push a much more assertive European policy in the Middle East.
The Bush administration has entered its twilight zone. The
next administration will take months to get its act together, especially with
regards to its foreign policy. We can expect Europe, led by France, to exploit
this intermediary period, and to act in our neighborhood not only on economic
matters, as it has done until now, but in an area reserved until now for the
United States only - to engage the peace process heads on.
For that to succeed, however, there will be a need for
strong and willing governments, Israeli and Palestinian, to go along with that
initiative. And strong governments, on both sides of the fence, is the one
thing we don't have
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