Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale.israele
Titolo: [EN] Neutrality and Coexistence in the Middle East, Dan Segre (3)

Ho inteso recuperare il ritardo dei giorni scorsi postando già oggi
la terza e ultima parte del breve saggio in inglese di Dan Segre come da
subject.
Ancora una volta sottolineo che nonostante il controllo manuale post-OCR
possono essersi verificati errori  nel testo dei quali,
nell'eventualità, mi scuso.
Come già in precedenza ho transcodificato il testo in Unicode, nondimeno
potrebbe sempre verificarsi qualche problema di charset in lettura.
Disponendo ora del testo completo lo invierò volentieri a chi fosse
interessato a riceverlo per conservarlo in formato file (rtf o pdf a
scelta) ma siccome da stamattina l'accesso alla mia casella di posta
elettronica mi restituisce un errore 404 potrebbe anche essere che io la
debba sostituire. In capo a due-tre giorni lo saprò, per evitare la
perdita dei messaggi prego chi desiderasse il file di attendere appunto
qualche giorno a scrivermi.
Ringrazio ancora, conclusivamente, il mio amico G. per avermi procurato
la dispensa in edizione originale. :-)
MEDITERRANEAN QUARTERLY - A Journal of Global Issues
Volume 11 - Number 4 - Fall 2000
Duke University Press under the editorial direction of Mediterranean
Affairs, Inc.
Neutrality and Coexistence in the Middle East
Dan Vittorio Segre
Dan Vittorio Segre is director of the Institute of Mediterranean
Studies, University of Lugano, Switzerland.
[TERZA PARTE]
_Neutrality_and_the_Arab_States_
The acceptance by the Palestinians and Israelis of some elements of
neutrality would also benefit other Arab states. For them, the threat
posed by Israel is fourfold: military, politicaI, psychological, and
ideological.
The military threat is due to the technological superiority of Israel
over its neighbors and its territorial proximity to many Arab capitals.
The political threat comes from the emergence of a new sovereign state
in a politically overcrowded region, a state that acts as a physical
wedge between African and Asian Arabs and represents a radical change in
the political ecology of the area. The psychological dimension follows
repeated Arab military defeats and generates a permanent mixture of
jeaIousy, fear, and contempt. Finally, Israel is seen as an ideoIogical
threat for both pan-Arab nationalism and pan-Islamic identity because of
the inability of these two expansionist movements to "cut down to size"
(to quote a term used by Egyptian president Mubarak) a country perceived
by them as a stooge of Western colonialism.
In view of the profound differences existing between Israeli and Arab
cultures, a neutral Jewish state might appear to its neighbors as less
aggressive, more "sterile," and Iess identified with the West. The
cluster of Arab fears (and of reciprocally paranoid Israeli views)
combined with symbols that give the PaIestine question a worldwide
publicity may have contributed in the past to the consolidation of
national identities and the legitimization of authoritarian rulers, but
today even the radical among them are conscious of the cost entailed in
the destruction of Israel.
In the context of the longstanding competition among Egypt, Syria, Iraq,
and Saudi Arabia for leadership of the Arab world (as well as that
between Turkey and Iran), Israel has been denounced as a subversive
factor endangering the good relations and stability of the states in the
area. A neutral Israel would deprive Arab propaganda of one of its
recurrent themes, namely, that Israel is a permanent supporter of
antigovernment forces in the area (Christian militias in Lebanon, Kurds
in Iraq, Nubians in Sudan, and royalists in Yemen) and a promoter of
destabilizing regional alliances, declared or undeclared (as in the case
of Turkey, Jordan, Ethiopia, and previously Iran). A neutral Israel
could also help to achieve a more balanced political-religious status
for Jerusalem and diminish in both Jewish and Islamic camps the strength
of political fundamentalism. The mere creation of a framework for the
discussion of the idea of institutionalized reciprocal seIf-control
might help to lower the level of tension, reduce the impact of
symbolism, and elicit interest in the study of the European experience
with neutrality and its mechanisms. After all, to improve relationships
one needs pedagogy, not demagogy.
_The_Relevance_of_European_Systems_of_
Political_Self-Control_for_Middle_East_Conflicts_
In Europe, the Thirty Year War (1618-48) promoted, among other things,
Jean Bodin's idea of sovereignty and the political independence of
neutral Switzerland. By disconnecting Ioyalty to the prince from loyalty
to the church, the Treaty of Westphalia produced a more realistic
balance between state and religion, thus reducing the role of a
murderous mixture of secular and sacred symbolism in the field of
politics. At the same time, however, it did not pacify or unite Europe
but opened the way to other and more bloody national wars.
There is no reason to believe that the one-hundred-year Palestine war
will transform the Middle East into a less turbulent area by the
development of the idea of neutrality and institutionalized reciprocal
self-control. Yet such a promotion would be consistent with the growing
trends toward economic globalization and political interdependence. In
spite of the fact that neutrality has lost much of its glamour, its
study could still offer a unique contribution to the Middle East "peace
process”. The cases of Turkmenistan, Switzerland, Sweden, and Austria
support this claim.
The case of Turkmenistan is interesting on two accounts. First, it is
the world's only state to choose neutral status after the end of the
Cold War. Second, its quest for permanent neutraIity was due to its
government's preoccupation with managing Turkmenistan's "delicate and
strategic position”, in some aspects similar to that of Israel (with
which it has established cIose relations) and at the same time
"involving itself constructively - not destructively - in regional and
global affairs” (14).
Both Switzerland and Sweden embarked on the road to neutraIity after
having suffered serious defeats, respectively at Marignan in 1515 and at
PoItava in 1709. These defeats shattered any illusion that these two
states could realize their political and territorial ambitions and
ensure their national security through military strength or
mischief-making capacity - illusions that sound familiar to anyone
dealing with the Israeli-Arab conflict.
The neutrality of Austria from 1955 is also linked to a military defeat,
by the Nazi Reich. It is an interesting precedent for the modern use of
neutrality status, since it was established during the intense
ideological tension of the Cold War.
A study of the relevance of the idea of neutrality for the Middle East
could popularize the concept of subsidiarity, best realized in the Swiss
system of near-sovereign cantons. The Swiss system was the result of
both external pressure and of the need to maintain unity among
twenty-six polities that were deeply jealous of their autonomy; divided
by Ianguage, religion, cultural traditions, and economic interests; and
still mindful of internecine wars fought as late as 1847. Some form of
cantonization could offer the safeguard to Mediterranean countries of
sectarian dignity within a larger framework of national and economic
unity while preserving their mosaics of ethnic and religious minorities.
In the case of Israel - as already mentioned - it might help ease the
internal struggle between democracy and theocracy and the tension
between the domestic Jewish and non-Jewish communities. In the Arab
world, it could offer an incentive for the creation of frameworks for
ethnic and religious autonomies without endangering the unity of the
national state.
Voluntarily accepted boundary behavior is a principle not easily policed
but already accepted in many agreements dealing with nuclear, chemical,
and bacteriological disarmament; the banning of antipersonnel mines; the
protection of the environment; and the multinational development of the
Antarctic (15). A corollary in this trend of self-control is the growing
use by governments of unilateral apologies. It is a practice that,
although not exempt from hypocrisy, wouId have been inconceivable onIy
half a century ago when sovereignty meant "My country right or wrong”.
All of this does not guarantee the expansion of the role of neutrality
in an international society prone to increased involvement, integration,
and interdependence, but it may promote neutrality in societies without
traditions of pluralism, like the Arab states and, increasingly, IsraeI,
in which the weakening of the nation-state makes it increasingly
difficult to find a middle way between differences on religion and
tribalism. Institutionalized self-control and power-sharing mechanisms
could give substance to a scenario of "reluctant tolerance”, often
mentioned in conversation by Isaiah Berlin, who saw it as the most
realistic path to a solution of the Middle East crisis: a situation that
none of the parties would like to respect but that none of them would
hate strongly enough to scuttle.
For Judaism it could mean much more. If Judaism's essence - as Spinoza
held - is political, then the reappearance of the Jews as subjects, not
objects, of history could give substance to a constructive Jewish role
in contemporary international society.
NOTES
(14) Saparmurat Niyazov, president of Turkmenistan, speech to the United
Nations General Assembly, 22 October 1995. Turkmenistan, a country of
almost half a million square kilometers, inhabited by 5 million people,
the majority of whom are Sunni Muslims, borders Kazakhstan and
Uzbekistan in the north and Afghanistan and Iran in the south. The
cradle of the powerful empire of Seljuks, it lost its independence in
the middle of the twelfth century. On the UN General Assembly vote in
support of Turkmenistan's neutral status, see the Mission of
Turkmenistan's communiqué, 14 December 1995.
(15) The agreement to ban the use of economic bribes and kickbacks in
international trade, signed at Frankfurt by delegates of twenty-nine
industrial countries in November 1997, represents the quintessence of
instituzionalized self-control in a delicate field of international
relations.
[FINE]
-- 
April is the cruellest month, to the Arcorian dwarfs  :-P

 subject.
GRAZIE!!!
A

 GRAZIE!!!
Ma di cosa? :-)
È stata per me l'occasione di reperire e conoscere un testo di notevole
interesse. E mi fa solo piacere se anche altri/e hanno potuto fruirlo, e
interessarsene. Poi, comunque, "ogni tuo desiderio è un ordine..."
<cit.> ;-)
Beh, io stesso - pur avendo assunto il testo con una certa attenzione
mentre effettuavo il ripasso post-OCR - avverto la necessità di
rileggerlo bene, per metabolizzarlo veramente, poiché mi pare di una
certa "densità". E anche noi poliglotti :-D , per lo più, abbiamo una, e
una sola, lingua-madre - come diceva il vecchio Gadamer. La mia, per
inciso, non è esattamente l'american english. Dunque per meglio cogliere
certe sfumature, che in Dan Segre solitamente non mancano, devo proprio
rileggere. :-)


 inciso, non è esattamente l'american english.
E non è nemmeno quella di Dan Segre :-)
Tb

 E non è nemmeno quella di Dan Segre :-)
Lui nacque vicino a Torino mi pare, ma francamente ignoro la lingua di
origine della madre, quell'unica di cui - sempre secondo Gadamer - ogni
bambino irreversibilmente s'impregna proprio nel mentre "succhia il
latte". :-)
Non saprei dire se la versione originale del breve saggio di Dan Segre
fosse effettivamente  in inglese, tenderei a pensare - conoscendo un po'
le logiche universitarie - che a qualche volonteroso studente di
madre-lingua locale, in procinto di esami :-P , possa esserne stato
affidato un definitivo /editing/ prima della pubblicazione.
Ne approfitto per ringraziarti - poco educatamente non l'avevo ancora
fatto - per le tue interessanti indicazioni circa il pensiero
dansegriano sull'argomento, che mi hanno spinto ad approfondire e quindi
anche a recuperare il contributo che infine ho qui postato. Senza
quelle, nulla avrei fatto. :-)
