In Defense of Sykes-Picot

On May 16, 1916, the diplomats Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot—representing Great Britain and France, respectively—made an agreement to divide up the Middle East in the event that their countries defeated the Ottoman empire in World War I. The treaty, which created the modern borders of the Middle East, has often been blamed for the region’s problems. Michael Rubin begs to differ:

To look at the map of the Middle East might be to conclude that Sykes-Picot, the agreement which led to the drawing of so many contemporary borders, also created artificial countries. But just because a border is artificial does not mean that the resulting country is.

Iraq, for example, became independent in 1932, twelve years after the League of Nations demarcated its borders, but Arabic literature has spoken of “Iraq” for a millennium. Likewise, Syria—under its current artificial borders—became a League of Nations Mandate in 1920, but a notion of Syria as a region existed at the time of Muhammad. . . . Mount Lebanon has always had a unique identity, not least because of the Maronite Christian presence. Syria itself . . . never recognized the Lebanese identity; but the divisions of Sykes-Picot enabled the Lebanese among others to win freedom. . . .

Is it possible to rectify past mistakes? Certainly. . . . But is discussion about reversing the legacy of Sykes-Picot counterproductive? Absolutely. . . .

There is no way to divide borders and create homogeneous states. Even to try to is to conduct ethnic and sectarian cleansing. To create new borders and new states with minority populations, meanwhile, is simply to reshuffle the deck, not to change the game.

Read more at AEI

More about: History & Ideas, Middle East, Ottoman Empire, Sykes-Picot Agreement, World War I

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society