That’s the name — French for “beyond the sea” — given to the states that the Crusaders established in the Holy Land during the High Middle Ages: the principality of Antioch, the counties of Edessa and Tripoli, and the kingdom of Jerusalem.
Out of a mix of amnesia and self-abnegation, we tend to remember the Crusader states only as deplorable exercises in Western aggression. (Never mind that in an age defined by conquest and reconquest, they were no less legitimate than the Muslim states they warred against — which had themselves been founded atop once-Christian territories.) The analogy between Israel and Outremer is usually drawn by Israel’s enemies: “Jews and Crusaders” is one of Osama bin Laden’s favorite epithets, and Palestinian radicals often pine for another Saladin to drive the Israelis into the sea.
But Israel’s friends can learn something from Outremer as well. Like today’s Jewish republic, the Crusader kingdoms were small states forged by military valor, based in the Middle East but oriented westward, with distant patrons and potential foes just next door. Like Israel, they were magnets for fanatics from east and west alike. And when they eventually fell — after surviving for longer than Israel has currently existed — it was for reasons that are directly relevant to the challenges facing the Israeli government today.
The first reason was geographic: the Holy Land is easier to conquer than defend, because its topograpy and regional position leave it perpetually vulnerable to invasion. The second was diplomatic: the Crusaders were perpetually falling out with their major neighbors, from Byzantium to Egypt, and the support they enjoyed from Western Europe was too limited to save them from extinction. The third was demographic: the ruling class of Outremer, primarily Frankish knights and their retainers, was a minority in a territory whose inhabitants were largely Eastern Orthodox and Muslim, and they had difficulty achieving the kind of integration that long-term stability required.
A decade ago, before the collapse of the peace process, the Israelis seemed to be faring better than Outremer on all three fronts. Their potent armed forces and nuclear deterrent more than offset the weakness of their geographic position. After decades of isolation, they had forged reasonably stable relationships with many regional powers — including Turkey, Jordan and Egypt — and an enduring bond with the world’s superpower, the United States. Their substantial Arab minority was better-treated and better-integrated than minority populations in almost any other Middle Eastern state. And they appeared to be disentangling themselves from the long-term occupation of a much larger Arab population in Gaza and the West Bank.
Ten years later, though, only the military advantage endures. Diplomatically and demographically, Israel increasingly faces the same problems that bedeviled the 12th-century kings of Jerusalem.
In the wake of the Gaza and Lebanon wars, and now the blockade-running fiasco, the Jewish state is as isolated on the world stage as it’s been since the dark Zionism-is-racism years of the 1970s. Meanwhile, its relationship with its Arab citizens is increasingly strained, the occupation of the Palestinian West Bank seems destined to continue indefinitely, and both Arab populations are growing so swiftly that Jews could soon be a minority west of the Jordan River.
Israel can probably live with diplomatic isolation so long as the American public remains staunchly on its side. But it will have a harder time surviving the demographic transformation of its territory. If the Jewish state can’t extricate itself from the West Bank, it may be forced to choose between the quasi-apartheid of a permanent occupation, and the dissolution that would likely follow from giving Palestinians a significant voice in Israel’s politics.
Israel’s critics often make this extrication sound easy. In reality, it promises to involve enormous sacrifices, of land and everyday security alike — whether in the form of extraordinary concessions to a divided Palestinian leadership, or a unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank that would be more wrenching than the 2005 retreat from Gaza.
What’s more, either approach would almost certainly invite stepped-up violence from the irreconcilable Palestinian factions and their Iranian and Syrian backers, who will see any retreat as a cue to escalate the struggle.
As
Walter Russell Mead put it recently, Israel may “have to pay virtually the full price for peace ... without getting full peace.” Nobody should blame Israelis for shying from this possibility.
Yet it may be the only way to guarantee their survival as a nation. Outremer was finally overrun by Muslim armies. But if Israel is destroyed, it will be destroyed from within.
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3 Readers' Comments
Washington DC
June 6th, 2010
10:51 pm
Israel doesn’t want to pay full price even for full peace. Its idea of a fair two-state solution is a demilitarized Palestine with borders and airspace under control of Jerusalem, which will also remain “undivided.” No refugees either. Israel’s idea of peace is a neutered Palestine, even though it’s more likely to benefit from a strong Palestine than a weak one. Like how Palestinians must accept the permanence of Israel, only when Israel accepts an autonomous Palestine can lasting peace become a real possibility. A constant stream of foreign policy flows at
www.hadalzone.blogspot.comMohamed
USA
June 6th, 2010
10:57 pm
Ross, this possible or probable perfect storm condition for the destruction of Israel is ridiculous. This type of talk of future doomsday scenario is not serving any useful purpose but giving all the ammunitions to pro Israel quarters to see the present situation as nothing but its struggle for existence. Naturally if a country is in a struggle for its existence then expectations of normal behaviour from that country can be suspended for while, and in reality that is what happening.
We are stacking up all the odds against Israel in our imagination forgetting a very fundamental fact that we are living in today world where questioning the survival of Israel is just unthinkable. The problem Israel is facing needs to be solved in the reality of today.
The people of Gaza are living, breathing and suffering as a human being in the reality of today. History of Crusade and its outcome is not of any use for those starving people. Let’s all tell Israel to live in today’s world and abiding by the norms and standards of today’s world. Franks and Saracens are long gone and reliving in the shadow of history is the main hindrance in solving the problems in the region.
Cdr. John Newlin
Vista, Calif.
June 6th, 2010
10:57 pm
Your history lesson and the parallels that you draw to modern events I find to be most instructive, Mr. Douthat, and I do not say that facetiously. Thank you. I know that most people think that the enmity that exists between the Israelis and their Arab neighbors is rooted in their competing religions. I don't happen to agree with that. I think that it is a conflict between haves and have-nots, between the elite rich, and the ragamuffin poor. The leaders of both sides stir up the enduring hatred by using religion to fuel the violence. That's what makes the entire middle-east conflict so criminal. The leaders of neither side truly want peace and therefor the war shall go on and on unabated. In the meantime the honest, peaceful citizens of both camps are caught in the middle and, as usual, will shed the most blood.
