Recently, Newt Gingrich said that Palestine was not a country, its
people an "invented" people, and offered as evidence the fact that "historically, it was part of the
Ottoman Empire."
I have news for Gingrich. It shouldn't be news, especially as the man keeps insisting he's a historian, but apparently he hasn't heard about this.
The Ottoman Empire was destroyed during the Great War, also known as WWI. As early as 1916, the Allied powers had planned for its dissolution and made secret agreements about the division of its territories. Agreements such as Sykes-Picot-Sazanov, the Balfour Declaration, the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence, etc. drew lines in the sands, creating countries based on the Western notion of nationalism whose borders resembled the linguistic, ethnic, and religious reality of the situation on the ground the way my feet resemble the Mona Lisa.
Modern Syria? Not the way it ought to look, judging from history. Most of Lebanon and large parts of modern-day Israel, Palestine, and Jordan were part of Sham, or "Greater Syria." Iraq? That's a messy marriage of Mosul, Baghdad, Basra, and Kurdish areas, designed to make sure oil-rich territory remained under a single ruler beholden to the West and to ensure an uninterrupted British sphere of influence stretching from Sudan to India. Sometimes, it seems that parts of that marriage cheat on each other with Iran, and I often fear it will all end in divorce. (That's something Gingrich knows all about.) Jordan? Historically, a fiction, part of an Ottoman district referred to as, you guessed it, Palestine. Israel? The quite impressive product of dreams, hard work, perceived war-time expedience, and, in the words of Israeli historian Tom Segev, "the misguided and anti-Semitic belief that Jews turned the wheels of history."
All those countries and more were part of the Ottoman Empire. I have been to many of them, and I can attest to the fact that the people there no longer speak Ottoman Turkish, complain about the Capitulations, wonder about the Tanzimat, or address their leaders as Bey or Pasha. They are far too busy overthrowing despotic leaders propped up by the West to engage in such nostalgic pursuits. In fact, one can argue that now is the first time these "invented" Syrians, Yemenis, and Iraqis have expressed themselves in the framework of that identity.
I do not mean to suggest that because Syria, Iraq, etc. are largely recent creations their peoples are "invented." I am aware, as Gingrich is apparently not, that most countries in the world are fairly recent creations, their people struggling to adjust to the quite young idea of nationalism, their philosophies and ideologies constantly changing, shifting. And I am aware that the emergence of a new people (for example, Israelis) does not mean that people is a fiction. Change is the nature of history. A modern day Syrian is a Syrian, just as I am an American, Gingrich an idiot, and Mahmoud Abbas a Palestinian.
I wonder, though, about the selectivity with which Gingrich has applied his "invented" moniker. If modern Syria was part of the Ottoman Empire, and Armenia only recently became independent, are Syrians and Armenians "invented" people? How about the Israelis? Zionist luminaries such as Herzl and Jabotinsky wanted Israelis to be different from the Jews of old - they intended Zionism to create a new breed of human being, a new breed of Jew. Since the Israelis are so new, and their "invention" is quite well documented, will the eminent historian Gingrich disparage their origins as well?
You know what? Don't answer that. Gingrich's capacity for incendiary stupidity and confident ignorance cloaked in self-attested expertise frightens me.
I have news for Gingrich. It shouldn't be news, especially as the man keeps insisting he's a historian, but apparently he hasn't heard about this.
The Ottoman Empire was destroyed during the Great War, also known as WWI. As early as 1916, the Allied powers had planned for its dissolution and made secret agreements about the division of its territories. Agreements such as Sykes-Picot-Sazanov, the Balfour Declaration, the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence, etc. drew lines in the sands, creating countries based on the Western notion of nationalism whose borders resembled the linguistic, ethnic, and religious reality of the situation on the ground the way my feet resemble the Mona Lisa.
Modern Syria? Not the way it ought to look, judging from history. Most of Lebanon and large parts of modern-day Israel, Palestine, and Jordan were part of Sham, or "Greater Syria." Iraq? That's a messy marriage of Mosul, Baghdad, Basra, and Kurdish areas, designed to make sure oil-rich territory remained under a single ruler beholden to the West and to ensure an uninterrupted British sphere of influence stretching from Sudan to India. Sometimes, it seems that parts of that marriage cheat on each other with Iran, and I often fear it will all end in divorce. (That's something Gingrich knows all about.) Jordan? Historically, a fiction, part of an Ottoman district referred to as, you guessed it, Palestine. Israel? The quite impressive product of dreams, hard work, perceived war-time expedience, and, in the words of Israeli historian Tom Segev, "the misguided and anti-Semitic belief that Jews turned the wheels of history."
All those countries and more were part of the Ottoman Empire. I have been to many of them, and I can attest to the fact that the people there no longer speak Ottoman Turkish, complain about the Capitulations, wonder about the Tanzimat, or address their leaders as Bey or Pasha. They are far too busy overthrowing despotic leaders propped up by the West to engage in such nostalgic pursuits. In fact, one can argue that now is the first time these "invented" Syrians, Yemenis, and Iraqis have expressed themselves in the framework of that identity.
I do not mean to suggest that because Syria, Iraq, etc. are largely recent creations their peoples are "invented." I am aware, as Gingrich is apparently not, that most countries in the world are fairly recent creations, their people struggling to adjust to the quite young idea of nationalism, their philosophies and ideologies constantly changing, shifting. And I am aware that the emergence of a new people (for example, Israelis) does not mean that people is a fiction. Change is the nature of history. A modern day Syrian is a Syrian, just as I am an American, Gingrich an idiot, and Mahmoud Abbas a Palestinian.
I wonder, though, about the selectivity with which Gingrich has applied his "invented" moniker. If modern Syria was part of the Ottoman Empire, and Armenia only recently became independent, are Syrians and Armenians "invented" people? How about the Israelis? Zionist luminaries such as Herzl and Jabotinsky wanted Israelis to be different from the Jews of old - they intended Zionism to create a new breed of human being, a new breed of Jew. Since the Israelis are so new, and their "invention" is quite well documented, will the eminent historian Gingrich disparage their origins as well?
You know what? Don't answer that. Gingrich's capacity for incendiary stupidity and confident ignorance cloaked in self-attested expertise frightens me.
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