Radical Islam in a World without Israel

Terrorists want Israel off the map and many are willing to kill themselves to get that done.

What if, for whatever reason, the nation of Israel was never made, how does radical Islam develop? Will there still be a 9/11 attack? Would this have still been a problem today? How much blame could be put on Israel for worldwide terrorism in the name of Islam?
 

Sachyriel

Banned
Just Another Gang Turf War

Just like any other group that tries to differentiate itself from humanity at a whole, Muslims will start fights, get into fights and end fights. Heck, they're probably into fights that have nothing to do with them.

Every gang splits into factions within itself, officially or not; Muslims have Shia-Sunni disputes, Kurdish Separatists, even Muslims who would kill women in the western hemisphere for getting a divorce. They've been known to fight Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and any other religion you can get them to have a border with: Shinto, Taoism, Confucisism, Buddism...

Not only that, but there will be Muslim nations who engage in war at the national-level, even people who would try to rise up against some other ruling sect of muslims because they believe in a slightly different sect.

Muslims already fight one another and anyone who isn't them.

Israel is just another target. This is just a gang -turf war, don't ascribe a two-gang rivalry to be the entire reason one gang exists.
 
Islamic Terrorists want Israel off the map and many are willing to kill themselves to get that done.

What if, for whatever reason, the nation of Israel was never made, how does radical Islam develop? Will there still be a 9/11 attack? Would this have still been a problem today? How much blame could be put on Israel for worldwide terrorism in the name of Islam?

There are other kinds of terrorists, too, you know...

Through radical Islam IS the by far the bigger terrorist threat today in the world...
 
It sounds like a fair question to me. What is the answer.

Well, OBL wanted to attack America because of the U.S. military presence on the Saudi peninsular, he'd originally been trained by elements of Pakistan's military who wanted the Soviets away from their borders, not to mention the fact that Pakistan and India can't agree who own's Kashmir, which is according to recent tradition the other great faultline-causing-Islamic-insurgency outside of Israel/Palestine, not to mention the fact the Egyptian Muslim brotherhood and the militants in Iraq and the Mullahs in Iran and the Wahabbists in Arabia (not to mention various other violent groups in Algeria, Nigeria, Sudan, Aceh) all adopted, or promoted, violence for reasons other than the existence of a Jewish state over Palestine...

Long story short, Islamist fringe groups exist for reasons other than Israel.
They'd still be violent actors.

But if an Islamist tree fell in a non-extant-Israeli forest, would our f*cked-up rightwingers still hear it?
 
They would find another target. The West, Jews residing in other countries, or other tribes, they would find someone else given enough time. Although Arabs are often considered a distinct ethnic group, the truth is that they are really very divided very heavily at a tribal level. Many attempts at Arab nationalism were in fact tribal nationalism. Many middle eastern dictatorships were based off the elevation of one tribe over others. Throughout recent history the presence of the west (France in Syria, the British in Iraq and Jordan and more recently the American presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia) or Israel have pushed this tribal nature into the background. If such presences never appeared, it is possible that the Arab community may have turned on itself. This is entirely speculation though and another reasonable estimate is that without distractions closer to home, they would have started their attacks on the West far sooner.
 
This is entirely speculation though and another reasonable estimate is that without distractions closer to home, they would have started their attacks on the West far sooner.

I disagree with that one, because of the Cold War.

The Soviet Union was closer to the Middle East, and its philosophy was against all religion, as opposed to the West, where there was freedom of religion but not mixed with government.

If they did attack, I think, if what you say is true, it would have been the U.S.S.R. to take the blows.
 

Ibn Warraq

Banned
It sounds like a fair question to me. What is the answer.

Radical Islam would have developed regardless of whether or not Israel existed. After all, the Shah, Nasser, and the Ba'ath Party, the groups who were the major enemies of Islam long before Radical Islamists decided that Israel would be there public enemy number one.

That being said, without Israel, I'm not sure if their would be nearly so much anti-Americanism in the Middle East, but there probably still would be. However, instead of hating America for being the puppets of the Jews, America would hated hated for supporting the conservative monarchies(Hashemites, House of Saud, and Pahlavis) that Islamacists hate.
 
Victim #1 would almost certainly be the Soviet Union.

A nation that essentially forces atheism on Muslim population and has interests in the area would almost certainly draw the fire of Radical Muslims.

Now the Soviets are not going to quietly tolerate terrorism against their populations and they'd be willing to get their hands dirty to "deal" with them.

If there was no Israel to polarize Islamic Fundamentalism, it might well remain focused on Russia, and it could target the Dystopian governments of the Middle East as well.
 
Arabs are often considered a distinct ethnic group... Throughout recent history the presence of the west (France in Syria, the British in Iraq and Jordan and more recently the American presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia) or Israel have pushed this tribal nature into the background. If such presences never appeared, it is possible that the Arab community may have turned on itself. This is entirely speculation though and another reasonable estimate is that without distractions closer to home, they would have started their attacks on the West far sooner

So those 'Arab tribes' in central Asia and the horn of Africa world be killing people on the street corners of Manhatten if not for Israel. Or they would have done so much earlier. Or not at all. Because they've just got fightin' in their 'Arab' DNA.

RRRiiighttt.

(Man, these instant-socio-anthropological doctorates, the ones the hawks have been awarding themselves since 9/11, they're not gonna have much currency once BO's been in office the first hundred days.)
 
the Arabs likely wouldn't have a dislike of America in particular, but would likely have a grudge against 'the west' in general, due to cultural 'contamination' from us (books, movies, etc), Christian evangelizing over there, and lurid stories in our press about some of their more unsavory customs....
 
the Arabs likely wouldn't have a dislike of America in particular, but would likely have a grudge against 'the west' in general, due to cultural 'contamination' from us (books, movies, etc), Christian evangelizing over there, and lurid stories in our press about some of their more unsavory customs....


Yeah... right... They hate us because of our freedom... sure...

Couldn't it be that "the west" is hated by some people because of their acts and not because of their "freedom"? Isn't it more logical to assume that supporting tyrants to get better prizes for the oil and trying to force a foreign culture upon them might be reasons for that hate?
 
One thing to remember when considering Islamic Fundamentalism is the importance of Saudi oil money which has funded so much of it IOTL.
Assuming the POD isn't too far back I think that the Saudi royal family, if they survive at all, will actually have to worry more about their security in the face of Pan-Arabist pressures. This will leave them with less opportunities to fund and indoctrinate these groups than they had IOTL.
 
Yeah... right... They hate us because of our freedom... sure...

Couldn't it be that "the west" is hated by some people because of their acts and not because of their "freedom"? Isn't it more logical to assume that supporting tyrants to get better prizes for the oil and trying to force a foreign culture upon them might be reasons for that hate?

:rolleyes: talk about putting words in my mouth...
Without Israel, it's unlikely that there would be a lot of 'acts' committed by the west that the average Arabs would hate. About our only support would be buying the oil; do they really expect us to not buy the oil? Without Israel, the Middle East would be a lot less volatile, and less newsworthy. As it is, they now, in OTL, have a grudge against the west for our cultural contamination (not from 'forcing it on them', just because it is so prevalent), our Christian evangelizing over there, and they get irked every time our lurid press goes over things like stoning and female circumcision. And nowhere did I say they would 'hate us'... I said hold a grudge against the west in general. Basically, the sources of friction between the Arabs and the west would be the same things that are sources of friction now... only without the Israel/Palestine conflict...
 

stalkere

Banned
C'mon guys....
"They hate us because of our freedom?"
Geez....
Let's try to keep out of the null-value semantics, OK?
OK, try this - the Arab cultures are based on existence in a resource-constrained environment. Their whole cultural and many basic values are based on the concept that resources such as water, food and fuel are always going to run short. Even times of relative plenty will be followed by famine.
Contrast that with Europe - the usual constraint there is manpower to harvest and process food, water and fuel.
On the spectrum of European cultures, note that those that traditionally deal with shortages of water and fuel - I'm thinking of Spain and Italy, especially Sicily - those are traditionally more aggressive than the folks who don't deal with shortages.
To get it back to the original question, the Israelis are "the other", competing for resources in an area the Arabs regard as their own.

First up, would the Arabs be making attacks on NYC if there was no Israel?
Maybe? but probably not.
Maybe Hollywood...I'm kind of surprised that they didn't hit LA. That's a major secondary complaint.

Would they make attacks on NYC if there was no oil money?
Almost certainly not, IMHO

So, now let's take it into the greater question of Muslims...notice that most of the US problems are with Arab Muslims, and not all that many of them.
Dar Al Harb and Dar El Islam are concepts more and more Muslims are willing to set aside, especially the further you get from the ME, and the longer they have been away from it.
Profile the 19 guys who made the 911 attacks, and even add in the profiles of the suicide bombers - you get a picture of a young man, less than four years away from Egypt, Jordan or Syria. Mohammed Atta and the Chem Engineer suborned to help on the '95 WTC bombing are the exceptions.
 
Radical Islam is as much a particular reaction to the failure of Arab nationalism (and the interaction of this failed Arab nationalism with its own post-colonial environment in the broader sense--the Arab world, and to a lesser extent the Muslim is replete with structural issues that have little to do with Israel) as it is to outside influence. Assuming no Israel doesn't eliminate the broader post-colonial (that is from the Ottomans and then the French and British) problems (which seems plausible to me) I don't see why *Radical Islam cannot emerge on schedule. Not that outside influence and Israel didn't help. It's important to consider that the Arab world was (in some sense still is) in fact extremely heterogeneous and simultaneously one of the world's longest continuously colonized regions (it's like Africa, but less lush!). The fact is the Arab world, like Africa, is beset by the problem of wholly artificial states that haven't yet grown into real ones; like Africa the fact the places are run like tribal fiefdoms (or indeed as tribal fiefdoms) doesn't help. And oil development tends to do more harm then good, as has been long discussed. Israel might actually hinder Radical Islam more then it helps, at least to the extent Israeli guns keep Jordan (especially) and Egypt (at least indirectly) intact as non-radical regimes.
 

mobius

Banned
Radical Islam would certainly exist in a world without Israel, and they would hate the West because of "cultural contamination", but without american support to Israel America would not be an attractive target so they would be focused in the fight against the arab governments.
 
A nation that essentially forces atheism on Muslim population and has interests in the area would almost certainly draw the fire of Radical Muslims.

Actually, compared with the other religious minorities in the Soviet Union, the Muslims had it easy. The restrictions on Islam were more or less relaxed - or so I've heard.
 
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