RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Arab Spring has punctured many received ideas about Middle Eastern politics — including the “two-state solution” to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The “two-state” formula was always based on two questionable assumptions: 1) that Palestinians regarded themselves as a nation in a world of nation-states and wished to create a state of their own; 2) that creating a Palestinian state was something that Israel acting alone could magically make happen.

The Arab Spring has seriously shaken the first assumption by revitalizing two ideologies that had lurked under the surface during decades of despotism. Both ideologies were born in the 19th century, partly as a result of contact with rising European empires.

The first is pan-Islamism, with the ultimate goal of restoring the caliphate. The second is modernization — which, in practice, means westernization, albeit with a local cultural veneer (a recipe also adopted by such diverse cultures as India and Japan).

As the post-Arab Spring landscape takes shape, the clash between those two ideologies will dominate the politics of the Middle East in the coming decades.

The pan-Islamist movement has never been interested in the creation of a Palestinian state. In fact, in 1947-48 pan-Islamists worked hard to prevent that outcome.

The Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Hussaini, leader of the first Palestinian guerrilla groups, and Ahmad Shukeiri, the founder of Hamas (an acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement) repeatedly asserted that their goal was not the creation of a Palestinian state, but the liberation of Muslim territory occupied by the “infidel.”

In other words, they didn’t want a Palestinian state; they wanted the destruction of the Jewish state.

Some secular Palestinians adopted the concept of a Palestinian state but only as tactical ploy en route to the strategic goal of wiping Israel off the map.

Last week, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh spelled out the pan-Islamist position at a prayer meeting in the north of Gaza on the eve of the fasting month of Ramadan. He announced he would lead a delegation to Cairo to invite Egypt’s new president, Muhammad Mursi, to give a boost to “the struggle to revive the caliphate.”

“The Arab nationalist order ensured failure to return to the Islamic caliphate,” he said. “It also ensured the Muslim ummah remained at the bottom of nations [in the world] and perpetuated American hegemony and the continuation of the Zionist occupation.”

Haniyeh added: “The Arab Spring has opened the path to the restoration of the Caliphate after the liberation of Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

Meanwhile, the Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian pan-Islamist outfit, has launched a campaign against what it dubs “the two-state conspiracy.” According to Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shalah, Washington plans to revive the debate as a “diversion “at a time that Muslim masses seek to liberate “all of Islam’s lost lands.”

Despite the enthusiasm shown by Hanieyh and Shalah, as a political strategy the revival of the caliphate remains a murky concept.

Many questions remain unanswered. Who could be the next caliph? The Ottoman dynasty that held the caliphate for four centuries withered away without a male heir to the last caliph, Abdul-Majid II. Claims by a range of personalities, including Sharif Hussein (the great grandfather of the present king of Jordan), the Aga Khan and the Egyptian King Farouq never took off.

Efforts by Iran’s “Supreme Guide,” Ali Khamenei, to cast himself as a Shiite version of the caliph are seldom taken seriously even by Iranian officials.

If finding an acceptable candidate for caliph is difficult, identifying the “lost lands of Islam” that need to be liberated is even more so. Yes, Israel’s tiny chunk of territory, about 20 percent of historic Palestine, is always included. But so are much of northern India and virtually the whole of the Balkan Peninsula.

Some groups include Spain and Portugal plus the western half of France, and southern Italy up to Rome. Others want to “liberate” Russia, which was under Muslim Tatar rule for two centuries.

Southern Thailand, northwestern Burma, the Chinese East Turkestan (Xinjiang) several islands in the Philippines archipelago also need to be “liberated.” In Africa, large chunks of Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania and Mozambique remain to be restored to Islam.

In short, pan-Islamists have a plateful. They have no time to waste on the mirage of a cat’s-paw of a putative Palestinian state.