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Extremism, Ancient and Modern Extremism, Ancient and Modern Near Eastern archaeology is generally represented as a succession of empires with little attention paid to the individuals, labelled as terrorists at the time, that brought them down. Their stories, when viewed against the backdrop of current violent extremism in the Middle East, can provide a unique long-term perspective. Extremism, Ancient and Modern brings long-forgotten pasts to bear on the narratives of radical groups today, recognizing the historical bases and specific cultural contexts for their highly charged ideologies. The author, with exper- tise in Middle Eastern archaeology and counter-terrorism work, provides a unique viewpoint on a relatively under-researched subject. This timely volume will interest a wide readership, from undergraduate and graduate students of archaeology, history and politics, to a general audience with an interest in the deep historical narratives of extremism and their impact on today’s political climate. Sandra Scham is Adjunct Associate Professor of Archaeology and Anthro- pology at the Catholic University of America and a countering violent extrem- ism specialist who works with USAID and the Department of State. She lived in the Middle East for over seven years, teaching and implementing Israeli– Arab exchange and peace-building projects. She is the Co-Editor of the Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies, served as Editor of Near East Archaeology, published by the American Schools of Oriental Research, and is a contributing editor to Archaeology magazine. She has taught courses on archaeology, politics and the heritage of the Middle East at the University of Maryland and Stanford University. This page intentionally left blank Extremism, Ancient and Modern Insurgency, Terror and Empire in the Middle East Sandra Scham First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Sandra Scham The right of Sandra Scham to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-415-78840-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-78839-7 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-22532-6 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India Contents Acknowledgment vii Prologue: The Middle East and me 1 SECTION 1 Narrativity, agency and emplotment 15 1 The Passion will play: Narrativity and resistance 17 2 Gunpowder, treason and emplotment: Narrative and agency 33 SECTION 2 Tragic emplotments 51 3 “The fanged serpents of the mountain”: Kurdish separatism in the context of the ancient past 53 4 “A true people like so many others the world has seen”: Bedouin resistance past and present 74 5 “Their hearts were confident, full of their plans”: Philistines and Palestinians 96 SECTION 3 Romantic emplotments 121 6 “There was no king in Israel”: Early Israel in settler movement narratives 123 vi Contents 7 “Realm like his was never won by mortal king”: Huthis, Himyarites and hard-lines 150 8 “Our place here is but a deception”: Al-Andalus in modern Islamic ideology 171 Epilogue: “Those who do not remember history are condemned to retweet it” 194 Index 204 Acknowledgment I wish to acknowledge the invaluable contributions of some very important individuals, not necessarily to this book—in which I do not purport to repre- sent anyone’s views except my own—but to my knowledge of the Middle East and its people. Ann Killebrew, without whom I would understand so much less about the Ancient Middle East than I do now, enabled me to experience Turkey, Israel and Palestine in a new way. I am also indebted, more than I can tell, to Ken Holum and Adel Yahya, peace be upon them both. Ken set me on the path of Middle East archaeology and Adel opened my eyes to the meaning of the past in the present. I dedicate this book to them and to my husband, Paul, and my daughters, Petra and Anat. This page intentionally left blank Prologue The Middle East and me As a junior in high school, I heard Barry Goldwater’s famous exposition that “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice” on television which, in that same year, was dubbed a “cool medium” by Marshall McLuhan (MacLuhan 1964).1 Although it can be argued that television has “heated up” since that time, I watched it with the detachment of a young person who found politics boring. Nevertheless, I do remember that election in general because it was the first one in which my parents could vote. No, they weren’t immigrants—we lived in the District of Columbia, capital of the nation—which, before that time, was inexplicably disenfranchised. I later discovered that the anarchist Karl Hess, who once wrote admiringly about “men who suddenly tire of palaver and reach for the rifle on the wall” (Perlstein 2009: 315), penned this controversial speech. Apparently, it per- suaded my father to vote for Goldwater, one of the few who did in that year of a historic election landslide, while my mother preferred Lyndon Johnson. I suppose that, using the same roundabout logic that is now applied by counter- terrorism analysts, one might say that would make my father, who clearly responded to this narrative, a supporter of extremism (Hoffman 2006; Smith 1994). Because I witnessed what surely must have been the first time the word entered into the lexicon of modern American politics—in this case as a credo for a Republican nominee, later, the idea of associating extremism with reli- gion seemed unusual. After all, I never thought of Barry Goldwater as religious and later read that he was even suspicious of religion. After years of lecturing at university, I now understand that millennials have really experienced no other context for it and, despite the fact that President Obama demurred against associating extremism with “any one religion,” invariably linked the word with Islam. Unlike those days when an agnostic Jewish-Episcopalian could run on the Republican ticket, now all candidates for high public office in the United States have to lay claim to piety, including the current President of the United States, whose life up to that point had been about as profane as one could imagine. He was quick to adopt at least one of the tenets of “old-time religion”—that is, regarding a designated “other” reli- gion as the incarnation of evil. Growing up surrounded by Southern Baptists, I remember that our bête noire was Catholicism. Clearly, there was only one 2 Prologue choice for Donald Trump. Islamism, a term I have tried scrupulously to avoid in this book since it conveys little beyond rank prejudice, is now back in gov- ernment parlance. It will quickly become apparent, if not from the title, then from the first paragraphs of this introduction, that this book, while written by an archaeolo- gist, is not entirely about the ancient past. Further, it is not about the destruc- tion of cultural heritage by extremists—something that should concern all of us but which I will leave to be addressed by others in my field. Rather, this book is about the meaning of cultural heritage, and more particularly, the narratives attached to it, to groups accused of extremist actions and the larger societies in which they live. Most of what I have learned about the Ancient Near Eastern past has been via the modern Middle Eastern present—a present that, for many in the West, unfortunately appears to be one of eternal conflict. My interest in the earliest narratives that continue to motivate people in the region has been gestating for decades, but I think it would be useful in understanding the premise of this book to explain how I got to this point. The beginning of my involvement with the Middle East was in 1993 when, after years of overt conflagrations and covert contacts, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Jordan’s King Hussein signed a peace treaty in Washington, DC. While it was the earlier Oslo Accords between Rabin and Yasser Arafat that garnered most of the news coverage, this was the event I had been wait- ing for. If I had decided to work in any other region, I would scarcely have taken note of the whole process but a tangential consequence of this accord (to almost anyone else but me) was that, because of it, I could work in Jordan without having to obtain a new passport or omit my experience in Israel from my CV. Taking advantage of the situation as soon as we could, my husband and I landed at Queen Alia Airport in Amman in the summer of 1994, during the interregnum between Oslo I and Oslo II, to scope out sites for my subse- quent fieldwork in Jordan. The border agent who looked at the Israeli stamps on our passport was visibly startled and ran to get his superior.
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