History Repeats Itself

A Middle Eastern regime caught between external powers, and engaged in a wrenching civil war, in search for its soul.

Sounds like Egypt, doesn't it? In fact, it describes the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the closing centuries before the Common Era. In his book, "Yavan in the House of Shem: Greeks and Jews 332 - 63 B.C.," author Richard Hooker notes, "After two centuries of peace under the Persians, the Hebrew state found itself once more caught in the middle of power struggles between two great empires: the Seleucid state with its capital in Syria to the north and the Ptolemaic state, with its capital in Egypt to the south...Between 319 and 302 BC, Jerusalem changed hands seven times."

The Books of Maccabees presents a story of war, of a righteous Jews fighting off Antiochus III and his attempts to crush the Jewish religion. In fact, the story is much bigger, and reflected a split within the Hebrew world at the time. Many Jews had become Hellenized, and were close to the government in Syria, while the more orthodox Jews were closer to the Ptolemies in Egypt. On the death of the Jewish High Priest Simon the II, the split in the Jewish world erupted into conflict, between supporters of Simon's son Onias the III (who opposed Hellenization and was pro-Egypt) and his son other Jason (who supported Hellenization and the Seleucids).  Jason eventually became High Priest, and instituted a series of reforms to make the Jewish world more Greek. 

The result eventually was civil war, one in which outside powers became drawn into, as Antiochus invaded Ptolomaic Egypt (which supported the traditionalist Jews) but was later forced to withdraw by the Roman Republic. He then sacked Jerusalem, and tried to ultimately suppress orthodox Judaism in his effort to help Hellenized Jews, but the result was a disaster, and the Maccabean revolt.

Egypt finds itself now in the same position that the Jews of two millenia ago found themselves: searching for its soul, of what kind of Egypt it wants to be, while stronger outside powers vie from the sidelines. Will Egypt turn more Western, or Hellenize, or will it turn more toward traditionalist Islam, becoming closer to the Salafists and Riyadh?

One can only speculate at this juncture. But it's clear that the old adage is true. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.