June 26, 2002
OH LORD, PLEASE DON'T LET ME BE MISUNDERSTOOD :
Here's an email from a reader that began as a discussion in the comments section of this post. It touches on several matters that people seem to be misunderstanding, so I assume the fault is mine. Maybe we can cover everyone's concerns at once :Orrin,
Your remarks are indeed rational : "Have them attack you and then respond."I will reiterate that we should realize by now what "rational" means in this neck of the woods. We're not exactly in "win-win" land.
Your point, however, raises several serious questions:
1. If it is practically certain that Israel will be attacked, why should she create conditions that will abet the attacker? (By the way, Charles Krauthammer addresses this more eloquently than I ever could in a recent column in the Washington Post, if you haven't seen it already.)
Should she do this merely to kill more people? To raise the heat a bit more? To waste more of her resources? To further guarantee her status as "pariah state" (as well as the US, her "sponsor")? To be sure, the Palestinians will continue attacking because they have been encouraged to continue. I am convinced that their attitude goes something like this: "We will destroy you because we don't believe that you have the will to destroy us. And if you do have the will to destroy us, our friends and allies in the Arab/Moslem world and in Europe, in Russia and in China, will not allow you to destroy us. And even if you succeed in destroying us, you will in the process be destroying yourselves." (This, by the way, could be a paraphrase for Al Qaida too, vis a vis the US)
Attacks will continue because nothing Israel grants the Palestinian Authority (short of agreeing to disappear) will appease them. Attacks will be by "terrorists" or "freedom fighters" what have you. They will likely be with whatever weaponry they can get, Katyusha missiles, artillery, (gas?) etc. Following the most effective model of Hizbullah in Lebanon, the missiles will be concentrated among civilian sites (i.e., cities and towns). How do you expect that the "world" will accept an Israeli response to this when they don't even now accept Israeli attempts to curb attacks on its civilians, referring it to "retaliation" and "illegitimate" (or "excessive") use of force.
2. What about pre-emption? As a sovereign nation, Palestinians will attempt to build up their arsenal as fast as they can. To prevent this build-up (which already started, it seems, as soon as Olso was signed--and aided by Israeli "donations" of automatic weapons "to help the Palestinian Authority "fight terrorism"--not bad as jokes go), Israel will be forced to pre-empt, but she will not be able to so easily (look at the situation in South Lebanon). Once again, as time marches on (our Arab brothers have learned patience, alas) and Israel is further weakened, as the squeeze gets tighter, you don't have to be too too imaginative to figure out the next move.
What I think you're saying, Orrin (and you may be right--I'm just expressing reservations), is: "They'll attack you, as certain as the night follows day, but you'll be able to whack 'em for it. And you'll be supported in it."
I'm saying:
1. Why should more Israelis have to be killed for this "privilege" and why more Palestinians too (though they'll benefit for sure from the sympathy)? I guess this is a dumb question, for 'tis the way of the world?...
2. Why should Israel so obviously further endanger herself?
3. What if people get so tired of the events in this sorry region that they just "turn off" (especially if the US has its hands full with Al Qaida) and tell Israel to solve its own problems? Or even worse, for if Israel, in the words of the French Ambassador to England, is "That sh[odd]y little country that stands in the way of world peace" (I'm paraphrasing), why not just come to the conclusion that the world will be better off without her? Sounds reasonable to me, according to that line of thinking....
4. And what happens when you will get countries like Syria, Iraq, Iran and likely Egypt saying, "Any attack on Palestine is an attack on all of us," even as Israel is being herself attacked?
5. Besides, your view on the difficulty of fighting terror because it's stateless (i.e., it's easier to fight it when it's part of an actual country), seems to be disproved by the Hizbullah in Lebanon, which is part of the government.
Why should the ante have to rise before people wake up? It's just the Oslo accords all over again, except that the stakes for Israel are way higher. And there's no reason at all to believe that the Palestinian response to the concessions offered in 2001 will be any different the next time. There's every reason to think they will try to exploit their opportunity to destroy Israel to the fullest.
Anyway, thanks again for your time,
Barry Meislin
Tel Aviv, Israel
In response I would say :
Thanks, Mr. Meislin for your questions and comments. I fear I've been unclear here. Let me try to rectify that :
(1) As a starting point, I don't believe there is any situation under which America would abandon its support of Israel--which means that Israeli security is guaranteed. Nor do I think there is any scenario one can envision in which Israel could lose a war with Palestine or, in fact, with the entire Arab world. I believe you are right that radical Islamic terror strategy is based on the assumption that Western democracy is fundamentally effete and will not do what is needed even to guarantee its own survival. But this belief is obviously mistaken as our atomic bombing of Japan, our firebombing of everywhere from Dresden to Tokyo and any number of bombing tactics used in Vietnam should have amply demonstrated by now. As Victor Davis Hanson has most capably written, democracies are actually the most bloodthirsty and destructive war-making powers the world has ever seen when once roused to self-righteous anger. No political system is more willing to target civilians, perhaps because no system gives citizens greater power and responsibility. If necessary, does anyone doubt that Israel and maybe even the U.S. will use nuclear weapons on the Islamic world rather than lose such a war?
So what we are discussing here is really just the terms of Palestine's loss. They get their state sooner or later. What is being decided is now is how the defeat is administered and how many of them are still alive when they get it. If they could grasp the olive branch today it would be all of them, but they can't. So they will in all likelihood have to be brutally crushed by Israel first. This brings us to the question of whether it is in Israel's best interest to crush an occupied people or to defeat a rival sovereign nation.
(2) It is our contention that Israel would be better served by creating a Palestinian state itself, with American connivance, so that when the final conflict comes it is waged against the state of Palestine, rather than against Palestinian occupants of Israeli territory. The analogy we'd make is to America's own conflicts with Indians, on the one hand, and with blacks, on the other. Because blacks were an integral part of American society and the body politic, Southern (for the most part) oppression of them was a festering sore for hundreds of years. It led to immense guilt and a kind of psychoses on the part of the white oppressors, which continues to this day as we try to buy off our consciences with everything from affirmative action to talk of reparations for slavery.
Contrast this with the relatively guilt-free way in which we look back at our annihilation of the Indians and our conquest of their territory (or of Mexican territory for that matter). This difference in national psychology may be a function of dubious moral reasoning--perhaps it shouldn't matter that we called one group a nation and the other fellow citizens--but it is nonetheless real and has significant political consequences. It simply is the case that you can exterminate the Maori as long as you treat them as a foreign power, but you can't treat minorities within your own state harshly without provoking international indignation.
But the reasons for our assertion that statehood serves Israel go beyond mere appearances. For one thing it seems likely that at least some of the attention and energy of Palestine's leadership would be consumed by the massive task of administering a state. And it seems that statehood would take some of the passion out of the Palestinian cause. "Live Free or Die" is an easier cause to rally folks to than "54-40 or Fight". Reduce the conflict to a dispute over borders and you may be able to suck some of the air out of a balloon that's near bursting right now.
In addition, it's fairly easy for terrorists to hide within a civilian population. It will be much harder for the leaders of a nation to hide themselves. And, once out of hiding, they are ready and easy targets. The IDF hesitates now before putting a rocket down Arafat's gullet. But make him the leader of Palestine. Tell him that further attacks are acts of war. And then when the next attack inevitably comes, kill him. What was an assassination becomes a mere response to provocation. He's just as dead either way, but there is a difference between the two situations in the eyes of the world.
Suppose instead that the Palestinians manage to (mostly) reign themselves in for a while and try to develop a real military. This would be ideal. Let them collect their young men of fighting age and their armaments into central locations. what more inviting targets could the Israeli military ask for? At that point seize on any provocation or create one and then launch a pre-emptive strike which would truly cripple the Palestinian ability to continue a campaign of violence against Israel.
In short, Israel should announce today that it recognizes the state of Palestine, its borders being the territory that the PLA now administers. The U.S. would likely join in such a declaration, along with several other Israeli allies. Tell Arafat that if they want more land they have to take it but that any further violence against Israel or its citizens will be considered an act of war and will be responded to as such. I fail to see how this negatively impacts Israeli security. In fact, judging from the timing of terrorist attacks, one suspects this is the worst nightmare of the PLO and Hamas. So let's cram a state right down their throats.
Regards,
OJ