October 26, 2004
IT BUYS SOME TIME:
REVIEW: of Defending Israel: A Controversial Plan Toward Peace by Martin L. Van Crevald (Benjamin Schwarz, The Atlantic)
Like all other honest assessments of Israel's strategic situation, this slim book offers no support to either hawks or doves, or to either the Israeli or the Arab positions, as conventionally defined. The best-known and arguably the most highly respected civilian commentator on Israel's military affairs, Van Creveld coolly analyzes the country's security policy and geostrategy. He concludes that Israel's military preponderance over its Arab neighbors is stronger than ever, and is in fact growing. He further shows that—providing Israel deploys sensing and surveillance technologies at its disposal—its withdrawal from the occupied territories will enhance, not vitiate, its security. But he also convincingly demonstrates that unless it builds a security wall (bolstered, again, by high-tech sensors, and roughly following the pre-1967 border), Israel "will almost certainly be destroyed" by Palestinian terrorism and the growth of its Arab population. (Palestinians, he points out, are in fact already exercising the "right of return" by marrying and having children with Israel's Arab citizens. Of course, even if a wall blocks a de facto right of return, Israel's Arab citizens already make up about 20 percent of its population. This large and rapidly growing hostile group within its pre-1967 borders represents a long-term and potentially catastrophic threat to the Jewish state's safety, to say nothing of its democracy. Van Creveld doesn't address this problem, but his response would almost certainly be typically grim: that the existence of a future dire threat is no reason not to forestall a more pressing one.) His strategic appraisal, which Israel's defense and intelligence establishment widely shares, demolishes the arguments of those who hold that a wall can't be effective, just as it renders ridiculous the propagandistic view of Israel as David surrounded by Arab Goliaths.
None of it matters unless Jews start having kids. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 26, 2004 8:29 AM
If Israeli Arabs' fertility drops as well, then it doesn't matter as much.
The Israeli birthrate is no problem, from a military perspective. The Sephardim and Hasidim have birth rates like Mormons.
The issue in the territories is that some compromise will have to be made, because Israel will never forcibly expel the so-called Palestinians, and the maintenance of the status quo is simply too expensive in men and materiel. Israel will never return to the 1967 borders. Even Abba Eban, a dove's dove, called them 'Auschwitz borders.'
Posted by: Bart at October 26, 2004 10:48 AMIsrael can effectively keep the Golan Heights and should. Gaza can be safely abandoned, and Sharon already says it will.
The question is how the borders in the West Bank will be. They will probably generally reflect the 1967 border, but not perfectly. Some settlements will be taken within the wall. How many othter settlements will be taken in? And most importantly, how will the Jordan valley be apportioned?
Israel will need internationally recognized borders. Given that the Palestinians are unlikely to accept any, I don't know how it can get the UN or other countries to accept anything other than 1967 greenline though.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at October 26, 2004 11:36 AMChris:
The military has already moved on and says it doesn't need the Heights. Who cares who recognizes your borders if you can enforce them yourself?
Posted by: oj at October 26, 2004 11:43 AMOJ, is that the same military that said the Bar-Lev Line was impregnable in 1973? Middle Israel does not believe the state can survive without Golan, regardless of what some general says. Israelis also know that unlike America, their generals are very much political players. People shift from the upper levels of the military to elected office and back again with great frequency. Many generals are Labor Party hacks.
Chris, Israel merely needs a sustainable fait accompli. The US will back Israel's decision. The Euros may howl a bit, but they still want Israeli products whether semiconductors or oranges or weaponry or biotech. Over 130 nations recognize Israel at present, and the rest never will.
Posted by: Bart at October 26, 2004 12:02 PMBart:
Middle Israel didn't believe it could afford to just force a state on the Palestinians. They do now.
Posted by: oj at October 26, 2004 4:05 PMActually, OJ, washing their hands of the Gaza has always been popular. Think of it as giving Philisteia back to the Philistines.
Posted by: Bart at October 26, 2004 5:04 PMSince it became a fait accompli
Posted by: oj at October 26, 2004 5:12 PM