In the July 21, 2001 issue of my local newspaper there was an article with the heading, "A Sore Loser Forever." It referred to the French/Italian soccer match in which the French may have lost the match because their star player allowed himself to be provoked into an act of violence against an Italian player who had again and again trash talked about the French player's mother and sister. Wasn't it obvious that in reacting as he did, the Frenchman did exactly what the Italian wanted, i.e. he got himself tossed from the game not only depriving the French of their best player but leaving them with one player less on the field.
I mention this because this is type of behavior is playing itself out again and again in the Middle East. Arab terrorists fire rockets from recently evacuated Gaza and take an Israeli soldier captive. Why do they do this? Because they think that will cause Israel to collapse? No, they want to keep stoking the fires! They want Israel to retaliate and hopefully kill many civilians thus radicalizing more Palestinians and helping their recruiting efforts. Israel obliges just like the French soccer player and with similar results.
So what happens? Now that Israel’s enemies know that Israel can be relied upon to do what they want, Hamas and Hezbollah provoke Israel from Lebanon and Israel obliges radicalizing the Lebanese and getting more recruits for Hezbollah.
In the process few of the belligerents get killed. Many innocent civilians are killed and maimed and the Lebanese economy, which was just beginning to revive after years of internecine warfare, is destroyed. It does not discourage or hurt Hezbollah but it satisfies the rage in Israel.
Unfortunately this works both ways.
Right after Arafat turned down the Clinton sponsored peace plan, there was still a chance that negotiations would continue and peace might yet be achieved. So Sharon went to the Temple Mount with a large contingent of Israeli police. The purpose was to incite the Arabs so as to kill any chance of peace and provoke an intifada that would assure his victory in the imminent elections. Arafat and the Arabs obliged and did what Sharon wanted and Sharon won the election.
In fact the radical Arabs have always feared the moderates in Israel and so before every election there would be a new intifada intended to radicalize Israelis and assure the election of a right wing government that in turn would radicalize Palestinians. Most of the time the Israeli public has obliged.
What is it that makes people in sports or in politics behave in such a self-defeating manner? Must one always oblige ones opponents or enemies?
I dispatched this letter to the editor on Monday, July 17 but was glad to note that I was not alone in this view when the following day, July 18, Nicholas D. Kristoff in the NY Times expressed a similar view. You can find Kristoff's column entitled "Feeding the Enemy" on the web here. An article in the New Yorker of July 31, 2006 also takes a similar view.
Since then the barbarity of Israel's attacks offends all sense of decency and common sense. Lebanon, a multicultural country that was once the oasis of the Middle East, and having ejected the Syrians was looking forward to becoming a beacon of sanity and modernity in a part of the world that lacks both for the most part, is being systematically destroyed. The casualties being inflicted on its civilian population, including children, offends all sense of decency. Israel is defended on the ground that it does not deliberately target civilians but the reckless endangerment of bystanders differs only slightly from the acts of deliberate murder practiced by it's enemies, both in morality and in law.
Robert Malchman of Manhattan, NY was kind enough to send me an article that takes a very different view from mine and Kristoff's. It can be found here.
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5 comments:
Your argument and the ones echoed by Kristoff have been rejected by another op ed piece in the Times by (the name escapes me) The writer argued that Al Nassaria overplayed his hand by causing a split in the Arab world (Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia condemning Hezbollah); that it put pressure on the Christian Lebanese to suppress Hezbollah , has created sympathy in the non Arab world for Israel and discouraged the common Arab from voting into power extremists since they cannot govern in a way that improves the lot of the common man.
"Aside from those results however, just what is Israel to do when faced with these provocations? Admittedly, the Middle East problem is political and not military and it requires a political solution. However, there is no political partner with whom to negotiate. Additionally, it would be political suicide for any Israeli government to do nothing in the face of these provocations.
"By making life difficult for the Lebanese, Israel is forcing them to do what they are obligated to do as a sovereign nation: Control their borders."
It has not only been rejected by another piece in the NY Times but by many other commentators as well. There is an essay in Time of July 10, 2006 entitled, "Remember What happened Here" which fully supports Israeli action, as does the article to which I referred to at the end of my analysis and which I will reproduce in my next presentation with my rebuttal. How many article support, or for that matter oppose, Israel's action is rather beside the point. Only the validity of the analysis is at issue.
So let me respond to your summary of the contrary Times article. In my opinion Al Nassaria did not cause a split in the Arab world. To a large extent whatever split exists is a result of the situation in Iraq. What we are seeing, at least in part, is the Shiite/Sunni divide plus the fact that these Arab governments are to a large extent client states of the US. Unfortunately what counts is the fury of the "man in the street". Riots have occurred in Jordan, Egypt, Indonesia, and even in South Korea. It is from these masses that the recruits for terrorism come not from the insecure governments which are increasingly irrelevant.
As for "it put pressure on the Christian Lebanese to suppress Hezbollah" is absolute nonsense. The Christian Lebanese did not have the power before to disarm Hezbollah and as a result of the Israeli action are even more powerless. Nor has it "discouraged the common Arab from voting into power extremists since they cannot govern in a way that improves the lot of the common man". There is certainly not one iota of evidence to support this. The whole idea that voting solves problems in these regions should have been laid to rest when the extremists won the election in Algeria and the military with the support of the West annulled the election leading to a blood bath that lasted for years. Elections are not a panacea and they are counterproductive unless the groundwork for them has been laid long before. But it has often been said that the Republicans never learned anything and never forgot anything and that is now true more than ever. Unfortunately it seems to have infected the Israeli government.
As for "just what is Israel to do when faced with these provocations?" you can ask the same question of the French soccer player. Certainly not fall into the trap.
I would not pretend to know what Israel should do. Maybe send an envoy to Syria with a warning of dire consequences for the State that is responsible rather then the one whose territory is being used. Maybe stop its own provocations of constant and endless assassinations at a time when things were pretty quiet and a cease fire had been declared by Hamas.
Force Lebanon to control their borders? What a joke. Israel can't control its own; the US can't control it's borders but Israel demands the impossible from others.
The only thing that might be true in your presentation is that it might be "political suicide for any Israeli government to do nothing in the face of these provocations" but even that is doubtful, and even if true it doesn't justify acts which are barbaric and self-defeating."
Your analysis may be, and I think is, seriously flawed. The other side of the "Israel should be nice" coin is the fact that historically neither settlement nor conflict has been related to whether Israel behaves in a conciliatory fashion. Israel could have been more conciliatory after Oslo - and Arafat shot himself in the foot with Clinton and Barak present before he died. The radical Muslims are not interested in settlement or peace, regardless of the presence or lack of conciliatory policy implementation by Israel.
Assuming that to be the case, what would you do?
P.S. My prior comment should be coupled with the observation that third party pressure, especially by the US a la '56 and no matter how hypocritical (why no longer any mention of Darfur in the news and why should providing support to the African Union troops be more difficult than setting up a full blown policing force in Lebanon or Bosnia); can be determinative and result in an acceptable resolution even though both parties, at least ostensibly, are brought kicking and screaming to that resolution.
I think you miss my point as well as that of Kristof.
It is not a question of Israel being "nice" or "conciliatory". It is a question of Israel being wise.
If Israel could destroy the terrorists organizations, that would be wonderful. It would not necessarily bring peace but it would bring about much less conflict and hold open the road to peace. But that has been attempted again and again. It can not be done.
The attempt to do it, as is illustrated in Lebanon, succeeds only in inflicting untold harm to non-combatants, destroys the infrastructure of a weak state trying to rebuild it's economy and further weakens it's inability to deal with a "state within a state", which it would very much like to do.
Most of the casualties have not been and are not likely to be Hezbollah's. They are not combatants; they are children, women, old men and some able bodies non- combatants. They are Americans, and Europeans who are fleeing for their lives. Many of these are not enemies of Israel, but after this they are likely to be. For every Hezbolah combatant killed, a multiple of new combatants are created. Hate is created where non existed before and hostility where it did exist is turned to hatred.
The fact is that since the death of Arafat and the ascendency of Abu Mazzan things had been quieter than in many years. Even the election (and having elections was misguided) did not bring the terrorist campaigns of previous periods back and Mazzan was working in various ways to strengthen his hand for negotiations with, among other things, the planned referendum. This is all now down the drain.
What preceded the furious onslaught by Israel. Some rockets from Gaza which fell harmlessly in fields being so inaccurate that they caused no casualties and no property damage. One Israeli soldier captured.
From Lebanon an incursion and one Israeli soldier killed and two captured. No rockets fired until after the Israeli attack, but now Israeli cities are being targeted.
Since the Israeli retaliation dozens of Israeli casualties and untold Lebanese casualties have occurred. What is accomplished? Will this force an end to provocations against Israel? Hardly! Will it destroy Hezbollah? A pipe-dream.
What is the answer. I don't pretend to know. But this is not it.
As for your P.S. I totally agree. American foreign policy is missing in action where needed, and misplaced where injected. What better example of action being counter productive than Iraq, the pressure of elections in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere, and the lack of the hand on the rudder where it could do some good.
There was hope toward the end of the Clinton Presidency. We came so close. If we don't blow the place up, peace could yet happen."
July 29, 2006
Thank you for your e-mail, I agree with many parts of your essay, however I can't call myself a Liberal. I like to call things on their merits.
I was born in Norwich CT 1929, I'm fully retired. I served with the 99th division during WWII I saw with my own eyes what the Germans were capable of doing and to this day, I'm leery of them. I was in the Battle of The Bulge, our outfit was one of the first to cross the Remagen Bridge and I ended up in Landshut which was 7km from Dachau. What I saw still haunts me to this day. For all the mistakes our president has made in the past, I for one feel his outlook on Israel is to be commended. Again thank you for your e-mail."
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