I AM A JEW (PART XXVI - Discussion 2)

As the title shows this is the 26rd part (actually the 27^th, if you count the Special Bulletin) of the series. If you haven’t read the other parts I urge you to do so. They are, after all a continuum. Easy access to the others can be obtained by clicking on Part I and then scrolling upwards or by accessing the label I Am A Jew.

My colleague, Albert Nekimken, of Vienna, Virginia, a staunch defender of Israeli policies, has agreed to present the Israeli viewpoint chapter by chapter, and I will share his comments with you together with my rebuttals.

Please read or reread my post "I AM A JEW (PART I)." Nekimken’s counter-views follow in italics together with my rebuttals paragraph by paragraph.

While valuable as a way to personalize our dialogue with readers, being a Jew is quite irrelevant to our understanding of the subject. Men can be feminists and Christians or Hindus can be Zionists, especially when there are non-Zionist or anti-Zionist Jews (some informed, some not).

While I share your inability to embrace fully Judaism as a religion, we should be honest and admit that “cultural” Jews will not ensure the survival either of the Jewish people or Israel. We must depend on traditional religious Jews for both goals.

Here I must immediately disagree! In my personal experience, (and I know of no meaningful study of the subject) it is precisely “cultural Jews” who assure the survival of the Jewish people as an entity. In my own family, my wife was born Christian and never converted. It was religious Jews who tried to deny my daughter’s Jewish identity on the ground that her mother was not of the faith. Yet she married a culturally Jewish man, they observe a Kosher home as a matter of tradition, and even light candles to usher in the Sabbath, all as a matter of tradition.

It used to be argued that inter-marriage was the greatest threat facing the existence of Jews as a people and as a religion. It has proven itself to be wrong.

Pages, possibly books, could be written on this subject, and probably have been, but this is not the place for it.

The background that you outline here strikes me as having minimal relevance to the topic at hand. It is more important to note that Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Koran and, in Muslim tradition, it holds third place in importance after Mecca and Medina. In contrast, for Jews Jerusalem in particular and Zion in general have always had paramount importance, especially after Jews were dispersed from their homeland. The Torah is replete with references to Jerusalem.

True, but irrelevant! Almost all agree that the religious sites in Jerusalem must be respected.

I assume these background anecdotes are intended to preview your sense of personal moral outrage at the failings (as you perceived them) of Zionism and of recent Israeli governments—just as you take pride in their accomplishments. This is quite understandable. Here you preface your central viewpoint that Israel has become an “oppressor” and, as a result, has forfeited your respect as a Jew and as an American. This, too, is quite understandable. Yet, defining that term, “oppressor,” and using it accurately are more difficult.

In this context you might have mentioned FDR’s odious decision to turn away boatloads of Jewish refugees from American ports.

This is one of the many misunderstandings of history, and a defamation of the memory of F.D.R. At the time there was a very clear immigration law in existence. It had no provision for asylum for refugees. F.D.R. did not have the power to let people without visas enter the country. The proposal of Secretary of Labor Perkins would have helped, but unbeknownst to F.D.R. the State Department had a strong antipathy to Jews. See here. But this really has no bearing on our discussion here.

Here, I feel compelled to point out that you, like every historian who creates a narrative, are obligated to select your “facts.” It’s never possible to include everything (historicism) and any attempt to do so would lead to utter confusion. You have scrupulously defended your attention to “facts,” but you ignore the implicit values that guide your selection of which facts to include.

Probably true, but obviously unavoidable! That is why I invite comments and disagreements.

For example, here you assume that, in 1947, Arab residents of the British Palestine Mandate thought of themselves as a “people” with its own territory. Many other facts document that, on the contrary, Arabs (both resident in the Mandate and non-resident) conceived themselves as part of a larger pan-Arab, Muslim “umma.” Arab leaders at the time, such as newly installed Hashemite King Abdullah of Transjordan, wanted desperately to annex Palestine to their holdings. The epitome of this trend came with Gamel Abdel Nasser’s ill-fated Pan-Arabism of the 1960s.

The fallacy of the above lies in the fact that Gamel Abdel Nasser’s Pan-Arabism was ill fated. But more important, this argument is rather offensive, for it attempts to rob the Arab people living in Palestine of their humanity. The only relevant fact is that at the time of the 1948 partition, and to this day, there are Arabs living in Palestine. By any definition, people who live in Palestine are Palestinians. Many of those who lived in Palestine in 1948 were driven from their homes, and have ended up in a diaspora, being victims of the Jewish, understandable, desire to end their own diaspora.

At no time in recorded history has there ever been a “Palestinian people” or state.

This is a very frequently stated, but a totally irrelevant fact. None of the states that emerged from colonialism existed. The Jewish Virtual Library (See here.) sets forth the facts and I don’t think they are cherry picking them: ”Jordan did not exist until 1921 when Winston Churchill invented it.”

In fact the whole Middle East used to be part of the Ottoman Empire and most of the states in the Middle East were created after World War I.

From the "History of the Middle East" page on Wikipedia: Syria became a French protectorate thinly disguised as a League of Nations mandate. The Christian coastal areas were split off to become Lebanon, another French protectorate. Iraq and Palestine became British mandated territories. Iraq became the "Kingdom of Iraq" and one of Sharif Hussein's sons, Faisal, was installed as the King of Iraq. Iraq incorporated large populations of Kurds, Assyrians and Turkmens, many of whom had been promised independent states of their own. See here.

But whatever the history of the region is, the modern Arab states as well as Israel are a creation of the Imperial powers and what existed and when is largely irrelevant.

When a people live in a given territory they take the name of that territory. People who live in Palestine are Palestinians and if they are not what are they? Jordanians? But Jordan has disclaimed all sovereignty over the area. Israelis too are Palestinians, but since the two people have little in common, only partition, which has always been assumed to be the optimum solution, remains. The new drive in Israel for Israeli sovereignty over the whole area is nothing more than a plan to deny a minority population their right of self-determination, and possibly, even a means of ghettoizing them.

Yasir Arafat created a distinct Arab “Palestinian” identity after 1967 as part of a strategy to destroy Israel.

This is a bold-faced statement, but Nekimken gives no source or support. As a matter of fact he doesn’t give references for any of his assertions, as I do. 

It was based on the story of the shared “catastrophe” of the Nakhba in May 1948, which had been preceded by 30 years of planned, anti-Jewish uprisings.  

You presume here that Arabs accepted the Western idea of the nation state in opposition to colonialism. However, Arab nationalism developed only slowly among elites and, according to the Salafist view that underpinned the anti-Jewish resistance, the concept of the “nation state” itself was rejected as a Western (“alien”) import.

This is certainly true of the Isis or Isil movement in Syria and Iraq, but I see no support for this assertion, for any of the other modern Arab states.

Your use of the term “alien non-Arab entity” deserves particular attention. You appear to assume that only Arabs “deserve” to live in the Middle East when, in fact, the region is a mosaic of peoples and cultures (albeit often at each other’s throats).

This is a strange assertion, since I have not used the term “alien non-Arab entity” anywhere.

It’s difficult to understand how Jews can be considered “alien” when their kingdoms in the region preceded the migration of Arabs out of the Arabian peninsula and took form some 5,000 years ago.

But so did the Roman Empire. Are we to resurrect it? The claim to a Jewish homeland cannot be based on ancient history. Its claim, and this claim is legitimate, is its crucial need for a homeland where in times of persecution Jews would always be welcome, and this was the basis for Herzl’s advocacy of Zionism. To be sure other minorities, whether Christians, Druze, or Kurds, have lived there for centuries, but they have always been there as minorities in an overwhelming Arab Muslim population. The expectation that Arabs would have a natural animosity to Jewish settlement, was recognized by the Godfather of the present Israeli government Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky, who wrote, as I point out in "Part XX.":

“Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonized…That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing, and what they will persist in doing as long as there remains a solitary spark of hope that they will be able to prevent the transformation of ‘Palestine’ into the 'Land of Israel.”

Your lamentable observation that Jews living in Arab countries did not “agitate for independence” is best forgotten. In truth, Jews lived in Muslim territories as second-class citizens (dhimmis) who were accepted, tolerated or oppressed at various times. Before the advent of Zionism, they couldn’t afford the luxury of expressing political views.

I made no such observation! That Jews were second class citizens in Arab countries is undoubtedly true, but has little, if any bearing on our discussion, particularly, since Jews for centuries, fled from Christian countries to Muslim ones, because they could have a better life there.

Inter alia, the millions of Kurds resident in the Middle East over millennia have never had their own independent territory.

True! But its relevance escapes me. I think they should have.

More important, you appear to have forgotten that anti-Jewish hatred has been the primary motivating factor in the conflict between Zionists and Arabs over the past hundred years. There were numerous times when territorial compromises could have been negotiated. Yet, at every point, Arabs refused to accept any Jewish presence on any lands perceived as belonging to them, except as a tolerated (and powerless) minority. Land, per se, was never the paramount issue.

I disagree “that anti-Jewish hatred has been the primary motivating factor.” But this raises the question of what came first – the chicken or the egg – we can argue this ad infinitum.

Inexplicably, you neglect to mention that early Zionists accepted every territorial concession presented to them that offered peace—first a British decision to cede the land east of the Jordan River to Arabs to create a new, “Palestinian” state of Transjordan, then the 1947 partition plan which you describe here. After the June 1967 war came the famous September Khartoum Declaration of “No peace, No recognition, No negotiation with Israel” which ended Israeli delusions about any “new understanding” that could lead to peace.

I refer the reader back to Jabotinsky. This was to be expected. As long as they felt that they could win, they were not ready to compromise. Now that they know they can’t win, they want to compromise. And that represents the opportunity we have been looking for.

Nevertheless, Israel subsequently and unilaterally returned a portion of Golan territory to Syria and the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt.

Not unilaterally! As part of negotiations leading to a cessation of hostilities.

Later, Israel withdrew unilaterally from the Gaza Strip.

This was not done out of generosity. It was a military decision that continuing occupation was costing Israel too much, and that withdrawal, with a blockade, would aid Israel in claiming all of the West Bank.

(In contrast, when Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri [who was later assassinated by Hezbullah] was asked why he couldn’t accept Israeli presence on a small parcel of borderland called Sheba Farms, he replied trenchantly, “Why should I?”)

This is hardly unusual. Nations are very jealous about their territorial integrity, and all nations are reluctant to give up “one inch” of what they consider to be part of their nation.

As indicated earlier, historians select their “facts” based on covert or overt values. It isn’t possible to assess “rights” or “wrongs” without identifying these values.

This is an unfortunate comment for it relegates all history, and all facts, as being subjective, and therefor implies that we should not be bothered by facts or by history. But then what is left. This assertion suggests, or implies, that facts and history are on my side of the debate, and therefor we should ignore them.

I now welcome comments readers care to make, but it may be difficult to post them, while this discussion with Nekimken is in progress. 

I AM A JEW (Special Bulletin)

I recently sent out my commentary entitled "I AM A JEW (Part III)." If you haven’t read it please do, as well as "I AM A JEW (Part I)" and "I AM A JEW (Part II)."

I am issuing this Special Bulletin because I am deeply disturbed by the latest expropriation of Palestinian lands.

Here is the announcement that I find deeply disturbing, particularly so son after the carnage in Gaza.

I quote: 

On Sunday, Israel announced the appropriation of land in the Etzion Jewish settlement bloc near Bethlehem, a move which an anti-settlement group said was the biggest such claim in 30 years.

Quite aside from the immorality of the decision it does not even represent the will of the Israeli government. So much for Israeli democracy. 

Haaretz further reported: 

Finance Minister Yair Lapid said at a conference in Tel Aviv that the appropriation of land was a move of underhanded opportunism that wasn't submitted for the cabinet's approval and is damaging to Israel in the international arena. (Ibid) 

“We are after a military operation, facing a sensitive international front, and it was difficult for us to maintain the world's support as it is," he said. "What was so urgent right now to create another crisis with the Americans and the world?" (Ibid)  

As for the reaction of the world:

The European Union on Tuesday urged Israel to reverse its decision to appropriate 4,000 dunams of West Bank land, joining in on the calls of condemnation made by other Western nations and Egypt over the last day.

We condemn the new appropriation of land in the West Bank, relating to plans for further settlement expansion, announced by the Israeli government on Sunday," the EU spokesman said. "At this delicate moment, any action that might undermine stability and the prospect of constructive negotiations following the cease-fire in Gaza should be avoided. (Ibid) 

The U.S deemed the move "counterproductive" and urged the Israeli government to reverse the decision. The U.K., France and Egypt also condemned the decision. (Ibid) 

We have long made clear our opposition to continued settlement activity," the U.S. official said. "This announcement, like every other settlement announcement Israel makes, planning step they approve and construction tender they issue is counterproductive to Israel's stated goal of a negotiated two-state solution with the Palestinians."

We urge the government of Israel to reverse this decision," the official said in Washington.  

The appropriated land belongs to five Palestinian villages in the Bethlehem area: Jaba, Surif, Wadi Fukin, Husan and Nahalin. See here.

J Street, The American pro-Israel thorough peace and justice organization, (and I urge all people who seek peace and justice to join that organization which can be found at: http://jstreet.org), issued a statement on its website.

I set forth the statement in full below:

J Street Condemns New Settlement Announcement, Urges Firmer US Action 

SEPTEMBER 2ND, 2014

 J Street condemns as provocative, damaging and extremely destructive to Israel and to hopes of peace a decision by the Israeli government to seize almost 1,000 acres of land in the occupied West Bank to build a massive new settlement.

 The decision, both in its timing and intrinsic nature, could hardly be more negative and harmful. This has been described as the largest grab of Palestinian land for the purpose of building settlements in 30 years. It demeans and weakens Israel’s peace partner, the Palestinian Authority; it defies the will of Israel’s most important ally and friend, the United States, and it flies in the face of a broad international consensus.

 Most of all, it casts serious doubt on the Israeli government's sincerity in claiming to favor a two-state peace agreement with the Palestinians. Prime Minister Netanyahu says he is in favor of peace based on a two-state solution, yet almost all of the government's actions and words point to the opposite conclusion.

 This decision is also a test of US seriousness in Mideast peace-making. The United States has protested settlement announcement after settlement announcement for decades – yet its opinion has been disregarded by successive Israeli governments to the point that US credibility has been called into question. How can the world expect US leadership in dealing with hostile actors across the Middle East when even its closest friend in the region flagrantly ignores its policies? It is time for the Administration to make clear to Israel that it means what it says and that US opposition to settlements is not just symbolic but real.

 J Street urges the United States government to undertake a thorough review of its policy toward Israeli settlements and to announce the steps it will take if Israel goes forward with this decision. As a first step, it should declare now that it is the view of the United States that settlements are not merely "unhelpful" or "illegitimate" but illegal under international law as laid out in the Fourth Geneva Convention.

 It may be true that the land being expropriated from five Palestinian villages lies within one of the settlement blocs that are likely to be retained by Israel in any prospective peace deal. But until there is such an agreement, this kind of land grab can only be seen as a blatant unilateral move to create new facts on the ground.

 It is particularly unfortunate coming on the heels of last week's Gaza cease-fire which seemed to offer a new start for diplomacy in tackling the conflict. One would have thought following that war, that Israel would do everything possible to strengthen PA leaders and their pursuit of diplomacy and non-violence. Instead, this move undermines President Abbas and reinforces his opponents, including Hamas, whose abhorrent use of violence shows exactly why now is the time to empower moderate Palestinian leadership. 

We urge the Israeli government to reverse this decision, to announce a settlement freeze and its readiness to return to negotiations for a final settlement based on the 1967 borders with agreed land swaps. 

 Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni have already noted how much harm this decision will cause to the US-Israel relationship. Other responsible members of the ruling coalition should join them in working to reverse this decision and to move urgently to seek a two-state solution.

I will release I Am A Jew (Part IV) next Monday.

As usual your reactions are invited. 

Israel and the Palestinians (A Summing Up)

As I come to my final commentary on this subject, I find myself quite sad because for the most part the people who disagreed with me never engaged in a real discussion.

With some notable exceptions all they offered was hate and endless war. Do they really think that this is in the interests of Israel or Jews throughout the world? Thus Frank Friedman of Johannesburg, South Africa, wrote, “Anti-Semitism is here to stay. Jew bashing is a very popular sport. The Arabs only want the country is not negotiable! Their aims are war until they achieve what they want. What ever Israel does is wrong. I personally would send rockets back all day until they are all wetting their pants as the Israelis do!"

That is insulting to the Israeli’s, as brave and courageous a people as live anywhere. Israeli’s are not wetting in their pants.
And the implication that my criticizing Israeli government policies are anti-Semitic is a slander on me, and all those in Israel who agree with me, as shown in the many articles I cited in Haaretz written by Israelis.

I wonder whether Mr. Friedman has even tasted the lash of anti-Semitism as I have. Did he escape from Hitler’s Holocaust? Jew bashing indeed.

But why engage in rational debate which might actually further the possibility for Israel to live in peace and prosperity. Like so many Arabs, the spewing of hate comes easier than actually furthering the interest of Israel or Jewry throughout the world.

Why have my critics totally ignored what Ben Gurion said, “If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”

This quote is important because it shows that Ben Gurion recognized that the Arabs had a legitimate grievance, not something that today’s hate mongers will ever concede. But it is important to recognize such factors if they are ever to be dealt with.

But more importantly we have to answer the other question, Ben Gurion raised, “Why would they accept that?” Why indeed? And the answer is reality! Arabs are not good at facing reality, but even they come to grips with it after suffering defeat after defeat.

My critics act like nothing has changed since 1948 or even 1967. So very much has changed, but my critics sit in their bunker mentality and pretend nothing has changed. Today Israel is the most powerful country in the Middle East, with the IDF by far the most powerful military, and Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has atomic bombs. Its existence isn’t threatened. Egypt and Jordan have signed peace treaties and have recognized the state of Israel.

The threat to Israel comes from within. It comes from the fanatical settler movement which is determined to drive Arabs from all the lands of Palestine and which is exercising an ever-greater power within Israel where the constant need for coalition government gives an outsize power to minor parties.

We outside Israel, Jews who understand persecution from first hand experience, and the US government need to be a counterweight to these fanatics. Peace is not possible as long as they choose to expropriate more and more Arab lands. As Herb Reiner wrote, “As things are now, life is a nightmare for many Palestinians. Lands not yet confiscated are becoming increasingly inaccessible as they are broken by walled barriers. Palestinians are often required to pass through multiple checkpoints to get from their homes to their jobs or fields. New highways are for the exclusive use of settlers or Israelis."

How does such continuing encroachment aid the peace process, or for that matter Israeli security?

Bill Mainzer of Portola Valley, California asks, "Would you simply sit still and allow your neighbors to shell you?" But he doesn’t ask, "Would you simply sit still and allow your neighbor to blockade you, denying you the basics of life including food and electricity?" Would you simply sit still and allow your neighbor to keep encroaching on your lands, and take your homes to build homes for themselves? I asked, "Are Arabs not allowed to defend themselves?" and the response is a deafening silence.

Bill Mainzer says possibly, when both sides are ready to sit down and negotiate a proper peace settlement this can come to a stop. But before that, both Hamas and their supporters, Iran, will need to accept the right for Israel to exist. Of course, but that comes at the end of negotiations, not as a precondition.

But then in that same message, Bill Mainzer adds, "Maybe another Arab state like Syria could absorb the Palestinian people that they too, do not want!" indicating the very mindset that makes peace all but impossible. Palestinians do not want to live in Syria and Syria doesn’t want to have the Palestinian’s, but what this implies is Bill favors ethnic cleansing, which appears to be gaining ground. It is what the settler movement wants. If that is the objective, or even if the Palestinians think it is, then there can be no peace.

But what I find most disturbing is the mentality that the whole world is arrayed against the Jews. First of all nothing could be further from the truth. Germany and a number of other countries have actually made it a crime to deny the Holocaust, and when the Pope stupidly removed the excommunication of a Holocaust denier, Germany and the world at large were up in arms.
It was the world at large, through the UN that gave sanction to the creation of Israel.

Barry Grant of Millford, NJ writes:

"As for the blockade of Gaza, I am sure you are aware that the Egyptians are also blockading Gaza. There is very little complaint about their actions, but then again the Egyptians are not Jewish. I have great sympathy for the innocent Palestinians who have been killed and injured. Just as I had sympathy for them in 1970 when King Hussein of Jordan (the good Arab) bombed the Palestinian refugee camps on the West Bank killing more than the Israeli's have killed in all these decades. No one mentions this (maybe because King Hussein was not Jewish) I could go on and on mentioning the response of the world and the media to Darfur, Bosnia, Rwanda, etc. Where is the outrage when a thousand times as many innocent persons are killed? I find it appalling"

This is simply not true. The Egyptians are blockading Gaza at the request of Israel. Since Hamas has not responded by attacking Egypt, (probably because they are smuggling their supplies and arms from there) there is little focus there. It has nothing to do with being Jewish. As for Darfur, Bosnia, Rwanda the outrage is resounding. The number of news articles I have read and seen on this subject and the number of appeals for help I have received by e-mail and snail mail is legion.

Even now the World Tennis Federation is ready to apply sanctions to Dubai for barring a Jewish Israeli player.

The mindset, "Woe is me, I am Jewish" is a relic from another time. I am glad to say that Jews all over the world are respected and have enormous influence in the US and throughout the Western world. AIPAC holds sway over American foreign policy to a degree that few foreign lobbyist organizations have. It was the only foreign lobby that I know of, to which Obama felt it necessary to appeal to.

Barry says, "I found your comments unbalanced and one-sided, although not as one sided as W's 8 years of benign neglect of the problems." But that benign neglect was to lend unswerving support to Israeli policies, which it seems to me is exactly what Barry seems to advocate. If Obama is to be successful in furthering the peace process he will have to build some credibility with Arabs, and the first thing he will have to do is convince Israel to stop expanding settlements and lift the blockade.

Finally, many have argued that Israel gave Arafat a great peace offer and Arafat turned it down. How they arrive at that conclusion is puzzling. How much was offered in the way of dismantling settlements, none of us know. I have read with care Dennis Ross’ "The Missing Peace" and I never found any details of what the offer was. To be sure Arafat had a strange way of negotiating, never making counter proposals and just listening and saying, "No" but it is a poor excuse to say well we tried - they turned it down, and so there is no point in trying again.

If we as Jews in the US want to be true friends of Israel we will support the forces of tolerance and peace.

Toward that end I recommend support of J Street, the Jewish lobby that is the true friend of Israel by supporting the peace movement.

I recommend signing up so as to keep apprised of developments. I also recommend listening to the analysis by a leading Israeli journalist of the recent Israeli election and the peace process, available on that site.

Putting The Israeli/Arab "Conflict" In Context.

An issue as complicated as the Israeli conflict with the Palestinians can hardly be given adequate coverage in one essay. Accordingly I plan to devote more time and effort to this very important issue. In this article I plan to discuss the genesis of the conflict because I believe the comments received as well as the articles cited in those comments ignore the fundamental problems of the conflict, which can only be found in its history.

Jews inhabited Palestine in Biblical times but were driven out by wave after wave of invaders, from Romans in 135 A.D. to the 7th century when Muslim Arab armies moved north from Arabia to conquer most of the Middle East, including Palestine. The rulers allowed Christians and Jews to keep their religions. However, most of the local population gradually accepted Islam and the Arab-Islamic culture of their rulers. Thus while some Jews remained in Palestine they were a very small community with most Jews having become part of the great Jewish Diaspora.

Jews had never stopped coming to "the Holy land" or Palestine in small numbers throughout the exile. Palestine also remained the center of Jewish worship and a part of Jewish culture. However, the Jewish connection with the land was mostly abstract and connected with dreams of messianic redemption.

See here, from which some of the above is quoted and for a complete history.

It was not until the 19th century that the birth of Zionism made a return to Palestine a matter of Jewish policy, at least for some, and Jews started returning and buy land there. However, the Arabs were a feudal society and so the land being bought was purchased from absentee landlords and the “serfs’ who toiled on the land had no say in their expropriation. As far as they were concerned it was the Jews who threw them off their land. Most Zionists were not concerned about the Arab population, which they ignored, or thought would agree to voluntary transfer to other Arab countries. In any case, they envisioned the population of Palestine by millions of European Jews who would soon form a decisive majority in the land. At the same time, Palestine's Arab population grew rapidly. By 1914, the total population of Palestine stood at about 700,000. About 615,000 were Arabs, and 85,000 to 100,000 were Jews.

The history becomes ever more complicated and those who might want more details should go to the web site indicated above but one thing was consistent. Arabs always considered Jewish settlers to be an alien force, which they did not welcome.

With the rise of Hitler many Jews desperately wanted to emigrate from Germany and Austria. None of the Western countries were willing to open their borders to receive them. How many might have been saved from the Nazi “Final Solution” is hard to estimate but it would not be unreasonable to suppose that it would have been in the millions. Many tried to flee to Palestine but the British blocked their path and turned them back.

On Nov. 29, 1947 The UN General Assembly voted in favor of Palestine being divided into an Arab state and a Jewish state with Jerusalem to be put under international administration.

As can be seen the land assigned to the new Jewish state was extremely small with Jerusalem being deep in Arab territory and the border between what was called Trans-Jordan and Israel far west of the Jordan river. Nevertheless The Jews accepted the UN decision, but the Arabs rejected it, and upon Israel declaring its statehood war commenced, which Israel won handily.



Why is it important to focus on this history? It bears on the rights of Jews in Palestine. It shows beyond doubt that the Arabs were always an occupied people, exploited by the Imperialist powers and by their own land-owning class.

We need to ask ourselves if the UN had decided to give a piece of territory for a Jewish state to be carved out of the US, or out of Mexico, or out of Africa what would the reaction of the indigenous population have been? It is safe to say it would have been hostile. So the hostility of the Arabs should not be a surprise nor can it be condemned as evil.

That is why David Ben-Gurion the founding leader of Israel said, “If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti - Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”

Why indeed would they accept that? The answer is reality. Their armies have been defeated again and again. As a result Egypt and Jordan have signed peace treaties with Israel. In desperation they have turned to the only weapon available to the weak, terrorism. Does that make them evil? I don’t think so! Since the dawn of time terrorism has been a weapon used. Even in Biblical times Samson brought down the temple on the heads of the civilian population when he was shorn of his strength. The Jews in striving for a homeland in Palestine used terrorism. On 6 November 1944, Lord Moyne (Walter Guinness), the British Minister Resident in Egypt, was assassinated in Cairo. On 22 July 1946 the King David Hotel was bombed by the Irgun, father to the Likud Party, killing 91 people and injuring 46. The Catholics in Ireland resorted to terrorism with the support of many Americans. And let us not forget the Sabra and Shatila massacres! What was the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki but terrorism? It is a weapon that we would prefer not to see employed but it has a long and storied history. It does not make those who employ it evil by definition.

But even terrorism hasn’t worked. We have ended up with the worst possible situation for all. Israeli’s continue to live without the security that is every people’s desire, and the Arabs continue to live in the squalor of displaced persons camps, which have now become multi-generational and gives them even less security than the Israelis have.

Let’s give Peace a Chance!!!

But peace cannot happen in the face of an expansionist Israel.

As can be seen from the map above, Israel started and accepted a small piece of territory. As a result of subsequent wars Israel grew. It is now accepted that Israel is entitled to all the territory as shown on the map below. Its border with Egypt has now been straightened. Its lands in the north now encompass all the territory to the border with Lebanon. And in the west it has expanded to the Jordan River and the area up to and around Jerusalem. Yet Israel has not been content with its conquered territories. It has built and continues to build settlements on occupied territory in the West Bank despite protests from every American Administration except for the Bush Administration. While it claims to have stopped building new settlements it insists on its right to expand existing ones and in the process continues to seize Arab lands and to destroy Arab homes.



According to Thomas L. Friedman, writing in the NY Times of February 4, 2009:

“The West Bank is so chopped up and divided now by roads, checkpoints and fences to separate Israel’s crazy settlements from Palestinian villages that a Palestinian could fly from Jerusalem to Paris quicker than he or she could drive from Jenin, here in the northern West Bank, to Hebron in the south.”

This is an intolerable situation. What Israel and the Israeli lobby demands is that the Palestinians quietly accept their oppression, accept their ever-diminishing lands, accept their lack of rights, and never fight back. No people would allow such oppression without resistance.

Israel is armed to the teeth. Yet any attempt for its adversaries to arm is treated as an outrage. Where is the balance?

Palestinians are human beings.

And every resistance, whether it is the "intifada", which consists of the throwing of stones against Israeli guns is treated as an outrage instead of the desperation which it represents.

Even the treatment of Palestinian weak claims of “The Right of Return” is treated as an outrage. To be sure Israel could never allow the refugees to return, for that would mean the end of the Jewish state, something that cannot be contemplated. But that does not mean that one should not acknowledge that this “right of return” has been recognized by the International Committee of the Red Cross which holds that persons displaced during armed conflict must be transferred back to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area in question have ceased even though the language of the Fourth Geneva Convention is not nearly as clear as some would contend. Israel has never, as it should, offered as an alternative the resettlement of Arabs in the West Bank, in permanent communities so they can stop being refugees in their own lands. Israel contends that this is something that the Arab nations need to do, but it is, and must be Israel’s responsibility. With American help, this along with adequate compensation must be the framework for negotiations.

Removing many of the settlements will not be easy, but the problem keeps being compounded by their expansion and by continued illegal (even under Israeli law) settlement activity, which is not being prevented by the Israeli authorities. The increasing support for an ethnic cleansing of Arabs from the West Bank by fanatical orthodox Jews must be denounced and the areas need to be referred to by Israeli authorities as the “occupied territories” or the “West Bank” and “Gaza” and not as “Samaria” and “Judea.”

Israel's Invasion of Gaza

It has been two years, since the disastrous invasion by Israel into Lebanon. I spoke out forcefully against that folly at the time – See here and here and here and here and here as well as the comments at the end of each of my commentaries. Talk about “Déjà vu all over again” in the immortal words of Yogi Berra.

After the folly of the Lebanese invasion, which it was generally agreed was folly; an almost identical folly has now been committed. If you look at the comments you will see that very few agreed with me on Lebanon. There are few dissenting voices in the American community, and even less in the Jewish American community. But in Israel there are strong dissenting voices. See numerous opinion pieces in Haaretz entitled, “The Neighborhood Bully Strikes Again” and “Trying To 'Teach Hamas A Lesson' Is Fundamentally Wrong.”

That is a lot of reading, but with so many dying, so many wounded, so many made homeless, is it really too much to ask that a little time be spent reading other opinions.

We keep hearing, “Israel Has a Right to Defend Itself.” What we don’t hear is “Palestinians Have a Right to Defend Themselves.” We hear “Hamas has ended the truce.” Was there ever a truce on Israel’s side? It is well recognized that a blockade is an act of war. But during the six month of the so-called truce, Israel had a tight blockade applied against Gaza. No food, no medicine, no electricity was allowed into the territory, and Israel never ceased assassinating Hamas leaders.

As a Jew who knows what being a Jew means, not only in Nazi Austria, but at the hands of anti-Semitism in the US, I reject the notion so widely spread by the Israeli lobby, that to criticize Israel constitutes anti-Semitism.

They say that in the US Social Security is the third rail. In fact the third rail in the US is Israel and this is particularly true in the Jewish community. I maintain that criticism of dumb and immoral policies whether by the US, or by Israel, is the height of patriotism, or as Obama said in another context, "I am not against all wars, only dumb wars." When I spoke out against the madness of Lebanon, I was addressed as “Dear un- American Anti-Semite” in a comment here, but as Martin Luther King said, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter" and I will not be silent.

There are so many myths around the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The biggest is “Jews good” “Arabs bad” ‘Muslims bad”.

I hear that Hamas refuses to recognize Israel. But Israel refuses to recognize Hamas. After all, as a result of pressure by the US, an election in the territories was held, and Hamas won the election and as a result became the duly elected representative of the people of the territories.

I hear that even in the West Bank children’s textbooks display a negative image of Israel. But Israeli textbooks refer to the territories as Judea and Samaria, clearly carrying the implication that Israel is negotiating in bad faith when it talks about a two state solution. And even a spokesperson for the Israeli foreign office talks about not the West Bank but about Judea and Samaria.

This is not calculated to instill trust.

After Hamas declared the truce at an end and fired some rockets into Israel not one Israeli was killed. The rockets were too inaccurate and the Israeli’s had good bomb shelters. That is not true the other way around.

The government of Israel says they try as hard as they can to avoid civilian casualties and that Hamas uses civilians as shields and so a thousand Palestinians have been killed and a multiple of that wounded and many, many more made homeless. There is a doctrine in the law called reckless endangerment. The concept says that if you recklessly endanger lives that is almost as bad as murder. Can anyone say that even if the IDF did not intend to kill civilians, there was not reckless endangerment?

When In our society a criminal take hostages, the police does not recklessly fire upon the criminal if it endangers the hostages. They will negotiate, they will wait, they will truly do all they can to avoid endangering the hostages. Can anyone say that is what the IDF has done?

And the use of cluster and phosphorous bombs. What can possibly justify these horrific weapons?

But even if we put all morality aside, what has all this carnage done for the security of Israel. According to an article in the New Yorker, Hamas had grown weak. Its support among Gazans was waning. It needed an Israeli strike to bolster its popularity. Israel has accommodated it.

What has it gained? Hate! Oh, there was hate there before, but there are degrees of hate.

Before 1967 Israel was in fact a besieged country. It faced the combined arms of all the surrounding Arab states and they were being armed by the Soviet Union. That is not the case any more. Peace treaties have been signed with Egypt and Jordan; there is no Soviet Union. Israel is the 80 pound gorilla in the Middle East. When a bee stings, the gorilla cannot go around destroying the whole jungle around it, because it is enraged.

Gideon Lichfield, the Jerusalem correspondent for The Economist writing in the NY Times from Tel Aviv said:

“Even if Israel now manages to impose a cease-fire on its terms, the calm will be short-lived unless it is willing to reoccupy much of the Gaza Strip indefinitely. Moreover, as long as Israel plays the role of aggressor in Palestinian eyes, Hamas’s support remains high. And each attack has weakened the relative moderates within Hamas and strengthened its most extremist leaders.

“Israel needs instead to abandon its military concept of deterrence in favor of a more pragmatic political one. What could deter Hamas is the fear that by using violence it will lose support among its people.

“How to create this? It is worth remembering that Israel launched its operation after the breakdown of a cease-fire that had held, reasonably well, for several months. Each side accused the other of breaching it, both with some justification. Instead of trying to re-establish the cease-fire, Israel’s leaders, driven by the need to bolster their ratings ahead of an election in February, decided to try to strike a decisive blow against Hamas.

“What Israel should do now is work for a cease-fire on terms that allow both sides to save some face. It should then do something it has done far too little of in the past: improve Gazans’ living conditions significantly. The aim should be to construct a long-lived state of calm in which Hamas has more to lose by breaching the cease-fire than by sticking to it.

“In the longer term Israel will have to accept that Hamas is no fringe movement that can be rooted out and destroyed, but a central part of Palestinian society. This will be the hard part, not least because of the opposition from Hamas’s secularist Palestinian rivals, Fatah.

“But even though Hamas’s stated goal is Israel’s destruction, it has said many times that it would accept a truce extending decades. Some former Israeli security chiefs argue that such an accommodation — a peace treaty in all but name — would eventually oblige Hamas to accept Israel’s existence, or else lose its own base of support. It is a gamble, certainly. But the alternative is more innocent lives lost, more extremism and ultimately more trouble for Israel.”

Even as I write this Israel has started withdrawing, having accomplished nothing except sowing destruction and hate.

What should Israel do? It should stop building illegal settlements on Arab lands. It may build walls to keep out terrorists, but on its own territory, not on occupied territory. It must not blockade Gaza. Gazans are entitled like any other people to come and go and to trade and to build a viable economy. Are there risks for Israel in this? Of course! But the alternative is worse. Israel instead of tearing down the Palestinian economy should build it. A prosperous Palestinian people tied to Israel by trade will not tolerate a Hamas in its midst, unless Hamas reforms. There will always be rejectionists, but they can be isolated, and without support they will wither.

The lessons of Vietnam and of Iraq have relevance.

Iraq Redux

While Iraq is not the only issue facing our nation it is at the top of our political discourse and accordingly I feel I must address it once again before moving onto other subjects of importance.

I last addressed this issue on January 11, 2007 under the title of “Bush’s new-old Iraq strategy” in which I derided the so-called “surge strategy” as being “to little-to late” and accused the Administration of continuing to be in a State of Denial. I concluded my analysis with:

“UNFORTUNATELY OUR FIGHTING MEN ARE THE VICTIMS OF THESE MISGUIDED AND BIZARRE POLICIES, WHICH ARE NEITHER FISH, NOR FOWL BUT HAVE ONLY ONE PURPOSE IN MIND AND THAT IS TO PASS THE HARD DECISIONS ON TO THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION. TO SACRIFICE UNTOLD LIVES TO THIS ENDEAVOR IS THE HEIGHT OF IGNOMINY.”

Now, however, I am becoming concerned that the opponents of the Administration and Congressional Democrats are in a STATE OF DENIAL as well. I say this because I fear that the subscript to the drive to disengage is that if we just pull our troops out, all will work out for the best, or at least what is likely to happen will not have any effect on us. I believe that is as much of a pipe dream as the Administration’s insistence that this war can be won.

There is little doubt in my mind that when we pull out, the blood bath that is now under way in Iraq will explode, with what we are seeing now being mild by comparison. Some will say that this is the Iraqis’ problem, but it is hard to see how people who consider themselves liberals or humanitarians can place so little value on the lives of people simply because they are not Americans or are Muslims. Yes, it is Iraqis who are causing the bloodbath in their sectarian hatreds, but it is a minority of Iraqis, with the vast majority simply wanting to live in peace. Furthermore, even though it is this Administration that caused this disaster with it’s ill advised invasion and it’s poorly conceived and executed occupation, it is nevertheless our country that must, as a whole, accept responsibility for the acts of its duly elected government.

Furthermore, the total implosion of Iraq is not likely to remain within its borders. The chaos that will be engendered is likely to draw in its neighbors. Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iran, and even Saudi Arabia, possibly Israel. Warfare on this scale is likely to shut down the Strait of Hormuz interrupting oil shipments from the Middle East, which would trigger a worldwide recession with the worst sufferers being the poorest. 

Does this mean that I now oppose the withdrawal of American troops? The answer is no!

The sad fact is that our troops staying in Iraq can only delay this catastrophe. There is no chance that our troops in their present strength can alter the situation. Their continuing presence can delay but cannot prevent the catastrophe I envision. At some point, whether that is in 2008 or 2009 or 2020, they will have to be withdrawn and when they are catastrophe will follow.

So what is the solution? Ideally, the Vice-President in an act of patriotism ought to resign; somebody like Colin Powell ought to take his place followed by the resignation of the President and the ascendancy of Powell to the Presidency. Then a truly new direction could be undertaken with real diplomacy taking place with and among all the states of the region followed by a pullout. This could not only save the US and indeed the world from the consequences of the follies of the past but could actually save the Republican Party. But that is not going to happen.

So the next best thing is that the Democratic Congress keeps passing bills with a timetable without teeth. Bush will then be faced with the choice of vetoing funding for the war or accepting something which does not actually tie his hands. This is a no-brainer. Bush would have to blink. He could not afford to be in the position of vetoing funding for the troops because he doesn’t like the language. 

It will be up to the next President to extricate us through diplomacy. It can be done. The Middle Eastern states have too much at stake to allow total chaos in their backyard.

But in fighting Bush and the Administration a frank assessment of the dangers must be put forth. We cannot afford for all factions in the United States to share in a State of Denial. Reality must be the watchword. 

If Democrats do not warn of the eventual potential consequences, they will reap the whirlwind of the chaos that will ensue whenever we pull out. Reality must recognize the futility of the military option, but must equally recognize the enormous dangers and potential consequences. Only a frank appraisal and an honest assessment of what we are facing can avoid catastrophe.

Iraq - Whence from Here?

In my last column I pointed out that the Democrats’ victory in this election does not assure success in the next election two years hence.

I urged Democrats to focus on the climate of corruption in Washington. They have made a good start in this area. Hastings was denied the chairmanship of the House Intelligence committee and while Jefferson will be seated, he will be denied any consequential committee assignment. All earmarks have been shelved.

The elephant in the room is, of course, Iraq. Here there have been many voices demanding that Democrats come up with a plan. The Left calls for an immediate withdrawal or at least a timetable, and on the Right there is a call for Democrats to come up with a plan for victory or the latest euphemism, “Success.”

I submit that this is not the time for Democrats to take a position as a party and to allow free discussion among its members.

I urge this because the decisions will in any case be made in the White House and the Congress can only marginally affect policy. In addition there is no good solution. Of course Congress has the purse strings but I would seriously doubt the wisdom of cutting off funds for our troops.

Furthermore, too many on the left at times sound too much like isolationists and/or pacifists and these positions are disastrous both from a policy and a political standpoint.

Not to recognize the serious consequences of a failed state in Iraq is as serious a “State of Denial” as the Administrations claim that things are going well, or that the decision to invade was wise. Of the few things that this Administration is right about is that failure in Iraq will have serious consequences.

The withdrawal of American troops will mean a heightened civil war in Iraq with enormous civilian casualties both among Sunnis and Shiites and is very likely to draw other states in the region into the conflict. The Saudis have already announced that if American troops withdraw they will go to the aid of the Sunni population in Iraq. This could draw Iran further into the conflict on the side of the Shiites, and potentially could lead to hostilities between those states. If this were to happen the Kurds might well decide it is time to get away from the mess and declare their independence. This would probably cause the Turkish Kurds to want to join their brethren, which would bring Turkey into the fray because they would not allow part of its territory to break away. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi’s have already begun to flee their homeland to escape the violence. Such increased violence would multiply the exodus to neighboring states, particularly Sunni Jordan, causing destabilization of that nation. It is almost inconceivable that with such a scenario Syria and ultimately Lebanon would not be drawn in. The conflagration is hard to imagine. Ultimately it would cause a flood of refugees to leave the Middle East and overwhelm Europe and possibly the U.S., which could not effectively keep out desperate people.

If anyone thinks that such a conflagration, or even a much smaller one, would not seriously interrupt the flow of oil they are dreaming, and while some on the left don’t think that this should be a major concern, there is little, if any, doubt, that a major reduction in Middle East oil would cause a world wide depression at least on the scale of 1929. It might eventually force a return of US troops and be the beginning of a World War on an unimaginable scale.

Lest I be accused of playing the role of Cassandra, let me remind the reader that Cassandra’s predictions were true. But even if this is a worst-case scenario, isn’t it about time that we dealt with the worst case rather than, as this Administration has done, always expecting the best and never preparing for the worst.

If this sounds like I am advocating the Bush policy of “stay the course”, or the McCain policy “of a surge” which may soon become the Bush policy, nothing could be further from the truth. Unfortunately, the damage is done and our troops at present levels are not improving the situation. While a much larger troop deployment early on could have made a major difference, it is now too late, which appears to also be the view of Colin Powell and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Thus we are caught in a dilemma. To stay serves no purpose and leaving spells disaster. What are we to do? The President is the Commander in Chief. For as long as Bush holds that position he will call the shots and any attempt to lay out a policy by the opposition serves no purpose. Ultimately, it is highly likely that we will still be in Iraq in 2008 and that it will be a major issue in the Presidential and Congressional elections. At that time the Democratic Presidential candidate will have to take a position, but it will be a position on the basis of the facts, as they then exist.

I believe that our best hope will be to make the Middle Eastern nations see a Pandora’s box opening before them, and realize that only they can deal with the situation. Before 2008 or right after the election we will have to advise them that we have done all that we can and are withdrawing. We should urge one of those countries, be it Saudi Arabia, or Egypt or Jordan to convene a regional summit and try to reach agreement among them. Their future is even more at stake than ours. They must form a multinational, multi ethnic, all Muslim (drawn from both sects) military, and impose a settlement on Iraq. We can lend logistical support, but our armies will have no further role to play. Will this work? It is a long shot, but it is less of a Hail Mary pass than any of the alternatives.

Israeli Invasion of Lebanon- Summation

Let me conclude the discussion about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon by pointing out that there is now general agreement in Israel that the Lebanon campaign was a disaster. My own feeling is that it had none of the earmarks of the well planned Israeli campaigns of the past.

It had all the earmarks of the Bush/Rumsfeld bungling in Iraq and I would not be surprised if it was in fact planned by Rumsfeld. We keep hearing of this Administrations staunch support for Israel. It seems to me this Administration is not so much supporting Israel as using it. Israel is to test American bombs to see if they will work in a war with Iran which the Administration is ratcheting up for. As long as the Republican party rules in the U.S. there will be endless war and endless war profiteering. Our boys in Iraq are just cannon fodder for this war machine which wages war while in the process decimates our military.

Israel should never allow itself to became the pawn for this Administration in the Middle East. Ultimately the only real security for Israel is in peace and I for one have not despaired that this is possible. Land for peace is still the formula and it is not Democracy that Israel's neighbors need, but economic viability. Nor do I buy the oft stated proposition that there is no negotiating partner. Even Hamas has stated that it would negotiate if Israel would return to its 1967 borders. Yes, there are many who would settle for nothing less that the total destruction of Israel, but they would soon become an irrelevant force if enough Palestinians felt an economic stake in peace. Until they have that stake nothing will stop the carnage. I only wish we had the martyred, by an Israeli, Prime Minister Rabin. Israel's tragedy was the rise of Likud, even though it was Likud member, Menachim Begin (who like Nixon with China) negotiated peace with Egypt. There is still time, but time is running out. Too many have ben dragged into hate as a policy, which it is not, and into the believe that peace can be imposed. It is not enough for some of the settlements in the West Bank to be dismantled they must all be dismantled, but not unilaterally. They should be available for negotiations along with a willingness to spend what it takes to make a Palestinian state a viable economic unit tied by trade to Israel.

This is not a utopian dream. There are still people of good will on both sides but they are a dwindling number as every move by each side increases the divide and pushes the moderates into the ranks of the extremes. Time is running out but it has not yet. The Nancy Boymans and Jerry Wachsmans who have a cataclysmic vision of wiping all Muslims of the face of the earth are just as dangerous as the crazies on the Muslim side of the street, while the Christian fundamentalists seek only Armageddon as a biblical prophesy and see Israel as the pawn that will lead there.

Israel-Invasion of Lebanon-Pro and Con

In my posting of July 26, 2006, I indicated that Robert Malchman of Manhattan, NY was kind enough to send me an article that takes a very different view from mine, Kristoff's and the New Yorker. It can be found here.

However, I wish to post the article in full here with my rebuttal. I am reproducing the article in black and interject my comments in a contrasting color.

MIDDLE EAST CRISIS: BACKGROUNDER
Israel lives with three realities: geographic, demographic and cultural. Geographically, it is at a permanent disadvantage, lacking strategic depth. It does enjoy the advantage of interior lines -- the ability to move forces
rapidly from one front to another.

At one time this may have been relevant. After numerous wars it is evident that whatever geographic disadvantages it may have, it can and has defeated the combined forces of all the Arab countries. The threat to Israel militarily, has if anything diminished greatly. With the Soviet Union gone as a supplier of armaments and with the two largest Arab states, Egypt and Jordan, having signed formal peace treaties with Israel there is no military threat to Israel. The only threat to Israel is from terrorists and while these remain a threat not to be minimized they are not an existential threat.

Demographically, it is on the whole outnumbered, although it can achieve local superiority in numbers by choosing the time and place of war. Its greatest advantage is cultural. It has a far greater mastery of the technology and culture of war than its neighbors.

The demographics too are irrelevant. The demographics have always been heavily against Israel but have had no bearing on its ability to win every war it has fought. This has not changed in any way so as to change the dynamics against Israel.

Two of the realities cannot be changed. Nothing can be done about geography or demography. Culture can be changed. It is not inherently the case that Israel will have a technological or operational advantage over its neighbors. The great inherent fear of Israel is that the Arabs will equal or surpass Israeli prowess culturally and therefore militarily. If that were to happen, then all three realities would turn against Israel and Israel might well be at risk.

It is to be hoped that the culture will change. Rather than increasing the risk to Israel if such a change were to take place it would make possible a final co-existence since a modern culture would focus on creating and keeping prosperity and only peace can assure that.

That is why the capture of Israeli troops, first one in the south, then two in the north, has galvanized Israel. The kidnappings represent a level of Arab tactical prowess that previously was the Israeli domain. They also represent a level of tactical slackness on the Israeli side that was previously the Arab domain. These events hardly represent a fundamental shift in the balance of power. Nevertheless, for a country that depends on its cultural superiority, any tremor in this variable reverberates dramatically. Hamas and Hezbollah have struck the core Israeli nerve. Israel cannot ignore it.

This is utter nonsense. There is no indication that infiltrating a few terrorists into Israel who instead of blowing themselves up, capture two soldiers shows any increased Arab tactical prowess. The rockets being fired are very inaccurate and have caused little damage and few casualties and were not fired from Lebanon until after Israel attacked.

Embedded in Israel's demographic problem is this: Israel has national security requirements that outstrip its manpower base. It can field a sufficient army, but its industrial base cannot supply all of the weapons needed to fight high-intensity conflicts. This means it is always dependent on an outside source for its industrial base and must align its policies with that source. At first this was the Soviets, then France and finally the United States. Israel broke with the Soviets and France when their political demands became too intense. It was after 1967 that it entered into a patron-client relationship with the United States. This relationship is its strength and its weakness. It gives the Israelis the systems they need for national security, but since U.S. and Israeli interests diverge, the relationship constrains Israel's range of action.

The US is a very reliable ally. If anything it is too reliable for Israel’s own good for the blank check given by the bush administration encourages adventurism, rather than restraint which is in Israel’s long range interests.

During the Cold War, the United States relied on Israel for a critical geopolitical function. The fundamental U.S. interest was Turkey, which controlled the Bosporus and kept the Soviet fleet under control in the Mediterranean. The emergence of Soviet influence in Syria and Iraq – which was not driven by U.S. support for Israel since the United States did not provide all that much support compared to France -- threatened Turkey with attack from two directions, north and south. Turkey could not survive this. Israel drew Syrian attention away from Turkey by threatening Damascus and drawing forces and Soviet equipment away from the Turkish frontier. Israel helped secure Turkey and turned a Soviet investment into a dry hole.

It is not at all apparent what bearing, if accurate, has on the present. Turkey has been a member of NATO for a very long time.

Once Egypt signed a treaty with Israel and Sinai became a buffer zone, Israel became safe from a full peripheral war -- everyone attacking at the same time. Jordan was not going to launch an attack and Syria by itself could not strike.

Exactly! See my comments above.

The danger to Israel became Palestinian operations inside of Israel and the occupied territories and the threat posed from Lebanon by the Syrian-sponsored group Hezbollah.
In 1982, Israel responded to this threat by invading Lebanon. It moved as far north as Beirut and the mountains east and northeast of it. Israel did not invade Beirut proper, since Israeli forces do not like urban warfare as it imposes too high a rate of attrition. But what the Israelis found was low-rate attrition. Throughout their occupation of Lebanon, they were constantly experiencing guerrilla attacks, particularly from Hezbollah.
Hezbollah has two patrons: Syria and Iran.

Correct!

The Syrians have used Hezbollah to pursue their political and business interests in Lebanon. Iran has used Hezbollah for business and ideological reasons. Business interests were the overlapping element. In the interest of business, it became important to Hezbollah, Syria and Iran that an accommodation be reached with Israel. Israel wanted to withdraw from Lebanon in order to end the constant low-level combat and losses. Israel withdrew in 1988, having reached quiet understandings with Syria that Damascus would take responsibility for Hezbollah, in return for which Israel would not object to Syrian domination of Lebanon.

If this is true driving Syria out of Lebanon may have been a mistake.

Iran, deep in its war with Iraq, was not in a position to object if it had wanted to. Israel returned to its borders in the north, maintaining a security presence in the south of Lebanon that lasted for several years. As Lebanon blossomed and Syria's hold on it loosened, Iran also began to increase its regional influence. Its hold on some elements of Hezbollah strengthened, and in recent months, Hezbollah -- aligning itself with Iranian Shiite ideology -- has become more aggressive. Iranian weapons were provided to Hezbollah, and tensions grew along the frontier. This culminated in the capture of two soldiers in the north and the current crisis. It is difficult to overestimate the impact of the soldier kidnappings on the Israeli psyche.

In the past when an Israeli soldier was captured Israel was willing to negotiate an exchange. Apparently Hezbollah depended on this precedence and was not expecting or desiring a major confrontation but felt if one came it was to its advantage because it would further weaken Lebanon’s central government and cause chaos which always benefits it and helps it’s recruitment.

First, while the Israeli military is extremely highly trained, Israel is also a country with mass conscription. Having a soldier kidnapped by Arabs hits every family in the country. The older generation is shocked and outraged that members of the younger generation have been captured and worried that they allowed themselves to be captured; therefore, the younger generation needs to prove it too can defeat the Arabs. This is not a primary driver, but it is a dimension.

The willingness to wage war because two soldiers were captured is irrational. It has led to many more Israeli soldiers being killed without the captured soldiers being returned.

The more fundamental issue is this: Israel withdrew from Lebanon in order to escape low-intensity conflict. If Hezbollah is now going to impose low-intensity conflict on Israel's border, the rationale for withdrawal disappears. It is better for Israel to fight deep in Lebanon than inside Israel. If the rockets are going to fall in Israel proper, then moving into a forward posture has no cost to Israel.

From an international standpoint, the Israelis expect to be condemned. These international condemnations, however, are now having the opposite effect of what is intended. The Israeli view is that they will be condemned regardless of what they do. The differential between the condemnation of reprisal attacks and condemnation of a full invasion is not enough to deter more extreme action. If Israel is going to be attacked anyway, it might as well achieve its goals.

Moreover, an invasion of Hezbollah-held territory aligns Israel with the United States. U.S. intelligence has been extremely concerned about the growing activity of Hezbollah, and U.S. relations with Iran are not good.

Lebanon is the center of gravity of Hezbollah, and the destruction of Hezbollah capabilities in Lebanon, particularly the command structure, would cripple Hezbollah operations globally in the near future.

This is more nonsense! Hezbollah has never had global operations.

The United States would very much like to see that happen, but cannot do it itself. Moreover, an Israeli action would enrage the Islamic world, but it would also drive home the limits of Iranian power. Once again, Iran would have dropped Lebanon in the grease, and not been hurt itself. The lesson of Hezbollah would not be lost on the Iraqi Shia -- or so the Bush administration would hope.

This may be the crux of the matter. It may be that the bush administration is hoping that Israel will get it’s chestnuts out of the fire and is not only not restraining Israel but is using Israel to try to gain political points in the upcoming us elections. It is totally unrealistic to believe that what Israel does will have any effect on Iraqi Shia. The bush administration has blown Iraq and nothing – nothing will save the situation there. Iraq will be chaotic and an ally of Iran no matter what. If Iraq is part of the equation than Bush and Co. are using Israel for their own purposes.

Therefore, this is one Israeli action that benefits the United States, and thus helps the immediate situation as well as long-term geopolitical alignments. It realigns the United States and Israel. This also argues that any invasion must be devastating to Hezbollah. It must go deep. It must occupy temporarily. It must shatter Hezbollah.

It is not at all clear that this is possible but bush and co. Have constantly tried the impossible only to fail miserably. Israelis need to hope for a more responsible administration in Washington.

At this point, the Israelis appear to be unrolling a war plan in this direction. They have blockaded the Lebanese coast. Israeli aircraft are attacking what air power there is in Lebanon, and have attacked Hezbollah and other key command-and-control infrastructure. It would follow that the Israelis will now concentrate on destroying Hezbollah -- and Lebanese -- communications capabilities and attacking munitions dumps, vehicle sites, rocket-storage areas and so forth.

Most important, Israel is calling up its reserves. This is never a symbolic gesture in Israel. All Israelis below middle age are in the reserves and mobilization is costly in every sense of the word. If the Israelis were planning a routine reprisal, they would not be mobilizing. But they are, which means they are planning to do substantially more than retributive airstrikes. The question is what their plan is.

Given the blockade and what appears to be the shape of the airstrikes, it seems to us at the moment the Israelis are planning to go fairly deep into Lebanon. The logical first step is a move to the Litani River in southern Lebanon. But given the missile attacks on Haifa, they will go farther, not only to attack launcher sites, but to get rid of weapons caches. This means a move deep into the Bekaa Valley, the seat of Hezbollah power and the location of plants and facilities. Such a penetration would leave Israeli forces' left flank open, so a move into Bekaa would likely be accompanied by attacks to the west. It would bring the Israelis close to Beirut again.

This leaves Israel's right flank exposed, and that exposure is to Syria. The Israeli doctrine is that leaving Syrian airpower intact while operating in Lebanon is dangerous. Therefore, Israel must at least be considering using its air force to attack Syrian facilities, unless it gets ironclad assurances the Syrians will not intervene in any way. Conversations are going on between Egypt and Syria, and we suspect this is the subject. But Israel would not necessarily object to the opportunity of eliminating Syrian air power as part of its operation, or if Syria chooses, going even further.

At the same time, Israel does not intend to get bogged down in Lebanon again. It will want to go in, wreak havoc, withdraw. That means it will go deeper and faster, and be more devastating, than if it were planning a long-term
occupation. It will go in to liquidate Hezbollah and then leave. True, this is no final solution, but for the Israelis, there are no final solutions.

A peace treaty with a Palestinian state is the final and only final solution. It is not true that there is no negotiating partner. Abu Mazen wants negotiations and even Hamas has indicated a willingness to negotiate if the ’67 borders are not ruled out of the negotiations.

Israeli forces are already in Lebanon. Its special forces are inside identifying targets for airstrikes. We expect numerous air attacks over the next 48 hours, as well as reports of firefights in southern Lebanon. We also expect more rocket attacks on Israel. It will take several days to mount a full invasion of Lebanon. We would not expect major operations before the weekend at the earliest. If the rocket attacks are taking place, however, Israel might send several brigades to the Litani River almost immediately in order to move the rockets out of range of Haifa. Therefore, we would expect a rapid operation in the next 24-48 hours followed by a larger force later.

At this point, the only thing that can prevent this would be a major intervention by Syria with real guarantees that it would restrain Hezbollah and indications such operations are under way. Syria is the key to a peaceful resolution. Syria must calculate the relative risks, and we expect them to be unwilling to act decisively.

If Israel was being seriously threatened and I don’t believe they were, pressure on Syria and if necessary an attack in that direction would have made more sense than a strike at Lebanon with its huge toll in civilian casualties, the creation of hundreds of thousands of refugees and the destruction of the infrastructure in a state which wants peace with Israel and until Israel’s invasion wanted to disarm Hezbollah but lacked the power.

What we are seeing both in Lebanon as well as in Iraq is an attitude that American and Israeli lives are valuable but the lives of others, whether in Iraq, Lebanon or Darfur have no value. It is a morality and an equation I am not willing to countenance.

Therefore:
1. Israel cannot tolerate an insurgency on its northern frontier; if there is one, it wants it farther north.
2. It cannot tolerate attacks on Haifa.
3. It cannot endure a crisis of confidence in its military
4. Hezbollah cannot back off of its engagement with Israel.
5. Syria can stop this, but the cost to it stopping it is higher than the cost of letting it go on. It would appear Israel will invade Lebanon.

True.

The global response will be noisy. There will be no substantial international action against Israel.

True, but recruitment for Hezbollah and Al Quaeda will be enhanced, a major victory for those forces.

Beirut's tourism and transportation industry, as well as its financial sectors, are very much at risk.

Lebanon, which had begun to thrive again is being destroyed with enormous civilian casualties, hundreds of thousands of refugees and the total destruction of its infrastructure which is not to the advantage of Israel or the U.S. and morality is the ultimate casualty. If we lose that sense of morality all else is worthless.