Posted on 07/18/2006 7:49:55 AM PDT by nosofar
The blame for the current fighting falls entirely on Israel's enemies, who deploy inhuman methods in the service of barbaric goals. While I wish the armed forces of Israel every success against the terrorists in Gaza and Lebanon and hope they inflict a maximum defeat on Hamas and Hezbollah while taking a minimum of casualties, erroneous Israeli decisions in the last 13 years have led to an unnecessary war.
For 45 years, 1948-93, Israel's strategic vision, tactical brilliance, technological innovation, and logistical cleverness won it a deterrence capability. A deep understanding of the country's predicament, complemented by money, will power, and dedication, enabled the Israeli state systematically to burnish its reputation for toughness.
The leadership focused on the enemy's mind and mood, adopting policies designed to degrade his morale, with the goal of inducing a sense of defeat, a realization that the Jewish state is permanent and cannot be undone. As a result, whoever attacked the State of Israel paid for that mistake with captured terrorists, dead soldiers, stalled economies, and toppled regimes.
By 1993, this record of success imbued Israelis with a sense of overconfidence. They concluded they had won, and ignored the inconvenient fact that Palestinian Arabs and other enemies had not given up their goal of eliminating Israel. Two emotions long held in check, fatigue and hubris, came flooding out. Deciding that they had had enough of war and could end the war on their own terms, Israelis experimented with such exotica as "the peace process" and "disengagement." They permitted their enemies to create a quasi-governmental structure (the "Palestinian Authority") and to amass hoards of armaments (Hezbollah's nearly 12,000 Katyusha rockets in southern Lebanon, according to the Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat). They shamelessly traded captured terrorists for hostages.
In this mishmash of appeasement and retreat, Israel's enemies rapidly lost their fears and came to see Israel as a paper tiger. Or, in the pungent phrasing of Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in 2000: "Israel, which has both nuclear power and the strongest air force in the region, is weaker than a spider's web." As I wrote in 2000, "their earlier fear of Israel has been replaced with a disdain that borders on contempt." As Israelis ignored the effect of their actions on enemies, they perversely seemed to confirm this disdain. As a result, Palestinian Arabs and others rediscovered their earlier enthusiasm to eliminate Israel.
To undo this damage of 13 years requires that Israel return to the slow, hard, expensive, frustrating, and boring work of deterrence. That means renouncing the foolish plans of compromise, the dreamy hopes for good will, the irresponsibility of releasing terrorists, the self-indulgence of weariness, and the idiocy of unilateral withdrawal.
Decades of hard work before 1993 won Israel the wary respect of its enemies. By contrast, episodic displays of muscle have no utility. Should Israel resume the business-as-usual of appeasement and retreat, the present fighting will turn out to be a summer squall, a futile lashing-out. By now, Israel's enemies know they need only hunker down for some days or weeks and things will go back to normal, with the Israeli left in obstructionist mode and the government soon proffering gifts, trucking with terrorists, and yet again in territorial retreat.
Deterrence cannot be reinstated in a week, through a raid, a blockade, or a round of war. It demands unwavering resolve, expressed over decades. For the current operations to achieve anything for Israel beyond emotional palliation, they must presage a profound change in orientation. They must prompt a major rethinking of Israeli foreign policy, a junking of the Oslo and disengagement paradigms in favor of a policy of deterrence leading to victory.
The pattern since 1993 has been consistent: Each disillusionment inspires an orgy of Israeli remorse and reconsideration, followed by a quiet return to appeasement and retreat. I fear that the Gaza and Lebanon operations are focused not on defeating the enemy but on winning the release of one or two soldiers – a strange war goal, one perhaps unprecedented in the history of warfare – suggesting that matters will soon enough revert to form.
In other words, the import of hostilities under way is not what has been destroyed in Lebanon nor what the U.N. Security Council resolves; it is what the Israeli public learns, or fails to learn.
The price of past appeasement.
I think they've finally got the picture.
"By 1993, this record of success imbued Israelis with a sense of overconfidence."
The "end of the Cold War" was probably also a factor. Russia had armed the Arab countries of the Middle East for decades. With the "end of the Cold War" This problem had supposedly ended. But Russia has changed much less than everyone (except Golitzen) thought they had.
How right you are. This war would be unnecessary and non existant if Israel had held her ground and wiped out her enemies
Excellent article.
This is much what I have been saying about Barak, Sharon, and Olmert, but I couldn't have said it better. The sad thing is that after repudiating Barak's defeatist policies and voting for Sharon, Sharon betrayed the Israeli people and brought a policy of continued weakness instead of strength. Then, apparently, the voters gave up, and elected Olmert. Now they are reaping the consequences.
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em, Down Hezbullies.)
And what US PResident and his administration of appeasers helped Israel along this road???
High volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. also
2006israelwar or WOT
..................
Hmmm, 1993 - let's see, that's right about the time of - yup - the Bubba-ocracy - when the Israeli's put their hand in the hand of the man from Arkansas.
Unfortunately, not even close.
Freepers are not the CIA, nor Mossad, nor any Governmental agency entrusted to gather facts and come to life and death decisions affecting security.
But manyt Freepers a year ago, and before,knew where Israel was headed. Many understood what the Gaza surrender would bring.
Most know today what would result from a "Palestinian" State.
But Israel and the US continue to rush ahead into the abyss. In fact when this cools down, the rush will accelerate.
What bothers me most about this conflict, is the so-called voices of reason that surround it. Here Pipes hits the nail on the head, but he's not the only person with a voice these days.
Best expressed by France's Chirac, Israel is urged to return to diplomacy. My God, has that old fool been tuned in over the last 57 years? When has diplomacy worked for Israel, when dealing with the Palestinians and their supporters?
Only one nation has stepped up and made peace with Israel. Even it seems to feel compelled to voice objections to Israel not all that infrequently.
Israel must cast off the calls for restraint and clean out the nests of terrorists. It must send a clear message to the heads of state in nations that surround it. "If you folks don't stop, we're going to kick your -ss!"
Israel has been patient for far too long. It's time to whack some perps.
Bump
Maybe there's a reason for this. Just about every major Israeli candidate for prime minister in that time campaigned on a promise not to vacate the Gaza Strip, and every one of them eventually decided that vacating Gaza was a good idea.
It's like trying to go to sleep with a viper.
After seeing how close the Palestinians came to getting what they wanted, and all they needed was reasonableness to repudiate terrorism, to guarantee acting like civilized people who could live and work with their neighbors, and they couldn't/wouldn't, then I knew that everything predicated on that concept was flawed and going to bite Israel.
And it is.
But will the Israelis see it?
You must have been reading my mind!! When will everybody (besides those of us who already get it) wise up and admit just how dangerous clinton was to this country?
I meant to make that world instead of country!
Uh?
Tell it to Bibi.
And even if it was a good idea to let the animals have their pen to themselves, no one in his right mind would have surrendered without a complementary concession.
Nature, God(?), proved, that Sharon was not in his right mind.
The price of past appeasement.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.