Relatives of Israeli victims of a recent suicide bombing at the funeral of their loved ones...
Posted on 01/30/2002 10:13:50 PM PST by FresnoDA
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Rightist ex-generals propose massive invasion of territoriesA group of senior reserve officers, led by Brig. Gen. (res.) Effi Eitam (Fein) are working on a "security-political plan" that includes reoccupying the territories to destroy the Palestinian Authority and changing the political system to prevent Arabs from being elected to the Knesset.Former reserve generals and senior defense establishment officials are taking part in the formulations of the plan. Eitam, who left the army a year ago and makes no secret of his right wing views, has been conducting intensive political activity in recent months. Beyond the plan's military recommendations are Eitam's plans to directly enter the political arena, possibly as part of a new right wing movement. The plan has already been presented to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who refrained from expressing support for it, and is due to be presented to the public in the coming weeks. Eitam and his associates say Israel faces an "evasive threat," meaning one that is difficult to identify. That's why, they say, Israel has so much difficulty dealing with it. "If we were now facing an invasion of Syrian or Egyptian armies into the Golan Heights or the Negev, we'd all know what to do," said one of the formulators of the document. "The trouble is that Israel is now like a person for whom cancer, not a bullet, is threatening his life. Our problem is the diagnosis - and by the time we wake up, it will be too late." Eitam added, "This is a first attempt by the right to present a political-security plan that doesn't make do only with blocking Palestinian intentions but proposes solutions to the situation." The plan calls for a massive Israeli invasion of Palestinian cities. The former generals argue that the military incursions into cities like Jenin and Tul Karm proved in recent weeks that the IDF would have no problem taking over the cities. They propose entering the territories, "cleaning" them of terrorists and weapons, and then ruling the areas. The move would include the elimination of the Palestinian Authority. Some also call for the physical elimination of Yasser Arafat. According to the ex-generals, the strategic reality could be changed "in a week." The former generals say they have support for their plan in the top command of the IDF. They believe Israel should unilaterally declare that no sovereignty other than Israel would ever be allowed into the area west of the Jordan River. They say such a declaration would lead to the withering of the intifada, "because the suicide bombers are not blowing themselves up out of despair, but out of hope they can drive us out of the territories. As soon as they find out that won't happen, the level of violence will also drop." The plan also recommends taking far-reaching steps in other areas: An aggressive Israeli military approach to the nuclear threat from Iran (if the U.S. doesn't do it); encouraging democratic regimes in the area (including changing the regime in Jordan so it becomes the Palestinian state), and limiting the political power of Israeli Arabs. The plan recommends changing the electoral system to a district system, with the districts gerrymandered to prevent significant Israeli Arab representation in the Knesset. The main criteria, they believe, is whatever strengthens Israel as a Jewish state. They say they hope to win broad support for their goals in the Israeli public, and that they believe the Americans would acquiesce to their plans. They say the circumstances may be such that the current administration in Washington would not object to these proposed Israeli steps. By Amos Harel, Ha'aretz Correspondent
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They added this last part to make the right-wingers look like racists, but I doubt any reasonable person would try to deny Arabs the right to serve in the Knesset, especially considering so many of them fight and die for Israel (the four IDF soldiers murdered by terrorists in Gaza were Arabs).
If you read the article carefully, all that is being proposed is that the Knesset change to a US Congress-like situation, in which each district elects one member, whoever gets more votes. This would be a change from the current proportional representation system, in which parties name a list of candidates, and get their proportion of the popular vote elected. Arabs would still elect a few members, like Republicans elect a few legislators in US big cities. Like the Republicans, this would be a far smaller number than their percentage of the total vote.
The Mouse That Roared
With Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran joining forces and issuing warnings to the US to reign in Israel and release Arafat from Ramallah, it would appear that an attack from Saddam and Iran may be imminent. |
Posted on 1/30/02 6:21 PM Pacific by Davea
Selling the 'Samson option'
Analysis By Herb Keinon
(January 31) - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, in his conversation yesterday with Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, undoubtedly discussed how Israel's policies are driving the region to the brink of disaster.
This line of argument, used by Mubarak on innumerable occasions with Israeli and Egyptian interlocutors, says the current violence will spill over and ignite the streets of Amman, Cairo, and Riyadh, leading to a massive conflict with apocalyptic consequences for the region and the world.
By mouthing this argument, Mubarak is propagating what diplomatic officials in Israel refer to as Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's "Samson option." The Samson option, named after the Biblical figure who brought the walls tumbling down, is the Palestinian nuclear option, without the bomb.
If Arafat would employ this option, a senior diplomatic official said yesterday, it would mean killing dozens of Israelis daily - by rocket attacks on airplanes, suicide bombers, and the machine gun strafing of public places.
The aim of this tactic is to threaten the Arab world, the US, and Europe with a "total blast" to force them to pressure Israel, and to force Israel to keep its hands off Arafat.
Whether the Palestinians have the means to create this type of havoc, to bring about this "big bang," is debatable. But right now the very perception of this capability is already having its effect.
Certainly the Egyptians are worried about this, the diplomatic official said, because such a "big bang" would have enormous repercussions in Egypt. Arafat, by waving this option, is threatening to destabilize the entire region if his demands are not met.
The specter of the Samson option has also had its impact on the Europeans. Monday's EU declaration that Israel needs Arafat as a "partner" is a direct result of the fear Arafat will unleash his Samson option if he feels his back is against the wall, the diplomatic official said. But according to the official, what the European declaration will do is actually prolong the violence, rather than somehow curtail it.
The declaration, which states "Israel needs the Palestinian Authority and its elected president, Yasser Arafat, as a partner to negotiate with, both in order to eradicate terrorism and to work towards peace," gives him breathing space.
It signaled to Arafat there are cracks in what needs to be an iron wall of world pressure. This world pressure, together with continuous military pressure, is the "cocktail" Israel believes will eventually spur Arafat into action.
A Foreign Ministry cable from Washington yesterday said that if - in the cautions world of diplomatic-speak - President George W. Bush spoke Friday of being "very disappointed" in Arafat, one can only imagine what is being said about him behind Washington's closed doors.
"To contain Arafat," the diplomatic official said, "it is necessary he get a clear message from everyone that he has no room to maneuver." The Americans took a giant step forward in that direction over the weekend. The Europeans, on Monday, took a similar step backward.
The end result, the official said, will be to prolong the current attrition, and "the danger is that the attrition will get out of hand." The official said the bomb discovered last week near a wedding hall in Jerusalem packed enough explosives to have taken down the entire building, killing dozens, if not hundreds, of people.
Such an attack, he warned, would have prompted an unprecedented military action from Israel as well. The downward spiral fall would have been precipitous.
The Europeans are not the only ones sending signals to Arafat there is no need for him to change his policies, the official said. Similar signals are coming from within Israel itself.
According to this official, who is not at all identified with Likud or the Right, Arafat hears the growing calls for unilateral separation (which he said is a euphemism for withdrawal) within Israel. Likewise, Arafat also hears about reserve officers refusing to serve in the territories, and of Tel Aviv women setting up an organization along the Four Mothers model instrumental in leading to Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon.
The accumulative effect of this, according to the senior diplomatic official, is Arafat "says to himself, 'Let's push a little more, let's kill a few more Israelis, and then they will eventually run away - just like they did in Lebanon."
Well it has certainly had that effect on the US. The winner-take-all system for congresscritters and presidential electors is thought to be the reason for the two party system and the moderation of the parties, as compared to parties in Parliamentary systems with proportional representation. Of course this has the effect of ossifying the political structure when there hasn't been a new major party in 155 years! The effect of third-parties, though, has been to change the two major parties, as they adjust their policies to absorb the members of the third parties.
I am starting to get really nervous about this. It looks like someone may yet choose between the IDF plan discussed in the article, the expulsion option favored by the Kach party, the Sampson option, or the nuclear option. Beats Global Thermonuclear War, I guess, but it is likely to get very, very, unpleasant!
I know this has been in the back of a lot of people's minds there for a long time, but this is the first explicit proposal I have seen by any responsible Israeli sources for moving toward it.
My hunch is that this is a leak or trial balloon sent up to gauge public reaction.
Especially telling is the proposal about ...changing the regime in Jordan so it becomes the Palestinian state....
There's only one straight way to read this line--as a proposal to expel the Palestinians from the West Bank, thereby creating a purely Jewish state.
Terrorism is an Arab/Muslim tactic, dating to before the 1972 Munich Olympics. In 2000, Arafat rejected the Clinton/Barak peaceful option, and started the current "Intifada." Terror cannot be allowed, as a means of victory for these people, or else it will spread further.
From my understanding, the Sampson option is an Israeli, not a PLO option, and it entails nuclear strikes at all the major muslim capitals in the mid-east.
I have no doubt there will be war in the Middle East.
Dahlan talked of living side by side, of bringing refugees back but not distorting Israel's demographic make up, which is of course impossible. Virtually all of those in refugee camps say they want to return to Israel, if it's an uncapped option, as the PA insists, it's the death of Israel, and the beginning of the slaughter of the Jewish population. Israel is right to resist, no country should be called on to commit national suicide.
Sounds like Dubya's cue to cut ties with the Palestinian Authority. Then Israeli should reoccupy the territories, boot the PLO, and dismantle Hamas, Islamic Jihad, et al. It won't be pretty, and I'm not eager to sell the Palis get stomped (much as I am disappointed by their intrasigence toward peace making), but this has to be done, if only in the long term interest of peace. We can't waste more time or lives on Arafat, or squander the vanishingly small remaining resorvoir of mutual trust. Time to reshuffle the deck and create conditions where a more responsible, courageous and forward looking Palestinian leadership might emerge. The longer Israel and America wait, the harder and more dangerous it will be.
Much easier to destroy something from within.
More like the Warsaw Ghetto.
But I do agree that something is about to be resolved preemptively. Like Bush said, time is not on our side. I hold no doubt that Iran, Iraq, China and North Korea would utterly destroy the US, if they had the means. So should we wait when the enemy is so hellbent on our destruction. I think not.
But I do agree that something is about to be resolved preemptively. Like Bush said, time is not on our side. I hold no doubt that Iran, Iraq, China and North Korea would utterly destroy the US, if they had the means. So should we wait when the enemy is so hellbent on our destruction. I think not.
I once saw an analysis of Israel's defensive approach (circa 1970) referred to as "The Periphery Strategy." It basically had 2 parts:
1. It assumed that Israel would never have good diplomatic relations with it's immediate Arab neighbors, and
2. Israel should seek good relations with non-Arab countries located on the "periphery" of the Middle East, ie. Turkey and the Shah's Iran. Countries with their own animosities toward their Arab neighbors. A strategic counterweight.
I've never seen a real analysis as to how the '79 Iranian Revolution changed that strategy. It must have since Iran went suddenly from the "friendly" to the "hostile" category. Yet, it seems that Israel continues to look for opportunities to engage Iran through back channels. It's very hard to understand.
Anybody have any ideas? Bueller? Anybody?
Click icon for article...
Selling the 'Samson option'
| Analysis By Herb Keinon | January, 31 2002 |
(January 31) - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, in his conversation yesterday with Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, undoubtedly discussed how Israel's policies are driving the region to the brink of disaster.
This line of argument, used by Mubarak on innumerable occasions with Israeli and Egyptian interlocutors, says the current violence will spill over and ignite the streets of Amman, Cairo, and Riyadh, leading to a massive conflict with apocalyptic consequences for the region and the world.
By mouthing this argument, Mubarak is propagating what diplomatic officials in Israel refer to as Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's "Samson option." The Samson option, named after the Biblical figure who brought the walls tumbling down, is the Palestinian nuclear option, without the bomb.
If Arafat would employ this option, a senior diplomatic official said yesterday, it would mean killing dozens of Israelis daily - by rocket attacks on airplanes, suicide bombers, and the machine gun strafing of public places.
The aim of this tactic is to threaten the Arab world, the US, and Europe with a "total blast" to force them to pressure Israel, and to force Israel to keep its hands off Arafat.
Whether the Palestinians have the means to create this type of havoc, to bring about this "big bang," is debatable. But right now the very perception of this capability is already having its effect.
Certainly the Egyptians are worried about this, the diplomatic official said, because such a "big bang" would have enormous repercussions in Egypt. Arafat, by waving this option, is threatening to destabilize the entire region if his demands are not met.
The specter of the Samson option has also had its impact on the Europeans. Monday's EU declaration that Israel needs Arafat as a "partner" is a direct result of the fear Arafat will unleash his Samson option if he feels his back is against the wall, the diplomatic official said. But according to the official, what the European declaration will do is actually prolong the violence, rather than somehow curtail it.
The declaration, which states "Israel needs the Palestinian Authority and its elected president, Yasser Arafat, as a partner to negotiate with, both in order to eradicate terrorism and to work towards peace," gives him breathing space.
It signaled to Arafat there are cracks in what needs to be an iron wall of world pressure. This world pressure, together with continuous military pressure, is the "cocktail" Israel believes will eventually spur Arafat into action.
A Foreign Ministry cable from Washington yesterday said that if - in the cautions world of diplomatic-speak - President George W. Bush spoke Friday of being "very disappointed" in Arafat, one can only imagine what is being said about him behind Washington's closed doors.
"To contain Arafat," the diplomatic official said, "it is necessary he get a clear message from everyone that he has no room to maneuver." The Americans took a giant step forward in that direction over the weekend. The Europeans, on Monday, took a similar step backward.
The end result, the official said, will be to prolong the current attrition, and "the danger is that the attrition will get out of hand." The official said the bomb discovered last week near a wedding hall in Jerusalem packed enough explosives to have taken down the entire building, killing dozens, if not hundreds, of people.
Such an attack, he warned, would have prompted an unprecedented military action from Israel as well. The downward spiral fall would have been precipitous.
The Europeans are not the only ones sending signals to Arafat there is no need for him to change his policies, the official said. Similar signals are coming from within Israel itself.
According to this official, who is not at all identified with Likud or the Right, Arafat hears the growing calls for unilateral separation (which he said is a euphemism for withdrawal) within Israel. Likewise, Arafat also hears about reserve officers refusing to serve in the territories, and of Tel Aviv women setting up an organization along the Four Mothers model instrumental in leading to Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon.
The accumulative effect of this, according to the senior diplomatic official, is Arafat "says to himself, 'Let's push a little more, let's kill a few more Israelis, and then they will eventually run away - just like they did in Lebanon."
"because the suicide bombers are not blowing themselves up out of despair, but out of hope they can drive us out of the territories. As soon as they find out that won't happen, the level of violence will also drop."Exactly.
This is the same reason we did not see the Moslem world rise up against us. When they saw that terrorism brings them nothing but death at the end of a laser designator, they shut their fat ululating cheese holes. Islam's best hope is that we catch and kill the terrorists quickly. If there is another big attack, the fate of Islam is sealed.
-archy-/-
-archy-/-
They propose entering the territories, "cleaning" them of terrorists and weapons, and then ruling the areas. The move would include the elimination of the Palestinian Authority. Some also call for the physical elimination of Yasser Arafat. According to the ex-generals, the strategic reality could be changed "in a week."
Done efficiently, this would be minimally violent towards civilians and would indeed change the strategic reality. It would also clear the way for moderate Palestinians to emerge (mostly from Arafat's prisons) with whom real negotiation might be possible. It would be the best possible thing that could happen to the Palestinians, though it would take them a long time to realize it. It would liberate them from a murderous thugocracy that has denied them elementary civil liberties, stolen them blind, and used streams of propaganda, much of it openly anti-Semitic, to get them fixated on revenge and blood and death rather than making a better life for their children in the real world. I have two main objections:
1. I think the unilateral declaration of Israeli sovereignty over the territories would be a bad idea. It would close off options and bring Israel unnecessary problems abroad. The military destruction of the PLO and that ilk would accomplish the goal without it. Suicide bombers are made by terrorist indoctrination, they do not spring up spontaneously out of the ground.
2. I don't think that direct Israeli rule over the Palestinians in the territories would be a good idea. That might be the one thing that could extend the life of Palestinian terrorism beyond the military action proposed. I think that they need to put the idea of a Palestinian state on permanent hold, encourage the emergence of pro-democracy Palestinian leaders (there are probably still some Arafat hasn't killed) and get international help for a non-Israeli and non-US order-keeping force - Turks come to mind.
There should be no public timetable, but a slow process of moving towards free elections of Palestinian leaders and gradually more day-to-day self-governance as the Palestinians demonstrate themselves to be capable of it and recovered from terror-fever. And turn their economy loose - let raw capitalism hold sway. The Palestinians are reputedly the most capable people in the Arab world and had a pretty promising economy, for Arabs, before US and Israeli idiots took Arafat out of mothballs so his incompetent thugs could run it into the ground.
What the options are for the Palestinian future might change dramatically in twenty years of this approach. Hopefully the forces of freedom set loose by the war against terrorism will shake the surrounding Arab world loose from its stagnant bitterness. The generals are right that a more stable and democratic Jordan, which was no longer under pressure from neighboring terror states (would you like to live between Syria and Iraq?) and terrorist threats within, would change the possibilities in fundamental ways.
Moving away from proportional representation is always a good idea, since it just gives marginal idiots and creeps of all hues and types the chance to use the national legislature as a platform. Good grief, if the US had proportional representation, the Aryan Nation and the Nation of Islam would have smooth political branches with seats in Congress. Think Gerry Adams.
Promoting democracy in the region connects with Sharansky's ideas, and he's one of the most far-seeing Israeli politicians of them all. But they need to include promoting democracy and civil liberties amongst the Palestinians as well.
On the whole, though, I'd say that Israel has a pretty bright group of old right-wing generals.
ya. right.
It looks like Tat-aluf Eitam shares your expectation:
'Russia safer for Jews than Israel,' says Eitam
By Arieh O'Sullivan
(February 20) -- Israel is the most dangerous country in the world for Jews, and the IDF must greatly intensify its pressure on the Palestinian Authority nearly to the point of its collapse, said recently resigned Brig.-Gen. (res.) Ephraim (Fine) Eitam. --
Six weeks after slamming the door on a 30-year military career, Eitam has emerged at the head of a new organization aimed at revitalizing Zionism through Judaism.
He said that a synthesis of Jewish content and western technology had to replace the "western, liberal, secular, democratic" character of the country which has made peace the nation's supreme value.
"Am I scaring you?" Eitam asked. "There is great ignorance of Judaism in Israel today. Without Jewish content, there will be assimilation in our own country... If Israel is a pale western, liberal, secular, and democratic copy of America, then why should an American Jew identify with Israel more than with America? In order to consolidate or renew the Jewish people's commitment to this country, [Israel] must become a Jewish state," he said.
Eitam, known for his hard-line views, said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post that the IDF had to take "drastic action" against PA Chairman Arafat's rule. "You have to present the PA with a choice between existing as an authority and disappearing. I think the PA has a great interest in continuing to exist," he said.
As the gruff, bearded ex-general and decorated war hero sees it, the IDF's flight from Lebanon sparked the Palestinian attempt to emulate Hizbullah's fight in the territories.
"We are seeing the results of our flight from Lebanon now [in the territories]... The state of Israel is the most dangerous place for Jews to live. Show me another place in the world where Jews are killed because they are Jews. Even Russia is safer," Eitam said.
Eitam believes that the latest round of violence with the Palestinians has not only taught Israelis that Oslo has failed, but has unified the Left and Right in across-the-board opposition to the return of Palestinian refugees.
"We want a Jewish majority in the land of Israel," Eitam said. "We won't accept someone because they are Arab," he said. "This is one of the results of this intifada. This intifada has revealed to us that Israel is starting to speak in terms of Jewish identity as a central value for its existence. "Suddenly, here the Left and Right agree that the most primitive Jew is preferable to the most educated Arab," Eitam said.
Known for his outspokenness in the ranks, Eitam doesn't shy away from sensitive topics. He supports the idea that Jordan is Palestine and said that both Jordan and Egypt must contribute land and funding to resettle the Palestinian refugees.
He said Jordan has a Palestinian majority "which is being ruled by a family [placed there by] the British Empire. I think that making Israelis and Palestinians fight for this little patch of land all our lives so that King Abdullah [II] can keep ruling Jordan does not make sense.
"I don't want to get rid of the Arabs. I want to get rid of the Arab nationalism which is demanding the land of Israel as a national homeland," Eitam said.
Eitam left the IDF last December, after it was made clear to him that he would not be promoted to the General Staff. He said he quit the army because he felt that he belonged somewhere else, where he wouldn't have to carry out orders he didn't believe in.
"I could have stayed in the army and watched the government of Israel negotiate away the Temple Mount and Jerusalem with a gang of terrorist murderers. If the leadership is weak then it doesn't matter how strong the army is. So why should I stay in the army? For my ego, for the rank?" he said.
Eitam became religious during his military career, and was one of the few generals to wear a kippa. There has been some speculation that Eitam would join the National Religious Party.
But Eitam said he felt the best path was not to step straight into politics, but to set up "Mayim," an acronym for Mahaneh Yehudi Meuhad (United Jewish Camp). He said the organization was a non-partisan organization, and a conservative, Orthodox-leaning counterbalance to Peace Now. Eitam plans to cultivate the organization as the spearhead of a political movement.
What makes this movement stand out on the already-crowded political stage?
"Israel is going through a profound leadership crisis," said Eitam, who saw himself taking up a leadership role in the future. "The future leadership of Israel needs to put the concept of a Jewish state above all others."
Eitam refused to divulge the identities of those who have already joined him, but says they come from all walks of Israeli Jewish life. In the short time since his organization was founded, he said, thousands of people have contacted it to volunteer and become involved. But, he said, his organization would not be ripe for entering politics for at least another year.
"Politics is not my goal. It is a tool," Eitam said.
1. I think the unilateral declaration of Israeli sovereignty over the territories would be a bad idea. It would close off options and bring Israel unnecessary problems abroad. The military destruction of the PLO and that ilk would accomplish the goal without it. Suicide bombers are made by terrorist indoctrination, they do not spring up spontaneously out of the ground.
2. I don't think that direct Israeli rule over the Palestinians in the territories would be a good idea. That might be the one thing that could extend the life of Palestinian terrorism beyond the military action proposed. I think that they need to put the idea of a Palestinian state on permanent hold, encourage the emergence of pro-democracy Palestinian leaders (there are probably still some Arafat hasn't killed) and get international help for a non-Israeli and non-US order-keeping force - Turks come to mind.
For the immediate present, the establishment of about a 25km cordon sanitaire would do it, at least until Israel's enemies place longer ranged weapons in the hands of their PLO and Hezbolla surrogates- the *10,000 missiles* includes such shorter-range equipment as Antitank RPGs and Sagger missiles, and free-volly Katyusha 122mm rockets, certainly effective from such ideal locations as the Golan Heights, but less so across more open distances.
That would likely only serve for a few years, however, and perhaps only for a few months. But it might be better than the wholesale slaughter that will result if the Palis have to be cleared away in house-to-house actions by the Israeli military.
In any event, the idea of a buffer region is an interesting one, and perhaps those poor souls who have mistakenly crossed the US Border from the south might also be relocated there, to live peacefully under those Turkish Janissaries you propose. It could be called *New Mexico*...-no, wait: that name's already in use....
-archy-/-
You propose a ghetto, perhaps sarcastically; I propose denazification and democratization. I don't think that's an inhumane vision. The destruction of the Nazi regime and the Allied occupation was certainly the best thing that happened to the Germans in the twentieth century.
AFAIK the arabs in the Knesset are all pals, and all either communist and/or openly pro arafat - the arabs who fought and died in the IDF are all Druze - their main representative who was actually (the first Druze ever/non-Jew?) in the cabinet just resigned over a bribe-for-citizenship-papers accusation.
No so-called palestinians are in the IDF. There are many Druze.
Really?
The world should not rearrange itself to be as it was 2000 years ago
Why in the world not? You muslims have no problem demanding that the world rearrange itself to any point in a long and fictitious history in which the Arabs are portrayed in a falsely positive manner. So what's the problem with a point in factual time, so to speak?
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01/30/02 Yasser Arafat has now openly threatened the United States. His response to US Secretary of State Colin Powell's warning to reign in terror or face an array of American sanctions was, "If the United States cuts ties with the Palestinian Authority it will cause an earthquake in the region that no one will be able to stop."