Posted on 06/21/2002 8:41:11 AM PDT by robowombat
While I personally do not agree with the "withraw behind a defensive barrier to pretty much the pre-1967 frontiers" as a panacea for the Israelis Van Creveld makes a clear and well stated arguement for this option. My guess would be that it would only lead to clamor for Israel to retreat to the UN proposed 1947 borders. This drumbeat would be accompanied by determined terrorist attempts to penetrate the frontier defenses just as the Arabs relentlessly did from 1948 to 1956. However,the Israelis are in the cleft of a delemma. They are beset by a foe using a new wrinkle in the classic guerrilla strategy that the IRA pioneered over 80 years ago of striking the vulnerable with the guerilla having no strategic center of gravity to be struck in return. The Arabomurderers apppear to have an endless supply of homicide bombers to send out and Israel has yet to find a strategem to defeat this process.
This is the kind of bum who would let chaos rule the world.
The Palestinians are not "weak" because they are backed by the entire rich arab world.
What will happen is that The US, Britain, and Israel will clean the Muslim clock and that is the only way to peace. Total victory and unconditional surrender will at last bring the world some peace, finally.
It's gonna happen sooner or later. The longer we wait, the harder it will be.
Let's get it done now. The enemy of civilization is not very strong. The strength of the Soviet army and the Iraqi army were also grossly overexaggerated by spineless liberals.
It has not done what for instance the Americans did in Vietnam... it did not use napalm, it did not kill millions of peopleThis is a patently false statement (and a vicious canard) worthy of Ted Turner or Mrs. Ted Turner. Millions of innocents did die in Viet Nam, but only after the US withdrew and the NVA conquered the South.
If professor Van Creveld's brain is full of such misinformation then it would be best to ignore him.
Conclusion: if you care to live and are going to be branded as a scoundrel anyway, you might as well go for all or nothing -- I would rather be reviled than dead.
Cause then they wouldn't get the answers they want.
If you did you also noted he's a pretty well respected military historian. His works are used in our war colleges and on the USMC recommended reading list, probably others. I wouldn't dismiss him out of hand.
He makes some very valid points. Israel will not win a war of attrition, or a cycle of terror/retaliation, which is how they are allowing the Palestinians to define the conflict.
There are other options he doesn't mention, such as a decisive military move to capture and annex a large chunk of the West Bank, resettle the population as needed. Thus far, Israel hasn't the will for that.
Yup, Van Creveld actually is one of the more prominent military historians and authors out there. Hard to avoid him if you read about modern strategy, and he's cited by everyone.
Just for fun, I checked and he’s still on Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Recommended Reading Lists, Marine Corps Commandant Recommended Reading Lists, and Professional Reading: US Army Course Credits with titles like Airpower and Maneuver Warfare, Command in War Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton, not his historical work. Really not someone whose opinion should be discarded. I'd prefer receiving the message of the article from someone else.
False analogy. All these people got tired of fighting and went home because it was less trouble. The Israelis are home and have nowhere to retreat to.
They are beset by a foe using a new wrinkle in the classic guerrilla strategy that the IRA pioneered over 80 years ago of striking the vulnerable with the guerilla having no strategic center of gravity to be struck in return.
In case you hadn't heard, the IRA lost the Irish Civil War. The British were unwilling to be totally brutal. The new Irish Army had no such inhibitions. This type of guerrilla warfare is only effective as long as the militarily dominant side pulls its punches. The author's unexamined preconception is the idea that the Israelis will continue to pull their punches. This may be true, but it is a political decision, not a military one.
So another solution to the problem is to tip the balance of public opinion, to overcome the notion that only scoundrels kill the weak. Sometimes the weak deserve to die.
Are you a robot?
Agreed. Also assuming there is any such group that would command enough support among their own people to carry it off. Israeli experience with similar attempts in S. Lebanon is not encouraging, even tho they had a religious division to exploit there.
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