In discussing the options that are before the Israelis I wish to make it clear that I do not, personally, wish to see any of them unfold. I am merely resigned to the fact that one of them will unfold. This is analysis not advocacy and I have to make this point crystal clear because there are seemingly no end of people who are unable to distinguish those two things.
Now if I had my way, I would like to see some sort of negotiated political settlement that would bring a sort-of peace, or, at least, some measurable abatement in the level of violence. However, such an outcome would require not just an ideal world but a whole other world because it is not going to happen in this one. In this world, negotiations, conventions, conferences and processes are nought but an exercise in futility. You don’t just have to take my word for that, you can refer to Article 13 of the Hamas Covenant:
“Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement…
Now and then the call goes out for the convening of an international conference to look for ways of solving the (Palestinian) question. Some accept, others reject the idea, for this or other reason, with one stipulation or more for consent to convening the conference and participating in it. Knowing the parties constituting the conference, their past and present attitudes towards Moslem problems, the Islamic Resistance Movement does not consider these conferences capable of realising the demands, restoring the rights or doing justice to the oppressed. These conferences are only ways of setting the infidels in the land of the Moslems as arbitraters.”
A self-fulfilling prophecy if ever there was one. Still, if you were to ask the Palestinians they would probably argue that it was nothing more than an affirmation of an extant reality. As far as they are concerned, it’s Jihad or it’s nothing.
There may be all manner of tactical devices which the Israelis can employ in response but I submit that all of them will fit into the wider framework of the strategic option the Israelis choose to take.
Option 1: Leave
Give up. Surrender. Go. Just up sticks and leave the whole region to the Palestinians who are then free to do with it as they will.
I do believe a large number of Israelis would qualify for Polish or German passports and it is not beyond per adventure that some deal could be hammered out with the Federal Government in Washington that would see the Israelis transplant themselves to the USA where they would integrate seamlessly in less than a generation.
It is not all that far-fetched. If the ferocity of conflict continues to build, a life spent selling real estate in New Jersey or performing root canal in Arizona might appear marginally more preferable to a life spent patrolling the Lebanese border in a half-track.
This would certainly solve the problem as far as the Israelis are concerned but it may only be the beginning of a problem for a great many others. After all, if relentless Jihad succeeds in chasing away the ‘invincible’ and stubborn Israelis, would the bouyant and quickened global Islamic pity/terror apparatus start aiming its guns at other parts of the world? Kashmir is the screamingly obvious first choice. But what about Bosnia? Spain? Nigeria? Is it inconceivable that, a few years down the road, we find that parts of France or Holland have been designated as ‘Islamic Waqf land’.
Option 2: War of Attrition
In a sense, this is what is being engaged right now but there is the option of settling into this for the long-term and rearranging internal and external security parameters for the long-haul.
At first sight, the Israelis would appear to have the all the advantages of sophisticated military, advanced economy and high technology. But wars of attrition are hugely expensive in terms of money, life and morale.
Security can always be stepped up but in order to continue to function as a modern, capitalist society Israel must remain relatively open and that means that some proportion of bombers and mega-attacks will get through. Being on the defence means you have to be lucky all the time; your attackers only need to be lucky once. Suicide bombings have already crippled Israel’s highly lucrative tourism industry. It is no great feat of imagination to envisage the immense harm that a continuation of these attacks can do.
The Palestinians, for all their popular image as being poor and helpless, do actually have advantages in this war and they are estimable ones. The first is demographics. The Israeli birth-rate is actually slightly higher than the Western average but not even close to the Palestinian birth-rate. The Arabs will simply have more manpower to fling into battle. So much more, in fact, that they can absorb far higher losses than the Israelis without undergoing any material demographic decline. This puts time on their side
The Palestinians also enjoy the benefit of low expectations which means they can revert to any tactics they please against Israeli civilians without losing support while the Israelis must maintain the high moral ground which is expected from a Western democracy. The trouble is, they cannot win a long-term war of attrition from that vantage point. Quite apart from the demographic disparity requiring the Israelis to maintain a much higher ‘kill-ratio’ just to stay in the game, the longer the war drags on, and the bloodier and angrier it gets, the more the Israelis will have to get ‘down and dirty’ in order to win. War, as they say, is ugly and it is not likely to get any prettier for the TV cameras.
But as Israeli attacks and reprisals get ever more cruel and indiscriminate, will they lose whatever support that have in the West? Will the USA find it cannot no longer ally itself to a country that engages in those activities? The Palestinians might enjoy Western sympathy but they do not need it as they will always have the unqualified support of the Arab and wider Muslim world. But the Israelis consider themselves to be a part of the Western Enlightenment and if that West rejected them they would rapidly lose the will to fight on (if not the ability).
This means that Option 2 necessarily involves (for want of a better term) a propaganda war fought out on the battlefield of Western public opinion. It is in this theatre that the Palestinians have proved themselves, thus far, to be singularly more adroit.
But though the Palestinians have less to lose, they are just as vulnerable to exhaustion and a collapse in morale, especially if the Iraqi and Saudi money that keeps them from utter destitution dries up and the Israeli economy that so many Palestinians, ironically, rely on dries up too. It is always possible that starvation could leave them, quite literally, without the stomach for a fight.
Option 2 is really about a battle of wills. Who has the staying power for the fight? Who will cave in first? Which party is ultimately possessed of the greater determination?
I have no answer and neither, I suspect, does anybody else. Not even the protagonists themselves. But, as far as the Israelis are concerned, Option 2 will be extremely painful, very costly and fraught with risk and, at the end of it, they may still lose, leaving them with no option except Option 1 and wishing they had taken it in the first place.
Option 3: The Carthage Option
By this I mean nothing less than a sustained, systemic and savage programme of ethnic cleansing with a view to simply driving the Palestinians from the Levant and probably slaughtering 10-20% of them in the process.
Could the Israelis do such a thing? They may have the material capacity but do they have will for it would require a titanic act of will do execute. Could a nation that was established to provide a safe haven from pogroms and ethnic cleansing be the harbinger of such activities? If so, what would it do to them? Would they become something that they never wanted to be? How would the West react? Would the USA intervene? Would the rest of the Arab world intervene? Could the Arab leaders countenance doing anything but? What about the Muslim ‘Umma’? Would they declare eternal Jihad on Israel and thus start a thousand-year war?
It is all too ghastly to contemplate and yet contemplate it we must, for the Middle-East conflict is no longer about Palestinian statehood, it is about who wins and the means by which they do so.
I also realise that I have rendered these scenarios in such as way as to sound inevitable when, to do so, goes against my grain. For I do not believe in inevitability nor fate. The human agency does not permit it. Therefore it is necessary to introduce a variable element; a fly in this deterministic ointment: the United States.
America’s strategic goal is to prevent any repeat of the attacks that occurred on 9/11/01 and I do believe that they will go to extraordinary lengths in order to do so. One of these lengths could be the ‘de-radicalisation’ of Islam which means, in effect, the de-radicalisation of the Arab world including the Palestinians.
I have no idea if this is a part of US policy or not or even whether such a thing is within the contemplation of Washington. But, in the event that it is, then that could change things dramatically in the Middle East and allow for the possibility (however slim) of some political solution.
However, that is only conjecture. As far as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is concerned we are still left with the core necessity of the Israelis having to decide upon their strategic goal.
This is a battle for the future. If the Israelis believe that they have both a future and a manifest destiny then the path they must take presents itself. However, if they feel they cannot win the future then that feeds right back into the present and the game is up now. I do not know which path they will take but they must take one and soon.
I think there’s a fourth option: Northern Ireland.
Now, granted, there are all kinds of massive differences between the problems between the Jews and the Palestinians, but the Protestants and the Catholics hated eachother enough to skin the opposing population alive.
And, over the last twenty years, a combination of aggressive policing and dirty tricks and dilligent, patient, skillful conniving in the name of peace have brought the pot firmly off the boil.
It’s been a slow protest, but over time the level of violence and hatred has gradually lessened – partly as each generation is quieter, calmer than the last.
I don’t know if it could work here, but if it worked in Ireland, I think there’s hope for any country.
Also:
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2001/12/hoffman.htm
Cute article on Arafat and the IRA.
Also, if you’d read, or still read, the policy of the IRA towards brits in Ireland, you’d see its no less intransigent than the Hamas folks are.
But, as they lose their base of popular support, and as people decide they aren’t willing to die for “the Cause” as it was always called…. peace broke out.
I’m not saying I hold out much hope. But you can’t imagine how stubborn irishmen are…
Do you think it’s a valid comparison? Could it work in the middle east?
Nations are nearly always founded on conquest at some level. Israel is no exception. To exist it must fight or it will simply disappear. There is a contest to exist, no more no less.
The core problem is that neither Israel or the Arabs are allowed to fight to conclude the conflict. Untill there is a winner there will be agravation.
I suspect that the Irish model has no real relevance. It would be nice if it did but it doesn’t. The alleged religious element in Ireland is largely moot compared to the middle east where Islam has a far far more agressive quality.
Following the last war (WW 2), Germany and Japan were forced to surrender unconditionally after the conflict was fought to a conclusion. For Japan the war ended with nuclear bombs to induce that unconditional surrender. The result was that niether Japan or Germany ceased to exist. Fortunately for them. However, they were radically reconstructed with new power bases to rejoin a modern world.
I have to agee that, like it or lump it, the carthage model is the most likely outcome. Arriving, now as a distinct possibility, by being a byproduct of a chemical or other nastier missile lobbed onto Israel in the coming conflict with Iraq.
One has a sneaking feeling that the Israelis are conducting a program of dismantling the Palestinian infrastructure in a long term plan to dissolve it as a political entity. Maybe I am wrong on this. This may be Plan A or Plan B I really don’t know. This route would at least reduce the level of mass killing.
I agree that stating what is likely to happen, as opposed to advancing a view as to what should happen, is not always understood. No one, in a civilised frame of mind, should take the steps to war lightly.
One unerving point was raised, in my local news paper the “Bay News” here in Booklyn, that when Sadam was dealt with there would be lots more to do.
So I quess this really is a world war. Not a pleasant thought.
One could debate history and or morality in this matter but that in my view is otiose and rather late in the day now. The genie is out of the bottle or, to put it another way, the dogs of war have been released.
On reading this, the initial choices that Israel appears to face are stark and unforgiving: cleanse, fight or leave.
Yet, if you compare Israel’s position now with that of twenty or forty years ago, the country is far more strategically secure that it was and no longer faces a united Arab threat.
Are you saying that Hamas and the Islamic Jihad will continue to expand and dominate Palestinian society? The Israelis consciously encouraged the existence of Hamas as a counterweight to Fatah in the 1980s. Combined with the corruption of the Palestinian Authority and the decline in living standards experienced by the Palestinians in recent years, Hamas, through its “social wing” has increased in influence and power. Hamas requires the initial conditions of an unfree society and economic dislocation to continue thriving but these will soon fall away as Israel sets out new administrative proposals for these bantustans.
Israeli society recognises the demographic and terrorist threats that it faces but the population appear to favour another alternative: apartheid or separation with no intermingling of the regions. This has the consequence of viewing many settlements as unsustainable over the long term and lead to their abandonment. But the fourth option for the next decade is a gated nation surrounded by what they would view as an Arab underclass.
“The alleged religious element in Ireland is largely moot compared to the middle east where Islam has a far far more agressive quality.”
… & Zionism, as practised by many in Israel doesn’t?
Settlers shoot arabs, scrawl racist graffiti, steal land from Palestinian farmers, and talk of a holy land for Jews alone and realistically speak of genocide in order to achieve this goal… yet all we hear about is Muslim extremism.
I don’t intend to justify the Muslim extremism in any way, but it’s too easy in this day and age to demonise Muslim extremists, when both sides have extreme religious elements who should be roundly condemned by more moderate thinkers.
The present Israeli government looks like it’s taking the Carthage option; certainly it’s doing a good job of dismantling what little infrastructure remains in Palestinian territory. All the options you propose are pretty repulsive; i just hope mr. lefty libertarian’s Northern Ireland idea has some truth in it.
I have the advantage in this argument of actually living in Belfast… There is just no way the two situations are really comparable, although you will indeed find those here on the left who would wish to do so. There have been Palestinian fund raisers here.
The truth is the Israeli/Palestinian issue has simply been incorporated in the local ethos and is not different that “which Scottish football team do you support?” as an indicator of which neighborhood you are from.
But the differences are quite major. Neither side truly wishes the annihilation of the other; the IRA side had more in common with Ortega and Nicaragua than Arafat and the West Bank.
If you had offered Gerry Adams NBC he would have refused; because even if carefully targeted, it would likely kill someones aunt or cousin or brother-in-law. The levels of intermarriage across “the divide” are really fairly high.
As far as religion goes, both sides practice version of Christianity that are compatible with tolerance, even if they did not always show it.
There is no Wahhabi here. There is no Jihad here. Only Nationalism.
I have long thought David’s “Carthage” scenario is the most likely in the long run, as I wrote in The Palestinian Götterdämmerung a while back.
“As far as religion goes, both sides practice version of Christianity that are compatible with tolerance, even if they did not always show it.”
Do you think one (or both) the religions involved in the Israel/Palestine situation are incompatible with tolerance then?
Yes. The Wahhabi is not about toleration. There is also much in Islam in general that is simply about bringing the world under Islam at sword point if need be.
While all other religions have their sects who would kill to advance the one true religion, in those religions they are known as nutcases. Islam has not yet come to the point at which the majority are willing to reject these people as total fruitcakes who are outside the modern conception of their religion.
I’ve read the Hamas Covenant and it represents my worst fears. The twelth century is not dead, only in stasis. And the dark foul demon of Religion may once again stalk a landscape of corpses who Died In His Name.
I have a terrible vision of this millenia now, and whether it comes to be or not may be settled in the next 50 years.
I think that if you’d looked at the Irish situation across time, it would have been easy to find times when the situation really looked – and really was – as insoluble as Israel looks today.
Which forms of Islam people will support changes across time: think of the Inquisition, or the more militant forms of Catholicism we have seen across the ages – they’re not that different from the more evil forms of Islam.
Remember the Crusades? That was us, attacking the Muslims over… well… not really any good reasons.
It’s tempting to conflate “insoluble to our generation” with “this problem will mar history forever!!!” and it’s just not true. Over time, religions change and different movements take the spotlight.
Don’t forget, in the Crusades, the Muslims protected the Jews against the Christians. Times change, and history is very, very long.
I have to make my point again; BOTH sides in this conflict have religious extremists. Both sides have significant minorities who’d like to drive the other group off the land. Your account suggests the entire problem’s down to uncompromising Islamic movements, but these have been fostered within the Palestinian community by hardline tactics adopted by Israeli governments under the influence of extremist Jewish groups.
I’m inclined to believe LL’s view, if only through a sense of optimism; if the worst comes to the worst, seems to me we couldn’t do much about it anyway, & we can improvise; deal events as they unfold.
If on the other hand, there’s a hope for peace, we’d be stupid to dismiss it as ‘unrealistic’; beliefs count for everything in this conflict, & if you’ve got a non-resolution meme started, it’s not going to help anything. This is what strikes me about so much of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld’s policies at the moment; the sheer pessimism and view that conflict is inevitable. If the planet’s biggest power pushes the idea of inevitable conflict, that will set the tone worldwide for the beginning of this century.
A_t, Let’s put it this way: much better odds for peace *before* genocide than after. There are something like a billion muslims in the world, and under 20 million Jews if memory serves me correctly, less that half of which are Israelis.
Those are not good odds on century-long timescales: a genocide in Palestine would probably eventually result in the extermination of the Jewish people at the hands of the Muslims. It could take four or five centuries, but it would probably happen.
50:1 starting odds.
Me? I recon giving any Israeli who wants to leave a US passport would do more for the situation than just about anything else.
Things look mighty bad now, but nobody is a prophet, and trying to predict the future is a risky bussiness. Who could have predicted 15 years ago that communism will collapse and dissappear in a peacefull manner in a short time ?? History has it’s surprises.
The conflict between Jews and Arabs is 120 years old, it had it’s ups and downs, periods of more acute fighting and periods of apparent quiet. Will there be a solution – one of the 3 aternatives described ? I don’t think so. There are no solutions. History just moves on without Solutions. There will be more fighting, some advancing, some retrenchig, some lulls in the fighting, and who knows ? maybe even some Peace, and then some more fighting, ad infinitum. That is history. And maybe there will be some surprises too, which we connot even imagine now.
People ask: “what is your plan?”. Many people have plans, but nobody has the ability to impose his plan on History. The Conservative ideal of “muddling through” is about the most realistic plan there is.
The only things we can confidently state concern the past. In the past 120 years the Jews in Palestine, then in Israel, have grown stronger and stronger. Maybe in the future, some forces for moderation will appear in the Arab world, something like Turkey, Jordan, or even Egypt. This is a hope, not a plan, nor a prophecy.
Well said, Jacob.
I think that a moderate Arab approach is very, very likely to emerge from the current furor. Firstly, extremism == death is a message we’re about to start spreading bigtime.
Secondly, at some point, an Arab middle class is going to emerge. At that point, all bets are off.
Thirdly, folks like Khatamei (how do you spell that?) of Iraq are really trying to build a middle ground; an Islamic identity without the crazyness.
Fourthly, extremism comes in waves. This one will peak, subside, and the game will change.
The problem is, you can’t unshed blood, and rebuilding trust between races can take centuries (how long before most Jews would feel comfortable living in Germany?).
I’m guessing you mean Iran. I think Iran’s current presidennt is certainly moving in the right direction, thought the Ayatollahs will probably put an end to that. This will, with any luck, get the people active in protests against freedom (which should be nonviolent, but they probably won’t be). I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I lived to see an Iran free from religious tyranny. Other kinds of tyranny are another story…
#5: Real Colonianialism
There’s yet another option. Israel can go into the Palestinian areas and colonize them. I’m not talking about any of this neo-colonialism crap, where you let some local thug run the place. That’s pretty much what they’re doing now.
I’m talking about the real deal, where you in there and give the fuzzy-wuzzies the benefits of civilization, whether they want them or not.
If they’re ever to be capable of self rule the Palestinians need some first-hand experience with:
The rule of law
Property rights
Universal, decent education
Real instead of neo- colonialism means Palestinian kids get taught from Israeli written textbooks, not Hamas-written textbooks. It means their disputes go before an Israeli judge who doesn’t give a damn about the local alliances and feuds, instead of the current PA lynchmobs. It means to set up a business you may need to satisfy an Israeli bureaucrat’s rules and regulations, but you don’t need to pay protection money to some mobster. “Rule of law, not of men” is a always huge step forward, even if the system of law is far from ideal.
Real Colonialism means you don’t have to let Hamas run a “social arm”, because you’re doing that stuff yourself. It may be a bit expensive, but it’s worth the price to stop allowing a criminal organization like Hamas to a run friggin’ storefront office on every corner.
It may take five years or fifty for the Palestinians to become competent to rule themselves. You’ll know they’re ready when they demand their independence by the methods of Ghandi, not Arafat.
By the way, Israel’s recent destruction of PA infrastructure is compatible with this path. And if the US, through “regime change” or threat of same, cause Iran, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia to stop giving money and materiel to Palestinian terrorits, the whole colonization thing becomes a lot easier.
I’m not sure the Israelis are the ones to tell the Palestinians about property rights (they’ve gotten it wrong many, many times in the past). I think Ralph is fundamentally right, though. The Israelis will do a lot more to get rid of terrorism if they remove the grass-roots support it enjoys. Terrorists may be religious fanatics, but they’re probably a lot non-fanatics who choose not to turn them in.
The Jewish Friends of Palestine project http://www.jewishfriendspalestine.org offers the largest, and most diverse collection of links to Jewish organizations and other Jewish voices around the world calling for an to the Occupation and freedom for Palestine. Although jews openly advocating an end to the Occupation do constitute a minority, it is not a small minority nor a fringe element – there are a lot of us out there.
This journalist, Alex Dashevsky, has written the best article I have read about the Israeli & Palestinian conflict. I believe that it is fair, even handed, and indepth. I was hoping to find out what you guys think.
Told from an American view point, “Seven Conspiracies of the Zionist Imperialist Controlled Media” examines media bias in both the Middle East & America.
http://www.hybridmagazine.com/culture/1102/adashevsky.shtml
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