Political Myopia

Mr. Ehud Olmert’s statement that the brutal murder of Tali Hatuel and her four little daughters by Arab terrorists indicates the absolute necessity to evacuate all Jews from Gush Katif is incomprehensible. So is also the recent outcry to abandon the Gaza territory following the terrible mishaps that have cost us eleven lives of brave IDF fighters.

Anyone with a minimal understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict must realize that surrender of previously uninhabited Jewish agricultural territory on the sand dunes of the southern Gaza Strip would not resolve the current violent conflict. On the contrary, it would have probably enhanced Arab violence that prompted the proposed unconditional Israeli retreat.

However, that statement of Mr. Olmert and the outcry of Israel’s leftist parties in their Tel Aviv rally will reverberate both in Jerusalem and Ramallah because of their long-term ramifications, heralding Jewish lack of resolve under Arab aggression.  . 

The Arab tactic follows the history of their triumph over the Crusaders, and they do not even hide that this is their strategic plan. The recent Likud referendum has demonstrated, to the chagrin of Mr. Olmert and his ideological colleagues, that the instincts of survival of the majority of the Jewish people are alive as they were for the last 3000 years. Those who are not ready to accept casualties in defending their turf are bound to lose it. 

The ideology behind Mr. Olmert’s statement that dictates unconditional surrender to violent harassment has cost millions of lives of Jews who were cowed to eventually go to the gas chambers as good, law abiding citizens.  This ideology would have dictated the unconditional abandonment of Kfar Gil’adi and Metula followed by the irreversible loss of the “finger” of the Galilee after the Arab massacre in Tel Chai and the retreat from that “outpost”.

The tragic demolition of the two armored personnel carriers, which indicates the urgent necessity of revising the protocols of transport of explosives to avoid such accidents in the future, is being used by Israeli leftists as an indication of the need for a military retreat from Gaza.  This argument, which is similar to the contention used to retreat from Southern Lewbanon, reminds one of a toddler who cut his finger with a kitchen knife and is now asking Mommy to punish the knife by throwing it out the window.

Mr. Olmert’s statement, and the slogans of the leftists reflect their poor judgment or lack of historical perspective. What is far more worrisome is the Mr. Sharon may still proceed with his “disengagement” initiative. This initiative, unwisely defended by his deputy Mr. Olmert, may be eventually not less stupid than Olmert’s unfortunate statement.

One also has a hard time to understand PM Sharon’s declaration that 7,000 Jews cannot live on their own, legally acquired property among 1,200,000 Muslim Arabs. If there were just 600,000 Arabs and 7000 Jews, would it be O.K.? If there were 50,000 Jews instead of 7000 would it have been O.K.? What does this Jewish/Arab ratio imply concerning Jews living anywhere in the world among overwhelming majorities of non-Jews? Does Sharon endorse Islamic policy of intolerance of any non-Muslims on “Arab land”? Is then the Gaza strip more authentic “Arab land” than Judea, or the Shfela between Gaza and Tel Aviv? Clearly the notion of evacuating Gush Katif is political and not due to security considerations. Consequently, Mr. Olmert’s statement and the claims of Israel’s leftist parties have little to do with security. Olmert has tried to support Sharon’s position on the need for “disengagement” using a poor argument, while the Labor Party is trying to weaken Sharon so as to eventually replace him, using Gaza as a populist demagogy to incite politically naïve Israelis.

The disengagement initiative is based on several, mostly political assumptions:

1. Since the disengagement plan would put the Palestinians into a worse political position (depriving them of the PR tools of “occupation” and IDF “brutality”), the threat of disengagement or its actual implementation will shock the Palestinians into a radical regime change, put an end to terrorism and make them accept an equitable political agreement with Israel.

2. Providing the Palestinians the opportunity of reaching internationally recognized political independence would alleviate their current self-perception of being in a humiliating, hopeless situation, which radicalizes their political stance.

3. Support of the European community and the US with billions of dollars to revitalize the devastated Palestinian economy will significantly raise the standard of living of the Palestinians and diminish the enormous differential between theirs and that of the Israelis (currently more than 20-fold!).  The Palestinians will then have much more to lose by continued hostilities. Moreover, a recovered Palestinian economy will allow rehabilitation of a million or more of non-productive Arab refugees and thus solve in great part the festering refugee problem.

4. Since the Palestinian’s will be able to declare political independence without the explicit blessings of Israel, it would invalidate a major political argument of the Arabs and their leftist supporters about the need for self-determination of the Palestinian Arabs. This would then buy for Israel the desirable sympathy of the EU and Russia, as well of American socialists.

5. Implementation of the disengagement plan will defuse the “demographic time-bomb” (another of Mr. Olmert’s favorite arguments for disengagement).

6. The newly constructed defense fence will reduce the level of lethal damage of Palestinian hostilities to a tolerable level, so that Israeli economy can fully recover from its current slump.

7. Israel will be able to control the entry of weaponry, terrorists and even foreign Arab troops into the new “sovereign” Palestinian state, preventing it from becoming the bridgehead of a renewed military assault on Israel.

8. In the long run the Arabs will recognize the historical right of the Jewish people to their historic homeland and give up on their intentions to eradicate the state of Israel.

Unfortunately, none of these assumptions is sufficiently realistic to make it a cornerstone of a viable long-term political solution. Let us analyze these assumptions one by one:

1. Since 1967 the Arabs have had the upper hand in the PR war, describing the Israelis as brutal colonial occupiers. However, the disengagement will not deprive them from claiming that the State of Israel is “Palestinian” territory “stolen” from the Arabs.  They will still claim that Israel “oppresses” their “Muslim brothers” inside Israel. And, most importantly, that the Jewish state uses its superior power to blockade their miniature state.

Thus “occupation” will be partly substituted by “blockade,” whicht justifies belligerence in “self-defense” by international law. Moreover, the “liberation” of “occupied” Palestine, i.e. Israel, will still be there to harp on.

European anti-Israeli leftists and practically all of the Arab states that have been trying to delegitimize Israel from its beginnings, will have sufficient fodder for continuing their anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish political activities, using the UN as their Israel-bashing forum.

Consequently, the Palestinians will not feel any political isolation and Israel will continue to be chided by the leftists and Muslims for its brutal military “siege” and its “heartless” economic “blockade” of those poor Arabs who were placed by the Jews in a huge “concentration camp.”

Obviously, they will continue to hate those nasty Jews who continue to live on “stolen” Arab land; at least this will be what their clergy will tell the each Friday, as they are doing today.

In brief, the shrewd PLO leadership would realize that the Israeli disengagement is an asset rather than a threat – it hardly deprives them of their political clout while improving their ability to continue their anti-Israeli hostilities aimed to achieve their end goal – elimination of the Jewish state.

2. The Palestinians are today in an apparent humiliating hopeless situation by tolerating their inept leadership.  They could have enjoyed a far better quality of life and a brighter political future, in concert rather than in discord with the Jews. All that would have been required from them is giving up their supremacist religious intolerance and recognition of the Jewish national rights. As long as their leadership maintains its current militant ideology, the Palestinians will continue to feel miserable. Since there is little in the disengagement plan to induce a change in that leadership (see #1), there is no reason for the self-perception of the Palestinians to change and for their radicalism to subside.

3. The 30 yearlong experience (1970-2000) showed that practically all Israeli, European and American investments in the economy of the Arab territories went down the drain by corruption and by diversion of resources to terrorist activities; being a terrorist has become a lucrative profession in the “Palestinian” territories. As long as the Palestinian leadership remains the same, there is no reason for new investments to be more productive. As long as “Palestinian” school children are being taught hatred, militancy and the glorification of death while killing Jews, instead of math and science, there will be no workforce to benefit from new economic opportunities.

Moreover, as long as the hostilities continue (and they are bound to continue under the current Arab leadership), the newly constructed manufacturing plants are likely to be destroyed in inevitable Israeli retaliatory attacks just like similar older industrial plants. One can be assured that these new constructions will be used to store war materiel and serve as staging bases of terrorists just as they have been using schoolhouses, hospitals and mosques. Therefore, following more investments in the Palestinian territories while hostilities continue, Israel is going to lose additional sympathy in the West.

4. As stated under #1, little will change in the international political status of Israel as a result of Palestinian self-determination without a dramatic change in Arab leadership and ideology.

5. The  “demographic time-bomb” will still be there, probably in an even more severe form. Putting the rapidly growing Palestinian population in a small confined area while pumping them up with economic misery mixed with hatred to the prosperous surrounding Israelis, is a prescription for a disastrous blowout that will be hard to contain.

As a shortsighted politician, Mr. Olmert is worried about Israeli democratic elections that may endanger the hegemony of his party, whereas one should worry more about an unprecedented economic differential within the boundaries of historic Israel, which is bound to end in a catastrophe. Today hatred of Israelis is fed by religious incitement, under the proposed “disengagement plan” it will be invigorated further by hunger and deprivation.

6. The sixth assumption is completely unfounded. True, the fence makes it harder for suicide bomber to enter Israeli territory. So what? The fence will change the mode of operation of the terrorists. It would not take the Arabs more than a year to attain the capability of neutralizing the effectiveness of the fence. What will prevent the Palestinians from launching into the suburbs of Jerusalem or Kfar Saba Kassam rockets tipped with weaponized anthrax or Vx, or even weaponized small pox, made in Iraq or Iran, courtesy of the Hizballah. Tel Aviv and Herzliah might be bombarded with longer range just as deadly missiles.

One can come up with several additional scenarios that will alleviate the effectiveness of the security fence. What options will Israel have in such a case? Will it bomb Palestinian power stations as it did in Beirut? Will this not be regarded by the Europeans new potential “friends” of Israel an unwarranted collective punishment of a young fledgling country under a leadership that “just” cannot control its extremists? We have heard for years similar claims from the PLO.

7. An effective Israeli blockade will be condemned by the same people who cried “Jenin, Jenin” (including the UN, whose top official “unofficially” recently claimed that the presence of Israel poisons the Middle East). Moreover, no blockade can be 100% efficient and only one transport of Vx is needed to indiscriminately kill hundreds, if not thousands of Israelis. What would be Israel’s retaliatory options if the besieged Palestinian state were full at that time with American and European civilians as well as with UN personnel (who have tacitly supported Palestinian terrorism, in the past), who would certainly be there?

8. If the proposed unilateral disengagement made assumption #8 to materialize, which has not happened in the last 85 years, we would not need any of the preceding assumptions – all that would be needed is a dramatic change in the political and spiritual Muslim leadership and in their Islamic supremacist militant ideology. That would be a political “end of days,” which would draw to a close the ongoing violent global clash between civilizations. This scenario, which may be as realistic today as the coming of the Messiah, cannot be included among the assumptions implied in any realistic “disengagement plan.”

Sharon’s disengagement plan is myopic, lacking even a rudimentary analysis of its basic assumptions. Going through each of the assumptions listed above, which must be associated with any unilateral disengagement plan, and then through the follow-on analysis presented, one must conclude that the only common constructive denominator is unilateral removal of the entire current Palestinian leadership. This has not been included in Sharon’s official disengagement plan. This will not happen voluntarily, just as it did not happen in Afghanistan or Iraq. It will have to be done by force without compromise. The disengagement plan must be substituted by an active engagement plan to liberate the Palestinians from their Islamistic militant leadership. That must be followed by thorough cleansing of the militant, supremacist, Islamistic doctrine imbedded in these Arabs. Following such an active engagement no unilateral disengagement will be necessary and alternative political solutions discussed in Anbar’s Israel and its Future (iUniverse, Lincoln NE, April 2004)* could be implemented.

Michael Anbar Ph.D.

May 16, 2004

*Available on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0595312292/qid%3D1084302254/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/104-9820937-0237525?v=glance&s=books