MICHAEL OREN
Washington
CRITICS
of Israel’s campaign to defend millions of its citizens from deadly
Hamas rocket fire claim that it lacks a clear objective. Israel has
bombed Gaza in the past, they argue, and received only rockets in
return. Is there any logic, much less an end, to the cycle of violence?
Can it lead to negotiations and peace?
Such questions
can be answered only by going back to the origin of the campaign that we
Israelis now call Operation Pillar of Defense. It did not begin last
week, after Hamas fired more than 700 rockets at southern Israel this
year; nor did it start four years ago, as Israel acted to stop thousands
of terrorist rockets striking its south. It did not even begin in 2005,
when Israel uprooted 21 of its Gaza settlements, together with their
9,000 Israeli residents, to advance peace, and received only Hamas
terrorism in return. Rather, the operation began on May 14, 1948, the
day Arab forces moved to destroy the newly declared state of Israel.
There were no
settlements back then, and the West Bank and East Jerusalem were in
Jordanian hands. Yet the very notion of a sovereign Jewish state in the
Middle East was abhorrent to the Arabs, many of whom were inflamed by
religious extremism. They rebuffed repeated Israeli offers of peace, and
instead launched a war of national annihilation. Israel had no choice
but to defend itself, losing 1 percent of its population — the
equivalent of 3.1 million Americans today — before achieving an
armistice.
But few Israelis
mistook that truce for peace. On the contrary, most assumed that the
Arabs would eventually forget their defeat and seek a “second round.”
Indeed, eight years later, in 1956, Israeli and Arab forces again
clashed, and then fought again in 1967, 1973 and 1982. The periods in
between were punctuated by Arab attacks and Israeli retaliations.
Subsequently, in Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza, Israel mounted major
counterstrikes against terrorists dedicated to its destruction.
Throughout,
Israelis never abandoned the vision of peace. Still, we came to
understand that the cause of the conflict was not borders or even
refugees but the same hatred of Jewish statehood that drove the Arabs to
invade us in 1948. We understood that our enemies required periodic
reminders of the prohibitive price they would pay for murdering our
families. We also understood that defending ourselves incurred economic,
diplomatic and human costs, yet there was no practical or moral
alternative. The tactic is deterrence. Our strategy is survival.
Negotiations
leading to peace can be realistic with an adversary who shares that
goal. But Hamas, whose covenant calls for the slaughter of Jews
worldwide, is striving not to join peace talks, but to prevent them. It
rejects Israel’s existence, refuses to eschew terror, and disavows all
previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements — the terms established by the
United States and the other members of the so-called quartet of Middle
East peacemakers for participation in the peace process. Bound by its
genocidal theology and crude anti-Semitism, Hamas cannot be induced to
make peace. But it can be deterred from war.
This was the
case with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Like Hamas, Hezbollah is an Islamist
organization committed to Israel’s demise. It, too, ambushed Israeli
soldiers on our side of the border and rained rockets on Israeli towns.
Then, in 2006, Israel struck back, destroying much of Hezbollah’s
military infrastructure, neutralizing its long-range missiles, and
killing hundreds of terrorists. Hezbollah internalized the message, and
since then its missiles have remained inert. The people of northern
Israel, meanwhile, have enjoyed six of their quietest years ever.
This does not
mean that the tactics of deterrence and the strategy of survival cannot
result in peace. Egypt and Jordan tried more than once to defeat Israel
militarily, only to recognize the permanence of the Jewish state and to
sign peace accords with it. Similarly, the Palestine Liberation
Organization, guided by nationalism rather than militant theology,
realized it could gain more by talking with Israel than by battling us.
The result was the 1993 Oslo Accords, the foundation for what we still
hope will be a two-state solution. By establishing deterrence, Israel
led these rational actors toward peace.
Unfortunately,
Hamas is not rational. It targets Israeli civilians while hiding behind
its own. During a campaign of murder and kidnapping in 2006 and 2007, it
gunned down members of its rival, Al Fatah, in the streets. Its
covenant says Christians and Jews “must desist from struggling against
Islam over sovereignty in this region”; under its rule, militants
firebombed a Christian bookshop. It celebrated 9/11 and mourned the
death of Osama bin Laden. We hope some day to persuade its leaders to
make peace with us, but until then we must convince them of the
exorbitant price of aggression.
Back in 1948, we
envisaged a future of security, prosperity and mutual respect with our
neighbors. We still cling to that dream. But we must also remain
vigilant and, occasionally, neutralize the rockets and combat the
terrorists that target us. President Obama said Sunday in Bangkok that
“we’re fully supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself from missiles
landing on people’s homes and workplaces and potentially killing
civilians, and we will continue to support Israel’s right to defend
itself.” Earlier in the trip, his deputy national security adviser,
Benjamin Rhodes, said that Israelis would “make their own decisions
about the tactics they use.” Those tactics, together with our survival
strategy, have helped us to create one of the world’s most vibrant and
innovative societies, while enabling us to pursue peace.
1 comment:
OT: This is a good article regarding Israel
http://www.treppenwitz.com/2012/11/surrender-or-die.html
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