Other Peoples' Futures

II won’t comment extensively now about prisoner exchanges in general and the particular exchanges being negotiated with Hizbullah and Hamas. Six months ago I expressed my opinion here and I haven’t changed my mind. 
Olmert, Barak and Yishai need an achievement, or something that can be spun as an achievement whether it is one or not. It does not matter how bitterly other families and other political leaders will have cause to rue it in the future.

I don’t like to engage in straight political commentary, but sometimes something needs pointing out.  Originally I was trained as a Sovietologist.  I learned the arcane art of analyzing official statements in Pravda to discern when policy was being changed, and who in the Kremlin was doublecrossing whom.  While I don’t consider myself an expert in the field of modern “media,” a lot of my old skills come in useful when applied to the Israeli press—especially Ha’aretz.
Ha’aretz is a lot like Pravda. All its writers are ideologically committed to Peace Messianism, with a few token exceptions. As in the former Soviet press, why a news item appears and how it is presented often matters more than the facts it contains.

The Verter article in Haaretz is meant to start destroying Barak’s reputation among the members of Israel’s leftist elite who get their opinions from Haaretz.  Olmert notes that most of Labor’s MKs and ministers really, really don’t want to go to elections.  Only the necessity of not creating a public breach with Barak made them go along with his threat to leave Olmert’s government.  Olmert is gambling that in three months, when he runs in Kadima’s primaries and wins, or better yet welches on his promise to Barak and cancels primaries altogether, he will have so weakened Barak’s image that his Labor colleagues will no longer follow his lead.
I used to thank heaven that I lived in a country which wasn’t run by hints and innuendo in Pravda. Little did I suspect then what the future would hold . . .

The Culture of Appeasement

It's better to do nothing than to send Israeli boys to fight for . . . Abu Mazen.  But the culture of appeasement is the real problem.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a young officer named Ehud Barak, who was handed an old construction plan and an impossible order:  Here’s the central terminal building in Entebbe, no local intelligence information, plan a rescue while the government negotiates and procrastinates and tries to buy you time to get ready.  Bright and competent, Barak worked night and day, analyzing the mission and preparing everything. 
Once upon a time, a long time ago, there were Israeli governments who could tell friend from foe, and military experts who could apply force, sharp, precise and deadly, to achieve national security

As the government of Israel formally agreed to release prisoners in return for hostages, dun-colored transport planes took off.  The first act of the drama about to unfold came about when the first transport plane rolled to the end of the runway at Entebbe, far from the terminal where the hostages were held.  Combat engineers got out, ran to the jet fighters parked there, and blew them up.  When the transports took off barely an hour later there was no Ugandan Air Force to chase them—Barak had thought ahead, and those fighters were the first thing on his lengthy checklist.  I still remember Idi Amin, the dictator of Uganda, shedding crocodile tears on international TV, asking how the Israelis could do this to him, their best friend who only wanted to help.  Uh-huh.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there were Israeli governments who could tell friend from foe, and military experts who could apply force, sharp, precise and deadly, to achieve national security.

Today Barak has graduated from obeying orders to giving them.  He's professionally competent and morally feckless.  Writing today in Haaretz, Ari Shavit, praises Ehud Barak for preventing an offensive into Gaza and agreeing to a ceasefire.  The main reason for Barak’s restraint, according to Shavit, is the desire to make the Egyptians happy, to preserve their prestige, to ensure them we did everything we could before assaulting Gaza, an operation they are said to dread—overlooking their complicity in arming Hamas and turning them loose on our cities, something Shavit neglected to mention.
Both the ceasefire with Hamas and the military offensive that is supposedly an alternative to it are aspects of the culture of appeasement that now rules Israeli policy

Lord Castlereagh, Britain’s famous foreign minister at the time of the Napoleonic wars, is reported to have said that Britain had no permanent friends, just permanent interests.  To all appearances, Israel under its present leadership has no interests to speak of, just false friends it wants to appease.  Abandoning Gilad Shalit to his fate was a nice touch, typical of the amoral crew now governing the state of Israel, a reminder of whom we’re dealing with and why they should be consigned to political perdition as soon as possible.

Actually, I prefer Barak’s ceasefire to the alternative.  Not a week ago in this space I made clear my adamant opposition to the kind of “offensive” the Olmert government is planning, in-and-out, sacrificing Israeli lives to make Abu Mazen, now the puppet king of the Arabs of Judaea and Samaria, the puppet king of Gaza as well.  This strategy, if one can grace it with that name, is sure to fail.  True, the ceasefire means Hamas will get tougher and action against them will eventually cost more.  But it won’t cost as much as continuing the peace charade with Abu Mazen.  If you’re not going to fight to win, there’s no point in fighting for the sake of a few newspaper headlines.  Both the ceasefire with Hamas and the military offensive that is supposedly an alternative to it are aspects of the culture of appeasement that now rules Israeli policy.

It’s better to do nothing than to do any of the things that this twisted government, representative of a twisted
It would do Israel’s regional standing no end of good if every nation in the region understood that when Israel is attacked its military response is swift, decisive, and certain
culture and a twisted ethic, is contemplating.  But it’s more important to remember that there are options and policies not dreamt of in this government’s philosophy.  It is hard, and wrong, to advocate going to war lightly.  But Israel is threatened by enemies all about, and appeasement, the attempt to avoid fighting, is a sure recipe for disaster. 

I think it would be wise for Israel to use its military strength preemptively to remove neutralize the Hamas regime (in the manner I laid out last week) before a major regional confrontation.  At this juncture it would do Israel’s regional standing no end of good if every nation in the region understood that when Israel is attacked its military response is swift, decisive, and certain.  The best thing we could do to influence Egypt’s attitude to us in a positive way is to make clear that when our citizens are threatened we are very, very dangerous, and that it behooves everyone around us to run for cover.

What's to be Done

Glad as we will all be to see the back of Olmert, will these election be a reason to celebrate?  I’m not overly optimistic.  And that’s too bad, because there could potentially be plenty of reason for optimism.
The situation in Israel today is very similar to the years after the Yom Kippur War--but in the other direction

The situation in Israel today is very similar to the years after the Yom Kippur War.  That war brought a superficial political change to Israel and a much deeper and more destructive cultural change.  In 1977 Menahem Begin was elected Prime Minister.  He gave back all of Sinai, concluded a cold peace with Egypt, and committed Israel to Palestinian “self-determination.”  He did bomb the Iraqi reactor, but overall he turned out to be (with apologies to Yisrael Medad) a very mediocre Prime Minister.

The real change that came over Israel after 1973 was far more serious than Menahem Begin.  The war caused ordinary Israelis to lose faith in the verities of classical Zionism—in effect, to lose their nerve.  Marginal cultural forces took advantage of the opportunity, took over academia, the courts, and the press, and made Israel post-Zionist.  Israel became something Israelis were ashamed of.  Judaism and Eretz Yisrael became anathema.  Peace became a new religion.  That it wasn’t working and could not work made no difference—a demoralized and confused people tried to make it work, again and again.

The situation in Israel today is similar, but in the other direction.  Poll after poll shows that the people no longer believe in peace.  They want it, but don’t think they can get it.  They are skeptical about everything—the courts, the government, the media, the army.  They have lost faith in everything that went before.  What are they going to believe in now?
Israel needs a political force that can challenge the conventional wisdom. Challenging the conventional wisdom does not mean preaching to Orthodox Jews. They’re already converted.

This is an issue much deeper than the upcoming election.  Netanyahu, of course, will be the next Prime Minister, and he’s heaps better than either of the two alternatives, Barak or Livni.  But just as Israelis get ready for a (nonviolent) revolution, Netanyahu has become very conservative.  He probably won’t lead the people on crazy diplomatic adventures, which is good (and he may do something decisive about Iran).  Like Barak, however, he has positioned himself as the protector of the judicial mafia, figuring it’s better to have them with him than against him.  In short, he’s preparing to fight the last election he lost, in 1999.  He’ll win, but this is 2008.

Israel needs a political force that can challenge the conventional wisdom.  Challenging the conventional wisdom does not mean preaching to Orthodox Jews.  They’re already converted.  It means telling ordinary, secular and traditional Jews in the center of the political spectrum that there’s a new agenda—the Jewish state is under threat, from within and without, and Israel needs to jettison its current political establishment and policies and get new ones in order to survive.  Many people who voted for Kadima last time would be prepared to vote for such a platform today.  In short, one needs a leadership that emerges from the “camp of the faithful” but appeals to the center of the political spectrum, a leadership capable of appropriating votes that Likud, Lieberman and Livni properly consider their own.  Unfortunately, no such leadership is in view.

There are two places such leadership could emerge.  One is within the Likud, where efforts are underway to recreate a political “camp” committed to a new agenda.  The advantage of such a grouping within the Likud is that Netanyahu can’t leave them out of his government because they are built in to his party. 
Let’s hope that bold and forward-looking politicians step forward to change the Israel’s political map before the people go to the polls on November 11.

The other is outside the Likud.  The people most tuned in to such a message are Aryeh Eldad and Ephraim Eitam.  Note that one is Orthodox and the other is not, which is just right.  Unfortunately, these two are caught up in an attempt to have their cake and eat it too—to reform the rest of their National Union party and make it embrace primaries and a new agenda.  They can’t decide whether to base themselves on the old Orthodox constituency—which to my thinking would be entirely useless—or make an independent attempt to capture traditionally “center” voters for a new agenda, which would be an extremely risky political strategy—the only one, however, which has any point.

Let’s hope that bold and forward-looking politicians step forward to change the Israel’s political map before the people go to the polls on November 11.