Many journalists and pundits obsess over Israel?s military superiority in the present Middle East conflict. They fail to grasp that conventional military potential is virtually irrelevant to today?s variety of limited war.
The Israelis are ahead strategically by way of better weaponry, training, and organization ? not to mention a larger standing force and a developed economy. The Palestinians, however, possess their own peculiar advantages. Despite the current Israeli reoccupation of the West Bank, it is they who have the upper hand in this conflict.
The Palestinians have mastered the art of the peoples? war (as defined by Mao) and raised it to an entirely new level. While fielding only poorly trained and fractious militias, they have mobilized their entire population into one huge irregular force. Every Palestinian Arab is now a potential suicide bomber. Any house, mosque or hospital in the Palestinian Authority could be an arsenal or explosives laboratory. Most Palestinian Authority kindergartens, schools and summer camps factor intense political indoctrination or practical military training into their curricula. More so than Israel, it is the PA that has become an armed camp.
In the typical guerrilla conflict, it is the ostensibly weaker party that initiates the bulk of individual engagements and is least bound by principles of international law or humanitarian responsibility. In this present conflict, however, the differential between the military conduct expected of the parties has ballooned beyond all expectation. This has allowed the Palestinians to engage in historically unprecedented techniques, including unending suicide bombings and shameless military exploitation of boys and girls, without fear of sanctions or isolation from the world community. No less than the Bush administration has balked at holding the PA accountable in any practical way.
Were both parties held to the same standard of tactical conduct, little might change. With its larger economy and greater involvement in the world, Israel would continue to endure canceled export contracts and boycott campaigns, while its enemies would remain essentially free from responsibility for their actions. Palestinian groups have thus been afforded something denied all Western forces since the advent of television. In classic military parlance, their peculiar advantage is known as ?unlimited freedom in the field?.
Unfortunately for Israelis, the field has expanded beyond the administered territories to include every square inch of their country. All Israeli citizens are now walking targets, the striking of which has become as much a religious end in itself as any means to a rational objective. The Arafat regime has meanwhile maintained an airtight plausible deniability before the court of world opinion.
Every PA office destroyed in blind-rage Israeli reprisals will eventually be rebuilt with EU funds. Every demolition of a suicide bomber?s home will be redressed through the generosity of donors in Baghdad and Riyadh. The Israeli army is powerless to stop these transactions; the Israeli spin machine has not succeeded in sullying Arafat?s name before his financiers in Europe. No initiative implemented by the Jewish State, however creative, has so far managed to staunch the terror for any length of time. Neither Israel?s vast arsenals, nor its vaunted power projection and second strike capabilities, have yet aborted a single electronic transfer of funds. Nor can Israel?s navy prevent every weapons-laden barrel from washing up on Gaza shores.
The guerrilla-terrorist cells of the West Bank and Gaza answer to no direct central authority and bow to neither political nor legal limitations. They enjoy a cozy working relationship with an internationally recognized Palestinian regime and operate under a convenient cover of anarchy cultivated by its chief. They have nothing to fear from the global community and will never lack the minimal financial and material assets necessary for their low-budget operations. They draw recruits from an ideologically mobilized population inured to loss and hardship and face an enemy hamstrung by political considerations stemming from its very legitimacy. Taken as a whole, these strengths trump superior Israeli marksmanship or the ease with which Israel?s armor rumbles through the casbahs.
Imagine a Vietnam War in which half-senile Ho Chi Minh enjoys French support and publicly chastises a freelance Vietcong even as he wines and dines its leaders, who in turn direct attacks on public places on the American mainland. Except there is no South Vietnam; the whole country from top to bottom is hostile, heavily urbanized, and steeped in anarchy- and happens to be located in, say, the Mississippi basin.
This is Israel?s living nightmare. There can be no upper hand for the ostensibly stronger party in this scenario, not when the enemy hides in horrendously crowded cities and knows better than to come out and play in the daytime. Not when teenage boys and girls are rigged with Semtex and aimed like missiles at crowded eateries. Certainly not when those who do the rigging enjoy the tacit support of both an entire society and a globally-accepted phantom regime that exists as much through offices in foreign capitals (and CNN interviews) as through any real presence in the territories.
Every attempt to restore the peace process has resulted in not less but more violence. Only the na?ve now entertain notions that the latest shuttle diplomacy or ?back channel dialogue? will offer so much as a lull, let alone a breakthrough. Israel cannot pull back until the Palestinian violence stops, whereas the Palestinians refuse to stop the violence until Israel pulls back (and then only maybe). A debilitating Gordian knot grows ever tighter. The situation more closely resembles a Tom and Jerry cartoon than the David-and-Goliath imagery of the anti-Zionists.
Israel?s best hope now lies in the deus ex machina of a regional shakeup brought about through the liquidation of the present Iraqi regime. Saddam Hussein?s fall and the subsequent dissolution of Iraq will send seismic waves through Israel?s Arab neighbors and deprive the PA of an increasingly eager patron. This shock will have one of two effects. It will at last convince the Palestinians that terror and dictatorship don?t pay, or it will persuade them to ratchet up the level of terror exponentially, through 9/11-style mega-attacks and the use of crude chemical or biological weapons. In the latter scenario, the US will fully back Israel in a no-holds-barred showdown with its guerrilla-terrorist enemies in the territories, Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere.
There is no doubting who would prevail in such a match.
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Jack Hoffman is a US Army veteran.
The Israelis are ahead strategically by way of better weaponry, training, and organization ? not to mention a larger standing force and a developed economy. The Palestinians, however, possess their own peculiar advantages. Despite the current Israeli reoccupation of the West Bank, it is they who have the upper hand in this conflict.
The Palestinians have mastered the art of the peoples? war (as defined by Mao) and raised it to an entirely new level. While fielding only poorly trained and fractious militias, they have mobilized their entire population into one huge irregular force. Every Palestinian Arab is now a potential suicide bomber. Any house, mosque or hospital in the Palestinian Authority could be an arsenal or explosives laboratory. Most Palestinian Authority kindergartens, schools and summer camps factor intense political indoctrination or practical military training into their curricula. More so than Israel, it is the PA that has become an armed camp.
In the typical guerrilla conflict, it is the ostensibly weaker party that initiates the bulk of individual engagements and is least bound by principles of international law or humanitarian responsibility. In this present conflict, however, the differential between the military conduct expected of the parties has ballooned beyond all expectation. This has allowed the Palestinians to engage in historically unprecedented techniques, including unending suicide bombings and shameless military exploitation of boys and girls, without fear of sanctions or isolation from the world community. No less than the Bush administration has balked at holding the PA accountable in any practical way.
Were both parties held to the same standard of tactical conduct, little might change. With its larger economy and greater involvement in the world, Israel would continue to endure canceled export contracts and boycott campaigns, while its enemies would remain essentially free from responsibility for their actions. Palestinian groups have thus been afforded something denied all Western forces since the advent of television. In classic military parlance, their peculiar advantage is known as ?unlimited freedom in the field?.
Unfortunately for Israelis, the field has expanded beyond the administered territories to include every square inch of their country. All Israeli citizens are now walking targets, the striking of which has become as much a religious end in itself as any means to a rational objective. The Arafat regime has meanwhile maintained an airtight plausible deniability before the court of world opinion.
Every PA office destroyed in blind-rage Israeli reprisals will eventually be rebuilt with EU funds. Every demolition of a suicide bomber?s home will be redressed through the generosity of donors in Baghdad and Riyadh. The Israeli army is powerless to stop these transactions; the Israeli spin machine has not succeeded in sullying Arafat?s name before his financiers in Europe. No initiative implemented by the Jewish State, however creative, has so far managed to staunch the terror for any length of time. Neither Israel?s vast arsenals, nor its vaunted power projection and second strike capabilities, have yet aborted a single electronic transfer of funds. Nor can Israel?s navy prevent every weapons-laden barrel from washing up on Gaza shores.
The guerrilla-terrorist cells of the West Bank and Gaza answer to no direct central authority and bow to neither political nor legal limitations. They enjoy a cozy working relationship with an internationally recognized Palestinian regime and operate under a convenient cover of anarchy cultivated by its chief. They have nothing to fear from the global community and will never lack the minimal financial and material assets necessary for their low-budget operations. They draw recruits from an ideologically mobilized population inured to loss and hardship and face an enemy hamstrung by political considerations stemming from its very legitimacy. Taken as a whole, these strengths trump superior Israeli marksmanship or the ease with which Israel?s armor rumbles through the casbahs.
Imagine a Vietnam War in which half-senile Ho Chi Minh enjoys French support and publicly chastises a freelance Vietcong even as he wines and dines its leaders, who in turn direct attacks on public places on the American mainland. Except there is no South Vietnam; the whole country from top to bottom is hostile, heavily urbanized, and steeped in anarchy- and happens to be located in, say, the Mississippi basin.
This is Israel?s living nightmare. There can be no upper hand for the ostensibly stronger party in this scenario, not when the enemy hides in horrendously crowded cities and knows better than to come out and play in the daytime. Not when teenage boys and girls are rigged with Semtex and aimed like missiles at crowded eateries. Certainly not when those who do the rigging enjoy the tacit support of both an entire society and a globally-accepted phantom regime that exists as much through offices in foreign capitals (and CNN interviews) as through any real presence in the territories.
Every attempt to restore the peace process has resulted in not less but more violence. Only the na?ve now entertain notions that the latest shuttle diplomacy or ?back channel dialogue? will offer so much as a lull, let alone a breakthrough. Israel cannot pull back until the Palestinian violence stops, whereas the Palestinians refuse to stop the violence until Israel pulls back (and then only maybe). A debilitating Gordian knot grows ever tighter. The situation more closely resembles a Tom and Jerry cartoon than the David-and-Goliath imagery of the anti-Zionists.
Israel?s best hope now lies in the deus ex machina of a regional shakeup brought about through the liquidation of the present Iraqi regime. Saddam Hussein?s fall and the subsequent dissolution of Iraq will send seismic waves through Israel?s Arab neighbors and deprive the PA of an increasingly eager patron. This shock will have one of two effects. It will at last convince the Palestinians that terror and dictatorship don?t pay, or it will persuade them to ratchet up the level of terror exponentially, through 9/11-style mega-attacks and the use of crude chemical or biological weapons. In the latter scenario, the US will fully back Israel in a no-holds-barred showdown with its guerrilla-terrorist enemies in the territories, Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere.
There is no doubting who would prevail in such a match.
----------------------------------
Jack Hoffman is a US Army veteran.