This latest Israeli war on Hizbullah and the whole of Lebanon may not be over. But whether it is or not, it’s already time to discuss important questions about the nature of the peace that should follow . And I’m not talking here only about the shape of the post-war order in Lebanon (which seems to be the extent of George Bush’s ever-myopic purview), but more importantly, the shape of the post-war order in the whole Arab-Israeli arena.
Several Israelis have already noted– realistically, in my view– that the strategic defeat Ehud Olmert has suffered in Lebanon represents a defeat for his favored stance of “unilateral convergence” in the West Bank, as well. As several Israeli and other commentators have pointed out, Barak’s unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 did not prevent Hizbullah’s rockets from raining down on northern Israel, and Sharon’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 did not stop Hamas’s rockets from raining down on southern Israel. So why would anyone imagine that a unilateral withdrawal from portions of the West Bank would leave central Israel any safer than the north or the south?
Good question.
The problem as I see it is that in any withdrawal that’s quite unilateral, then Israel does not have an interlocutor on the other side of the line who has signed any commitments regarding non-aggression, and who has been given enough incentives in the course of that negotiation that they are prepared to enforce those commitments. Instead of that, the success of a Barak- or Sharon-style unilateral withdrawal depended solely on Israel’s ability to use military deterrence to prevent aggressions against it, including the use of wall-hopping rockets, from the people on the other side of the line. And in the absence of any negotiated agreement– during the negotiating of which the non-Israeli party would have received non-trivial benefits including economic incentives, Israeli promises of non-aggression, etc– then the propensity of the people on the other side of the line to be deterred by Israel’s military might actually be quite low.
So the supposition I expressed earlier in the year, that a de-facto situation of “parallel unilateralisms” might continue fairly stably between the Israelis and Gaza for two or three years has been proven false. Israel’s vision of military deterrence of its immediate neighbors has failed, and the Sharon-Olmert vision of unilateralism with regard to the Palestinians has taken a body blow along with it, too.
Bibi Netanyahu was, of course, one of the first to point out the link between Olmert’s setback in Lebanon and the failure of Sharonist unilateralism. And I agree with him. Where I strongly disagree with him is over what other kind of policy Israel should follow, instead.
For his part, Yossi Beilin, the leader of the faintly leftwing Meretz Party, has also started asking some tough questions about this topic… Including whether it would not have been better for Israel to have sought to include Syria in the diplomatic effort to resolve the Lebanon crisis, instead of excluding it… and also, whether the aftermath of this war should see the convening of a comprehensive Israeli-Arab peace conference along the lines of the Madrid conference of October 1991.
Beilin is completely right. His proposal that a Madrid-type conference be convened is completely in line with what I called for in my CSM column last Thursday. He is also right to note that,
- the gaps in the matter of the final status arrangements have been greatly narrowed over the last 15 years. In Israel of 2006, there is a near-consensus about a Palestinian state, and Israel’s prime minister is ready to give up 90 percent of the West Bank, unilaterally. The Clinton document, the Bush “vision,” the Road Map, the Arab League Summit decision of 2002 and the Geneva Initiative all paint a clear picture of a permanent Israeli-Palestinian agreement. The public and secret talks with the Syrians since 1991 also sketch, nearly completely, the outline of an Israeli-Syrian agreement.
But how about the politics of such a bold move? Beilin notes that in 1991, it was the US that took the initiative, poking and prodding a reluctant Israel to take part in the Madrid conference. But, he adds,
- This time it will be Olmert’s job to persuade President Bush that prying Syria out of the Axis of Evil, peace with Lebanon and an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are practical moves, which – if they work – could save the Middle East and help achieve the reforming vision Bush believes in so much.
H’mm. I am certainly not holding my breath that Olmert will show such wisdom and initiative. But if the sane (i.e. non-US) parts of the “international community” as a whole could gather themselves strongly enough around the idea of a speedy, comprehensive, and fair Middle East peace, and could gather enough Israelis and enough Arab governments and people around this plan, too, then perhaps the US citizenry and its government could also become sufficiently persuaded that this is a good and long overdue idea?
Anyway, this battle for the nature of the post-war regional order is already being joined within Israeli society. So right now, all the other governments of the world should make clear to the Israeli voters and leaders that after two Qanas there will be no further international tolerance for Israel’s continued recourse to militarism and colonialist expansion. And that it is time to conclude that kind of a fair peace that will allow Israelis, Palestinians, and Syrians all flourish.
(Should any of this actually be controversial at all?)
Meanwhile there should be no further subsidizing at all of any policies, pursued by any party in the Arab-Israeli theater, that are belligerent, militaristic, and aggrandizing… And there should be no double standards on this, at all. The world has seen the ghasty results of the Israel-excusing double standards that have been pursued in the Middle East up until now.
This thoughtful comment on Col. Pat Lang’s blog is germane here.
Israeli dissidents have long railed against the occupation citing its corrosive effects on the moral and legal fiber of the new nation. Now we see the corrosive effects on the military itself.
Another fundamental change in Israeli society has been the fading of the old Labor-Zionist model of equality and collective sacrifice. It has been replaced by privatization and the mentality of “I’ve got mine.” Israel’s biggest domestic problem is an exploding poverty rate (Peretz ran well on this issue in the last election).The individualistic, market-oriented culture seems not to fit well with an army based around universal service and reserves. A shift to a professional army is long overdue.
But then, it wouldn’t make sense to use professionals to police the West Bank–draftees and reservists are cheaper. We’re back to that pesky problem of the occupation.
The occupation represents a mortal danger for Israel; their elite was partway to realizing this…now they’ll just get distracted again.
Upharsin, can you give me a link there? I know Pat L does some good analysis…
Helena,
Pas de problem.
His blog is at:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/
That particular remark pitched up in the comments section of the sixth story down, called Bad Tux on IDF Performance.
Toodlepip!
Helena, I wouldn’t look to Olmert to convince Bush to abandon the “axis of evil” motif. Olmert used exactly those terms in his August 13 speech to the Knesset:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525873971&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Of course, the membership of the “axis of evil” varies depending on speaker and context. I would think Iraq (a founding member) is now excluded under the bylaws. I don’t know whether Olmert cares about North Korea’s membership, but I suppose he would still include them if asked. Neither Syria nor Hezbollah were founding members, but they seem to have been voted in by mutual agreement.
Helena, you are essentially saying again that it would be great if everybody could just get along. Yes, wouldn’t it? But what particular attitudes have to change to make this possible?
Martin Jacques’ article in the Guardian makes one good suggestion. He writes that “Israel must come to see itself as an integral part of the region” rather than “viewing themselves as an appendage of the most powerful country in the world situated thousands of miles to its west.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1843882,00.html#article_continue
He exaggerates the point, but the essence is valid. The crux of the problem is that there is something deeply wrong with the “special” relationship between the US and Israel. It’s not that we can’t be friends, but this has become something different and much less healthy than friendship. I would not look to the US to extricate itself from this mess, but Israel might have that capacity. Your thoughts?
i think I was more hopeful back in the 1980s about the possibility of real attitude change in Israel starting to drive attitude change among members of the US policy “elite”… That certainly happened in 1993 when itwas Rabin and Peres who opened up the channel to the PLO and you probably saw with me the amazing sight of the entire inside-the-Beltway crowd in DC and nearly all the Jewish American organization heads turning on a dime re their attitude toward Arafat… That was choice! (Though it led to yet another dead end.)
Now, Israeli politics has changed and in general become more rightwing, I think. I mean, look at the pathetic performance of Peace Now in this latest war compared with during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
However, world politics has also been changing. Unlike the period 1982-93 we aren’t living in a Cold War and immeidately post-Cold War world… we aren’t either living in that mid-1990s time when everyone thought/hoped the US could solve all the world’s problems….
The “sane” parts of the international cmnty haven’t quite gotten their act together as well as they need to. But some combination of them, the sane Israelis and Arabs, the rising generation of Israeli latte-sippers, and a rising number of US citizens of conscience– well, that’s the force that I see needing to come together on this.
Won’t be easy, I know. But we need to continue hold up the message that there is certainly a better way than continued bloodshed and colonial-style domination… Like, um, truly basing our policies on the simple principles of human equality, human compassion, and human reason.
Thanks Helena. You would know better than I do whether Israeli politics has become more right-wing. But I would not take the broad initial support for this last military adventure as evidence of a permanent right-ward shift. Hezbollah presented a serious challenge to the prevailing paradigm, and there was no ready substitute for a militaristic response. I could find analogies in US politics, where it is clear that right-wing strategies have failed us, but no coherent alternative has yet emerged. Israel is a small country with a big problem. The US is kind of the opposite. Practical necessity may force Israel to take a different approach. We’ll see.
John C.,
According to UNFIL there were almost daily Israeli breaches of the blue line since 2000. Plus of course the little matter of the Shebba Farms. So the purely hypothetical – in the circumstances – question is: if it had been different, if Israel hadn’t repeatedly played the game it was playing, if in fact it had scrupulously respected the blue line…well, might Hezbollah have been an equally good neighbour? Seems to me that – for whatever reason – history, fear, arrogance, whatever – they just couldn’t bring themselves to give peace a chance. That old, “all we are saying is give war a chance” syndrome. Well, the Gods punish us by granting our prayers. Because it’s now clear that they’ve got a real problem.
Helena — I’d be really interested in your thoughts on how we can help US opinion become more sane in reference to Israel and the Middle East generally. It seems that as long as US elites and US opinion generally gives Israel a free pass to be a rogue state, nothing is going to improve, more people are going to die, and we risk WWWIII (if we aren’t already in it.)
Yet we don’t seem to be able to make a dent in the belief system that portrays Israel as a pathetic, endangered (white) innocent and Arabs as swarthy killers. The evidence of our own eyes as over the last month of TV coverage doesn’t make a dent really.
Any thoughts? Our part of the problem of peace is on the US homefront.
Jan, I think it’s going to continue to be a long hard slog of public education and networking to get the facts out.
One of the things I did that I’m still fairly pleased about is work with the bunch of other Quakers on the book we brought out in 2004 called “When the Rain Returns”. I believe it still could be a good organizing tool, basis for study groups etc. I’d be happy to send you a free copy if you want to check it out– and then, I have bunches more I could sell at cost to you or anyone else. But I’d love to have your view of its usefulness.
(If you want a copy, email me your mailing address.)