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chatterers have taken to their favorite pastime, telling elected
officials what they should do. Most of the chatterers have never
actually designed or conducted a policy, which of course makes it
much easier for them to give advice (as it will make it easier still
to criticize leaders who listen to that advice). It's especially
entertaining of late to listen to them giving military advice to
Ariel Sharon, who knows a thing or two about waging war. And it's
a bothersome symptom of our collective lack of understanding that
the latest crowd of what Scoop Jackson used to call "born again
hawks" talks as if all Israel has to do is smash the Palestinians,
and then build a strong wall to keep them out.
This easy counsel
flies in the face of George Patton's reflection that defensive fortifications
are a monument to human stupidity, as centuries of shattered barricades,
trenches, moats, and walls testify. As Israeli leaders contemplate
their plight, they surely know that such a strategy will only postpone
a serious reckoning, and pass the initiative back to their enemies.
The Israelis should not launch a violent attack until and unless
they can see a chance for a decisive outcome, and that requires
more than a purely military strategy.
I think the
key to a winning strategy has been presented by Natan Sharansky,
who survived years in the Soviet gulag and now sits in Sharon's
Cabinet. Sharansky has been at great pains to point out that the
problem with the Oslo Accords — and thereafter with the suicidal
diplomacy conducted by a series of Israeli governments, and fully
endorsed by most American diplomats and intellectuals — is that
they assumed peace was possible with corrupt tyrants, when it should
have been clear that peace could only be achieved with virtuous
democrats.
The real problem
with Arafat is not what he "wants," but with what he is,
and what he has created. There is no hope of a durable peace with
a tyrannical and corrupt Palestine. Arafat and his cronies are as
corrupt and autocratic as any of the Middle East nasties, which
is one reason they like him and support him.
No amount of
Israeli power can transform the Palestinian Authority into a tolerant,
pluralistic society, yet that must be the goal of Israeli policy
(as it should have been the goal of "Western" policy from
the outset). And since this sort of transformation will not take
place under Arafat, it follows that Israel must work for his downfall,
and must support any and all Palestinians who offer the hope of
a democratic Palestine.
In short, Israel
needs not only military tactics to destroy the terror network, but
also political weapons to begin the destruction of the Arafat-led
tyranny. It is folly to limit negotiations to the Palestinian "leaders,"
because Israel's ultimate allies in this struggle should be the
Palestinian people themselves. Israel needs to appeal to them directly,
just as we appealed to the peoples of the Soviet Empire. Israel
needs to start broadcasting to them, along these lines:
Palestinians!
We could be dropping bombs on you, but instead we are sending
words. We have no hatred of you, indeed we wish to embrace you.
Your leaders have stolen your money, sent your children to die
in senseless agony, deprived you of your freedom, and distorted
your faith. Our fight is with them, not with you. Indeed, we fight
for you, for your eventual freedom, for your ability to live and
pray in peace, for your ability to create wealth for yourselves
and your children, for a chance to develop our joint resources
in ways none of us can today imagine.
In this way,
and many other similar ways, Israel can take the real fight to Arafat
and his henchmen, and simultaneously lay the basis for the kind
of Middle East that fools like Shimon Peres thought they could create
by negotiating with the leaders of the PLO, as if signatures on
a piece of paper could undo decades of evildoing.
Democratic
societies, especially in Europe and the United States, have an unfortunate
ability to forget that freedom is the most lethal weapon in the
endless struggle against tyranny. An entire generation of Americans
forgot it, and was shocked to see its awesome power when Ronald
Reagan aimed it at Moscow. A generation of Israelis forgot it, and
need to remind themselves of it as they grapple with their life-threatening
crisis.
Yes, Israel
must respond, but the response must aim at a total transformation
of the current situation. In waging war in full against Arafat's
PLO, Israel must make it clear — to the world at large, to the Palestinian
people, and, perhaps most importantly, to themselves — that the
key issue is political. The key issue is freedom.
If they can
pull it off, it will save more than Israel. It might even have an
effect on the Department of State.
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