New York Times Op/ed columnist Tom Friedman today called on Israel, or, more accurately, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to
launch a diplomatic initiative or else "the risks to Israel’s legitimacy.....will be staggering."
Even though I have made clear that I think Israeli leaders and politicians need to take initiative (and they don't in any sphere) I never thought that launching diplomacy to minimize risks was a good strategy. We do need to take the initiative, even the offensive on the diplomatic sphere and stop getting dragged into reactions on the world's stage and timetable. However, Friedman's analysis and fear-mongering, by asserting non-truths promulgated most-famously by the Goldstone report and giving them credence in his column, is not doing truth, stability or "initiative" any favors. Israel today is enjoying another timeout because it recently won three short wars — and then encountered one pleasant surprise. The first was a war to dismantle the corrupt Arafat regime. The second was the war started by Hezbollah in Lebanon and finished by a merciless pounding of Shiite towns and Beirut suburbs by the Israeli Air Force. The third was the war to crush the Hamas missile launchers in Gaza.
What is different about these three wars, though, is that Israel won them using what I call “Hama Rules” — which are no rules at all. “Hama Rules” are named after the Syrian town of Hama, where, in 1982, then-President Hafez el-Assad of Syria put down a Muslim fundamentalist uprising by shelling and then bulldozing their neighborhoods, killing more than 10,000 of his own people.
In Israel’s case, it found itself confronting enemies in Gaza and Lebanon armed with rockets, but nested among local civilians, and Israel chose to go after them without being deterred by the prospect of civilian casualties. As the Lebanese militia leader Bashir Gemayel was fond of saying — before he himself was blown up — “This is not Denmark here. And it is not Norway.”
The brutality of the Israeli retaliations bought this timeout with Hezbollah and Hamas, and the civilian casualties and troubling TV images bought Israel a U.N. investigation into alleged war crimes.
Brutality? Undeterred by civilian casualties? Come on Tom, you must be kidding. The Israeli army operated with a precision laser. If you want to see brutality, check Saddam Hussein's brutal killing of his own people or Ahmadinejad's repression of the latest civilian rebellion. I am sure you can find more examples. Israel's Gaza Operation was the most pinpoint war in the history of mankind and, because of that, unfortunately, it is one which did not have a decisive victor. The Lebanon war was not won because it was fought from the air and poorly planned by a rookie defense minister. Beacuse of that there is continued and even increasing tension on both of those borders with the UN unable to enforce resolution 1701 which ended the Second Lebanon War and Gaza still thrives on terror.
You see Tom, Israel is not in "Timeout" now. Rather, it is in limbo. It was in timeout after the 67 war because the victor was decisive. When you do not have decisive victories, we have wars or "low-level conflicts" that brew on for decades and ultimately boil over (Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea???). Frankly, the worst reason to engage is to minimize risks.
Israel does need to take the initiative, but we need to take it from strength and belief in our convictions that we are entitled to return to our homeland after 2000 years and live here in peace and prosperity. We should feel the strength of our conviction that firing 8000 rockets on Sderot is intolerable (not only during a Presidential election), that Israel is a force for innovation, morality and democracy in the Middle East and the World. And finally, we will do what is right to protect our sovereignty and act in the best interests of our citizens and not in the best interest of columnists who have never lived with Hamas as a neighbor.
