Appreciation to Bruce Anderson
While the world agonizes over the perceived but ephemeral trauma of its financial system a tragedy is unfolding in the Middle East. Israel is trapped, there is no 'Peace Process' and the recent elections have shown there is no real interest in one other than that which offers only further aggression and subjugation to the other side. Any settlement is now probably further away than it has been since 1967 and Israel seems to be blindly marching to the edge of the pit. With the Soviet Union gone, pretty much by its own hand, is Israel now fulfilling, also by its own hand, the next step of the Fuhrer's dream? Having been treated as it was in the decades before 1945 by one of the most sophisticated societies on the Earth, one might understand why Judaeism might lose its faith in Earthly processes other than the power and religion of its own making. While the collapse of an antagonistic Soviet Union could largely defuse the tensions in Europe there has been no comparable event, or even the hint of one, in the Middle East. Israel is a Fascist-like state. Franklin Rosevelt: " That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power" (or .religion); a nation based on and controlled by a single ideology (a religion), which is militaristic and chauvanistic. Israel with monocular vision continues to pursue its own "defense" without regard for the rising antagonism each asymetric act stokes in every neighbor.
Equally easy to see is why the Palestinians have reacted as they have. Expelled from their homes, lands, businesses and the graves of their ancestors of a thousand years by extreme force of arms, continually spied upon, suppressed, often with extreme brutality, and offered no hope that their children or even grandchildren will fare any better, is it any wonder that the Palestinian looks upon his oppressor less than favorably? And, given his treatment, his rhetoric, unfortunately has taken some similarity with that of the 20th Century Nazi. But, why should he, the Palestinian, be so linguistically inhibited, so sensitive to Zionist linguistic tradition. He had no connection whatsoever with and poor knowledge of European events. He is justifiably enraged at his people being expelled into the harsh realities of the stateless refugee with neither stake in the present nor hope for the future and feels justified in the expression of this rage. In contrast to an honestly expressed belief I recently heard, the Palestinian did not go "voluntarily" into exile, that is unless one defines at the point of and threatned by a gun as such. This understandably expressed rage in turn has fed the paranoia of the Zionist's "never again". Rather than be driven again to their destruction, or 'into the sea' as the case may be, the Zionist has decided to react overwhelmingly and ruthlessly with preemptive retaliation. Given the European precursors to the foundation of Israel one can understand the reaction to the apparent second coming of Holicaust.
Israel expects to be welcomed into the family of nations and feels, not totally unreasonably, entitled to secure borders and peace with its neighbors. But, given the modern history of that land, reasonable is not necessarily realistic. It has injected itself into a notoriously unstable and dangerous area. It and much of the West have failed to recognize the realities. By way of example, remember the way the Russians reacted to Nazi 'lebens raum'. Although Jewish immigrants rightly have an expectation not to live under constant attack they must recognize that it is they who are the invading occupiers who neither asked nor compensated those whom they displaced. To expect the Palestinian to passively accept his displaced, occupied and suppressed status is manifestly unreasonable. What other people would one expect this of? While maintaining a constant aggressive war-like state against the Palestinian people it is totally unrealistic to expect to exist in security and peace. If any other people, one lacking the quasi-defence of the Holocaust, were to behave so the world would be both figuratively and literally 'up in arms'. The rest of the world, and particularly America, Israel's patron, must realize that a peaceful co-existance will never be established by the humiliating 'defeat' of the miserable and angry millions of people surrounding Israel's borders.
After the stunning success of Israeli arms in the 1967 war and the overrunning of huge areas of Arab lands, Israel was finally in posession of "defensible borders". Previously the country was so narrow at its utmost that an aggressor could have cut it in two in hours. In a virtually unprecidented statement of a military victor, Israel could have then proclaimed no territorial ambitions beyond its "now defensible borders", that its only intent was peace and justice and that it would trade its gains, other than a share in Jerusalem's holy sites, to that end. That would have been a start - Israel could have compounded its war success with a tremendous moral and strategic victory. To the contrary, compounding the failure to understand that in a time of asymetric warfare 'blitzkreig', a primary defence for the insistance on military supremacy and ever more "defensible" borders, would only be an entertainment theme for both big and small screen, Israel now demands "impregnible" borders and "absolute" security. Thus, Israel fell victim to the imemorial lust of the victor for ever more land. Where goatherds and olives grew would come modern homes, greenery and industry, an era of unimaginable beauty and prosperity. With an evergrowing population, backed by earlier cynical political machinations of the earlier 20th Century (to be discussed separately) and a "justifying" religious myth, a program of "settlements" was begun. These "settlements" continue to colonize an ever growing dominion. Accompanying is a curious propensity to site "settlements" smack atop the identified subterranean water resources of the area - "he who controls the water", etc.
A necessary, but not sufficient, step toward securing peaceful borders demands the ending and closing of all colonization beyond Israel's "legitimized" 1967 borders. Given the messianic foundations of modern Israel that will be difficult to the extreme. Withdrawal and the building of a viable Palestine will not completely remove Israel from the threat of attack from the angriest and most hopeless. Memories are long after more than 60 years of displacement, brutality, subjugation and hopelessness. Anger dies slowly. The impressionable youth and radicalized adult will only slowly disappear as the generations proceed. Sporadic attacks will continue, Israel will continue to pay the price for its mahem and rapine. But these attacks will slowly wither as the principal motivator and reinforcer is withdrawn and replaced by a viable and prosperous Palestinian state.
With the recent election of the most radically fundamentalist of Israeli factions to political power, expressing growing fundamentalism among its general population, withdrawal is now beyond the country's ability, at least from internal motivation. With it, a viable Palestinian State is now unachievable. What Israel and its supporters have failed to realize is, that while Israel could ably defend itself from locally sourced formal aggression, the confrontations of formal opposing armies is probably now a thing of the past. Certainly, this is so for the region. So, for all its self-percieved strength, Israel is and will be increasingly vulnerable to what is euphamistically called "asymetric warfare", whereby the powerfully armed is wholy vulnerable to penetration by the determined few. Perhaps overall pinpricks for now but, given realistic expectation, how long before the pinprick becomes a haemorrhage in the face of the determined NBC equipped "lone Gunman". Totally surrounded by millions of the angry and disposessed, how long can it be. As a leader once said, "We have to succeed 100% of the time, they only have to succeed once." The opponent may be "fanatical" but he is not stupid. Israel has nearly used its grace period. Surrounded on all sides by determined and implacable foes, primarily of its own making, and with no visible target for its defense, how can one anticipate anything but ultimate anihilation? Israel's recent disbolically asymetric attack, primarily targeting the civil population of Gaza, has shocked the rest of the world and infuriated the Arab to guarantee least another generation of wholly radicalized opponents. Pebble by pebble the weather dismantles the mightiest of mountains let alone the castles of man. How sad to see a people emerging from a tragedy into an even greater tragedy, one of their own making. Hubris!
The only way to prevent this tragedy is to have the solution applied by force from without. As Israel's patron this unenviable duty falls mainly on the US. Israel, aside from the messianic, has come into being primarily as an extension of US economic and military power. Of all foreign aid rendered by the US only Israel has the greater part administered without oversight and constraint. Israel's "secret" stock of nuclear weapons originated largely on espionage, "insider dealing" in the US nuclear program. Even the outrageously brutal incarceration of Mordecai Sunnunu has not quashed this knowledge. Even this "ultimate" defence has the protective value of a seive defending a saucer. Where does one aim a neutron bomb to answer a single "gunman" of questionable provenance? How much longer before Israel faces "nuclear" neighbors?
Israel has, since its inception, been uniquely dependent on US subsidy, whether governmental (aka: the tax payer) or private. Any threat to these subsidies, let alone withdrawal threats to military mutuality, could relatively quickly, and even quietly, bring Israel to sense. But will politicians thriving in a democracy corrupted by the financial dependence of the next US election be able to muster the courage knowing that pro-Zionist interests are armed with the seemingly ultimate financial tool of destruction? When the times are tough, the tough get going. Are there any?
A realist would say: "It is only a matter of time before Israel self-destructs."
