December 2001

War On Terrorism



The collapse of the Taliban in northern and central Afghanistan took everybody by surprise and made the Ramadan suggestions of the previous month's installment irrelevant. This success was so stunning that "On to Baghdad" and let's get rid of Saddam once and for all is now a common theme in our media. That American air power was an essential aspect of the Taliban's defeat is undeniable, but the territory was taken on the ground by Afghans. Furthermore, nobody, apart from a few fanatics, liked the Taliban even in the Muslim world. The situation may not be as easy in Iraq.

It is true that most Iraqis are fed up with Saddam and would rather live in a democratic society. We should help them to attain this objective; but bombs or rockets can achieve this goal only if there are ground forces in place that do the actual fighting. Let us not forget that the "Northern Coalition" was available in Afghanistan to do the dirty work, but whether or not this type of insurgent army is available in Iraq remains to be seen. Thus, unless we can engineer a relatively bloodless coup d'etat in Baghdad, we are likely to have a tough row to hoe. Even as far as Afghanistan is concerned the job is far from finished. Taliban fighters are beginning to melt into the abundant mountains and the new mujahadeens may harass any government in Kabul for a long time to come. For the Northern Alliance to suddenly give up the idea of translating their military power into political gains - out of the goodness of their hearts - would also be a first in world history.

We are told that our government is split in terms of how to proceed next. The hawks, whoever they may be, don't want our military assets, which sit in the Persian Gulf, to simply declare "mission accomplished." I am reasonably sure that our reservists and National Guard units who are engaged there now would be very happy to be home by Christmas, but who is going to ask them?

The "doves" in the administration, whoever they may be, tend to think about long term political goals and propose strategies where bombs and rockets are the last rather than first resort. They also listen to responsible Arab leaders like President Mubarak of Egypt who warned in no uncertain terms that the current coalition in our war on terrorism cannot hold together if we attack Iraq without providing convincing evidence for a direct link between September 11 and Saddam's government. Germany, and most members of the EU, have voiced similar concerns as well as most other nations of the world. A war on Iraq simply does not have the same popularity in other countries, apart from Israel, as the one on Afghanistan had.

Sergei Khrushchev headlined his article in the current November/ December issue of American Heritage with "Finding the Killers Is the Easy Part." He stated that the fight against extremism needs to be pursued on three levels:



The simplest is the police level: finding the terrorists specifically responsible for the events of September 11. The second level is the police-plus-intelligence one: cracking the whole terrorist network. But all that will be useless if we don't reach the third level: fighting to eliminate the extreme dissatisfaction within the [Muslim] society. Without that, the Arab world will see our actions as an attack against all of them and their religion, and if we catch Osama bin Laden, he will be replaced by someone else. What is essential is strong pressure on both sides, on Israelis as well as on Arabs, much like the pressure we exerted in the former Yugoslavia. Without that, all thoughts of stopping terrorism will be useless.



Mr. Khrushchev is a senior fellow at the Thomas J. Watson Institute of International Studies, at Brown University and that his views coincide with those I have expressed previously in these pages was gratifying. The gangrenous sore of Palestinian-Israeli relationships must be addressed if we want to achieve a modicum of peace in that part of the world and thereby reduce the threat of terrorism. Let us not forget that modern terrorism started with Palestinians hijacking planes and the massacre of Jewish athletes at the Munich Olympic Games, in 1972. Thirty years later the creation of a viable internationally recognized Palestinian state will not necessarily stop all terrorist acts in the world but, as mentioned previously on these pages, would remove at least one point of friction.

The American people, at large, are remarkably poorly informed about the Middle East. On the Opinion page of a recent Sunday edition of the Salt Lake Tribune there was an extensive article, which covered nearly half the page, entitled: U.S. Guards Its Interests When It Takes Israel's Side." In the article the lady chided one of those "peaceniks" and wrote "Permit me to give you and the nation a lesson in history and the future." In so doing she informed us that Israel protects the Suez Canal and sees to it that it does not fall into the hands of the enemies of freedom. Since we have given control over the Panama Canal to the Chinese we should follow the example of the British who sent their fleet half way around the world to retain the Falkland Islands and thereby guard the route around Cape Horn.

Since this history lesson conflicted profoundly with my information I sent immediately a letter to the Public Forum page of the Tribune in which I explained tat the Suez canal has been in Egyptian hands since the spring of 1956 and that the British - French -Israeli war against Egypt in November of that year, with the goal to retake possession of the canal, had to be abandoned as a result of severe pressure by the United States and the Soviet Union. This was the final end of British-French colonial ambitions. The IDF (Israeli Defense Forces), which had performed brilliantly in regard to territorial gains (all of the Gaza strip and the entire Sinai Peninsula), also were forced to withdraw as a result of a 65 to 1 vote in the UN. The lone dissenter was Israel; England and France abstained from the vote. Ben-Gurion was furious. He knew now that he could not rely on America under all circumstances and embarked full steam, with the help of France, on arming Israel with nuclear weapons. This was the outcome of the Suez war and what we are now confronted with. I also informed the readership of the Tribune that the documentation for these statements can be found in Righteous Victims. A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict. 1881 - 1999 by Benny Morris and The Samson Option. Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy by Seymour Hersh.

This correct version of history was not palatable to the editors of the Tribune and the article was never published. Nevertheless it was helpful for me to refresh my memory and re-read aspects of the two mentioned books. In the November installment of Hot Issues I hedged my bets in regard to Israel's possession of neutron weapons but this is no longer necessary. Seymour Hersh states unequivocally in the Epilogue of The Samson Option: "By the mid-1980's, the technicians at Dimona [Israel's nuclear facility] had manufactured hundreds of low-yield neutron warheads capable of destroying large numbers of enemy troops with minimal property damage. The size and sophistication of Israel's arsenal allows men such as Ariel Sharon [who was out of power at that time] to dream of redrawing the map of the Middle East aided by the implicit threat of nuclear force. Israel has also been an exporter of nuclear technology and has collaborated on nuclear weapons research with other nations, including South Africa." Hersh is not some fly by night journalist but he knows his facts and has won more than a dozen major journalism prizes. The book was published ten years ago and there is hardly any doubt that Israel has in the meantime continued to improve on its nuclear capability. Granted that Israel's nuclear arsenal is for defensive purposes, but why should Arabs, for whom the existence of Israel's capability is no secret, not be concerned and develop their own counterweight? Why do we read about the threat of WMD (weapons of mass destruction) only in relation to "rogue regimes" like Saddam Hussein and there is not a single word either printed in the papers or mentioned on TV?

Whom does Saddam really threaten? Is he going to ship to us numerous batches of Anthrax or other disease germs? Is he going to send us nuclear bombs? What would be the purpose? His regime would vanish over night and he knows it. His first goal is to hang on to his power and this cannot be accomplished by needlessly provoking the U.S. His second goal is to guard himself against Israel. Does he want to attack Israel first? This does not seem particularly likely because he knows full well that American retribution would be swift and devastating. Whatever else he is, he is not particularly suicidal. Thus, if we start a major war against Iraq we are not serving primarily America's interests but those of Israel.



While checking my facts in Benny Morris' book (he is Professor of History at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba) about the British and French Suez canal debacle, which by the way coincided with the Hungarian uprising against the Soviets, I came upon a passage which is also highly á propos. At a funeral service on April 29, 1956 for the assassinated security officer Ro'i Rothenberg of Kibbutz Nahal-'Oz on the edge of the Gaza strip, Moshe Dayan delivered a eulogy which goes to the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian problem:

Yesterday at dawn Ro'i was murdered. The quiet of the spring morning blinded him, and he did not see those who sought his life hiding behind the furrow. Let us not today cast blame on the murderers. What can we say against their terrible hatred of us? For eight years now, they have sat in the refugee camps of Gaza, and have watched how, before their very eyes we have turned their land and villages, where they and their forefathers previously dwelled, into our home. It is not among the Arabs of Gaza, but in our own midst that we must seek Ro'i's blood. How did we shut our eyes and refuse to look squarely at our fate and see, in all its brutality, the fate of our generation? Can we forget that this group of youngsters sitting in Nahal-'Oz, carries the heavy gates of Gaza on their shoulders?

Dayan continued with an admonition for Israelis to be forever vigilant: "We are a generation of settlement, and without the steel helmet and the gun's muzzle we will not be able to plant a tree or build a house." He concluded with "This is the fate of our generation. This is our choice - to be ready and armed, tough and harsh - or to let the sword fall from our hands and our lives be cut short."

Forty six years later and in another generation Americans are now supposed to "shut our eyes and refuse to look squarely at the fate of Israelis "in all its brutality." Since 1956 Israel has enlarged its territory and thereby harvested more hatred, which has now spilled over onto our shores. The refusal by our media to accept a connection between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and our current terrorist problem is indeed self-inflicted blindness. At the time of this writing two American mediators are in the Middle East. Their mission seems to be doomed because Israeli newspapers and Television stations have already complained that the person in charge, retired Marine General Zinni, is not Jewish, had close ties with the Saudis and is, therefore, biased in favor of the Palestinians. In addition Pat Buchanan's column of November 20 on WorldNet Daily stated that 89 senators had sent a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell with the request not to pressure Israeli towards a peace settlement.

This development was utterly predictable and this why I had suggested in Whither Zionism? that the only possible hope for a diminution, if not resolution, of this conflict could come from the United Nations Commission and the Security Council. If we veto the resultant implementation of their recommendations we have doomed our children and grandchildren to an endless "War on Terrorism." The Israelis, in the words of Dayan, have made a choice to live by the sword. If our government forces us to follow their example we can also expect to die by the sword. Advocates of peace are currently not only derided as "peaceniks" but also by Michael Kelly in his most recent editorial as "peacemongers!" I gladly accept this title and intend to introduce myself to the Lord in this fashion when I meet him in the not too distant future. Unless He is still a "jealous God (Ex. 20:5)" who "will make Mine arrows drunk with blood, And My sword shall devour flesh (Dt.32:42)" I don't expect any problem on that account.
 
 
 
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