David Kimche must have undergone something of a conversion during the 1990s after he left the Israeli foreign ministry as its director general. His involvement with the Iran-Contra scandal cost him his most coveted wish–to become Mosad chief. After leaving government service, he’s become something of a dove, which is rather remarkable considering his earlier championing of the first Lebanon War and his reputation as one of Israel’s pre-eminent spooks.
In the Jerusalem Post (yes, I guess they do have to fill a quota of dovish op-ed pieces and do let some slip by their neocon political filter), Kimche provides his recipe for ending Palestinian civil strife and engaging Hamas in the peace process:
Just think of it. Mighty Israel is helpless in the face of a bunch of terrorist thugs spewing out deadly homemade, primitive rockets onto our citizens. If ever there was proof that we cannot solve our problems by the use of force alone, this is the ultimate witness to that fact.
We do, of course, have the capability to launch a massive incursion into Gaza, as our bellicose commander of the Southern front, Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant, has been urging us to do. We may well, eventually, do his bidding.
Yet we have been down that road before, and each time we swore that this time we would smash the Kassam manufacturers and the gangs that fire them into Israel. Yet after each such attack, after the thousands of shells fired, and the hundreds of terrorists – and civilians – killed, after the death and the destruction, the Kassam workshops would spring up again, like poisonous plants after a spring rain, and our citizens in Sderot and in the Negev kibbutzim would yet once more be forced to suffer.
For seven long years we have endured the Kassam scourge. It began long before then-prime minister Ariel Sharon decided to evacuate our settlements in Gaza and to disengage. In those seven years our military has been repeatedly in action in Gaza, all to no avail. The daily barrage of Kassams on Sderot is ample evidence of that.
…The killing of a few Hamas operatives will not deter the Hamas leadership, and even the resumption of targeted killings will not do that. Remember Sheikh Ahmad Yassin and all the other Hamas big shots we sent into the next world?
History has shown us that military might is not, on its own, an answer to the sort of situation that exists in Gaza. The French sent their mighty army into Algeria to quell the insurrection there, and were thrown out. The Americans sent their mighty army into Vietnam, and were thrown out. And even here, in what was then Palestine, the British heaved a great sigh of relief with their targeted killing of Avraham Stern after capturing him, only to be confronted by Yitzhak Shamir, who led Lehi, the so-called Stern Gang, into even more audacious attacks on them. Faced with the determination of the Jewish community, the mighty British army, like the French and the Americans in later years, was forced to leave.
If military might won’t solve the problem, what will? Quoting William Morris, the director of the British Next Century Foundation, he writes:
…There are some interesting ideas floating in Gaza that could bring change. Sami Abd e-Shafi, the nephew of the venerable Haidar Abd e-Shafi, one of the scions of the Gazan Palestinians, is pressing for a referendum on the recognition of Israel. Hamas stalwarts lean toward the idea of a two-state solution, which would implicitly entail recognition of Israel. The need for a return to the hudna (truce) with Israel, provided it includes the West Bank, is a widespread belief.
“These beliefs could be the basis for private discussions by intermediaries of the sort we had with the IRA,” Morris suggested. “The last thing you want is for Gaza to deteriorate into a second Somalia, which would happen if you take out their infrastructure – water and electricity – which is what some of you have been advocating, or if you target political leaders. Somalia on your doorstep, a mere hour’s drive from Tel Aviv, would be disastrous for Israel.”
A long-term strategy must include a policy to improve the economy of Gaza, by setting up industry to create new jobs. It must entail an initiative to kick-start the moribund peace process, with the Palestinians, with the Syrians or with the Arab League, and it should include contacts with the Hamas, even if only by intermediaries.
“These are the carrots that you should dangle before their eyes,” Morris declared. “And at the same time, by all means use your stick, and hit them with your military if they continue to fire Kassams.”
Best of all, he concluded, ask NATO to send troops to Gaza. “That should do the trick to bring quiet to your citizens of Sderot.”
Who knows, maybe we should have someone with that sort of thinking in our prime minister’s shoes.
Tzipi Livni and even Avigdor Lieberman (believe it or not) have advocated a similar international force to police Gaza. This indicates something of Israel’s level of desperation about the situation since it historically detests the idea of international forces on its doorstep. But since Ehud Olmert didn’t think of it first and Livni is his political rival, you’ll never hear him acknowledge the idea as worthy. Meanwhile Gaza, like Rome before it, burns. And a second Israeli was killed by Qassam fire on Sderot. “When will they ever learn?”
First, the Jerusalem Post as a neocon paper? In the past, it was true. After the last purchase??? They let Glick hang around as their token conservative, perhaps you haven’t been reading their other material.
Next, all the nice examples that Kimche provide are nice remote wars. Algeria, Vietnam, etc. Wars that, when they aren’t going well are just…annoying, not threatening to local national security. (Horrible, resource draining, etc, all true, but not a local threat.) Having missiles destroy the livability of your southern towns and border is another world and another situation. Better examples would be the British and Northern Ireland, the French and the FLNC (Corsican Liberation Front), Spain and Eta (Basque Homeland and Freedom), and Russia and Chechnia.
Finally, the problem with sending international forces is they’re only good at maintaining a basically predefined peace situation which both sides are striving to, and therefore both sides tolerate the neutral application of force to hold the objective situation stable. With the PA, no common position has ever been accepted, no previous ‘agreement’ or compromise ever, ever, kept, and they have yet to back down from a “slaughter and destroy the enemy to the last man, woman, and child” position. Further, as we see through their childhood education programs, school textbooks, TV shows, etc, they continue to indoctrinate their population, especially the children, in the most radical position possible.
I don’t read the Post as frequently as I do Haaretz or the NY Times, but I read it often enough to recognize a decided Likud-oriented ideological slant that continues even now. The Canadian family (the Aspers I believe) that now owns the Post has politics regarding Israel that are little diff. from Conrad Black’s.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at but…if you think Algeria and Vietnam weren’t “threatening local national security” then you’re mistaken. Millions were killed in Vietnam and huge numbers in Algeria as well. If what you mean is that there’s an inter-ethnic, cross-border element to the fighting, then I suppose you have a point. But in ea. of those conflict that you & Kimche mentioned military means alone did not resolve the conflict. That would be Kimche’s & my pt.
That is certainly the optimal situation for the most effective use of such a force. But in Lebanon there is no understanding whatsoever bet. Hezbollah & Israel, yet so far the force has worked fairly well after a few initial cockups.
This is certainly unfair. I could easily argue that the PA has broken, ignored or refused to honor as many agreements as the Israeli government has done. Honoring agreements is a mutual phenomenon. If you do it you should expect your opponent to as well. If you don’t you can’t expect yr opponent to either.
You’ll have to explain to me how Israeli children are brought up to hate Palestinians by spitting at them (in Hebron) or growing up to become their murderers as in a number of recent spectacular settler terror attacks against Palestinians (& let’s not forget Yigal Amir as well). You don’t think these individuals are being taught to hate by their Israeli Jewish peers and society? I’m opposed to hate wherever I find it on either side. Why is it that you get on yr high horse about hate coming fr. one side but conveniently forget or ignore hate coming fr. yr own side?
As far as the heinous speeches are concerned in media or in education, one must not stop campaigning for a constitutional upgrading of international institutions. There have been condemnations from the International tribunal on the use of Radio Mille-Collines in the genocide in Rwanda and it has also been seen in ex-Yougoslavia break away provinces that the international forces were obgliged to close tv stations because of heinous talk endangering the work of that force whose goal is to keep belligerents at bay. These are precedents that are self-commanding internationally.