Questioning Israel's endgame
4 top Israeli
intelligence chiefs and military officers have flip-flopped on how to
achieve peace
Georgie Anne Geyer, Universal
Press Syndicate. November 21, 2003
WASHINGTON -- Imagine that four of the most respected men in America--say, Alan Greenspan, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Colin Powell and George Tenet--gave an interview together to The New York Times and called the war in Iraq "disgraceful" and "immoral"--a war that could, if continued as is, destroy the United States.
Then suppose that many of our top generals one by one backed up such doomsday analyses with their own words; and then that front-page stories, such as "American Army engaged in fight over its soul," appeared in The Washington Post. Might you think something was wrong?
As a matter of fact, this is happening in Israel, as the war in Iraq that was to save the country becomes more problematic and the situation with the Palestinians grows more unsolvable by the day.
In Israeli history, there are many noble stands, but none more noble than the acts of four former heads of the Shin Bet security service. In an interview with the prominent Israeli Hebrew-language newspaper Yediot Ahronot, the men essentially warned that Israel is in "grave danger" because of the actions of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in brutally putting down the Palestinians.
"We must once and for all admit that there is another side, that it has feelings and that it is suffering and that we are behaving disgracefully," said Avraham Shalom, head of the world-famous security service from 1980 until 1986. "Yes, there is no other word for it: disgracefully ... We have turned into a people of petty fighters using the wrong tools."
The four legendary spooks--the others are Yaakov Perry, Ami Ayalon and Carmi Gilon--warned that piecemeal steps toward peace are likely to fail, because neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis are prepared to take a major risk to break the current stalemate unless they can expect a major reward; that Israel needs to uproot most of the settlements in the occupied territories; and that the 400-mile fence Israel is erecting against the Palestinians is counterproductive.
"The problem, as of today, is that the political agenda has become solely a security agenda," added Carmi Gilon. "It only deals with the question of how to prevent the next terror attack, not the question of how it is at all possible to pull ourselves out of the mess that we are in today."
In a slightly earlier demarche in several Israeli newspapers, the man considered Israel's top general--and a hawkish one, at that--gave even more sobering assessments until he was identified by an infuriated Sharon as Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, the army chief of staff. He said the network of restrictions placed on the Palestinian population was only breeding greater militancy, with road closures, curfews and roadblocks creating explosive levels of "hatred and terrorism" among the populace.
Meanwhile, more soldiers refuse to serve on the West Bank and Gaza because of the brutal--and ineffective--tactics they are forced to use. That is where The Washington Post article on Nov. 18 comes in, the one titled "Israeli army engaged in fight over its soul: Doubts, criticism of tactics increasingly coming from within."
Why should intelligence chiefs and military men sound this alarm?
"Because we have been there," one of the four said.
This is true: It is the real fighters, not the ideologues and fanatics who "fight" from their offices, who not only know the situation but who are, ironically, likely to see the enemy as human. These men, forced by history to be realists, see that, with the Palestinian population explosion, they are catapulting toward a period where, in Israeli ambassador Daniel Ayalon's words, "the state of Israel will no longer be a democracy and a home for the Jewish people."
Many analysts have noted the similarities of the Americans' tactics in Iraq to those of the Israelis--breaking down doors of private homes, bulldozing ancient fields of date palms while jazz blares from loudspeakers, killing men indiscriminately, taking old Arab ladies from their homes. In fact, the American command in Baghdad this week felt compelled to issue a statement that, no, these were not Israeli tactics because we only destroy the houses of the guilty. Hello?
The big difference now, and a sad one, is that no American generals, or any officials at high levels, are speaking out against such unacceptable American behavior, just as the American Jewish community organizationally almost never speaks out against Sharon and his tactics.
Meanwhile, the four Israeli intelligence chiefs and military officers have reminded us of that "other" Israel, the liberal, open Israel that everyone in the world admired, emulated and applauded. They have presented a program: Start negotiating, accept Yasser Arafat because you have to, give up the brutality, take down the wall, and get back to the business of what can be before it's too late.
It will be a fight to the death with Ariel Sharon, who sees a world of endless war and endless expansion, all at the expense of a viable Israel; but how wonderful that these men have reminded us of what once was--and, if the world acts quickly, what still could be.
Georgie Anne Geyer is a syndicated columnist based in Washington
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