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Habash, who died in January, founded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a small terrorist group that grabbed world attention in the 1960s and 1970s with high-profile airline hijackings and bombings. Other Palestinian groups soon followed suit.
Given the outrage and horror that greeted these attacks, people without Habash’s sophisticated understanding of how the world works might have thought them counterproductive. But Habash knew better. As he explained to the German magazine Der Stern in 1970: “For decades, world public opinion has been neither for nor against the Palestinians. It simply ignored us. At least the world is talking about us now.”
Habash understood two things: First, people generally prefer to ignore problems, so only by making it impossible for them to do so comfortably could he force them to take action. And second, once forced to respond, people generally prefer appeasement to fighting, since that is less costly in the short term.
And indeed, once the world could no longer comfortably ignore the Palestinians, appeasement swiftly followed. In 1975, for instance, the UN created the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. No other group seeking self-determination ever merited its own UN committee.
By the late 1980s, the PLO (a Palestinian umbrella organization to which Habash’s PFLP belonged) had embassies worldwide, including UN observer status. Again, that is unique: Neither Tibetans, Kurds, Basques nor any other stateless groups have embassies or UN status.
In 1993, Israel recognized the PLO and began giving it land – something else groups such as Tibetans, Kurds and Basques never achieved.
AND SINCE then, despite continuing Palestinian terror, support for the Palestinian cause has only grown. Massive pro-Palestinian demonstrations take place worldwide. International aid pours into Palestinian coffers. World leaders raise the Palestinian issue at every opportunity and organize international conferences on it. Palestinian leaders are feted in world capitals.
These, too, are achievements unparalleled by other groups: World leaders almost never talk about Kurds, Tibetans or Basques, much less give them financial aid; nor are there international demonstrations on their behalf.
Tibetans, however, are unique, because they alone tried a different tactic for gaining world attention. Kurds and Basques, for instance, also used terrorism; their mistake was confining their attacks to Turkey and Spain, respectively, thereby enabling the rest of the world to comfortably ignore them – whereas Habash, who targeted airlines worldwide, left nobody free to comfortably ignore him. To the Dalai Lama, however, nonviolence is a cardinal principle: When Tibetan demonstrators turned violent earlier this month, he threatened to resign as head of Tibet’s government in exile unless the violence stopped.
And Tibet has several advantages that make it a strong test case for nonviolence. First, the Dalai Lama is internationally revered; no other stateless group has a leader of comparable stature. Second, Tibet seeks only autonomy, which is less provocative than full independence. Third, an independent Tibet actually existed before China overran it in 1951, making Tibet’s right to self-determination indisputable under international law; Palestinians, Kurds and Basques, in contrast, all seek to create new states that never before existed, making their cases less legally clear-cut. International law is fuzzy on when a particular ethnic group has the right to create a state, which is why so many people can simultaneously support statehood for Palestinians and Kosovars, who are ethnically, culturally and linguistically indistinguishable from neighboring Jordan and Albania, respectively, while opposing it for Kurds and Basques, who are ethnically, culturally and linguistically unique.
YET AFTER 57 years of occupation, Tibetan self-determination remains a distant dream. The recent Tibetan protests sparked no worldwide demonstrations against the Chinese occupation. Tibet has no international embassies or UN status. It receives no international aid. And for all the reverence accorded its leader, even he is unwelcome in most world capitals: Angela Merkel’s meeting with him last fall made headlines precisely because it was an exception to the rule.
The Palestinian cause, in contrast, is of far more recent vintage. When Israel captured the territories in 1967, world opinion merely wanted them returned to Jordan and Egypt (which had seized them in 1948); UN Security Council Resolution 242 does not even mention Palestinian statehood. Yet today, a Palestinian state tops the international agenda. Indeed, one would already exist had Yasser Arafat not refused a 2001 offer and launched a terrorist war against Israel instead.
Admittedly, pressuring Israel is much easier than pressuring a powerhouse like China. Yet that alone can explain neither the international apathy toward Tibetan self-determination nor the overwhelming support for its Palestinian equivalent. After all, world opinion has challenged superpowers before: See the massive worldwide demonstrations against America’s invasion of Iraq, or the international Soviet Jewry campaign. And it has ignored self-determination claims against countries no stronger than Israel, like Tamil demands for independence from tiny Sri Lanka.
The only explanation for the gulf between the world’s treatment of Tibetans, or numerous other national groups, and Palestinians is what Habash understood so long ago: By choosing the path of nonviolence, Tibetans enabled the world to ignore them comfortably. By limiting their terrorist campaigns to a single country, Basques, Kurds, Tamils and others similarly enabled the world to ignore them comfortably. But Palestinians, by launching a campaign of truly international terror, made it impossible for the world to ignore them comfortably. And, as Habash predicted, the world responded by trying to appease them.
BUT IN an increasingly interconnected world, other groups will not remain blind to the lessons of Palestinian success forever. By appeasing Palestinian terror while ignoring the claims of other national groups, the world has provided a powerful incentive for Kurds, Basques, Tibetans and others to launch international terror campaigns of their own, as the best way of gaining international support. Thus if it wishes to avert this outcome, the international community must reverse course – by rewarding Tibetan nonviolence, and by punishing rather than appeasing Palestinian terror.
Addressing the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Dakar last Thursday, the Palestinian Authority chairman declared: “Our people in the city [of Jerusalem] are facing an ethnic cleansing campaign through a set of Israeli decisions such as imposing heavy taxes, banning construction and closing Palestinian institutions, in addition to separating the city from the West Bank by the racist separation wall.”
If Jerusalem’s Arabs are facing ethnic cleansing, then Israelis are surely the most incompetent ethnic cleansers in human history. After all, ethnic cleansing usually aims at removing an unwanted population and substituting your own nationals.
But according to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics and the Jerusalem Institute of Israel Studies, Jerusalem’s Arab population skyrocketed 266 percent between 1967, when Israel annexed east Jerusalem, and 2006 (the last year for which figures are available). That is almost double the Jewish population’s growth during those years (143 percent); consequently, the city’s ratio of Jews to Arabs shrank from 74:26 in 1967 to 66:34 in 2006.
Even during the intifada, which prompted the fence and the closed institutions that Abbas decries, the Arab population continued ballooning: It rose from 208,700 at the end of 2000 to 252,400 at the end of 2006, an increase of 21 percent in six years, or 3.5 percent a year. Jerusalem’s Jewish population grew by only 4.7 percent during those years, or less than 1 percent a year. In absolute terms, the Arab increase (43,700 people) was double the Jewish increase (21,100).
Nor was the Arab growth solely due to natural increase: Ziad al-Hamouri, who heads the Jerusalem Center for Economic Rights, estimates that some 30,000 Arabs have moved to Jerusalem since construction of the fence began; others put the figure even higher.
IF ABBAS is truly unaware of these very well-publicized facts, this casts doubt on his viability as a negotiating partner. Since any deal must be rooted in reality, it is hard to negotiate with someone who remains determinedly ignorant even about “core issues” such as Jerusalem. But more importantly, how can you trust the good faith of someone who has no qualms about accusing you of one of the most heinous crimes in the modern lexicon without even bothering to check his facts? Almost certainly, however, Abbas does know the facts. After all, both Palestinians and Israelis frequently cite east Jerusalem’s Arab majority to support Palestinian claims to part of the city.
But in that case, the question becomes even more troubling – because how can you trust the moderation, good faith and peaceful intentions of someone who has no qualms about publicly accusing you of such a heinous crime even knowing that it is false? Bluntly, this was nothing less than deliberate incitement against Israel, in a forum guaranteed to receive maximum coverage in the Arab world.
Nor was this a one-time aberration. Just last month, for instance, Abbas told the Jordanian daily Al Dustour: “At this time, I object to the armed struggle, since we are unable to conduct it; however, in future stages things may change.” Yet if his only reason for opposing armed struggle is that he currently believes he cannot wage it successfully, that is hardly reassuring, as this reason would disappear following a peace agreement: With the IDF gone from the West Bank and Jordan border, Palestinians could easily import quantities of sophisticated arms and plan attacks unhindered.
THEN THERE was the PA’s rejection in December of a French proposal, backed by senior UN officials, for a UN resolution mandating educational activities to support the peace process. The proposal would have amended an existing resolution that requires teaching about alleged Israeli crimes against the Palestinians, thereby fostering hatred rather than reconciliation. Yet Abbas evidently prefers fostering hatred.
It is hard to imagine anything more innocuous, or more vital to the success of the process, than peace education. If Abbas cannot even agree to that, one has to wonder about his commitment to peace.
There are numerous similar examples, such as his June 2006 charge that Israel was seeking to “eliminate the Palestinian people.” Never mind that, by the PA’s own figures, the Palestinian population of the territories has quadrupled under Israeli rule – including a 34 percent increase in the past decade alone.
But perhaps even more worrying than Abbas’s statements is the world’s response. Not a single international leader bothered to condemn last week’s ethnic cleansing accusation. Nor did anyone condemn his Al-Dustour remarks, his rejection of the peace education resolution, or any of his other less-than-moderate statements and actions.
Given the world’s fixation with resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, its reluctance to acknowledge that Abbas may be miscast as a peacemaker is understandable. Yet by tolerating such blatant incitement, the international community further undermines the prospects for peace.
First, such remarks scarcely encourage Israelis to believe that Abbas is acting in good faith, which is an obvious prerequisite for Israeli consent to any agreement. For that reason alone, the world should be interested in condemning such remarks.
Far more important, however, is the message this sends to Palestinians. If Abbas can hurl such vicious and patently false accusations at Israel without even a pro forma protest from world leaders, that tells Palestinians that willingness to live in peace with Israel is not necessary to retain international support. If the world has no objection to even the most vicious Palestinian incitement – despite knowing that such incitement routinely leads to actual violence – then it clearly cares nothing about peace; what it cares about is satisfying Palestinian demands.
That, in turn, encourages Palestinians to believe that eventually, the world will force Israel to accede to these demands even without peace – thereby obviating any need to stop the violence or make the kind of concessions negotiated agreements always entail. And as long as they believe this, peace will remain a distant dream.
Two weeks ago, The New York Times reported that European countries, with US consent, are drafting yet another incentive package to woo Iran from uranium enrichment. While the package is not yet finalized, diplomats told the Times that it could include “joint ventures between European and Iranian oil companies” and “talks with Iran on regional security issues.”
Nor is this the first time Iranian intransigence has paid off. Two years ago, after Iran not only rejected the initial offer, but also restricted international monitoring of its nuclear program and resumed enrichment (which it had earlier suspended), the European Union, backed by America, again responded with an improved benefits package. That package included direct talks with Washington, state-of-the-art nuclear technology and even acquiescence in Iran’s uranium enrichment – something previously deemed unacceptable due to Teheran’s history of nuclear deception.
Thus by holding out, Ahmadinejad has already ensured a better deal than he could have gotten earlier. The problem is that this process is endless: If he rejects this package, the EU will almost certainly propose an even better one. Hence there is no incentive to accept this one, either – or the next one, or the next. As long as saying “no” is likely to produce a better offer, it never pays to says “yes.”
Clearly, this calculus would be different if Iran were suffering painful sanctions; in that case, the cost of awaiting the next offer might exceed the benefits. But since concessions are piling up far more rapidly than sanctions, Iran loses nothing by waiting.
A WEEK after the Times reported the proposed new benefits, the Security Council passed its third sanctions resolution against Iran. It subjected another 13 Iranian individuals and companies to travel bans and asset freezes (Ahmadinejad was doubtless terrified).
It also banned trade in specified dual-use items, but the list is riddled with exceptions. For instance, Russia can still supply parts for Iran’s reactor in Bushehr; Teheran can also purchase anything needed for joint projects with the International Atomic Energy Agency (sanctions notwithstanding, dozens of such projects remain active).
Finally, it urged states to “exercise vigilance in entering into new commitments for public provided financial support for trade with Iran… to avoid such financial support contributing” to its nuclear program, and “to exercise vigilance” over transactions between local banks and Iranian banks, “to avoid such activities contributing” to this program.
In other words, states need neither stop existing support for trade with Iran (export credits, trade insurance, etc.) nor refrain from expanding such support, as long as this trade is not directly connected with Iran’s nuclear program; nor need they halt dealings with Iranian banks, other than transactions directly tied to the nuclear program. All states are free to keep Iran financially afloat – and thereby, since money is fungible, to provide the needed cash for its nuclear program.
Thus after three rounds of sanctions, not only is Iran’s economy not threatened; even its nuclear program faces no significant impediment. And that, too, will be true for the foreseeable future, since Russia and China adamantly oppose any sanctions that might actually hurt, while the EU – which, as Iran’s largest trading partner, could easily impose painful sanctions on its own – objects to sanctions without Security Council approval.
So why should Iran not hold out for the inevitable new and improved offer? This self-defeating tactic is not unique to Iran: It is also applied, with equal lack of success, to numerous other international problems.
TAKE THE divided island of Cyprus, where in 2004, both halves voted on a UN-sponsored unification plan. But Greek Cyprus was promised EU membership regardless of how either side voted, whereas for Turkish Cyprus, membership depended on both sides approving the plan. Thus Greek Cyprus had nothing to lose by holding out for a better deal – as then president Tassos Papadopoulos repeatedly pointed out in urging his countrymen to vote “no.”
The result was predictable: Turkish Cypriots, who had something to lose, accepted the deal, but 75 percent of Greek Cypriots rejected it. Nevertheless, Greek Cyprus received immediate EU membership, while Turkish Cyprus, thanks to the Greek side’s EU veto, remains under an almost total EU embargo. And this year, negotiations are expected to reopen – with the old deal as the starting point to which sweeteners will be added to woo the Greeks.
The same pattern surfaces in Israeli-Palestinian talks. In July 2000, Israel offered the Palestinians all of Gaza plus 88 percent of the West Bank, including parts of east Jerusalem. The Palestinians not only refused, they also launched a shooting war. But the world responded by condemning Israel (for shooting back) and demanding that it offer additional concessions.
In December 2000-January 2001, Israel did so, offering 97 percent of the West Bank, including the Temple Mount. The Palestinians again refused, while ratcheting up anti-Israel terrorism. But again, the world responded by condemning Israel’s counterterrorism efforts, demanding that it offer additional concessions and increasing financial support for the Palestinian Authority.
And now, new talks have begun, with the 2000-2001 offer as the baseline on which Israel is once again expected to improve.
But under such circumstances, the Palestinians have no incentive to say yes. If each refusal results in a better offer next time, while entailing no compensatory penalties such as, say, an aid cutoff, they have every reason to continue holding out for more.
Carrots, like sticks, are essential tools of international relations. But they only work if the recipient has something to lose by saying “no.” If rejection entails no appreciable penalties and a guaranteed better offer later, holding out for more will always pay. And that, unfortunately, is precisely the situation today – with Iran, and in far too many other places.
Take, for example, an Israeli air strike that killed two Palestinian teenagers last Wednesday. According to The New York Times, “witnesses in Gaza told the Palestinian news media that the civilians were hit while standing at a launching site watching Hamas militants firing rockets.”
There can be no more justified military activity than targeting terrorists in the very act of firing rockets at civilians. If that is “disproportionate,” all military activity is. Moreover, since Hamas eschews uniforms, the IDF has no way to distinguish rocket crews from civilians who are cheering them on. Thus any civilian who rubbernecks at a rocket launch is clearly and deliberately putting himself in danger – which in itself should absolve Israel of responsibility.
BUT MORE importantly, for that very reason, most armed forces do not allow civilians in firing zones. The IDF, for instance, generally declares active combat areas “closed military zones” from which Israeli civilians are legally barred, and it enforces such orders. Other Western armies do the same.
But Hamas needs civilian casualties to fuel Palestinian and international anger at Israel. So rather than barring civilians from its launch zones, it welcomes them. And if they do not volunteer for the victim’s role, it co-opts them – as happened last weekend: “Palestinian gunmen took up positions in homes while the civilians were still inside,” Haaretz reported.
Firing back at people who are shooting at you is also clearly legitimate military activity; no law of war obligates soldiers to let themselves be mown down without a fight just because there are civilians nearby. Moreover, soldiers have no way of knowing whether the civilians have fled or are still inside a house; all they can be certain of is the presence of gunmen.
Under such circumstances, civilian casualties are inevitable. But those casualties are not caused by “disproportionate force” or insufficient “caution”; they are the direct result of Hamas’s decision to use civilian homes, with the people still inside, as bases for targeting Israeli soldiers.
Moreover, civilians are not always innocent. Those whose homes were invaded by Hamas were presumably unwilling hostages. But some Palestinians voluntarily serve as “human shields” for terrorists – and by actively aiding and abetting terror, they turn themselves into combatants.
In one widely publicized case in November 2006, for instance, the IDF, seeking to avoid civilian casualties, announced two planned air strikes 30 minutes in advance to enable civilians to leave. Instead, Hamas used the loudspeakers of local mosques to urge civilians to flood the area and serve as human shields. Hundreds did so, and the IDF – precisely because Israel tries to avoid civilian casualties – consequently aborted the strikes. Yet these civilians were hardly “innocent”: They deliberately intervened in an armed conflict on the terrorists’ behalf.
What is most noteworthy about such incidents, however, is what they say about the Palestinian claim – mindlessly parroted by the international community – that the IDF fires indiscriminately, without regard for civilians. In fact, Hamas summoned civilian reinforcements precisely because it knew a civilian presence would prevent the air strikes. And the civilians came for the same reason – not because they sought death, but because they knew the IDF would not shoot them.
IN ANOTHER incident that same month, hundreds of Palestinian women purposely entered a combat zone to shield gunmen besieged by IDF soldiers. Again, they were deliberately abetting combatants. And again, they knew they could do so safely, because the IDF would not shoot them. And indeed, the soldiers held their fire as the wanted men escaped by mingling with the crowd.
In July 2006, The New York Times described another Gaza battle as follows: “[Israeli] soldiers fired at groups of armed Palestinians who fought in the streets, sometimes surrounded by curious and excited children.” Why any parent would let his children outside during a gunfight is a mystery. But unless these parents were deliberately sacrificing their children for propaganda purposes, such behavior demonstrates a truly extraordinary faith in the IDF’s efforts to avoid harming civilians.
Contrast this with Palestinians’ behavior when the combatants are not Israelis. During last May’s Hamas-Fatah infighting, for instance, the Times reported: “The streets of Gaza City were empty except for the gunmen, with shops shuttered and residents remaining indoors, usually in interior rooms farthest from the windows.” No “curious and excited” children surrounding the gunmen in these battles: Gazan parents who trusted the IDF with their children’s lives evidently placed no similar reliance on Palestinian forces.
THE MEDIA reports above, and numerous others like them, make three things clear: (1) Palestinians know full well that Israel strives to avoid civilian casualties; indeed, as their behavior demonstrates, they count on this. (2) Palestinian civilians frequently deliberately put themselves in the line of fire – either to help the combatants, or, like those “excited children,” merely to cheer them on. (3) Palestinian terror groups deliberately foster casualties among their own civilians: Not only do they not discourage civilians from entering combat zones; they force them to do so – for instance, by invading civilian homes – when there are no volunteers.
In short, Palestinian civilian casualties usually result not from “disproportionate force” or “insufficient caution” by the IDF, but from Palestinian behavior, on the part of both civilians and terrorists.
But of course, realizing this would require actually reading reports of the fighting. It is much easier just to skim the headlines and issue stock condemnations of Israel.
But, again like many of its predecessors, it stopped short of the obvious conclusion: that suicide bombings are, overwhelmingly, a product of the surrounding culture.
The study, which focused on Palestinian bombers, concluded that their primary motivation was a desire for personal vengeance against Israel. Yet that begs an obvious question: If so, why do many violent conflicts not produce suicide bombers? The desire for revenge, after all, is a universal emotion, found in every conflict throughout the ages. Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, for instance, were no less eager to avenge the deaths of loved ones than Palestinians are, yet their conflict produced no suicide bombers. The African National Congress produced no suicide bombers in its battle against apartheid, despite a plethora of victims. Wars have killed millions in other non-Islamic African countries without producing a single suicide bombing. Argentina’s “dirty war” produced no suicide bombers despite thousands of governmental murders and kidnappings, nor has any other South American conflict. Nor have there been any Jewish suicide bombers, despite thousands of Israeli victims of Arab terror.
The same question applies to those who persist – despite all the studies showing that suicide bombers are typically relatively prosperous and well-educated – in deeming poverty the main motivator. Poverty in much of Africa, for instance, is far worse than in the Palestinian Authority; yet suicide bombings are unknown in non-Islamic parts of that continent.
THE ONLY explanation that consistently fits the data is the social and cultural milieu: Invariably, suicide bombers come from societies that view such bombings as an acceptable and even laudable response to grievance. Societies that deem them unacceptable do not produce suicide bombers.
That explains why most such bombers are Muslims: While an increasingly popular strain of Islam deems suicide bombers “holy martyrs” who merit praise on earth and reward in heaven, they have no such status in Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Confucianism or animism. Indeed, most religions deem suicide bombings an abomination.
But Islam alone cannot explain this phenomenon: Some Muslim countries, such as Bosnia and Kosovo, produced no suicide bombings despite suffering atrocities, while the predominantly secular Fatah frequently employs such bombings.
In the PA, however, secular society has reproduced the glorification of suicide bombings that Islamic fervor generates in groups like al-Qaida and Hizbullah. As leading Palestinian psychiatrist Eyad Sarraj told the Los Angeles Times in 2002, suicide bombers have “unparalleled” status in Palestinian society. “Their pictures are plastered on public walls, their funerals are emotional celebrations, their families often receive visits from state officials,” the paper reported. “They become almost holy, praised by imams at mosques or over loudspeakers at rallies, where children are often dressed as shrouded dead or as pint-sized suicide bombers.”
“We have here a cultural glorification of martyrs,” Sarraj concluded. “If you asked children 20 years ago what they wanted to be when they grew up, they’d say a doctor or an engineer. Now they say they want to be a martyr.”
The Shin Bet security service reached an identical conclusion a few years back, based on interviews with would-be bombers who were caught before blowing themselves up. It found that the primary motivation was the desire to be a hero in society’s eyes.
How does that square with the new study’s finding that the main factor is a desire for revenge? Because while revenge is a universal emotion, its outlet is strongly influenced by culture. If channeling your desire for revenge into a suicide bombing would make you a hero, this becomes an attractive option. If it would make you a pariah, it looks much less attractive.
FAILED BOMBERS’ stories illustrate this dynamic. Arin Ahmed, for instance, described how, two months after her boyfriend Jad was killed, she suddenly told some friends that she wanted to avenge him by becoming a suicide bomber. It was a spur-of-the-moment thought, the 20-year-old said in a published 2002 interview; “a moment earlier, I hadn’t thought of anything like that.”
Four days later, some Fatah operatives arrived and said her bombing was ready. From then on, they never let her alone. “They didn’t let me think about it too much,” she said. “They pressured me and persuaded me. They told me: You’ll gain a very special status among women suicide bombers. You’ll be a real heroine. It’s for Jad’s memory. You’ll be reunited with him in heaven. You’ll be with him in paradise.”
Contrast this with a scene I witnessed at the shiva for a teenage girl killed in a suicide bombing. Her grief-stricken 17-year-old brother screamed that he wanted to avenge her by killing Palestinians. It was a normal teenage reaction, no different from Ahmed’s. But his society’s response was very different: Rather than being instantly surrounded by people who promised him honor and glory if he acted on this impulse, his father and others present told him unequivocally that this response was unacceptable. And, as in Ahmed’s case, societal pressure had an impact: She set off to kill and landed in jail; he worked through his grief and got on with his life.
UNFORTUNATELY, the world largely ignores this all-important cultural factor, deeming anyone who is not a terrorist an “innocent civilian.” That is why, for instance, it lambastes Israeli sanctions on Gaza even as Gaza’s elected government bombards Israel with rockets: Such sanctions “hurt innocent civilians.” Yet Gaza’s civilians are not exactly innocent: They elected the terrorist Hamas; they overwhelming support attacks on Israeli civilians (as repeated polls show); and they actively participate, as Sarraj noted, in glorifying such attacks, thereby creating the atmosphere in which they flourish.
If the world truly wants to eradicate terror, it must address the culture factor. And that starts with ending the “innocent civilian” myth. Societies that glorify terror must not be given a free pass.
This myth is admittedly widely accepted, crossing all political lines. Last week, for instance, left-wing Haaretz columnist Yoel Marcus declared a major ground operation in Gaza impossible because “as Israel approaches its 60th birthday, the public mind-set has changed. Israelis have stopped believing in victories, with or without quotation marks, for which scores of people have to die.”
A few weeks earlier, the conservative Shalem Center warned in the editorial of its quarterly Azure that reluctance to risk military casualties “has already taken root in Israeli public discourse, becoming a near-unimpeachable consensus that guides politicians and commanders alike” – and therefore devoted the piece to arguing that soldiers must sometimes be risked to protect civilians.
Nor is there any doubt that this myth determines policy. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert refused to order a major ground operation in Lebanon (until too late to do any good) largely because he feared Israelis would be unable to tolerate the projected casualties. His current refusal to order a major ground operation in Gaza derives substantially from the same fear.
YET IN FACT, Israelis have shown no reluctance to risk military casualties in what they deem a good cause. To realize this, one need only examine two recent campaigns: Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002 and the Second Lebanon War in summer 2006.
Defensive Shield involved a simultaneous IDF invasion of several West Bank refugee camps deemed hotbeds of terrorism. For years, the army had avoided these densely populated camps, with their narrow, twisting streets, for fear that fighting there would cause heavy Israeli casualties. And this was well known to Israelis who served in the territories, whether as conscripts or reservists.
Yet when emergency call-ups were issued for Defensive Shield, the response rate exceeded 100 percent. Men who had evaded reserve duty for years reported for that operation, and some who had not been called came anyway, begging to be included. This was assuredly not because the reservists, all familiar with the camps’ reputed dangers from their prior service, expected the operation to be a walkover. Rather, faced with a terrorist onslaught that had killed 133 Israelis in March 2002 alone, they were willing to risk their lives to protect their fellow citizens.
Nor did sky-high public support for the operation waver when 26 soldiers were killed in less than two weeks. On the contrary: Then premier Ariel Sharon’s popularity soared when he defied US President George Bush’s demand for an immediate withdrawal. And even today, support for Defensive Shield remains nearly wall-to-wall. Israelis mourn every dead soldier, but the subsequent sharp reduction in terrorist killings clearly justified the price.
THE SAME pattern initially characterized the Second Lebanon War. Once again, the response rate to emergency call-ups approached 100 percent. Again, this was not because reservists expected a cakewalk; Israel had withdrawn from Lebanon only six years earlier, so many had first-hand experience of this front. But they were willing to risk their lives to protect their fellow citizens from Hizbullah’s attacks.
And again, public support for the war initially remained sky-high even as casualties mounted: A Peace Index poll conducted three weeks after it started found that 93 percent of Jewish Israelis supported it, even though 33 soldiers (and 20 civilians) had thus far died, and continuing it would clearly cost more lives. Nevertheless, Israelis wanted the IDF to finish the job.
It was only toward the end of the five-week war – as cease-fire negotiations accelerated, and Israelis realized that the government had no plan for either stopping the rocket fire or dealing Hizbullah a decisive blow in the time remaining – that public opinion turned against it. Granted, casualties also mounted during this period. But more important was the finding of another Peace Index poll conducted three weeks after the cease-fire: Fully 68 percent of Jewish Israelis thought the war had weakened rather than strengthened Israel’s deterrence.
In other words, public opinion turned against the war not because of the casualties per se, but because the casualties served no purpose.
A HEALTHY society should object to throwing soldiers’ lives away for no purpose. But that is very different from refusing to use the army for its intended purpose: protecting the state and its citizens. And for this purpose, Israelis are willing to spend soldiers’ lives.
That is why reservists reported en masse for both Defensive Shield and the Second Lebanon War: They were willing to fight, and even die, to defend their fellow citizens. It is why the public initially supported both campaigns overwhelmingly, though it was their own sons, husbands and brothers whose lives were at risk: They understood that this is what the army exists for. It is why support for Defensive Shield remains sky-high, and why even today, 63 percent of Jewish Israelis (according to this month’s Peace Index poll) still consider the Lebanon war justified: The former achieved its goals, so the casualties were a price worth paying, while the latter, despite having failed, was nevertheless launched for a proper purpose.
FINALLY, THIS is why a majority of Israelis currently support a major ground operation in Gaza. They are not fools; they know the likely price is dozens of dead soldiers, with their own sons, brothers and husbands possibly among them. But they also know that countries must protect their citizens, so ending the rocket fire on Sderot is the army’s duty.
One could make other arguments against a ground operation in either Gaza or Lebanon. But it is past time to take this particular argument off the table. Both in their response to emergency call-ups and in the uncomplaining dedication with which conscripts, reservists and their families endure military service year-round, Israelis have proven their willingness to suffer military casualties to protect their country and their fellow citizens. They deserve better than to have their sacrifices – and their country’s policies – distorted by a baseless myth.
Prior to the report’s publication, leftist politicians and columnists argued almost monolithically that however culpable it found Ehud Olmert for the Second Lebanon War’s failures, new elections must be avoided, because the polls predict victory for Binyamin Netanyahu, a peace process skeptic. As Meretz chairman Yossi Beilin explained, the Right “wants to stop talks with Fatah, and believes, according to the polls, that this is the chance of a lifetime. That is exactly why I have no interest in supporting such a move.” Beilin advocated replacing Olmert from within the cabinet, but most of his fellow leftists dispensed even with that nicety.
Haaretz‘s star columnist, Yoel Marcus, for instance, repeatedly argued that Olmert must stay, since his ouster might lead to elections, and the Left cannot risk the election of a premier opposed to final-status talks.
Following the report’s publication, Winograd Commission member Yehezkel Dror echoed this reasoning, telling Ma’ariv that “a peace process, if successful, will save so many lives that it is a weighty consideration,” and therefore, “we must think about the consequences. What do you prefer, a government with Olmert and [Ehud] Barak, or new elections that will put Netanyahu in power?”
Even if, as Dror claims, this represented guidance to voters on how to decide rather than his personal opinion, the bottom line is the same: Far from deeming public support essential for such fateful negotiations, Dror, like Marcus and Beilin, views the voters’ seeming preference for an opponent of the talks as justification for thwarting their choice by retaining a failed premier.
THIS HAS been the Left’s attitude toward the “peace process” from its inception. When Yitzhak Rabin lacked a Knesset majority for the Oslo-2 accord, for instance, he solved the problem by buying the votes of two legislators from a far-Right party that vehemently opposed Oslo. Specifically, he promised them a ministry and deputy ministry, with all the attendant financial perks. This was blatantly illegal, as the Supreme Court subsequently ruled. But Rabin and his successor, Shimon Peres, solved that problem by amending the law, retroactively. And rather than condemning this perversion of democracy, the entire Left lauded it, deeming any means kosher to advance the peace process.
Ariel Sharon’s disengagement also demonstrated contempt for democracy. Despite having been elected on an explicit pledge not to quit Gaza unilaterally, he declined to seek the public’s consent to his U-turn via either new elections or a referendum. He did call a referendum in his own party, but ignored the results when he lost 60-40.
This is hardly standard democratic practice: When, for instance, Charles de Gaulle wanted to break a campaign promise to remain in Algeria, he did call a referendum (and won resoundingly). Yet Sharon’s refusal to seek a new public mandate won plaudits from the Left.
This trampling of democratic norms for the sake of the peace process, with the Left’s almost unanimous support, has been devastating to Israel’s democracy. It is no accident that the worst blow Israeli democracy ever suffered, Rabin’s assassination, occurred a mere month after the Oslo-2 vote: When democratic processes are subverted by open vote-buying, with enthusiastic support from politicians and the media, extremists can easily convince themselves that the lack of a democratic alternative justifies resorting to violence.
IT IS also no accident that right-wing violence reached new heights following the disengagement – for instance, during the Amona evacuation six months later. For two years, rightists did everything good democrats are supposed to do. They worked to elect an anti-withdrawal candidate in 2003, and won. They went door-to-door to convince Likud members to defeat disengagement in the party referendum, and won again. But their victories proved worthless: Sharon simply ignored them, to widespread applause from politicians and the media. The obvious conclusion was that democratic efforts are pointless, so violence is the only alternative.
Nor is it an accident that voter turnout reached an all-time low in the first election following the disengagement. If a politician can renounce his entire platform after winning, refuse to seek a new mandate, and be applauded for it, what is the point of voting?
But if the peace uber alles attitude has been devastating to democracy, it has, ironically, been equally detrimental to prospects for peace. Few would deny that ongoing Palestinian terror hinders these prospects. And one reason this terror persists is that none of the relevant parties deem widespread Israeli support for the peace process essential.
If the Palestinian Authority thought future withdrawals depended on such support, it might feel constrained to win over Israelis by abandoning terror. If the international community thought withdrawals depended on such support, it might feel constrained to pressure the PA into fighting terror. But why should either go to the trouble if Israeli governments are willing instead to subvert the democratic process, making public opinion irrelevant?
The problem is that Israel is still a democracy, however flawed – and therefore, peace will ultimately not be possible without public support. As successive withdrawals bring Palestinian terror closer to major population centers, the extent and intensity of the opposition to withdrawal will grow. And eventually, it will become too great to circumvent through anti-democratic tactics. Buying two Knesset votes is easy. Buying 20 is much harder.
Thus by collaborating in the subversion of democracy for the sake of peace, the Left has undermined both of its proclaimed flagship ideals. Not only has it increased the likelihood of anti-democratic violence by eroding the public’s faith in democratic processes, it has also eroded public support for the peace process by reducing the PA’s incentive to combat terror.
Unfortunately, it is not the Left alone that suffers for this blindness. All of Israel is paying the price.
The change would be understandable had the report significantly altered our understanding of the Second Lebanon War. But in fact, it largely confirmed what Israelis already knew: that the war was a fiasco, for which Olmert’s government bore substantial responsibility.
Admittedly, the report’s summary sometimes bent over backward to downplay this responsibility. For instance, after acknowledging that “equivocation” between a “short, painful” strike and a “large ground operation” had impeded the war effort, and that “the choice between these options was within the exclusive political discretion of the government,” it then blamed “both the political and the military echelon [for] not deciding between the two options.”
Similarly, it legitimized Olmert’s decision to a launch a ground operation 60 hours before the cease-fire was due to start, despite noting that there had been no “serious consideration of the question whether it was reasonable to expect military achievements in 60 hours that could have contributed meaningfully to any of the goals of the operation.”
Yet how could it be reasonable to launch any operation without considering whether the time available suffices to achieve its goals?
But even if such dabs of whitewash occasionally blurred the otherwise damning findings, the fact remains that Israelis lived
through this war; they experienced in their own flesh what the report recapitulates in dry prose. They have all the information needed to make their own judgment, regardless of the report. Why, then, should Olmert’s popularity suddenly surge just because the report, like any serious investigation, was nuanced rather than unrelieved black?
THE ANSWER may lie in the uniqueness of Israeli inquiry commissions. Several recent comparative studies – by the Israel Democracy Institute, the Knesset’s research division and others – reveal that in other democracies, inquiry commissions stick to examining the facts; they may not assign guilt or make personal recommendations. Moreover, they are appointed by the government and have no legal status, so the government is not required to accept their conclusions.
In Israel, however, the Supreme Court president appoints most inquiry commissions, giving them quasi-judicial status. Such commissions can assign blame and recommend dismissals, and usually do. And the court has held that while governments may reject a commission’s systemic recommendations, since policy-making is a core governmental responsibility, they have almost no right to reject recommendations concerning specific individuals, which are treated as quasi-judicial rulings.
The Winograd Committee was doubly unusual. First, it was appointed by the government. Second, and more importantly, it refused to blame specific individuals or recommend dismissals, declaring – properly – that this is for the public to decide.
Nevertheless, it operated under the shadow of 60 years in which Israelis have grown used to allowing quasi-judicial commissions to make such decisions for them. And since in judicial proceedings, anything short of conviction constitutes acquittal, Winograd’s refusal to explicitly convict Olmert and sentence him to dismissal is inevitably perceived by some Israelis as an acquittal.
AS CONSTITUTIONAL scholar Amnon Rubinstein aptly noted last week, this is merely one aspect of “the legalization of life in Israel,” in which major political decisions, at both the personal and policy levels, are increasingly handed over to the legal establishment. The result is that the all-important concept of “legal but improper” is gradually disappearing: If a policy, or an individual’s behavior, is not sufficiently egregious to be deemed illegal, it is ipso facto deemed acceptable.
A classic example occurred in 1997, when then justice minister Tzahi Hanegbi falsely told the cabinet that the Supreme Court president had approved his nominee for attorney-general. In any normal country, a minister who lied to the cabinet about a major issue in his purview would be sacked. And initially, there were demands for Hanegbi’s dismissal. But after the attorney-general concluded that his behavior, though despicable, was not criminal, and the High Court of Justice declined to intervene, these demands evaporated almost overnight – as if these rulings had retroactively made his behavior appropriate.
OLMERT’S post-Winograd popularity surge follows the same pattern. And it stems from the fact that often, legal officials have declared people unfit to serve on moral or professional (as opposed to legal) grounds. The court-appointed Kahan Commission declared Ariel Sharon “indirectly responsible” for a 1982 massacre committed by Lebanese militiamen in Beirut, and therefore unfit to be defense minister. In 1996, attorney-general Michael Ben-Yair declared Rafael Eitan unfit to serve as police minister (though not agriculture minister) due to a criminal investigation (Eitan was later completely cleared). The High Court ruled Yossi Ginossar unfit to be Housing Ministry director-general in 1992 because of various unsavory incidents in his past. The court-appointed Or Commission declared Shlomo Ben-Ami unfit to serve as police minister because he mishandled the Arab riots of October 2000. And the list could go on.
The pernicious result is that the public has grown accustomed to legal officials making such decisions on its behalf. And therefore, it has lost the habit of making them itself. If no legal official declares an office-holder unfit to serve, then by default, he is deemed morally and professionally fit.
The Winograd Committee rejected this logic – and in that lay the most important recommendation of its entire report. Essentially, what it told the public is: Grow up. You don’t need us to tell you whether Olmert is unfit to serve; look at the war’s conduct and draw your own conclusions.
Admittedly, that is unlikely to happen: People do not kick a 60-year habit of abdicating responsibility overnight. Yet at the same time, one cannot cure an addiction by feeding it. By refusing to make political judgments that are properly the public’s job, the committee did what it could to set Israeli political life on the road to rehabilitation. Whether the process continues is largely up to us.
On January 16, responding to a High Court petition demanding that it reinforce private homes in Sderot against rocket attacks, the government argued that reinforcement would set a dangerous precedent, since “other parts of Israel are, or are likely to be in the near future, threatened by high-trajectory missiles.” Therefore, the focus should be on strengthening residents’ “endurance” – for instance, by bolstering Sderot’s economy.
There, in two sentences, are two crucial errors. One is that Israel is powerless to stop the rocket fire, which will therefore inevitably spread to other towns. That is patently false: While thousands of rockets have been launched at Israel from Gaza, not one has been launched from the West Bank, and the methods that work there would also work in Gaza.
This is hardly a state secret: Earlier this month, following a 16-month study of the Second Lebanon War, a bipartisan Knesset panel unanimously concluded that only large-scale ground operations – precisely the tactic Israel has employed in the West Bank since 2002 – can halt rocket fire, and a majority backed applying this lesson to Gaza. Yet the government prefers to plead helplessness, thereby abdicating its most basic responsibility: protecting its citizens.
THE SECOND error is that the economy can be disconnected from security and bolstered regardless of the rockets. Israel’s own experience amply disproves this theory: At the intifada’s height (2001-2002), as tourists disappeared and local residents’ fear of attacks depressed domestic consumption, Israel suffered a recession. Since then, the economy has grown impressively, and experts of every political and economic stripe attribute the turnaround in large part to the dramatic decline in terror that began in 2003. Iraq, incidentally, demonstrates the same lesson: As terror spiraled, the economy tanked, but the recent drop in terror has produced modest economic improvement.
SDEROT IS no exception to the laws of nature; there, too, economic recovery depends on improved security – a point driven home two days later when mattress factory Hollandia International announced that it could no longer take the rocket attacks and was relocating to central Israel. “I hope it will be a warning light for the government,” company president Avi Barssessat declared.
Next, at a January 20 cabinet meeting, Defense Minister Ehud Barak enunciated another crucial error: After fellow minister Avi Dichter noted the obvious – that current IDF tactics are not working – Barak insisted that the army’s modus operandi in Gaza should remain unchanged. That fits the classic definition of insanity: doing the same thing but expecting different results. After all, the army has been using these tactics ever since the August 2005 disengagement, yet the number of missile strikes on southern Israel soared from 270 in 2005 to over 1,000 in both 2006 and 2007.
This infatuation with failed tactics not only ensures the problem’s continuation, but encourages escalation. Two weeks ago, after Hamas dramatically upped the volume of fire, launching some 90 rockets and mortars in 48 hours, Palestinian commentators noted that the organization felt free do so precisely because, having heard Israeli leaders repeatedly declare that under no circumstances will they launch a major ground operation in Gaza, it concluded that it need not fear provoking one by intensifying the barrages.
Finally, on January 21, came Defense Ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror’s response to international condemnation of Israel’s short-lived blockade of Gaza: “It’s very interesting that we didn’t hear these condemnations when the rockets were falling [on Israel]. Is that not collective punishment?”
Dror is, of course, correct. But coming from a government spokesman, the complaint is highly disingenuous. One cannot expect the world to care more about Israel’s security than Israel’s government does – and the government, far from treating the daily rocket fire as a priority, has done its best to pretend that the problem does not exist. Government officials devote scant attention to this issue in either public speeches or private meetings with diplomats and journalists; Israel has not even lodged regular complaints with the UN.
Indeed, Ehud Olmert talks more about suffering Palestinians than suffering Sderot. At Annapolis, for instance, he spoke movingly about Palestinian “pain and deprivation,” but said not a word about Sderot residents’ pain and deprivation. He devoted exactly one sentence to Sderot – and even that was not a demand that the rocket fire stop. He merely declared that it “serves as a warning” against “moving forward too hastily.”
By contrast, Palestinian officials complain loudly and continuously about Gaza’s hardships. And the world not unnaturally concludes that since Palestinians are complaining while Israel is not, Palestinians must be the victims, and Israel the villain.
One can understand Olmert’s desire to avoid discussing Sderot. He would rather not remind Israelis that his party’s flagship policy, the disengagement, quadrupled rocket attacks on southern Israel. Moreover, talking about it might force him to take action, and he desperately wants to avoid a major operation in Gaza. But unless and until the government makes Sderot’s plight a priority and brings it to international center stage, the world will continue ignoring the rocket fire while condemning every Israeli response.
TOGETHER, the four errors described above add up to a failed policy that has turned Sderot into a living hell. And to improve the situation, all four must be addressed. The government must understand that security is the bedrock on which all else is built, and unless the rockets stop, no amount of economic aid will help the south. It must acknowledge that current tactics for suppressing the rockets have failed and need to be changed. It must realize that a viable alternative exists – namely, the methods that succeeded in the West Bank. And it must bring Sderot’s plight to world attention consistently and forcefully, to lay the groundwork for applying these tactics to Gaza as well.
If it is unwilling to do these four things, it must go, immediately. A government that abandons its citizens to enemy fire has no right to exist.
Friedmann has two main goals, of which the first is revamping the judicial appointment process. Currently, Israel is virtually the only Western democracy whose highest court is not appointed by politicians: Supreme Court justices are chosen by a nine-member committee comprised of two cabinet ministers, chosen by the government; one coalition and one opposition MK, chosen by the Knesset; three sitting justices, chosen by the Supreme Court president; and two lawyers, chosen by the Bar Association. Thus politicians occupy only four of the nine seats, and the government controls only three. The legal establishment, with five seats, dominates the panel.
FRIEDMANN wants to give the political system a majority. He proposes an 11-member panel with two ministers, two MKs and two Bar Association representatives, just like today, but only two Supreme Court justices rather than three. The remaining three members would be a retired district court judge, chosen by the government; a public figure from any field except law, also chosen by the government; and an academic from a field other than law, appointed by the council of university presidents.
Barak claims this proposal would politicize the court and “set Israeli democracy back several years.” Yet by the standards of other western democracies, Friedmann’s plan is still remarkably nonpolitical. Other western democracies give the legal establishment no role in choosing Supreme Court justices; Friedmann would give jurists five of the 11 seats. Other Western democracies do not involve non-politicians in the process; under Friedmann’s proposal, seven of 11 committee members would be non-politicians. And while in most Western democracies, the government dominates the process (either directly or via its parliamentary majority), Friedmann’s proposal leaves the government in the minority, with only five seats; the sixth “political” seat belongs to the opposition.
In America, by contrast, the president appoints justices and the Senate confirms them. In Germany, parliament’s upper and lower houses each select half the justices. In Austria, the government and parliament each appoint half. In France, the president appoints nine of the 15 justices, while the heads of the two houses of parliament appoint three each. In Switzerland, parliament selects the justices; in Sweden, the cabinet does. In Australia, Canada, Belgium and Norway, justices are appointed by the monarch but either nominated or approved by the cabinet. In Japan, the cabinet appoints the justices and voters must ratify its choices in the next election.
THIS POLITICAL domination of the process is no accident. Democracy’s fundamental premise is that the people should choose their rulers, and since supreme courts must occasionally rule on major political and social issues, this includes justices.
Moreover, since different judges interpret the law differently (which is why many verdicts are split decisions), supreme courts should properly reflect a spectrum of opinion. Democratic selection processes achieve this goal, since governments change frequently, and different governments tend to appoint candidates with different judicial worldviews. A process dominated by the judiciary, in contrast, perpetuates ideological uniformity, since justices, being only human, naturally prefer candidates who share their own views. And that has a very dangerous consequence: Certain sectors of the public may feel permanently disenfranchised, because a key branch of government is effectively closed to people with their views.
America, Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Belgium, Sweden, Norway and Japan are hardly third-world countries. So how exactly would making Israel’s judicial appointment system more like theirs reduce Israel from first-world to third-world status? Fortunately for Barak, his interviewer neglected to ask.
FRIEDMANN’S second goal, equally anathema to Barak, is limiting judicial review, both by permitting Knesset overrides of Supreme Court decisions and by restricting justiciability, or what issues the court can hear. Yet limitations on judicial review are also hardly “third-world.” Holland, for instance, bans judicial review entirely, while Switzerland prohibits judicial review of federal legislation. Would anyone call Holland and Switzerland third-world countries? In Britain, which has no constitution, the high court can declare laws incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, but they remain in force unless and until parliament overturns them. In New Zealand, laws that the court declares unconstitutional also remain in force unless and until parliament repeals them. Canada’s Supreme Court can annul legislation, but parliament can override it and reinstate the law. Are Britain, New Zealand and Canada third-world countries?
Moreover, Israel’s court is unique in the democratic world in holding, to quote Barak, that “everything is justiciable.” Elsewhere in the West, it is understood that many issues are properly the province of elected representatives – both because giving the people a say in key decisions is the essence of democracy, and because elected officials representing different sectors are better suited to crafting workable compromises among these groups’ competing interests than are unelected justices who represent nobody but themselves.
Israel’s court, however, claims the right to decide numerous issues that other Western courts would not touch: immigration and citizenship policies (from defining who is a Jew, and thereby entitled to automatic citizenship, to deciding whether Israel may deny entry to enemy nationals), budgetary priorities (it has, for instance, asserted the right to set minimum welfare payments and add new treatments to the national health insurance plan), sensitive family matters (from recognizing gay couples to criminalizing spanking), and even military tactics during wartime (such as targeted killings of terrorists).
Far from turning Israel into a third-world country, Friedmann’s reforms would finally make Israel a full-fledged first-world democracy – one where major decisions are made by the people’s elected representatives rather than an unelected court. But that, of course, is precisely Barak’s objection: Like any dictator, he dislikes sharing power.