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Jewish World Review June 24, 2008 / 21 Sivan, 5768 What were they thinking!? By Caroline B. Glick
The most vocal advocate of embracing Hamas has been Defense Minister Ehud
Barak. And on the heels of the "truce," Barak and his associates are now
pushing for the government to approve Hamas's demand that Israel release
of up to a thousand terrorists from its prisons in exchange for Gilad
Schalit, who was illegally kidnapped to Gaza two years ago.
In an attempt to explain his actions, Barak spoke last week to sympathetic
Ha'aretz columnist Ari Shavit. In a supportive column, Shavit explained
that Barak himself is under no illusion about the nature of Hamas or the
chances of reaching a long-term accommodation with the Iranian-controlled
jihadist movement that seeks Israel's destruction. The rationale for the
move, he explains is Barak's assertion that the only way to justify a
military operation - which will involve military and civilian casualties -
is to first demonstrate that Israel had no other recourse but to act in
its own defense.
As Shavit put it, "Since the repercussions of an operation could be grave,
it is necessary first to try the other alternative - so that every mother
liable to lose her son in the Gaza alleyways will know. So that every
civilian in the Gaza envelope liable to get hit during the fighting with
Hamas will know. So that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will know that
Israel did not choose a military move, which the Egyptians fear, before
giving a chance to the diplomatic move they initiated."
SINCE THIS is the line being offered by the government today to justify
its actions, it is worth considering it. The first question that arises is
whether Barak's expressed concern about mothers of soldiers and Israelis
who live within Hamas's rocket and missile range is genuine.
At Sunday's cabinet meeting, Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin gave the
government his first post-cease-fire intelligence briefing. Diskin told
the cabinet ministers that since Thursday, Hamas has stepped up its arms
smuggling and military training. The significance of his statement is
clear. The Hamas that Israel will confront in the aftermath of Barak's
cease-fire will be a more formidable foe that it was before the
cease-fire. And consequently, more soldiers will need to sacrifice their
lives in the postponed confrontation. And since Hamas is using this lull
to expand its arsenals, it will no doubt expand the range of its missiles.
Consequently, more Israeli civilians will be attacked by Hamas rockets and
missiles in the inevitable, delayed showdown than would have been under
fire if it had been launched this week.
In other words, far from being informed by his concern for Israeli
civilians and the families of soldiers, Barak's embrace of Hamas as a
negotiating partner has ensured that more Israelis will be burying their
loved ones when the cease-fire leads inevitably to war. Indeed, it is
because of this that residents of Sderot have been the loudest proponents
of military action and the angriest opponents of the government's
cease-fire agreement with Hamas.
So if Barak is unconcerned with the lives of Israeli soldiers and
civilians, who is he playing to in negotiating the cease-fire?
LIKE MANY Israeli leaders in recent years, Barak is concerned with how the
Israeli appeasement lobby will react to a confrontation. He hopes that by
appeasing Hamas now, these people - many of whom are Labor Party members
and voters - will forgive him when the inevitable occurs.
Israel's appeasement lobby is comprised of Israeli Arabs, the Meretz party
to which post-Zionist Labor voters and politicians can always defect,
university professors, and small but well-funded pressure groups like Uri
Avineri's Gush Shalom organization and Peace Now. Here it bears mention
that the Labor party's membership drives in Arab villages in recent years
have given its Arab members - who vote as a bloc - a controlling influence
over the results of Labor party primaries that determine the identity of
the party leader and Labor's Knesset faction. Many Labor leaders - like
former party chief Binyamin Ben Eliezer who was unseated by Arab Labor
party members - have bemoaned this fact and noted that Arab members of
Labor don't even vote for the party in general elections.
WHAT IS most disturbing about Barak's pandering to Israel's appeasement
lobby is that past experience has shown clearly that Israel's appeasement
lobby is itself unappeaseable. That is, there nothing that Israel's
enemies can do that will cause members of Israel's appeasement lobby to
support IDF operations.
On June 1, 2001, a Palestinian bomber exploded himself at the Dolphinarium
nightclub in Tel Aviv and murdered 21 Israeli teenagers. The public outcry
was deafening. Popular support for a counter terror offensive aimed at
destroying the Palestinian Authority and killing or expelling
arch-terrorist Yassir Arafat was at an all-time high as the dimensions of
the massacre, and the identity of the victims became clear.
Yet then-prime minister Ariel Sharon ignored the public and refused to
act. As his spokesmen made clear, Sharon was concerned that the Israeli
appeasement lobby would join forces with Europe to condemn such an IDF
operation. And so, in an attempt to appease his far-Left antagonists,
Sharon waited ten months to act. During that time, he engaged in fruitless
US and European sponsored talks with the Palestinians. He bowed to their
pressure and began referring to Judea and Samaria as "occupied," and so
demoralized his own constituents. And as he took these steps, another 250
Israelis were murdered by the Palestinians.
Sharon approved Operation Defensive Shield in the aftermath of the
Palestinian massacre of 30 Israelis celebrating the Passover Seder at the
Park Hotel in Netanya. While his supporters often laud Sharon for his
courage in acting, the fact is that had Sharon not acted after the
Passover massacre, the public and his party would likely have booted him
out of office.
Sharon's long refusal to defend his citizens from murder by the
Palestinian massacre machine did not win him any sympathy with the
appeasers. During Defensive Shield Uri Avineri from Gush Shalom and
Israeli professors like Niv Gordon rushed to Arafat's headquarters in
Ramallah to act as "human shields," physically opposing IDF operations.
Israeli professors signed petitions calling for foreign divestment from
Israel and urged their students to refuse to serve in reserve duty. Arab
Israeli leaders like MKs Ahmed Tibi and Azmi Bishara similarly joined
forces with Arafat. And of course, Europe experienced its worst wave of
anti-Semitic attacks since the Holocaust as European leaders, joined by
then UN secretary general Kofi Annan, and their media organs and
international human right organizations lined up behind Arafat and accused
Israel of committing war crimes.
IN THE end, the only ones who actively supported the IDF's 2002
counter-offensive were the Israeli public, the US public and world Jewry.
And ironically, these were the same forces that would have supported an
IDF offensive after the Dolphinarium massacre ten months earlier. The US
government - which did not stridently object to Operation Defensive Shield
- acted no differently than it would have if Israel had taken action at
that earlier juncture. So Sharon's decision to avert confrontation for ten
long months - during which 250 Israelis were murdered and thousands were
wounded - accomplished nothing.
But what about Barak's argument about Egypt? Will Egypt support a future
IDF operation in Gaza when the cease-fire it has mediated falls apart? The
answer here is similarly obvious: Of course not. Since 2000, when Egypt
began hosting "cease-fire" talks among various terror masters in Cairo,
the Mubarak regime has done more than any other government to legitimize
Hamas.
Moreover, in diplomatic forums, Israel has no greater enemy than Egypt.
Cairo uses every international and regional stage to attack the Jewish
state.
Then too, Egypt has permitted Hamas to use its territory as its logistical
base for arming Gaza and sending hundreds of terror operatives to Iran and
Lebanon for training.
Egypt has done all of this because it believes that its national interests
are advanced by weakening Israel. Were Egypt to support an Israeli
offensive against Gaza, it would be strengthening Israel. And so under no
circumstances will Cairo ever support an IDF operation against Hamas.
Pretending it will is to engage in reckless fantasizing.
SO THEN, why has Barak led the government to embrace Hamas as a
negotiating partner and a legitimate regime in Gaza?
We are left with two possible explanations. Either Barak is risking the
lives of Israeli soldiers and civilians to pander to the most radical
elements of Israeli society while seeking to win sympathy points from
Cairo in a general election campaign, or he is gullible enough to believe
that Israel's radical left and the Egyptian regime are moved by facts
rather than interests.
It is hard to know which explanation is more distressing.
JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Comment by clicking here.
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