The problem with arrogance

[pieter]

The problem with arrogance
By DAOUD KUTTAB

Jerusalem Post

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict presents a unique case study in the fallibility of asymmetry and the arrogance of power. The status of this conflict today places one country - Israel - with overwhelming military, political and financial power as well as backing from the world's most powerful country (the US) and community (EU) against a people without an army, living under siege, with its employees not being paid for months and its economy in shatters.

With such overwhelming power, Israel has no incentive to negotiate. It is very happy to dictate and the world community, by and large, goes along with that. The Israelis (people, government and army) can do what they want and extract whatever they want from the people under their occupation.

Well not everything. One tiny thing they can not get the Palestinians to do: offer them peace without obtaining their land back.

Even this apparently insignificant issue - in Israeli eyes - has been resolved. The newly elected Israeli government has apparently decided that it does not need the Palestinians to make peace with it.

The historic compromise of two states along the pre-1967 borders that Palestinians are willing to accept seems way too steep for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the majority of Israelis who voted for him. So instead the Israelis have decided to live with a low-intensity conflict, give up some insignificant land - Gaza and parts of the West Bank, minus Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley - and everyone can live happily thereafter.

WELL, AGAIN there is a little tiny problem with this seemingly open and shut case. The other side, the Palestinians, is refusing to roll over and call it quits. And in the middle of this internal debate (Israelis only negotiate with themselves) a little glitch appears. Some renegade group actually dares to challenge the mighty Israeli machine, carry out a military operation and capture an Israeli soldier. And although two other soldiers were killed along with two Palestinians, the fact that Palestinians have captured a live soldier has left Israel sleepless.

All of a sudden, this dominant country with its powerful army, penetrating intelligence apparatus and a long list of international and regional friends, actually wants something from the Palestinians. Not that it is willing to negotiate for what it wants. A prisoner exchange is a non-starter: According to Israel he is a kidnapped Israeli, not a prisoner of war, just like the 10,000 Palestinians are also not prisoners of war.

In response, the powerful Israeli army is put to work with little direction and focus and the only goal is havoc and destruction.

This is the Israeli thinking. Mass tanks on the borders of Gaza, destroy a few bridges, take out the electric plant - we have plenty of international friends so no need to worry that this is a collective punishment and therefore a war crime. Use political muscle to get the Americans and Egyptians to press the Palestinians. Threaten the lives of the Palestinian government, the Palestinian president.

Source: www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1150885904980&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Other links: www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/734173.html

observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1810752,00.html

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5141376.stm

[sciwriter]

Pieter, good point! IMO a new Israeli Government is needed to present new ideas to the Palestinians. Omert is continuing Sharon's tactics. Carl

[bescheid]

Pieter

It is an unkindly situation as I do agree. But, what else is there to do? Unfortunantly, it is to the miltitary to use as protection and preservation of the ideals and way of life, very unfortunant indeed. But, what else is there? What would you do?

Charles

[Jaga]

Pieter,

very good article. I am glad that Jerusalem post has a courage to critize its own country.
It was very stupid of some Hamas guys to kidnap Palestinians and demand all prisoners in exchange but the reaction of Israel is shocking - imprisonement of the parts of Palestinian government.
I wonder whether they do not do it now because they know that the eyes of the world are directed toward Korea? The author is right about the assymetry of power in this region

[bescheid]

Pieter

Well, so it would seem, once again I am in opposition. Please to not take this wrong, as I have a very high respect for the artical written and presented by Mr. Daoud Kuttab of The Jerusalem Post. His points were very well presented and should be given the attention as deserved.

It is always good to have the voice of the other side of any subject of interest as a balance of facts and information.

The following is of the Israelie goverment release.

{Publication of Israel Minister of Foreign Affairs}



-IDF warns Palestinian civilians in southern Gaza Strip-

29 Jun 2006


(Communicated by the IDF Spokesman)

In the framework of the extension of operations to return the soldier Corporal Gilad Shalit and to remove the threat of Kassam rockets launched at Israel from the Gaza Strip, the IDF distributed announcements from the air into the southern Gaza Strip, with the purpose of warning the Palestinian citizens against staying in areas in which the IDF will operate against terror infrastructures.

Contents of the announcement:

"To the civilians of the area:

The IDF is extending its operations to all areas of the Gaza Strips, and therefore is conducting military activities in your area, for the time period that is required. The operations will be launched in order to locate the site where the kidnapped soldier, Gilad Shalit, is being held, to rescue him, and to continue to defend the citizens of Israel. For your own safety and due to our intention to prevent injuring citizens who are not involved in activities against our forces, you must avoid being on any premises in which the IDF is operating and be attentive to the IDF's instructions. Anyone who interrupts IDF activities, conducted in order to complete the mission to bring the kidnapped soldier home safely, will be in danger.

IDF Headquarters"

The IDF is operating with great caution in order to avoid endangering the Palestinian population. The operations are being launched only against terror organizations, rocket-launching cells, and terror infrastructures, which have turned the Gaza Strip into
an area saturated with terror.


Copyright ©2004 The State of Israel. All rights reserved Terms of use Use of cookies


Charles

[kaima]

It seems obvious that Israel has been doing something wrong for nearly 60 years and they are still in a state of war. I hold that to be failure, yet their policy seems to be "more of the same" - as if you make a mistake and do it a second or a 10,ooth time it will come out differently or successfully.

Their politics maek as much sense as the politics of WW I when all sides just kept up sending in more troops until they were just about bled to death, yet no "true patriot" dared to suggest that a change in policy might improve things.

Sadly it seems that Bush has adapted this same "one way only" outlook, with no more promising results insight for America.

Kai

[Pawian]

kaima said:

It seems obvious that Israel has been doing something wrong for nearly 60 years and they are still in a state of war.

60 years is not too long compared to nearly 2000 years of oppression, pogroms, expulsion, gas chambers and mass graves that Jews experienced in christian Europe.

The current state of war with a few thousand Jewish victims so far is nothing compared to millions of Jewish victims in the past.

The creation of Israel was an answer to WW2 atrocities. Jewish race was to be annihilated in full. Nazis succeeded in Eastern Europe, partly in Western too. Nobody important moved a finger to help Jews, the Western governments closed their eyes to alarming reports of the Polish underground about Auschwitz and others. Most part of societies remained indifferent to Shoah, only few showed human decency and dignity and tried to save Jews.

Is it strange that at last Jews decided it was enough, that it was high time for Jews to have their own state? That it was time for Jews to save themselves? Instead of counting on others, what proved a wrong policy during WW2?

Today the war which Israelis started because one of them had been kidnapped is a result of a certain Shoah or pogrom syndrome. I can hear those voices: " We won`t allow for more pogroms or Shoah, we shall not close an eye to any more Jews being oppressed, killed, hurt. If any are, we shall answer back with all our might."

The situation is difficult, I pity Palestinians, war is always brutal and unnecessary, but I fully understand the way Israelis think 60 years after Shoah. And Arabs, with their consequent demands and calls to destroy Israel, surely don`t make it easier for Jews to forget past wrongdoing.

[leslie]

I was in the Army in 1948 in Palestine when things were starting to hot up to produce an Israeli state. Things were so bad I had to sleep with my revolver chained to my wrist. Prior to and during WWII many Jews from mainly Western Europe because of conditions for them there were making their way to Palestine whenever they could. In 1947 when Britain who held a Protectorate Mandate over Palestine, decided that it was going to give up this Mandate. The UN then agreed that the then Palestine should be divided into two - one part to be called Israel and the other Palestine. On 14 May 1948 The Israelis declared the formation of the Israeli State in the lands agreed by the UN that they should have.
And there has been trouble ever since!!
Leslie