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The coming Arab-Israeli war and Israel's Perilous Patience
Israel is now in its familiar waiting-for-someone-to-be-killed mode. Although security chiefs disagree about the implications of the upcoming disengagement and about overall strategy, no one disputes that during the present “lull” Hamas is reconstituting itself as an army of thousands, great quantities of weapons keep being smuggled into both Gaza and the West Bank, and Palestinian incitement and genocide-education continue unchecked.
Hamas prepares for war as Israel prepares to retreat from Gaza. Among Israel's rulers One can even detect shades of the arrogant, dismissive attitude toward Arab threats that marked the pre-Yom Kippur War period. At that time, Israel’s guiding conceptzia dictated that the Arabs were too devastated by their loss in the 1967 War to contemplate attacking Israel again. Even as the signs of an Egyptian-Syrian military buildup mounted, Israeli planners kept discounting the evidence of their eyes and ears in keeping with the almighty conceptzia.
The Palestinians may not constitute a military threat on the order of Iran or Egypt, but as Moshe Yaalon emphasizes, their constant aggression coupled with Israel’s refusal to take decisive action erodes Israel’s deterrent image throughout the region. Nor are enemies discouraged when things like rockets hitting apartment buildings and workers being killed in a greenhouse are treated as tolerable, minor incidents.
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Attempts at suicide bombings continue as well, as does the security forces’ round-the-clock work to prevent them. As during certain relative “lulls” in the 2000-2004 terror war, the approach seems to be to allow the terror forces to prepare for the next round as long as no large, bloody attacks occur. In the current version of the script, the diplomatic imperative of “giving Abu Mazen a chance” prevails over all other considerations—up to and including acting militarily to forestall another onslaught against Israeli civilians, as Likud Member of Knesset and security expert Yuval Steinitz has called for.
The current issue of Geostrategy-Direct.com carries a revealing article (subscription required) about a difference in conception between outgoing Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon and his replacement, former air force commander Dan Halutz.
The article notes Yaalon’s views, expressed in a June 3 interview to Haaretz, that “the Palestinians [represent] the leading threat to Israel” and that “the continued Palestinian war [is] also undermining Israeli deterrence against Arab states, including Egypt.”
Yaalon has warned of a post-disengagement insurgency campaign that “would begin in the West Bank and quickly spread to Jerusalem, Kfar Saba and Tel Aviv, which could come under Palestinian missile attacks,” and speaks of terrorism “return[ing] in all its forms—shooting attacks, car bombs, suicide attacks, mortars and Kassam missiles. ”
Yet, attributing “Israeli defense sources and Western diplomats,” the Geostrategy article says incoming C.o.S. Halutz “has been authorized to reduce manpower and other assets used to fight the Palestinian insurgency.” The reason, according to the sources, is that Halutz and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon agree that the main threat facing Israel is “Iran’s emerging missile and nuclear capabilities,” whereas the Palestinians don’t constitute a “strategic danger.”
That attitude may already have been on display last week after Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists in Gaza fired a daylong rocket and mortar barrage across the Israeli border and within Gaza. The casualties included a Chinese and two Palestinian greenhouse workers killed in the Gaza settlement of Ganei Tal, and a woman and her two children in the border town of Sderot who were taken to hospital for shock after a Kassam rocket hit their apartment building.
That evening, in a press conference in Sderot, Halutz said, “Today’s events are another expression of the Palestinian Authority’s weakness. . . . Our first task is to guarantee security for the citizens, and we will carry out this task. However, we must consider all the implications of acting against terror organizations. At a certain point, our patience will wear thin, but I would suggest that we decide when.”
There is nothing to argue with in Halutz and Sharon’s reported seriousness about the Iranian threat, and in that context Halutz’s air force background is welcome. But proper regard for one threat does not entail belittling another. For every resident of Sderot and the Gaza settlements—and, perhaps less acutely, of Israel—Palestinian terror constitutes a “strategic threat” at this moment. It is not encouraging to hear Halutz express attitudes of extreme caution and “patience” that, together with fine diplomatic sensitivities, have characterized Israel’s approach throughout the terror-war period at a high cost in life.
Among Israel's rulers One can even detect shades of the arrogant, dismissive attitude toward Arab threats that marked the pre-Yom Kippur War period. At that time, Israel’s guiding conceptzia dictated that the Arabs were too devastated by their loss in the 1967 War to contemplate attacking Israel again. Even as the signs of an Egyptian-Syrian military buildup mounted, Israeli planners kept discounting the evidence of their eyes and ears in keeping with the almighty conceptzia.
The Palestinians may not constitute a military threat on the order of Iran or Egypt, but as Moshe Yaalon emphasizes, their constant aggression coupled with Israel’s refusal to take decisive action erodes Israel’s deterrent image throughout the region. Nor are enemies discouraged when things like rockets hitting apartment buildings and workers being killed in a greenhouse are treated as tolerable, minor incidents.
P. David Hornik writing in frontpagemag
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