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 How
Israel Can Win
...and give Palestinian Arabs a chance...
[by
Daniel Pipes] 4/7/06
Since I argued
in a column
last week that Israel can and must defeat the Palestinian
Arabs, a barrage of responses have contested this thesis. Some
were trivial (Ha'aretz published an article challenging
my right to opine on such matters because I do not live in
Israel) but most raised serious issues that deserve an answer.
Contributor
Daniel Pipes
Daniel
Pipes is director of the Middle
East Forum, a member of the presidentially-appointed
board of the U.S.
Institute of Peace, and a prize-winning columnist
for the New York Sun and The Jerusalem
Post. His most recent book, Miniatures: Views
of Islamic and Middle Eastern Politics (Transaction
Publishers) appeared in late 2003. His website, DanielPipes.org,
the single most accessed source of information specifically
on the Middle East and Islam, offers an archive and
a chance to sign-up to receive his new materials as
they appear. [go to Pipes index]
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The ancient
Chinese strategist Sun
Tzu observed that in war, "Let your great object be victory," and
he was echoed by the 17th-century Austrian war thinker, Raimondo
Montecuccoli. His Prussian successor Clausewitz added
that "War is an act of violence to compel the enemy to fulfill
our will." These insights remain valid today: Victory consists
of imposing one's will on the enemy, which typically means
compelling him to give up his war goals. Conflicts usually
end with one side's will being crushed.
In theory,
that need not be the case. Belligerents can compromise, they
can mutually exhaust each other, or they can resolve their
differences under the shadow of a greater enemy (as when Britain
and France, long seen as "natural
and necessary enemies," in 1904 signed the Entente
Cordiale, because of their shared
worries about Germany.)
Such "no
victor, no loser" resolutions are the exception in modern times,
however. For example, although Iraq and Iran ended their 1980-88
war in a state of mutual exhaustion, this tie did not resolve
their differences. Generally speaking, so long as neither side
experiences the agony of defeat having its hopes dashed,
its treasury wasted, and lives extinguished the possibility
of war persists.
One might
expect this agony to follow on a crushing battlefield loss,
but since 1945 that has usually not been the case. Planes shot
down, tanks destroyed, munitions exhausted, soldiers deserting,
and land lost are rarely decisive. Consider the multiple Arab
losses to Israel during 1948-82, North Korea's loss in 1953,
Saddam Hussein's in 1991, and that of Iraqi Sunnis in 2003.
In all these cases, battlefield defeat did not translate into
despair.
In the ideological
environment of recent decades, morale and will matter more.
The French gave up in Algeria in 1962, despite out-manning
and out-gunning their foes. The same applies to the Americans
in Vietnam in 1975 and the Soviets in Afghanistan in 1989.
The Cold War ended without a fatality.
Applying
these insights to Israel's war with the Palestinian Arabs points
to several conclusions:
- Israel
hardly enjoys freedom of action to pursue victory; in particular,
it is hemmed in by the wishes of its primary ally, the American
government. That is why I, an American analyst, address this
issue with the intention of influencing policy in the United
States and other Western countries.
- Israel
should be urged to convince the Palestinian Arabs that they
have lost, to influence their psychology.
- An aggressive
step like "transferring" Palestinian Arabs out of the West
Bank would be counterproductive for Israel, prompting greater
outrage, increasing the number of enemies, and perpetuating
the conflict.
- Contrarily,
perceptions of Israel's weakness lessen the possibility of
Palestinian Arab defeat; thus did Israeli missteps during
the Oslo years (1993-2000) and the Gaza withdrawal inspire
Palestinian Arab exhilaration and more war.
- Israel
needs only to defeat the Palestinian Arabs, not the whole
Arab or Muslim populations, who eventually will follow the
Palestinian Arab lead.
I refrain
from suggesting specific steps Israel should take in part because
I am not Israeli, and in part because discussing tactics to
win is premature before victory is the policy. Suffice to say
that the Palestinian Arabs derive immense succor and strength
from a worldwide network of support from NGOs, editorialists,
academics, and politicians; that the manufactured Palestinian
Arab "refugee" problem stands at the dank heart of the
conflict, and that the lack of international recognition of
Jerusalem as Israel's capital festers. These three issues are
clearly priorities.
Ironically,
Israeli success in crushing the Palestinian Arab war morale
would be the best thing that ever happened to the Palestinian
Arabs. It would mean their finally giving up their foul dream
of eliminating their neighbor and would offer a chance instead
to focus on their own polity, economy, society, and culture.
To become a normal people, one whose parents do not encourage
their children to become suicide terrorists, Palestinian Arabs
need to undergo the crucible of defeat. -one-
This
piece first appeared in The New York Sun
copyright
2006 Daniel Pipes
§
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