Ami Isseroff, who I consider to be a major liberal Zionist thinker, has written an article (included below) explaining why he believes Israel should not “flatten Gaza” to end Hamas’ attacks against Israel.
The article is well reasoned, but still incorrect on several counts.
1. Isseroff says that if Israel killed a large number of civilians in Gaza, which would most certainly be the case, that is would mobilize Gazans to support their leadership and its goals. The problem is that most Gazans already support Arab attacks against Israel and the Arab plan to destroy Israel. If the support increased from 80% to 100%, what would it matter?
Isseroff warns that if Israel made an all out attack on Gaza, Egypt would be “forced” to open the Rafah crossing to arms and weapons for Hamas. In fact, Egypt already allows so many heavy weapons, arms, money and fighters to come into Gaza, it would actually be an improvement to have them in the open where they could be stopped more easily than is possible through their current tunnel system.
He also says that if Israel committed “atrocities” against civilians in Gaza by killing them in air raids or ground fighting, the world would stop backing Israel. The problem is that Israel already does not enjoy much world support, even when it allows its people to be killed by Arab terrorists and gives up its sovereignty to world opinion. If the world disapproved of an effective attack on Gaza, what would happen? Would the UN and NATO send in forces? Would the US cease to veto anti-Israel resolutions in the UN security council? Let them pass resolutions. The worst likely effect would be that the UN might apply sanctions. Nations survive sanctions, and as Israel is a major exporter of technology, produce, textiles, minerals, etc, the sanctions would cut two ways. Sanctions would hurt the Israeli economy, to be sure, but if the war were over quickly and were effective, the sanctions would end and Israel would benefit greatly from having large terrorist bases removed from its boundaries, and finally restoring security and public trust for its citizens.
Of course, a major attack on Gaza would likely lead to the dreaded three front war with attacks from the Arabs occupying Judea and the Shomron, Lebanon and probably Syria. In that case the approach should be the same. Not a political show, but a war fought to defeat the enemy thoroughly in the most effective way possible, whatever that might be. The political fallout can be dealt with afterwards, and much more easily after victory than after defeat.
2. Isseroff asserts that previous successes have come from measured “pinpoint” military action against specific terrorists and their headquarters and arms caches. He cites operation “Defensive Shield”, which was in fact a success. Defensive Shield was a large action, and it was successful because it was comprehensive more than because it was precise. Perhaps if there had been less emphasis on precision is would have been more successful, but that is hard to say. The point of any operation should not be to simply kill Arabs. That is certainly immoral and ineffective. The point of any operation should be success and victory over an enemy. If civilians are killed, even many civilians, in carrying out the most effective plan, that is the fortunes of the war that the Arabs started.
Attacks carried out where preventing civilian losses has a higher priority than success, or attacks carried without a specific objective are a grave mistake. These are simply political manuverings bringing a loss of life on both sides for no good purpose. If Israel does not kill bystanders, it is still accused of massacres. Any attack by Israel will bring charges of atrocities, some amount of condemnation, anti-Israel UN resolutions and perhaps a visit by Condoleeza Rice. That should not be a consideration in deciding how and when to attack an enemy. The consideration should be a practical goal and the best method of attaining the goal.
3. Isseroff equates civilian casualties automatically with “atrocities”. Atrocities are killing civilians outside of military actions, either for cruelty, revenge, to demoralize the enemy or whatever. If an attacking army kills civilians in attacking legitimate targets that is unfortunate, but not an atrocity. If Hamas purposefully attacks Israel from private houses, schools, hospitals and populated areas, that is an Arab problem, not an Israeli problem. The atrocity is on Hamas’ side, not Israel’s.
4. Isseroff says that a remote war using bombers, missiles and gunships is not effective, and the ground must be held by ground troops. That is probably the case. Most successful attacks use both, in whatever combination will yield the best results. That is a matter for the military strategists and tacticians to decide. The point is not to have more civilian casualties or less, but to defeat an enemy in the most effective manner, and keep them defeated.
5. Lastly, Isseroff finishes with the standard pacifist stand, claiming that Torah forbids war on the basis of the commandment “Lo tirzah”, do not murder. Obviously causing casualties in war is not considered murder in the Torah, and this is a false position. Throughout the Torah Israel is commanded to wage war, defeat enemies, execute criminals and so on. Even those who killed fellow Jews for the sake of God were considered heroes, not villains. That is not to say Jews should kill Jews who they think are rebelling against God. These things happened in early crisis points of the Jewish nation, and again when the State of Israel was preparing to be re-established. Murder is not committed by armies, but by civilians. The killing done by a soldier may be considered murder if he does it for individual reasons against someone other than the target of the attack, and a soldier should also not follow orders to do something immoral. However, waging war, especially a defensive war, is not immoral. In fact, to fail to wage war in the face of an enemy attack is immoral because in doing so the government assents to the death of its citizens and commits treason, breaching the trust of the nation.
I have to confess to a grave error of judgment and understanding regarding solutions for the Gaza situation.
I thought that No easy answers for Gaza had explained why there is no easy immediate solution to the problem of Hamas rule in Gaza. I was wrong. Well meaning people continue to offer “solutions” and to wonder why they are not adopted. Similar “solutions” are also offered for the Hezbollah problem, Iraq and Islamist extremism in general. It is evident that a more detailed explanation is needed.
The “solutions” offered consist of suggestions to carpet bomb Gaza, to destroy square blocks from the air after giving warning, or to destroy sectors by artillery fire – either with or without warning. The basic idea is to destroy civilian property or lives at random. The “advantage” of such solutions is supposedly that no Israeli soldiers will risk their lives. Apparently, that is what is meant by some people who insist that “there is only a military solution.” These ideas are discussed by serious people in serious forums. The proposals are morally wrong, inexpedient and ineffective.
For those who need to understand the expediency and effectiveness arguments, I offer the following.
In general, the aim of terrorist groups like Hamas, the Taliban and the Hezbollah in asymmetric warfare is to provide just enough provocation to get their far stronger opponents to commit atrocities or to become involved in “no-win” wars. Atrocities by the state opponent mobilize public opinion and support internally and arouse public opinion abroad. This makes it possible to legitimize even the most odious ideologies regimes such as the Taliban, the Hamas and the Hezbollah. The biggest error of the Nazis in their invasion of the USSR was the nacht und nebel policy of atrocities against the civilian population. The Soviet people, whatever their feelings about Stalin and communism, had no choice but to rally massively against the Fascist enemy that was destroying their homes and their lives. The anti-communist Americans and British as well, felt constrained to come to the aid of the Soviet regime.
A wise Zionist leadership was able to beat the British empire because the anti-Jewish policies of the British in mandatory Palestine were obnoxious. They aroused the Jewish people, and they aroused the world. For Israel, the Second Lebanon war can serve as a model of what not to do – widespread destruction of civilian targets turned Lebanese and the world against Israel, just as the Sabra and Shatila massacre, not committed by Israel, was nonetheless used to turn Lebanese and world opinion against Israel. In Iraq, the Americans have been lucky enough to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq. Their atrocities have slowly turned the Iraqi people solidly against “the resistance.” If the Arabs of Palestine have slowly turned away from suicide bombing (there are still attempts) it is not because of any great moral scruples, but because they finally understood that the suicide bombings were hurting their cause rather than helping it, and turning world public opinion against them.
Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, which effectively eventually ended the wave of Palestinian terror that was instigated in 2000, was a spectacular and still under-appreciated success. It succeeded not because there was a massacre in Jenin or anywhere else, but because there were no massacres. There was a relatively precise plan for the attack, there was good intelligence and there was an excellent and well coordinated follow-up strategy. Palestinian propaganda tried in vain to invent a massacre story that would have destroyed the effectiveness of Defensive Shield, but even the UN and Human Rights Watch could not buy the fabricated massacre. The Palestinian population could not be mobilized for “resistance” either, because they understood that only those who continued terror attacks were threatened. In Gaza, we don’t have such a clean option.
The main point of Defensive Shield, and the reason it succeeded, is that Israel gained control of the ground. As we saw in Lebanon, and as the US learned a long time ago in Vietnam, pounding the enemy from the air or at a distance cannot bring victory. The enemy in asymmetric warfare is always extremely determined, and their calculations are not upset by civilian casualties. They don’t have a democratic regime and don’t need to worry about public opinion. The Hamas could not care less if Israel wiped out half the people in Gaza, as long as their fighters are still alive in sufficient numbers to launch rockets.
A second essential factor in the success of the anti-terror effort was the construction of the security fence. Despite defects and insensitivity in the implementation of that measure, the powers of the self-righteous NGOs, the Hague court, the Tikkunistas and the terror lobby could not prevail against the security fence. That is because the fence, “Apartheid Wall” or whatever you want to call it stopped terror and prevents terror attacks every day. The fence saves lives. The fence, of course, would not stop rocket attacks, and neither would bombing square blocks of Gaza. War is always cruel and barbaric to some extent, but measures that are cruel, barbaric, ineffective and self-defeating cannot be justified.
Anti-Zionists and anti-Semites strain their imaginations to invent Zionist massacre stories, and to belabor the few real ones that can be suitably embroidered. The Mullahs of Tehran and Qom would like nothing better than to have the Israelis commit an actual massacre – to destroy square blocks, to shell areas at random, to vaporize Gaza. They are interested in Islamic revolution, not in helping Palestinians. They agree with Zionist extremists that the best sort of Palestinian Arab for their purposes is a dead one – a Shahid. Any of these “plans” for committing atrocities in Gaza would result in a catastrophe for Israel. Islamist fanatics would declare a Jihad. that would be joined by the entire Arab and Muslim world. The Egyptians would be forced to open the Rafah crossing to Mujahedin warriors and military materiel. The Gulf countries would institute a petroleum embargo, as if the price of oil is not high enough. The EU and the UN would most certainly recognize Hamas. The United States could not allow its weapons to be used in the commission of atrocities either.
Israel has one great advantage in the struggle with Hamas and the Islamic Jihad and their allies that we did not really enjoy in the struggle against the violence of the “second Intifadah:” we have international support. The Hamas is an illegitimate genocidal movement that took power by force, and it is perceived as such by much of the world. Yasser Arafat was lauded as a hero in much of the world. Khaled Meshal and Ismail Haniyeh are rightly perceived as fanatical and bloodthirsty racist thugs. The proposed “solutions” would rob us of our only advantage. It would turn us into the fanatical and bloodthirsty racist thugs. Israel would lose the Gaza Monopoly game. We would land in the green square labeled “International recognition of Hamas or Hamas lookalikes.”
Israeli responses are already straining the patience of many. It is regrettably not possible to combat the rocket attacks without killing at least some Palestinian civilians, even when due care is exercised, and without doing a lot of damage to property. Despite all the anger and suffering engendered by the barbaric rocket attacks, they have killed less than half a dozen Israelis since the beginning of the year. As many Palestinians are often killed in a week by Israel.
No Israeli government will implement any such atrocity strategy. It is opposed to the ethical code of the IDF. Not even the “Hatikva” party of Aryeh Eldad could do it, if only because the United States would not let them. So the entire discussion of such plans is as pointless as disputing the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin – it is a sort of deadly psychopathic version of “pilpul” (Talmudic disputation of irrelevant points for the sake of dispute).
The advocates of the “bomb ‘em to Hell” school of thought must know all this. They continue, for obscure reasons, to advocate these bloody, nightmarish, fantastic, unrealistic and childish plans as if there had never been a Second Lebanon War with its lessons and all the years of fighting Palestinian violence with their lessons, and as if Israel can operate in a vacuum. They do incredible harm to Zionism and to the cause of Israel when they advocate them in public, because they are fulfilling the stereotype of bloodthirsty demonic “Military Zionism” created by anti-Israel fanatics.
Those who do not believe in expediency or Zionist morality, might be persuaded by the Bible. What didn’t you understand about “Thou shalt not murder (‘lo tirza’h')”?
