Published by The Freeman Center
The Maccabean Online
Political Analysis and Commentary
on Israeli and Jewish Affairs
"For Zion's sake I shall not hold my peace, And for Jerusalem's sake I shall not rest."
I HAVE A PEACE PLAN TOO
by David Basch
5.10.10
5.10.10
"In this light, Pipes's advocacy concerning
the goal of victory over the Arab enemy makes
a lot of sense...."
"The feeble and insubstantial goal that Pipes
sees Israel as having embraced: "fight to win
acceptance by its enemies"... has altogether
failed and has only succeeded in empowering
the enemy and endangering Israel."
"I note that Pipes is staunchly on board the
Palestinian train,... essential if Israel is
not to rule over another "people," a tabooed
condition that does not at all trouble Arabs
when it is they who do the ruling ..."
Daniel Pipes in his recent article, "My Peace Plan: An Israeli
Victory," confirmed for me what Israel was doing wrong all along and
it made understandable why Israel has not succeeded in getting peace
but has been endangering this pursuit, all the while demoralizing
those allies who would give Israel steadfast support and actually
risking the nation's existence. It is simple to see how this is
happening, even more simple than Pipes describes.
What Israel has been doing is tantamount to a lamb's attempts to win
over the threatening jackal, getting the jackal to accept coexistence.
Despite the validity of this formulation of Israel's situation, it can
have no effect on Israeli policy since Israel's lamb-brained leaders
are unable to accept that Israel is indeed menaced by what are in
effect jackals -- Arab-jackals.
This point is essential if Israel is to truly mount a defense against
its enemies. For if the situation is such that you are a lamb and the
jackal is your enemy, the only way you can save your life is by either
vanquishing the jackal or placing stout impediments to keep him
endlessly away. It will not happen through the re-education of the
jackal, signed treaties, or through diversions. The fixed nature of
the jackal insures that a willing peace between him and the lamb
cannot succeed, any more than a wall of water will halt the inundating
of what lies before it without a dam to retain it, or that the Arab
world will cease to do naturally to destroy Israel without something
substantial indeed to bar the way.
This is why I regard with alarm what seems to be economist Netanyahu's
approach that would divert the Arab foe from its goal -- diverting the
jackal from to devouring lambs. He calls for their reeducation and the
building of a prosperous Arab economy. But Netanyah's education fix
will not change the Arab jackal's nature -- it is already too late for
that and impotent anyway, since the enemy, in any case, counters such
education by preaching the joys of the devouring jihad. And neither
will the road to economic prosperity succeed in diverting the enemy
since, for the Arabs, prosperity has never been a important priority
that comes before destroying Israel. Though the Arabs would be greatly
benefited by turning to peace, they reject that in favor of
destroying Israel, which "higher goal" is truly placed before their
chiefest joy
So unless Israel's goal is final submission to the enemy, Israel must
adopt a different strategy in achieving its security and integrity. In
looking over the situation, Pipes's summary of his conception of the
goals of each side of the Arab-Israel conflict is instructive. Pipes
writes:
Until now, through round after round of war, both sides have
retained their goals. Israel fights to win acceptance by its
enemies, while those enemies fight to eliminate Israel. Those
goals are raw, unchanging and mutually contradictory.
Israel's acceptance or elimination are the only states of
peace. Each observer must opt for one solution or the other.
A civilized person will want Israel to win, for its goal is
defensive, to protect an existing and flourishing country.
Its enemies' goal of destruction amounts to pure barbarism.
Notice the feeble and insubstantial goal that Pipes sees Israel as
having embraced: "fight to win acceptance by its enemies." That
Pipes's view of Israel's goal is correct is borne out by the wholesale
surrenders and appeasements that Israel has given to its enemies in
order "to win acceptance." This has altogether failed and has only
succeeded in empowering the dangerous enemy.
See and weep over what Israel has given to the enemy. Israel has given
him legitimacy. Although the lands of the Palestine Mandate were set
aside for the Jewish people, the Arab enemy residents are construed by
Israel's government as having a legitimate claim to it and these Arabs
are now defined as an historic people with ancient claims to the
history and artifacts of the Palestine region, a view now shared by
the majority of American Jews who today dream of Palestine, not
Jerusalem.
And Israel has also whetted the enemy's appetite for its own ultimate
victory by giving him control of a geographic land base from which to
exert power over an Arab population mass, a population that has the
power to endlessly grow in number through normal increase and by
potentially assimilating millions of outside "refugees," cultivated to
share the goals of eliminating Israel, a mass population that for
many, many decades have been supported by enemies as well as Israel's
friends (the US among them, who I understand gives 70% of the economic
support).
And if that geographic support hasn't been enough, Israel also gives
the enemy economic support -- including building infrastructure and
supplying him with water and electric power -- even while the enemy
continue attacks on Israel. As matters stand, Israel is ringed, north
(Lebanon), east (PA and Fatah forces), and south (Gaza's Hamas) by
formidable military enemy bases which Israel itself by policies and
surrenders has helped to establish.
Among the conceptions that enable starry-eyed human-rightist Israeli
leaders to hold their benign view of jackals that will become
vegetarians is the "evidence" that some seem to have done so. At least
the sweet talking Arabs that they talk to have done so. And so have
the ones that appear on television shows to testify on how they have
changed their minds about war and violence and how they are changing
other minds. The only problem is that, as every student of political
science learns, it only takes an active minority of 10% to bring about
revolution and the enemy side has many times more than that 10% --
some estimates of this active minority range from 30% to an oxymoronic
90% -- and these overwhelm those who preach peace and coexistence.
I will not even go into the fact that, as has also been shown to
occur, today's modernized Muslim population has the tendency to revert
back to militancy in succeeding generations, as a culturally
Francofied Algeria, speaking French for almost a hundred years,
reverted back to its Islamic roots in a period of less than ten years,
as has even some of the second generation Muslim immigrants to America
have embraced jihad and terrorist acts.
I note that Pipes is staunchly on board the Palestinian train, that
Israel must accept a "Palestinian" state as partner as part of plans
for a peaceful future. This "Palestinian" state will of course be
peopled by an Arabic population whose language does not include a "P"
sound, so alien is the origin of such a Palestinian nationality that
defines them and the mass of millions that are being cultivated to
believe that they are the owners of lands they have never been to or
seen. But Pipes thinks this is essential if Israel is not to rule over
another "people," a tabooed condition that does not at all trouble
Arabs when it is they who do the ruling over subcultures.
But if Pipes' dream of such a new state is a permanent fact in future
relations with the Arabs, it is a formula for continuing war that must
end in overwhelming Israel. The whole idea of the Arabs in fostering
and cultivating a phony " Palestinian" nationalism was for the purpose
of having it replace the Jews of Israel. This is a goal assisted by
the billion sized Muslim world and will not be abandoned by any
signature on a dotted line. Only if the idea of Israel's leaders for
Israel's future is to be absorbed into the Arab world and is their
unconscious dream, then Israel is going about this in the right way
and will no doubt get its wish. But I wouldn't call that Israeli
victory.
I am not sure how Israel will achieve the "victory" that I agree with
Pipes is essential if Israel is to survive. It will not come from any
success in winning over the Arab side to a willing peace, any more
than this is possible in winning jackals away from devouring
lambs. Israel's victory will have to be such that its enemy will have
been rendered virtually permanently incapable strategically and
physically continuing its battle.
I have my own ideas on content and manner of how Israel should proceed
to attain true victory but I am not a military tactician. I hope
Israel has some such persons that can indeed figure out how to do so.
It won't come through Israel's blood, sweat and tears expended in
building a rival Arab nation within its bosom.
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David Basch is an architect and city planner in New York as well as the Freeman Center's political philosopher. Basch is also an expert on Shakespeare and the author of the book, The Hidden Shakespeare, which proves through talmudic and other Jewish sources that Shakespeare was in fact Jewish.
