Someone recently asked me why I write so much about the Palestinian Arabs rather than Iran, which is really a much greater threat to Israel. One reason is that everyone knows how serious the Iranian threat is, while there continue to be be people who think that the ‘peace process’ is worth pursuing. So I write articles like yesterday’s piece about Palestinian Arab attitudes, or my recent post arguing (for the nth time) that the real issue is recognition of the Jewish state, not borders or occupation.
Another reason is that the Palestinian Arabs, combined with the increasingly radicalized Arab citizens of Israel, really are a threat to the existence of the Jewish state. Perhaps not so much a military threat — at least, by themselves — but as a wedge issue for the anti-Zionist forces throughout the world. Think of the massive resources poured into anti-Israel NGOs by the European Union. They could almost bail out the Greeks if they would only leave Israel alone!
The Palestinian Arabs also have hurt Israel greatly over the years by waging low-intensity war — several thousand Israeli Jews have been murdered by Palestinian terrorists since 1993, and many more seriously injured. It’s impossible to ignore the human, economic and psychic damage in the tiny Jewish population for which they are responsible.
If they do succeed in establishing a sovereign state in the territories, then it is likely to become another base for Iranian proxy forces, like Lebanon and Gaza.
And finally, when the inevitable war with Iran’s proxies in Lebanon and Syria plays out, we can expect that they will at least ramp up terrorism and perhaps open another front.
With respect to the Iranian threat, we probably know what’s coming, although of course we don’t know what the ultimate outcome will be. Former Mossad head Meir Dagan, as well as ex-CIA officer Robert Baer — both individuals who must be taken seriously — seem to believe that the present Israeli government is moving toward an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Even if this is not true, there is no doubt that Iran already has or shortly will have the ability to produce a deliverable weapon. Once this happens, I think a preemptive attack will be inevitable.
Finally, it’s unlikely that Israel can allow the massive conventional and chemical/biological threat from its northern border to remain.
It may be that all of these issues will be resolved at the same time.
Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinian Arabs, Iran, Hizballah
Your very last sentence sums things up nicely, Vic. Personally, I call this the “grand tour’: A crisis erupts in the wake of the PA gambit in the UN, and since Israel will be condemned just as heavily for dealing with just the PA in J&S as they would for a much larger operation, then they will take the, ah, “opportunity” to launch a more comprehensive campaign that will: 1) crush the PA as a functioning entity, 2) strike Iran’s nuke facilities, hopefully setting them back ten years or more, and 3) smash Hezbollah in Lebanon.
One last note for non-Israeli readers here (which includes me), by way of perspective.
In proportional terms, for Israel to suffer what we did on 9-11, they only have to lose about 50 or so civilians. In Intifada Two, they lost around 1000 civilians, or, in other words, they experienced twenty 9-11s.
Israeli killed about three times that many Palestinian civilians in their resulting military operations…just as we have killed many more civilains than we lost on 9-11 in Afghanistan alone (let alone Iraq). Keep in mind, as you all debate this with others, that this is because both in our case and Israel’s, our common enemies hide behind civilians, and deliberately magnify civilian casualties in order to make us – or Israel – look bad.
This is a triple war crime. First, killing civilians deliberately, then, hiding behind civilians, and along with this, dressing up as civilians in order to make it harder to distinguish between the combatants and civilians, and when their civilian-dressed fighters get killed, making it look like we – or Israel – killed many more civilians than actually was the case.
Where were such tactics learned? From the North Vietnamese communists. They used exactly these tactics on us in that war. And Yasser Arafat himself traveled to Hanoi in the late 60s, where he learned these very things. The writings of the top Vietnamese commander, Gen. Giap, have been translated into Arabic and are widely circulated in the region. But, I digress….
One hope I have is that the turmoil in Syria is making it far more difficult for the Hizbollah- Syria- Iran axis to truly threaten Israel. This is said of course while bracketing the most important and dangerous problem, the Iranian nuclear threat.
As for the Palestinians they have no doubt done us great damage. The whole de-legitimization campaign is built on their ’cause’.
Yet however terrible politically they have been and are there is the fact of their being a reality within the Jewish state and within the greater land of Israel. And it is mistaken to regard that reality in exclusively negative terms. They are people who after all live and work in, and contribute to Israeli society. They have helped build Israeli cities, and they are engaged in all kinds of work, often those Jews do not want to do. As individuals as citizens they ideally are treated equally in the Jewish state.
What I am trying to say and saying this somewhat awkwardly is that there is a temptation to look at the Arab minority in a wholly negative way. I know because I strongly share that temptation. But there is another side of it, and it includes countless everyday life encounters in which one deals with Arab doctors, nurses, construction workers, social workers, restaurant workers, teachers, repairmen, delivery personnel etc and etc.
We must know who are enemies are and resist them with all our might. But we must also be humane and decent in our everyday relations with the Arab minority when this is their relation to us.