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Photo: AP
Olmert. Maybe logic rests in offices outside defense department walls?
Photo: AP

Security hawks strike again

Israeli policy is making a clash with Hamas inevitable

For nearly a month, our best security minds have debated what to do about Hamas. They've held forums, sat around the table, analyzed intelligence information, discussed the situation, published scenarios and reports and statistics, made predictions.

 

And after all that, they've come up with a revolutionary solution to the reality of a Hamas government: put the civilian population under siege and bring about the government's fall. Sounds familiar, no?

 

This is the same security group that has already beaten Hamas once, and the establishment's polished, media-savvy spokespeople have told us time after time that the Hamas leadership has been destroyed, and that the organization is about to collapse – and here we are with the very same Hamas, smiling broadly and leading the Palestinian Authority.

 

These are the same security folks that at the beginning of the second intifada developed the concept of "economic crowbars," a product of former Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon meant to force Yasser Arafat to abandon his terrorist ways under the groan of civilians suffering on a daily basis.

 

Repeating mistakes

 

Israeli governments have always (except for the somewhat exceptional case of the Rabin government), with the energetic and very effective cooperation of the IDF, tried to convince Israelis that Palestinian logic is different than Israeli logic, different, in fact, that human logic.

 

Whereas in Israel, Palestinian attacks, incitement and blows of other types lead to increased hatred and increase our desire for retribution, when we make the Palestinians' lives miserable, we expect their moderates to be strengthened.

 

Forget about what your first grade teacher told you (circle of violence, violence begets violence, etc.): The ongoing chain of closures, IDF encirclements, arrests and roadblocks will cause the Palestinians to moderate, to happily accept Israeli superiority, go down on all fours and break out singing Hatikva.

 

Consider the alternatives

 

There is the tiniest ring of an alternative sounding from National Security Advisor Giora Eiland. Eiland proposes waiting a bit to see what Israel must respond to before responding. But this thought was swallowed up by an establishment hell-bent on doing the only thing it knows – power, a lot of it, and now.

 

An economic siege on the Palestinian Authority in 2006 is an especially brutal display of power. It won't put a dent in the PA's film budget (for those hoping to be rid of the creators of "Paradise Now"), nor in the parks budget of the city of Ramallah.

 

Rather, it will cause tangible physical damage to hundreds of thousands of people, children and adults alike, who will be forced to make do with less and less food and will be unable to purchase medicines.

 

This, of course, will increase their love for Israel, their moderation and their pursuit of peace.

 

Placing the blame

 

But why complain to the security establishment? The real blame belongs on the political leadership that turns to the security guys every political crisis and carries out their recommendations to the letter.

 

For who would dare thing, especially on the eve of elections, to consider non-aggressive solutions to the situation? That maybe, just maybe, real understanding and logic rests in offices outside the walls of the defense department?

 

It seems that at the end of the day, we will be forced to clash with Hamas. But we will never know if that clash is unavoidable, or if things could have been different.

 

Because the Israeli government refuses to consider other options apart from rambling forward towards the clash. The suffering we cause to the Palestinians, the poverty and the hunger will not incite them against their leaders.

 

Rather, they will cause the Palestinians to rally around their "strong leaders" to oppose the occupation. And when the clash comes, instead of facing a Palestinian society split between those in favor of dialogue and those who support Hamas, we will face a unified society that has nothing to lose but its chains.

 

Roi Peled is the director of the United Kibbutz Movement political department

 


פרסום ראשון: 02.20.06, 09:58
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