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24 Aug 2006 10:06:50 AM |
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The Forward: Time To Change the Tune |
Time To Change the Tune
The Forward | Editorial
Fri. August 18, 2006
http://www.forward.com/articles/time-to-change-the-tune/
As Israelis began trying this week to make sense of their bruising
five-week
war in Lebanon, discussion has returned again and again to the
traumatic Yom
Kippur War of 1973. Then as now, Israel's vaunted military machine was
caught with its pants down, locked into a strategic concept - static
defense
lines then, air dominance now - that had become obsolete. Then as
now, the
war ended in a victory that felt more like defeat, leaving Israel's
enemies
crowing and Israelis fearing for their very future. This time, with
Israel's
military deterrent exposed as lacking and jihadist rage mounting among
the
world's billion Muslims, the fears feel very real.
But there is another, more hopeful parallel between 1973 and now, for
those
willing to see it. Back then, the mixed results of the war reshuffled
the
strategic balance in the Middle East, opening the way for a diplomatic
flurry - tirelessly orchestrated by Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger -
that ultimately led to a peace treaty with Egypt, Israel's most
powerful
Arab foe. This week, growing numbers of Israeli strategists are
speaking of
a similar opening arising from the latest war. They see an opportunity
for
Israel to reach out to moderate Arab and Muslim states, a chance to
forge a
common front against the extremist threat from Iran and Hezbollah. The
price
of admission: a regional peace accord, including a resolution of the
Palestinian issue and genuine Arab recognition of Israel, that enables
the
moderates to unite and thus isolates the extremists.
"We need a realignment in the region," says veteran Labor Party
lawmaker
Ephraim Sneh, a reserve brigadier general and former deputy defense
minister. "We need to create a new balance with the all the moderate
countries on one side" - and the extremists on the other.
By "moderate countries," Sneh is thinking first of all the nearby Arab
states that have made peace with Israel or hinted at it clearly in
recent
decades, beginning with Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the
Palestinians.
Not coincidentally, all of them are Sunni Muslim societies that view
the
Shi'ite Iran-Hezbollah axis with fear and loathing.
As it happens, every one of the target nations has sent urgent signals
to
Israel in recent weeks, making it clear that they want to do business.
Israelis must now ask themselves what price they would have to pay to
join
the game, and what role they need their American ally to play to make
it
work.
The Egyptians, as usual, are leading the way. Their security services
have
been working frantically in the past month to separate the Hamas-led
Palestinian government from its Hezbollah allies, to secure the release
of
kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and to create a unified
Palestinian
negotiating partner for peace talks with Israel, under the clear
leadership
of the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas.
Hamas - at least its local wing in the territories - seems
desperate to buy
in; it has endorsed the Egyptian initiative and cracked down on rocket
fire.
This week it approved a unity government with Fatah and announced that
it
had "no problem negotiating with Israel."
With Egypt playing enforcer, the Saudis have taken on the role of
pitchman.
Three weeks ago, midway through the war, they dusted off their 2002
peace
plan, known as the King Fahd plan, which offered Israel full peace and
normalized relations with all 22 Arab states in return for "solving the
Palestinian problem." It included Palestinian statehood within the 1967
borders (details to be negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians)
and a
"resolution of the refugee problem" (essentially repatriating a
symbolic
group and compensating the rest, diplomats said). What was new in this
month's announcement was this ominous warning: Given the mounting level
of
anti-Israel rage in the region, the offer might not be on the table
forever.
It's time, Saudi officials said, for a regional settlement that brings
Israel into the Middle Eastern family. The alternative is chaos.
Israelis rejected the Saudi plan back in 2002 as demanding too much
from
them. At this point, given a choice between the Fahd plan and the
prospect
of Iranian regional dominance, the Fahd plan is looking better and
better,
officials say privately.
There are a few wild cards in the scenario. One of them is Syria. As
long as
it remains tied to Iran and Hezbollah, there may be no way to
neutralize the
terrorist militia, a basic Israeli condition for any deal. Nor can the
Fahd
plan be completed with
Syria, a key Arab state, holding out. This week's "victory" speech by
the
Syrian president, Bashar Assad, set an alarmingly shrill tone,
promising
continued support for Hezbollah and even threatening military action
on the Golan Heights, something Damascus has avoided for 33 years.
Tucked within Assad's speech, though, was a very different message:
a call to Israel, repeated several times, to "turn toward peace" and so
avoid defeat. Assad may have been reading from the playbook used by
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in the early 1970s: Threaten fire and
brimstone, claim you've redeemed your honor through military victory,
then open a quiet channel to talk peace.
And that raises the second wild card: Are Israelis ready to join? The
answer
isn't simple. Defense Minister Amir Peretz, the Labor Party leader,
opened
the debate this week with a speech urging Israel to "renew our dialogue
with
the Palestinians" and to "create the conditions for dialogue with
Syria."
"Every war creates an opportunity for a new political process," he
said.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of the Kadima party said much the same
thing
the same day. Last week's unanimous United Nations Security Council
resolution, with its clear blaming of Hezbollah and refusal to condemn
Israel, creates "a window of opportunity," she said.
For now, the main roadblock is Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Whether out
of
mistrust of Arab intentions, emotional attachment to the settlements or
fear
of political retribution from the right, he is rejecting talk of a
Syrian
opening or a renewed Fahd plan. Aides say he's not ready to jump in.
A plan for easing into regional dialogue more gently was offered this
week
by Yossi Beilin, leader of the left-wing Meretz party and architect of
the
1993 Oslo Accords. Beilin is calling for a reconvening of the Madrid
Conference, an all-party Middle East roundtable convened in 1991 by
President George H.W. Bush. Summoned in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War,
the
conference brought all the main Middle East players around a single
table
and then broke up into working committees, some of which continue to
stumble
along, at least on paper. In Beilin's view, calling a conference like
that
would let the parties sit together without committing themselves to a
predetermined result. They could simply say that Uncle Sam made them
come.
And that raises the third wild card: whether the current President Bush
is
willing and able to do what has to be done. Right now he's torn between
the
pragmatists in his administration, who favor dialogue, and the
ideologues,
who insist on seeing the world in blacks and whites and are willing to
keep
fighting to the last Israeli. Bush's own instincts are with the
ideologues,
though he's shown himself capable of acting pragmatically when he sees
the
need.
That is the challenge for Israel's friends right now. Bush has been
convinced by self-appointed spokesmen for Israel and the Jewish
community
that endless war is in Israel's interest. He needs to hear in no
uncertain
terms that Israel is ready for dialogue, that the alternative -
endless
jihad - is unthinkable. Now is time to change the tune.
[THE FORWARD is a legendary name in American journalism and a revered
institution in American Jewish life. Launched as a Yiddish-language
daily
newspaper on April 22, 1897, the Forward family of newspapers -
English,
Russian and the original Yiddish - continues to carry on the founding
vision
of Abraham Cahan, serving together as the voice of the American Jew and
the conscience of the community.]
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: The Forward: Time To Change the Tune |
24 Aug 2006 11:00:40 AM |
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Ephraim Sneh, a reserve brigadier general and former deputy defense minister. "We need to create a new balance with the all the moderate countries on one side" - and the extremists on the other. By "moderate countries," Sneh is thinking first of all the nearby Arab states that have made peace with Israel or hinted at it clearly in recent decades, beginning with Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinians.
=
This clown obviously runs off the track and deep into Cloudcuckooland
as soon as he says "Palestinians."
In general, he scribbles at length without ever expressly noting that
somebody (guess who?) is going to have to _buy_ moderation about
Zionism in particular from all the "moderate" cardboard kinglets and
barracks-based republicans of the Levant. Even if they were all such
dingalings as to feel really threatened by a Shiite hobgoblin, they
would not need help from Tel Aviv to cope.
If it were made sufficiently advantageous for the Arab OnePercenters
themselves, as opposed to their subjects or their countries, they
could probably be induced to risk the wrath of the Arab Street and make
a deal along Gen. Sneh's lines, but they'd be mad to do it only for
moderation's own sweet sake.
BGKB. Bomby days.
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