ISRAEL IS ALWAYS TO BLAME: PART II

Peter Huessy

In my previous opeditorial a few days ago, I explained how the conventional wisdom that Israel cannot achieve peace with the Palestinian people through the use of force is contributing to the very violence in the Middle East that such wisdom if adopted is purported to be seeking to end.

Many of Israels fiercest critics apparently do not understand that Hamas cadres have trained in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan as well as in Iran. Hamas teaches its children there is no Israel and that any Palestinian state must be from the river to the sea. They are part of a society that produces nothing and as Clare Lopez, a former CIA operative has noted: "They are truly willing to blow up their women and children in order to kill Jews and then sing and laugh about it". This is the seamless web of hate perpetuated by Hamas, Hizbollah, Al Qaeda and their terror masters in Iran, Syria and elsewhere.

In the face of this hatred, it is explicable that relatively informed journalists such as Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post would ritually posit that Israel and the US have to choose between politics and bombs on the issue of Gaza. If it were so simple! But that is not the choice. Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran believe Israel has no right to exist. While it could be true that the majority of the people living in Gaza want to live side by side with Israel, they are but bystanders to the fight, as such people have no voice. And tragically they are coerced into being civilian shields for the cowards and thugs which run Hamas. Can you imagine people purposively voting to see their wives and children blown up?

One genuinely weeps for the children and others being killed and wounded in this conflict. Ironically, it is Hamas and its allies that could put an end to the carnage immediately--but they do not wish to do so. They continue their murderous ways while hiding behind what must to Israelis look like an impenetrable shield of journalistic indifference, even complicity.

As long as these two murder organizations exist--and that is what Hamas and Hizbollah are--and their masters in Iran and Syria, Israel cannot negotiate with them for the only deal possible would be a deal to eliminate the state of Israel itself.

Instead of finding every conceivable reason to condemn Israel, as too many are quick to do, why should not the nations concerned say we will not help the people of Gaza or the West Bank or Lebanon until such time as Hamas and Hezbollah’s policies of killing Israelis are ended and the associated leadership is exiled from both groups and the territory they now occupy, along with the cessation of aid from their state sponsors. And we should be willing with our allies to enforce such agreements with all our available power.

Whether either of these terror practicing groups and their masters would ever be able to transform themselves is unlikely, but that should be the choice they are given, and if they do jettison their hatred of Israel, Jews and the West, then Israel's choice to live with a Palestinian state can be realized.

I once asked a member of the Palestine Authority whether he could negotiate in good faith with anyone describing him and his people as "monkeys and pigs". He said he didn't understand the question. I said your text books for your children describe Jews as "monkeys and pigs", to be killed, eliminated. He said no they do not. I showed him just such a text book. He had no answer.

While in Iraq and Afghanistan recently, it was clear that both bombs and politics brought relative peace to Iraq, especially beginning in Anbar in September 2006. Michael Yon and Bing West have both published new books which makes this clear. Diehl like many others provides us thusly with a false choice, but a choice created by a common antipathy to Israel and the common journalistic characteristic of always having to blame whoever is allied with the United States.

Critics complain Israel “took the bait” by retaliating against Hamas. Defending oneself against murderers is "taking the bait?" Is this how Americans should deal with crime--just let the drive-by shooters kill just a few folks every weekend? How long would the people of San Diego stay quiet if 50 rockets a day were launched at their schools from terror groups in Tijuana?

The false choice given to us by Mr. Diehl is obvious if we simply reflect on the lessons of the past decades. The United States and its allies took down the Taliban, the former Soviet Union, the Baathists and Al Qaeda in Iraq, the FARC in Columbia, Abu Sayif in the Philippines, and the FMLN in Salvador. All these campaigns required both military force and political accommodation in one combination or another.

However, the former, military power, was indispensible. Without which the political conditions would never have changed. As the military correlation of forces changed in our favor and that of our allies, politics changed dramatically.

For example, once the FMLN were defeated in El Salvador, their remaining leaders starting running for office. They chose ballots over bullets but only when they realized these were their options. And choosing the latter would lead to their defeat.

I remember the times we fought tooth and nail in the US Congress to secure sufficient military assistance for the people of El Salvador! How many times did we have to listen to defeatist members of Congress repeatedly telling us that "there was no military solution" to the Salvadoran "civil war" and that we had to accomodate the FMLN?

Too many mistakenly believe peace is the natural condition of humankind and that war is the rare event. This enables people to assume wars and terror result from grievances, poverty or injustice, that if eliminated would usher in peace. In fact, war is the natural condition of much of the human experience, and it has been the emergence of American military power, along with its attendant economic and diplomatic capabilities, that has brought relative peace to the post-World War II era.

Real peace treaties are signed after someone wins and someone is defeated. I know winning is not on the agenda of most of the drive-by media as Israel is considered a bully because of its military power and thus not deserving to win. As one senior Senator said a few years ago about American forces in Afghanistan, we, the US, "were looking like bullies" for taking down the Taliban too effectively! Here again we have the template of American military power being the problem. But as former President Reagan once commented, no one ever attacked the United States because we were too strong.

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Peter R. Huessy is currently the president of GeoStrategic Analysis, a defense and national security consulting business. In addition to writing for OpinionEditorials.com, he is also a guest lecturer, appearing at such fine institutions as the School of Advanced International Affairs, Johns Hopkins University, The Institute of World Politics, and The National War College. Mr. Huessy has spent his career working in government organizations and committees, such as the United Nations, The Environmental Fund, Department of the Interior, and the National Defense University Foundation.

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