"You
And I And The Next War"
By Uri Avnery
02 March, 2007
Gush
Shalom
"WE ARE ready for the next
war," a reserve soldier told a TV reporter this week, on the scene
of a brigade-size maneuver on the Golan Heights.
What war? Against whom? About
what? This was not stated, and not even asked. The soldier saw it as
self-evident that war will break out soon, and it seems that he did
not particularly care against whom.
Politicians are used to expressing
themselves more cautiously, in words like "If, God forbid, a war
should break out…" But in Israeli public discourse, the next
war is seen as a natural phenomenon, like tomorrow's sunrise. Of course,
war will break out. The only question is against whom.
AND INDEED - against whom?
Perhaps Hizbullah again?
Quite possibly. In the Knesset
and the media, a lively debate took place this week about whether Hizbullah
has already regained all the capabilities it had before the Second Lebanon
War, or not yet. In a Knesset committee, there was an altercation between
one of the Army Intelligence chiefs, who vigorously insisted that this
was so, and the Minister of Defense, who voiced his opinion that Hizbullah
has only the "potential" to get there.
Hassan Nasrallah, who has
a wonderful talent for driving Israelis up the wall, poured oil on the
flames by announcing, in a public speech, that arms were flowing to
him from Syria, and that he transfers them to the south in trucks "covered
with straw". Let them all know.
Our commentators reacted
by declaring that "no later than this summer" the Israeli
army will be compelled to attack in Lebanon in order to remove the danger,
and, on this occasion, also to eradicate the shame and restore to the
army the "deterrent power" that was lost on the battlefields
of that unfortunate war.
OR PERHAPS Syria, this time?
That is also possible. After
all, this week's brigade maneuver, the first for a long time, was held
on the Golan and obviously directed against Damascus.
True, the Syrians have offered
peace. They are going out of their way to tempt Israel to start negotiations.
But that is out of the question.
President Bush has forbidden Israel to take even the tiniest step in
that direction. Bush is threatening Syria with war (see below) and it
is unthinkable that Israel, the loyal camp-follower, would make peace
with somebody America does not like. No, peace with Syria is not on
the cards. Forget it.
And, as the Romans did not
say: "si non vis pacem, para bellum" - if you do not want
peace, prepare for war.
Preparations go well beyond
training the forces on the ground. They also have a psychological dimension.
The day before yesterday, an extra-large front page headline in Haaretz
announced: "Syrian Arms Race With the Help of Iran". The other
media followed suit. It was said that Russia was supplying Syria with
huge quantities of anti-tank weapons, of the kind that penetrated even
the most advanced Israeli tanks in the recent war. And, as if that was
not enough, Russia is also providing Syria with anti-shipping missiles
that would be a real threat to our navy, and long-range missiles that
can reach every corner of Israel.
The news story puts together
three countries - Syria, Russia and Iran - which are, quite fortuitously,
the three members of Bush's new "axis of evil".
Clearly, this media campaign
is being orchestrated by the army chiefs and is connected with the maneuver.
As a matter of fact, it is the first action by the new Chief-of-Staff,
Gaby Ashkenazi, who observed the maneuver in the company of the Minister
of Defense, Amir Peretz. (A quick-witted photographer caught Peretz
viewing the action through binoculars. But the lens caps were still
on, and so he obviously saw nothing but black.)
Truth is that no danger lurks
in that direction. There is not the slightest possibility that Syria
would attack Israel. The military capabilities of Syria, even with all
the Russian arms they may get, are vastly inferior to those of the Israeli
army. That is the considered view of the entire Israeli intelligence
community. If Syria rearms, it is for defensive purposes. They are,
quite justly, afraid of Israel and the United States.
But if one wants war, what
does that matter?
AND PERHAPS these are simply
diversionary tactics, in order to shift attention away from the real
target of the next war - Iran?
For many months now, our
media have been voicing dark warnings about Iran almost daily. Within
a few years they are going to have the capability to carry out a "Second
Holocaust", as well as the will to do so. The picture is of a crazy
country, headed by a Second Hitler, who is prepared to have Iran annihilated
if this is the price of wiping Israel off the map.
Against such an enemy, of
course, the old Hebrew adage applies: "He who gets up to kill you,
go and kill him first."
AFTER THE Six-Day War, a
pacifist satire bore the title: "You and I and the Next War".
("You" in the feminine form.) Perhaps it should be revived
now.
During the last few days,
a very large ad appeared in the newspapers, signed by a group calling
itself "The Reserve Soldiers" and claiming to represent the
disappointed reservists of the last war. The ad sets out all the reasons
for removing Olmert from power, and reaches its climax with the dire
warning: "He will remain on his chair and direct the next war."
Perhaps that is exactly what
he has in mind. We never had a prime minister mired so deeply in a quagmire
of troubles. In a few weeks, the Commission of Inquiry of the Second
Lebanon War will publish its findings. True, it was Olmert himself who
appointed the commission and handpicked its members, in order to avoid
falling into the hands of a judicial board of inquiry, whose members
would have been appointed by the Supreme Court, and who might have been
much less considerate. But even so, he may survive the findings of the
commission only by the skin of his teeth. At the same time, several
corruption allegations against him are being investigated by the police.
True, Olmert succeeded last
week in appointing new police chiefs (including a personal friend) as
well as a new Minister of Justice to his liking, but this also does
not guarantee him full immunity.
In the meantime he only exemplifies
an old truth: a clever person knows how to extricate himself from a
trap that a wise person would not have fallen into in the first place.
He has no agenda. He said
so himself. He is the chief of an amorphous party, without members or
institutions and without real roots in the community. Public opinion
polls show that his ratings are nearing the bottom (only the Minister
of Defense has sunk even lower.) Olmert remains in power only because
many believe that all the available alternatives would be even worse.
A cynical Prime Minister,
entrapped in such a situation, could easily be tempted to start another
military adventure, in the hope that it would give him back his lost
popularity and divert attention from his private and political troubles.
If this is the aim, it really does not matter much against whom - Palestinians,
Lebanese, Syrians or Iranians. The main thing is that it should happen
as soon as possibly, preferably this summer at the latest. What remains
is to convince the public of the presence of an existential danger,
but in our country that is not too difficult.
ALL THIS reminds one, of
course, of another outstanding leader - George W. Bush. Amazing how
these two find themselves in almost the same situation.
The American political system
is admired by many in Israel, and from time to time the cry goes up
that it should be adopted by us, too. A strong leader, elected fairly
directly by the people, who appoints competent ministers - what could
be better?
But it seems that the American
system has created a terrifying situation: President Bush has two more
years in office - and in this time he can start any war at will, even
though now the American public has clearly shown in the congressional
elections that it loathes the Iraq war. As Commander-in-Chief of the
most powerful military forces in the world, he can widen and deepen
the war in Iraq, and at the same time start a new war against Iran or
Syria.
The two houses of Congress
can, in theory, stop him by cutting the allocations for the armed forces,
but most of the members of these two august bodies are windbags who
are terrified out of their wits (if they have any) by the very thought.
Any marine in Baghdad has more guts than the whole bunch of Senators
and Congressmen together. They would not even dream of impeaching the
President.
Thus, one single person can
cause a world-wide catastrophe. He has no brakes, but has a strong drive
towards war: to fulfill his "vision" (dictated to him by God
Himself in private conversation) and to retouch his image in history.
Is this practical? Well,
the American army is too small to conduct another major war on the ground.
But Bush and his advisors believe that there is no need for that. They
are the successors to the American general who in his time talked about
"bombing Vietnam back to the stone age". After all, it worked
in Serbia and Afghanistan.
The neo-cons, who still reign
supreme in Washington, are convinced that a rain of many hundreds of
smart bombs on all the nuclear, military, governmental and public installations
in Iran could "do the job". Their friends in Israel will applaud,
since that would relieve Israel of the need to do something similar,
if on a smaller scale.
But an American and/or Israeli
adventure would be a disaster. Bombs can devastate a country, but not
a people like the Iranians. Only the wildest imagination can foresee
how the more than a billion Muslims in scores of countries - including
all our neighbors - would react to the destruction of a Muslim country
(even a Shiite one). This is playing with fire, which may start a world-wide
conflagration.
Bush and Olmert and the Next
War - HELP!