Logic And Israel’s Security
By Jeffrey Rudolph
12 June,
2008
Countercurrents.org
Having worked at a few information tables representing a mainstream Israeli peace group, I have come to better understand the mindset of many well-meaning Montreal Jews who reject the need for Israel to pursue a peace agreement with the Palestinians.
Ignoring the arguments of the minority of Jews I encounter, who either base their position on biblical sources or on an alleged inherent ‘Arab nature,’ the following addresses the issue that is of utmost concern to the bulk of Jews I meet: What policies and tactics enhance Israel’s security?
-An effective military enhances security. Therefore, I support Israel’s various mechanisms to strengthen its military such as developing advanced armaments and establishing close relations with the U.S.
-Treaties with Egypt and Jordan have augmented Israel’s security. Therefore, I support Israel’s efforts to reach such agreements; and I encourage it to explore any such offers – for example, the Arab League’s 2002 Peace Initiative which the League again endorsed in 2007.
I like to remind right-leaning Jews, that the prophetic founder of Revisionist Zionism and ideological father of Likud, Vladimir Jabotinsky, correctly recognized that once the Arabs realized they could not “get rid of us,” moderate Arabs would be willing to compromise.
Accordingly, when elements in Israel reject an Arab offer to negotiate, I am suspicious whether their justification for rejection (security) merely veils an unpopular ideological agenda (Greater Israel).
-Securing a state’s borders enhances security. Therefore, I support Israel’s security barriers – built solely on Israeli land – that stand between Israel and the Gaza Strip, and between Israel and Lebanon.
-Confiscating a people’s land, inhibiting transportation within a people’s land and subjecting a people to humiliating checkpoints within their own land, augment violence and compromise security. Therefore, I do not support the security barrier “on Palestinian land” in the West Bank nor checkpoints between Palestinian areas in the West Bank nor the great bulk of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land. Likewise, as foreign occupation of a people normally leads to a violent cycle of resistance by, and radicalization of, the occupied, and abuse and racism by the occupier, I do not support the occupation of Palestinian land nor the relentless growth of Israeli settlers on the West Bank.
From the signing of the Oslo Declaration of Principles in September 1993 to the July 2000 Camp David Summit – when, according to the Oslo 2 accords, “neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations” -- the number of Jewish settlers living in the West Bank grew from approximately 112,000 to 193,000. Including the actual settlements and the physical infrastructure needed to service and protect them, over 45% of West Bank land has been effectively annexed by Israel. Considering the radicalizing effect of Israel’s settlement growth and harsh occupation, it isn’t surprising that Ehud Barak, in 1998, stated: "If I were a young Palestinian, it is possible I would join a terrorist organization."
Jews should remember that scores of Israelis have died defending such settlements, not to mention the waste of economic resources the settlements have required. Why did it take so long for Israel to withdraw from the Gaza Strip to stop the human and economic losses? Yet, because of its failure to act earlier, Israel’s 2005 unilateral withdrawal is seen as resulting from Hamas’s effective resistance -- just as Israel’s withdrawal from Southern Lebanon in 2000 is credited, not to Israel’s confident assessment of its long-term interests, but to Hezbollah. Is it not clear that Israel’s actions in South Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank have not broken the population but rather served to strengthen the extremists?
-The nature of modern weaponry is making traditional security defences less relevant – as Israel learned during the 2006 Lebanon conflict. Therefore, I support the proposition that ultimate security is based on a combination of military strength and peaceful relations between neighbours. Accordingly, to assist the many Israelis who support this proposition, Montreal Jews should not deny Israel the benefit of subtle, outside political pressure.
Shlomo Ben-Ami, the former Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs (2000-2001), in his book, 'Scars of War Wounds of Peace', wrote:
... the overwhelming majority of Israelis would support a peace settlement that is based on the Clinton parameters--two states, withdrawal from territories, massive dismantling of settlements, two capitals in Jerusalem--but they trust neither their political system nor, of course, the Palestinian leadership to come to an accommodation on that basis. Which may explain the results of a poll conducted in 2002 by the Steinmetz Centre for Peace at Tel Aviv University indicating that, convinced of the incapacity of their political system to produce solutions, 67% of Israeli Jews would support an American effort to recruit an international alliance that would coax the parties into endorsing such a settlement.
Hence, Canada and the U.S. can better support Israel if they apply meaningful pressure to enable it to overcome its dysfunctional--Shlomo Ben-Ami's word--domestic politics and enable it to pursue policies consistent with security, economic rationality, international law and international opinion.
The final conclusion must be that well-meaning Canadian Jews, who provide unconditional support to Israel’s actions, are unwittingly working to its detriment.
Jeffrey Rudolph was the Quebec representative of
the East Timor Alert Network in the 1990s, and he is currently a member
of Canadian Friends of Peace Now. He has a law degree from McGill
University andI teach at Cegep in Montreal.
