In an odd analysis yesterday, titled Painful Mideast Truth – Force trumps Diplomacy, Ethan Bronner of the NYT wrote:
Through relentless commando operations and numerous checkpoints, the Israeli Army ended suicide bombings and other terrorist acts from the West Bank; since its 2006 war with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, widely dismissed as a failure at the time, the group has not fired one rocket at Israel; and Israel’s operation against Gaza last December has greatly curtailed years of Hamas rocket fire, returning a semblance of normality to the Israeli south.
Two years ago, Israeli fighter planes destroyed what Israel and the United States say was a budding Syrian nuclear reactor; and last year in Syria, Israeli agents assassinated Imad Mugniyah, the top military operative for Hezbollah and a crucial link to its Iranian sponsors, a severe blow to both Hezbollah and Iran.
Diplomatic efforts, whether the Oslo peace talks of the 1990s or the Turkish-mediated negotiations with Syria last year have, by contrast, produced little. Every Israeli military operation of recent years — including the December invasion of Gaza that was condemned Friday by the United Nations Human Rights Council by a vote of 25 to 6 and referred to the Security Council following a report by a committee led by Richard Goldstone — has come under international censure.
Today all are viewed here as having been judged prematurely and unfairly but having delivered the goods — keeping Israel safe through deterrence.
Consider some of what has happened over the past sixteen years.
However dysfunctional and split, the Palestinians now have their leadership with them instead of abroad. But it’s that leadership that’s at the heart of the problem.
Israel, in a historic concession, was willing to accept the PLO as a negotiating partner on the grounds that it had purportedly given up terrorism. The PLO, as we know, had not abandoned its old ways. So inviting the PLO in resulted in more terror for Israel, until Israel largely ended it with Operation Defensive Shield in the early 2000’s. We see similar results when Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon – fulfilling an UN mandate – in 2000 and from Gaza in 2005. Each time the Israeli move to secure peace (or reduce terror) led to more terror.
The international censure that has resulted from Israel’s self-defense, I suppose, could be described as the result of an international state of denial. A refusal to believe that once diplomacy starts, it can be derailed. The condemnations of Israel have resulted from an international com community that has refused to come to terms with the fact that the PLO, Hezbollah or Hamas were violating the newfound peace in the region.
That would be the generous (and, I think, naive) view. And no doubt, some countries refuse to believe that the peace process was flawed from the start.
The more likely view is tha there are still an awful lot of countries that don’t much like Jews and like a Jewish state even less. These countries make up a majority (or at least a significant minority) of all countries in international. So they boast of their representing an international consensus, when, in fact, they allow their citizens no such power. They have every incentive to pretend that Israel has done nothing to help the Palestinians and that it is a worse rights abuser than they are.
The first group, unwilling to assert itself, for a variety of reasons, allows the second group to define the peace process.
So the Palestinian are absolved from most responsibilities – preparing their people for peace, setting up civil institutions, creating a real economy – and Israel is saddled with ever changing requirements to prove its sincerity – for example, a requirement to release people who were involved in prohibited political activities, has morphed into an imperative to release terrorists.
Effectively, the international community has created a passive aggressive diplomatic dynamic. The Palestinian refuse to budge and Israel gets pressured to concede to meet the growing Palestinian demands. “Occupation” has become a more serious obstacle to peace than terrorism.
Rather than holding the Palestinian responsible for a consistent failure to live up to their commitments, the world looks the other way.
Netanyahu has finally refused to play the game anymore. This doesn’t make an extreme right winger. It makes him a rational player.
In effect Israel has been forced to respond militarily to the failures of diplomacy. The main cause of that failure has been the consistent Palestinian refusal to meet the minimal conditions necessary for there to be peace with Israel.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
