Israel kan slå til nu
Erdogan drømmer om en samlet muslimsk hær, som han mener kan besejre Israel, skriver Express. Avisen Yeni ?afak taler gerne på hans vegne og spurgte “What if an army of Islam formed against Israel?” og argumenterede “The number of active soldiers would be at least 5,206,100, while the defence budget would reach approximately $175billion”. 250.000 soldater skulle deltage i første angrebsbølge forestillede man sig. Had og mindreværd i en enkelt trussel. “Det gnaver i vore sjæle, at et så lille land som Israel med kun syv millioner indbyggere kan slå de arabiske nationer med 350 millioner. Det ydmyger vores kollektive ego.” har Al Jazeeras redaktør Ahmed Sheikh udtrykt det ifølge Lone Nørgaard og Torben Hansens glimrende gennemgang i Altinget af konflikten
Men det palæstinenserne trænger til, er en ordentlig røvfuld, skriver Daniel Pipes og citerer Victor Davis Hansen, hvad der altid er klogt; “Conflicts throughout history become serial when an enemy is not utterly defeated and is not forced to submit to the political conditions of the victor.” Alternativet, skriver Pipes, er prøvet uden held
By 1993, frustrated with the slow-moving and passive nature of deterrence, Israel’s impatient citizenry opted for an immediate resolution with the Palestinians. In the Oslo Accords, each of the two parties promised the other what it most wanted: recognition and security for Israelis, dignity and autonomy for Palestinians.
In their haste to end the conflict, however, Israelis made three profound mistakes that summer morning on the White House lawn: (1) Granting Yasir Arafat, leader of an unofficial, dictatorial, and murderous organization, diplomatic parity with Yitzhak Rabin, prime minister of a democratic and sovereign state. (2) Believing Arafat when he claimed to recognize Israel, when in fact he (and his successors) still sought Israel’s elimination, now enhanced by his controlling two adjoining pieces of territory, the West Bank and Gaza. (3) Making concessions under the illusion that wars conclude through goodwill, when concessions actually had the contrary effect of signaling weakness and thereby amplified Palestinian hostility. These mistakes, tragically, turned a would-be “peace process” into a counterproductive “war process.”
(…)
Therefore, to gain Palestinian acceptance, Israel must return to its old policy of deterrence, of punishing Palestinians severely when they aggress. One example: When three family members were murdered in July 2017 while sitting down to Sabbath dinner in the Israeli West Bank town of Halamish, the Israeli response should have been to construct new buildings in Halamish and extend its boundaries.
That’s deterrence; it’s more than tough tactics, which Israeli governments already pursue; it means developing consistent policies to break rejectionism and encourage Palestinian acceptance of Israel. It implies a strategy to crush irredentist Palestinian ambitions so as finally to end the demonizing of Jews and Israel, recognize historic Jewish ties to Jerusalem, “normalize” relations with Israelis, close the suicide factories, and shutter the entire machinery of warfare. This process will be neither easy nor quick: it requires Palestinians to suffer the bitter crucible of defeat, with its attendant deprivation, destruction, and despair. Unfortunately, there is no shortcut.
“If Palestinian defeat is good for Israel, it is ironically even better for Palestinians, who will finally be liberated from ugly ambitions, revolutionary rhetoric, and genocidal fantasies.” Og nu er chancerne gunstige, med en amerikansk ambassade på vej til Jerusalem og arabiske stater, der modsat deres let antændelige befolkninger, er kørt sur i palæstinenserne og under Trumps myndige ledelse endda taler med ‘den zionistiske entitet’. Og det er ikke kun frygten for Iransk dominans, skriver Shai Feldman og Tamara Cofman for Foreign Policy, der driver den bevægelse
In particular, two developments over the past decade have been key. First, a regional energy revolution transformed Israel not only into an energy independent state but into an energy exporter. The recent 10-year, $15 billon agreement signed between Israeli and Egyptian companies for the sale of natural gas is a game-changer in Arab-Israeli politics. This agreement will allow Egypt to profit from liquefying and re-exporting the purchased gas to Europe and Africa, boosting its prospects as a regional energy hub and creating economic interdependence between two former enemies.
No less significant are new opportunities for economic interdependence between Israel and members of the Gulf Cooperation Council rooted in Israel’s technological prowess and innovation economy. Gulf states reportedly already enjoy support from Israel in defending against terrorist threats through advanced surveillance technology and intelligence sharing. Just imagine the potential for civilian tech cooperation as Gulf states move to diversify their economies away from their complete dependence on oil and gas revenues to more service-based, technology-based, and knowledge-based economies.
The growing advantages to Arab states of cooperation with Israel are further boosted by a parallel decline in Arab governments’ interest in the Palestinian issue. While these governments remain formally committed to the Palestinian cause, they also show growing signs of fatigue regarding all matters Palestinian. At least in part, this results from the fact that more than seven decades of Arab support of the Palestinians has yielded very few gains. But weighing even more heavily, perhaps, is Arab governments’ impatience with ineffective and divided Palestinian leadership and continued efforts by various governments, including Arabs and Iran, to use conflictual Palestinian factions as tools in their wider struggle for regional dominance. Layer on top the looming struggle over who might replace the aging Mahmoud Abbas as leader of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and many Arab governments are far more concerned about their narrow interests in who wins these battles than they are in advancing Palestinian claims against Israel.
Erdogan didn’t get the memo, som man siger. Shai Feldman og Tamara Cofman advarer dog Israel mod at udnytte situationen og afgøre konflikten til egen fordel; “Sometimes, it’s easier to have an implacable foe“. Og det er da også nogle gange lettere, men det gælder ikke i Mellemøsten.