bitterlemons-international.org
Middle East Roundtable /
Edition 4 Volume 1
An Israeli View:
Between the lines
by Yossi Alpher Between the
lines, the Winograd commission report tells us quite accurately that Israel
is different from the western democracies it aspires to resemble. Because of
its strategic situation and the security challenges confronting it, it needs
senior leaders with a strong capacity, based on a combination of wisdom and
experience, to make sound decisions in the realm of national-security--i.e.,
in matters of peace and war. They don't necessarily have to be ex-generals,
but they have to display the desired decision-making capability as a
precondition to holding the office of prime minister or defense minister.
Accordingly, those who follow PM Ehud Olmert and Defense
Minister Amir Peretz are likely to be more qualified than them to hold their
jobs. But if, in the short term, Olmert succeeds in his quest to remain in
office despite the devastating conclusions of the Winograd report concerning
his decision-making last summer, he will almost certainly be crippled in the
performance of his duties--not only by his low public approval rating and
proven lack of capacity to hold his office, but also by the high standard of
performance set by the commission's recommendations. True, Olmert's
successors will also be held up to this standard. But they at least will
have a clean slate. And hopefully they will be more capable.
Eventually, the luster of the Winograd recommendations is liable to wear
off. Sadly, they might end up filed away with the unapplied judgments of
earlier commissions of inquiry. In the interim, though, the report's
insights regarding Israel's security decision-makers, when applied to the
sphere of Israeli-Palestinian relations, are liable to constrain the freedom
of decision that an Israeli prime minister enjoys in deciding which avenues
of war and peace to pursue with the Palestinians. This is particularly so if
Olmert remains in office.
Thus in a near-term worst case scenario, the Palestinians (and Iran, Syria
and Hizballah) are liable to interpret Israel's strategic position as one of
considerable weakness, precisely because the prime minister's hands appear
to be tied. In particular, the non-state actors on our immediate borders
(Hamas and other militants in Gaza; Hizballah in Lebanon) cannot help but
notice that Winograd, in omitting immediate recommendations for improving
the defensive capability of Israel's civilian rear, points to a dilemma: the
IDF will not have the capacity to intercept incoming short-range rockets for
a year or two at least; nor does the government have any immediate
capability to provide significantly improved conditions for bombarded
civilians.
Suppose, for example, that Hamas wants to draw Israel, against its better
judgment, into reoccupying Gaza with all that this entails for IDF losses,
controversy among the Israeli public and complications with the
international community. It could be tempted into launching a major rocket
attack on the western Negev region and beyond. A new and more qualified
Israeli leader would be far better suited to responding to this sort of
dilemma than Olmert and Peretz.
There are two important areas of Israeli policy regarding the Palestinian
issue that are linked to last summer's events yet are not even dealt with
between the lines of the Winograd report. This is unfortunate, because these
are critical areas of Israeli policy that desperately need to be revised and
that would have benefited from the voicing of firm criticism and
constructive recommendations for change by the commission.
First, the link between 40 years of IDF occupation of the West Bank and Gaza
and particularly the past six years during which the IDF fought the second
intifada, on the one hand, and the army's poor performance on the ground in
Lebanon last summer on the other, is not pursued to its logical conclusion.
As long as Israel has other wars to fight, the military occupation of
Palestinian territories, meaning essentially police/gendarmerie duties that
reduce the army's capacity to train as an army, are bad for the IDF's
warfighting capabilities and erode its readiness to engage in anything
approaching classic warfare. In other words, the sooner we end the
occupation, the more capable we will be of dealing militarily with the
challenges posed by Iran, Syria and Hizballah.
Secondly, the commission completely ignored the motivation for Hamas and
Hizballah to engage in the abduction of IDF soldiers last June and July--the
actions that started the war. From the standpoint of Hamas and Hizballah,
abductions were the only conceivable way to free Palestinians and Lebanese
in Israeli prisons. Israel's sentencing policies regarding enemy terrorists
are draconian compared to the enlightened prison conditions it imposes on
its own citizens convicted of murder. An Israeli murderer sentenced to life
imprisonment knows he/she will be released after 20 years and will enjoy the
occasional weekend leave from prison from about year eight of his/her
sentence. If Palestinian terrorists in Israeli jails knew they could be
released after 20 years, the incentive to start wars in order to effect
their release might be reduced.- Published 7/5/2007 © bitterlemons.org
Yossi Alpher is coeditor of the bitterlemons family of internet
publications. He is former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic
Studies at Tel Aviv University and a former special adviser to PM Ehud
Barak.
Bitterlemons-international.org is an internet
forum for an array of world perspectives on the Middle East and its
specific concerns. It aspires to engender greater understanding about
the Middle East region and open a new common space for world thinkers
and political leaders to present their viewpoints and initiatives on the
region. Editors Ghassan Khatib and Yossi Alpher can be reached at
ghassan@bitterlemons-international.org
and
yossi@bitterlemons-international.org, respectively.
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07-05-2007 |