• MY BOOKS
    • 72 Virgins--Synopsis
    • 72 Virgins - Book Reviews
    • 72 Virgins--An Excerpt
    • Book Trailer
    • 72 Virgins - Links to Published Interviews
    • Fundamentals of Voice Quality--Synopsis
    • Funsamentals of Voice Quality Engineering - Book Reviews
    • Special Promotions
  • Buy a Book
  • MY TALK SHOW
  • 6-Day War Remembered on Shalom TV
  • Published Articles
    • Political Blogs
    • Writer's Blog
    • Political Satires
  • My Biography
  • My Life in Pictures
  • Islam
    • Islamic Terrorism
    • Arab-Israeli Conflict
  • Favorite Sites
  • Conjugate Gradient
  • The Lahaka
  • O.J. Simpson's Song
  • My Music
    • Original Music--Password Required
    • My Xmas Jazz
  • Contact
Avi Perry

Concessions for the Sake of Peace? What about the Risk?

1/23/2011

0 Comments

 
It happens no less than once a day. Someone, somewhere blames the Jewish state for not doing enough, not taking a chance on peace.

This is not the only false indictment. Israel is condemned as racist; it’s regarded as the latest incarnation of Nazism—mostly by those who are practicing that exact feat. But minimizing the efforts Israel is allocating for the peace process with its neighbors is also voiced by Israel’s friends. And that’s why it requires a different treatment, a more educated dealing. It requires an intelligent, truth teaching, since the accusation is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of the special circumstances faced by the Jewish state.

The ones pressuring Israel to do more, to concede further for the sake of peace, are those who view the world via their own secure setting.

America is not under the threat of genocide, neither does it face a (high) probability of costly war on its own soil where there is no place to hide — not even in the remote suburbs of the state of Wyoming, Oregon or Nebraska.

When a U.S. leader takes a chance on security, committing a blunder in consequence, he or she pays a price, but the world does not end. The lesson learned makes America stronger and safer. On the other hand, when an Israeli leader falls for a false promise, fake guarantees by conceding security measures or territory for the sake of fictitious peace, the result could be disastrous. It could even metastasize into a catastrophe, another Holocaust, an end to the Jewish state.

You might say that I am paranoid. But history is my compass.

Following the 1956 war between Israel and Egypt, then-President Eisenhower bore down on Israel. He made its forces withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula while restricting Egyptian military from building up its forces there. Hhe also provided security guarantees in the form of American military involvement in case Egypt violated the non-militarized nature of the Sinai buffer zone.

In 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser braced himself for a final solution to the Jewish state. He ordered the removal of the UN peace force from the Sinai (with which the UN complied straight away), marched his military onto the peninsula and, with the help of the Soviet Union, made preparations for transforming the Jewish state into the next Auschwitz. All this while  President Johnson failed to stir up memories of his predecessor’s guarantees.

The only act preventing another Holocaust was Israel’s decision not to take any chances, even at the price of being referred to as the aggressor, by launching a first and overwhelming strike.

In 1973, Israel’s military intelligence assigned low probability to a coordinated Syrian-Egyptian attack, even when all raw intelligence pointed out to its coming. The Israeli intelligence chief blocked out the fact that even low probability for a recurrence of a Holocaust requires some form of life insurance.

What’s more, several hours before it had grown evident that a Syrian-Egyptian attack was imminent, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir rejected launching a preemptive strike or even the calling up of the military reserve units for fear that the international community would deem such an act an aggression.

These grave errors in judgment brought about a catastrophe that threatened the existence of the Jewish state. As it was, Israel survived. But in the aftermath, there were 2,500 Israelis dead. In a country with a Jewish population amounting, then,  to a little over two million, the number of war-dead represented 0.125%, which is equivalent to having over 310,000 American casualties in a single three-week war.

This history illustrates that risk-taking for the sake of peace may carry either a painful, but manageable lesson for a country like the U.S., or a catastrophe with the possibility of no comeback for a country like Israel.

Given the dichotomy associated with potential risk-taking consequences, it’s no wonder that Israeli leaders must be more risk-averters than any others in the world today.

It has been shown that when the Arabs lose a war to Israel, they view it as a temporary setback to their eternal struggle of Islamizing the Holy Land. In contrast, should Israel lose, it will cease to exist.

When world leaders, the politically left media and the rest of the ignorant public begin to understand the logic that guides decision-making in the face of potential consequences, they will peter out their unjustified criticism of the Israeli government’s unbending, stubborn insistence on security measures. These measures include but not limited to the following conditions:

Ending the conflict by having Arabs’ recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, demilitarizing the West Bank if it becomes a Palestinian state, assuming Israeli control over the Jordan Valley in case a Palestinian state in the West Bank is established and forbidding Iran from having access to nuclear weapons. These must be fulfilled before any peace concessions are mulled over.

Unfortunately, the only logic guiding world leaders today is Machiavellian. Objective reasoning is an ideal reserved for poetry, or maybe not even that. The world will continue to “misunderstand” the Israeli perspective, the risk involved in making bold concessions for the sake of a promise, where consequences have the potential of turning catastrophic.

You may understand Israel’s special conditions if you can imagine living with your family and young children in a neighborhood infested with child molesters who insist on not being recognized as such, or not being monitored. These brutes with their criminal past may even announce their sick intentions by claiming their right to free speech; they may even demand that you make concessions. That you let your young children play in the street, hopefully unaccompanied, so as to fashion a seeming ordinary setting.

If you can imagine that, chances are you will understand. You will then break off criticizing the Jewish state for being too cautious, for not relying on the unreliable, for not paving the road to a national suicide.


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    August 2019
    August 2018
    July 2018
    July 2017
    February 2016
    December 2015
    July 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    June 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    September 2009
    January 2008
    October 2007

    Categories

    All
    Abbas
    Abu Mazen
    A Large Mosque Near Wtc Ground Zero
    Al-Jazeera
    American Policy
    American Politics
    Cordoba Mosque
    Debt Ceiling Analogy To The Middle East Peace Process
    Deception
    Dirty Politics
    Egypt
    Erromous Assumptions
    Fatah-Hamas Unity Agreement
    Foreign Policy
    Gaddafi
    Geneva Conventions
    Gilad Shalit
    Hamas
    Hate Armada A.k.a. Gaza-Bound Flotilla
    Ideology
    Iran
    Iran War
    Islam
    Israel
    Israeli Hospitals Treats Palestinians
    Israeli Politics
    Itamar
    Libya
    Mahmud Abbas
    Middle East
    Middle East Peace
    Mideast Us Policy
    Mubarak
    Muslim Brothers
    Netanyahu
    Nuclear
    Nuclear Weapons
    Obama
    Pa
    Palestinian Authority
    Palestinian Authority (PA)
    Peace Process
    Persian Gulf
    Plo
    Political Humor
    Qadhafi
    Religion
    Revolt
    Stealth Jihad
    Suicide Bombing
    Terrorism In New York
    The \"Occupation\"
    The Turks Quest For Human Justice
    Two-state Solution
    Two-state Solution
    Un
    Us Aircraft Carrier
    Us Economy
    War
    War Crimes

Dr. Avi Perry