Israel Declared Terminal--More Or Less

There is a yarn running around the web. The yarn first came out last March and died quickly and very quietly. However, it is back with a vengeance spurred no doubt by the Goldstone Report and its adoption by the UN Human Rights Council.

The original source of the yarn in both its original and latest incarnations is Press TV, the state owned organ of the mullahs of Tehran. It has been picked up and built upon by both Arab and Far Left sites. The links are examples. A more inclusive list would tire the Geek's arthritic fingers.

Allegedly, per a man named Franklin Lamb, who is identified by Press TV as "an international lawyer," CIA did a study on the future of Israel. The study concluded that even with US support and assistance Israel as it currently exists has a life expectancy of no more than twenty years.

The reasoning according to Lamb and his assorted interpreters residing behind the pessimistic assessment is predicated upon two factors. One of these is the increasing willingness of Americans generally to accept a "one-state" as opposed to the current "two-state" solution to the never-ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The second is demographics, specifically the great disparity between Arab and Israeli lactation rates.

These two factors combine in a synergistic fashion with the American emphasis on democracy to assure that Israel will become a secular or at least a non-Jewish state governed by the Arab Muslim majority. Lamb and others take notice of the number of Israelis who hold dual citizenship--including some half million who are Americans as well as Israelis.

Commentators argue that the coming Arab majority will push many Israelis to invoke the other half of their dual citizenship capacity to leave Israel for the US, Russia, and other destinations. The initial CIA report purportedly makes reference to the "unexpectedly" rapid collapse of the White minority regime in South Africa and the equally "unexpected" implosion of the former Soviet Union to justify the conclusions of the impending death of Israel.

Leaving aside the degree of "unexpectedness" in both cited historical precedents, it is fair to look at the differences between Israel and either South Africa under White rule or the Soviet Union. While those who are passionately anti-Israel might wish it otherwise, the Jewish state is not dependent upon pure coercion to maintain its coherence. Both White dominated South Africa and the old Soviet Union were completely dependent upon the power of the state to coerce their citizens into obedience.

For many decades the Soviet Union and South Africa also relied upon the appeal of a specific ideology. In both cases the faith attenuated over time leaving only naked force to continue the status quo.

Israel relies upon both ideology and religious conviction to uphold social and political coherence within its population. The secular ideologies of democracy, free enterprise, and liberal institutions such as an independent judiciary, a free press, and universal education link well with the ancient tenets of a faith which has been tested repeatedly during centuries of persecution and attempted eradication. The several pillars of belief which unify the Israeli population also connect the Israelis with both coreligionists and ideological affiliates around the world.

This means that the government of Israel does not have to rely upon force alone to maintain its existence--or that of the state. Force is needed not for domestic security and regime maintenance purposes but rather for deterring or defeating external threats. This is not at all akin to the situations which existed in the years prior to collapse in either South African or the Soviet Union.

The Geek has to admit he has read some really, really out-to-lunch assessments coming from CIA. To the best of his knowledge and belief he has never run across one which ignored basic realities such as the vast gulf between the internal dynamics of Israel and both South Africa and the Soviet Union which are alleged to exist in the cited report. While it is possible that the Agency has been hiring the mentally incompetent in recent years, it does seem unlikely.

Rather the eager resuscitation of the March Press TV story is based in the reinvigorated desire on the part of the anti-Israel players around the world to further the cause of delegitimizing the Jewish state. The Goldstone Report, or to err on the side of accuracy, the adoption and forwarding to the Security Council of a resolution based on a part of the Report by the UNHRC, has given a new and improved impetus to the campaign of delegitimization.

The Obama administration and many on the Left of the American political spectrum are both frustrated with the state of play in the Mideast and willing to see Israel as the reason. It is as if the administration and others expect "more" from the civilized, Western Israelis than they do from the comparatively speaking uncivilized Arabs.

Leaving aside the arrogance and patronization implicit in this attitude, the emphasis on Israel's responsibility for the deadlock in the "peace process" is simply factually wrong. While the Israelis are far from guiltless in the blocking of peace, the Arabs still hold the record for both poor negotiating capacities and sheer cussed intransigence.

The Arabs--and not simply those who fall under the rubric of "Palestinians"--now want the US and the West to carry their water. The desire, hope, and apparent strategy of the Arab and Muslim countries is to force the West generally and the US in particular to wash their collective hands of the latest incarnation of the eternal "Jewish question."

Israel has never been seen as "legitimate" in the eyes of the Arab and Muslim countries. Nor will it ever be perceived of as being such. Not as long as the Koran is read and believed.

Now the Arab and Muslim states hope to transmit their view of Israel's inherent lack of legitimacy to the people and governments of the West. The recent growth of Israel bashing and flat out antisemitism in many Western countries has undoubtedly given much encouragement to the men behind the new strategy.

Antisemitism is never far below the surface in any Western country including the US. (The Geek remembers well when his best friend in high school was rejected by an Ivy League college because the institution had already admitted its full quota of "those of the Hebrew faith.") It is easy to invoke a stylishly covered form of antisemitism by re-branding Israel as "fascist" or "Nazi" or "apartheid."

It is even easier to indict Israel as a genocidal power intent on committing crimes against humanity. This is the true import of the UNHRC adoption of a carefully selected portion of the Goldstone Report. It is also the import of the presumably "leaked" CIA "death-of-Israel" study.

The play given to the Lamb revelations by Press TV and other Arab/Muslim outlets both on the web and in more traditional modes is to be expected. After all, these states and people have opposed Israel since the very earliest days of Zionism. Having proved repeatedly their own incompetence at ejecting the Israelis by force or terror, it is not surprising they now hope to make the West--most importantly, the US--the executioner of Arab dreams.

What is truly pathetic--not surprising--simply pathetic is the eagerness with which the American political Left has embraced the Arab/Muslim cause.

It is pathetic because Israel was established by European Leftists. It's vision was that of European Socialists. The country initially prospered because of Leftists. Its strongest supporters in the US were from the Left. During the Eisenhower administration the Democratic Party, particularly the Left segment, repeatedly excoriated the President for his principled refusal to supply weapons to the new state of Israel. When Ike blew the whistle on the Franco-British-Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956, the Democratic standard bearer, Stevenson, criticized the decision harshly.

Even during the Great Land Grab War of 1967, the American (and European) Left loudly sang the praises of the IDF. The Arab states got no comfort from the democratic Left anywhere outside of France. They certainly received no support from the American Left. The Yom Kippur War six years later saw the same resounding support for Israel from the American Left--even the farthest fringes.

With a remarkable amnesia, the Left has abandoned this heritage. With an utter lack of both consistency and principles, the Left, even the moderate Left, has rushed to the cause of "Palestine" and the "Palestinians." They have warmly embraced the feudalists of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, and the authoritarians of Egypt, Syria, and Iran. They have kissed and made up with the terrorists of Hamas and Hezbollah--and of Fatah (or the Palestinian National Authority, if you insist.)

In the process, the Left has given the finger to the Israelis, to democracy, liberal institutions, and social justice. If that isn't pathetic, then the Geek does not know the meaning of the word.

Another Problem With Lawyers---

While the Geek is not yet quite willing to join in the ancient cry, "First kill all the lawyers," there are times when he tilts strongly in that direction.

The cause this time is the Goldstone Panel Report regarding alleged Israeli (and, almost as an afterthought, Palestinian) war crimes and crimes against humanity. Even if one is willing to assume--against all promptings of realism--that the Goldstone Panel was not following a pre-determined script and intended to indict Israel in the eyes of the world, the basic premise of the panel was flawed.

Goldstone and his fellows on the panel, not unlike the legal profession generally, is powerfully inclined against war. It is not that the Geek is in favor of war. He is not, a position commonly found among the Great Brotherhood Of Those Who Have Been Shot At. But, unlike Richard Goldstone, the Geek accepts war as an unpleasant, brutal reality of the human experience. There are times--numerous times--when the sublimated combat of the courtroom cannot substitute for the reality of bullets, blood, and destruction.

Hamas, the de facto government of Gaza since shooting its way to power nearly two years ago, undertook an unsupportable, unconscionable, and illegal campaign of terror attacks against the civilian population of Israel. That fact is incontrovertible. The Israeli government responded over the many rocket filled months with remarkable, even unprecedented restraint. That fact is also incontrovertible.

When the instruments of the "international community" demonstrated complete inability to halt the Hamas sponsored attacks, Israel had no choice beyond that of self-defense. The resulting incursion into Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, was robust. The historical record demonstrates clearly that whenever Israel uses its military, the use is full throated, full bore, and overwhelming.

On many occasions the Israeli military riposte has been disproportionate to the stimulus. The actions of Detachment 101 under Sharon back in the Fifties come to mind in this regard. However, the conduct of Operation Cast Lead does not put it in the category of overreaction.

Apparently, the fact that Hamas intentionally embedded its trigger pullers and bomb heavers in the civilian population thus hoping to blunt the Israeli attack completely eluded the lawyerly mind of Justice Goldstone. Instead, he and his colleagues were blinded by the unsupported testimony of people with a direct interest in both indicting Israel and protecting the heavies of Hamas. Instead of examining the responsibility of Hamas in its intentional placing of civilians and their property in harm's way, the lawyer from South Africa was appalled at the effect of munitions, whether small arms, artillery rounds, or air delivered ordinance.

The worthy lawyer was horrified that war causes devastation. His neat and tidy mind accustomed to the dry text of statutes and court decisions was overloaded by the up close and personal exposure to the actuality of war. He evidently went into mental overload and brain gridlock when he discovered that bombs blast all in their path into protoplasm covered rubble.

Reason fled and Mr Goldstone went to some sort of default mode. Israel is a modern, advanced country with a flourishing democracy and a long tradition of judicial independence and military accountability, therefore it must be held to some sort of otherworldly standard of conduct. The Arabs, Hamas, the Islamist jihadists, the rocket-firing, mortar-toting, bomb-heaving, trigger-pulling men were, he must have concluded, were so primitive that they could be given a pass on such niceties as protecting civilians under their sway or refraining from indiscriminate attacks on civilians.

Mr Justice Goldstone concluded on the basis of his encounter with the effects of war that Israel should have mounted some sort of bloodless operation in which buildings were not destroyed and people were neither killed nor wounded. Hamas could kill and wound and destroy without criticism beyond the pro forma since they were lacking the refinements of civility that must, perforce, confine the Israeli forces to using flower power not firepower.

War must and does have laws, customs, and regulations which limit its conduct. These have evolved over centuries and are often more honored in the breech than in the observance. Yet, these laws and customs of warfare have often prevented military operations from falling over the edge into purposeless butchery.

It is often difficult, even impossible, to determine when and if the shaky fence of law and customs has failed to restrain a particular military operation from becoming mere and quite unjustifiable slaughter. The guiding star for most military jurisprudence has been the commander's intent as distinguished from the results of a particular action or operation.

On the basis of commander's intent it is quite hard to find more than a handful of actions in the context of Operation Cast Lead which are questionable. The most notorious of these is the use of white phosphorous artillery rounds in a populated area. But, one or a even a few miscalculations, misappreciations, or inappropriate use of munitions does not constitute grounds for an accusation of war crimes let alone crimes against humanity.

War is brutal. Anyone and everyone who has been in a combat zone knows that well. War is also not tidy, neat, and clear in its conduct. Once again everyone who has been in a combat zone knows that quite well.

The nature and character of war, the realities of combat, its tempo, its overload of stimuli, its emotional content, are antithetical to the atmosphere, the nature and character of the courtroom, the judge's chambers, the lawyers pleadings. While matters of great moment, of life and death, may be the subject of both arenas, only in the noise and fury of battle do these occur in pressures of time, emotion, incomplete and contradictory information, and the ever present reality that lives are at risk every fraction of every second of every minute of every endless hour.

Mr Justice Goldstone and his coworkers on the panel would have far more credibility if they had spent time under fire, making decisions on which the lives of people actually depended. If they had spent some days or even hours trying to make sense of the battle around them and the enemy ahead of them, all with the hand of death resting on their individual shoulders.

The Goldstone Panel lacks integrity not simply because it was, arguably, a put up job, but because it was conducted by lawyers. It was undertaken by people who are not only unequipped by training, education, and experience to understand the complexities of life and decisions under fire, but who are by virtue of their orientation utterly opposed to war, even one of utter necessity.

Combat exists as one of the greatest of great divides in life. It is an experience which cannot be replicated in any other environment. As such, those who stand on one side of the divide cannot begin, cannot hope, to fathom the ways and needs of those who stand on the other. Therein resides the failure of Richard Goldstone.