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Opinion article: "American support may no longer be enough" for Israel
FinsburyParkCarrots
Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
Yes, some people don't care for "copy and paste" threads, but their purpose can be to present A Moving Train with Internet articles that might slip people's attention, which otherwise might help good debate on a subject. For those who don't mind reading opinion columns of a less reactionary and more perceptive nature, try this article. Then say why you agree or disagree with its points. Okay, here goes:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1844046,00.html
American support may no longer be enough
Israel's long-term future lies in connecting with its Arab neighbours, not a western superpower thousands of miles away
Martin Jacques
Monday August 14, 2006
The Guardian
This has been a war that did not happen by accident. The kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hizbullah was merely the pretext, long since forgotten in the absurdly disproportionate response by the Israelis, and the death and destruction that their country has wrought on Lebanon. Israel has, throughout its short existence, lived by the sword, safe in the knowledge that its military power, as an honorary western nation, is far superior to that of its enemies. Israel has managed to justify this behaviour, in the eyes of the world (or at least the west), by two means: first, the insistence that its very survival always hangs by a thin thread; and second, the remorse felt by the west over the suffering of the Jews in the Holocaust.
Article continues
Based on previous expectations, this was another war that the Israelis should have won. It was of their choosing, long in the planning and preparation; and from the outset they enjoyed the open support of the US. How wrong the Israelis have turned out to be. This is not a war they have won: indeed, as they have fallen so far short of their objective - the effective destruction of Hizbullah as a military force - it might well turn out to be a war that the Israelis have, in effect, lost. They surely expected that Hizbullah's resistance would crumble within a matter of days, but a month later Hizbullah appears to be as strong as ever, inflicting heavy casualties on the massive Israeli assault launched after the UN security council vote, its ability to fire rockets at Israeli cities little, if at all, impaired. Just as the US found that superiority in conventional arms was of little use in Iraq when confronted with urban and guerrilla resistance, rooted in the overwhelming opposition of the people, so Israel has discovered the same in Lebanon.
The ceasefire that is due to come into force today represents a serious setback for both Israel and the US. Its terms represent a significant retreat on what was previously proposed. One should not be deluded by the Israeli offensive launched after the ceasefire agreement had been adopted: it was a last desperate attempt to gain advantage before hostilities are obliged to cease, an attempt to snatch some kind of victory from the jaws of defeat. It is, in short, not a show of strength but a display of weakness. More importantly, the failure of the Israeli action against Hizbullah raises deeper questions about the means by which Israel has sought to govern relations with its neighbours, just as the failure of American policy in Iraq has brought into question the underlying precepts of neoconservative strategy. The common denominator has been a dependence upon, and belief in, the efficacy of military power above all else. Is it too much to hope that, at least in the longer run, Israel's failure in Lebanon will force a rethink among Israelis on the best means to secure their future?
Israel, though geographically part of the Middle East, has never regarded itself as part of the region, politically, culturally or ethnically. It identifies itself with the west. And the west reciprocates. How else can one explain the intimate relationship that Israel enjoys with the US, or the fact that Israel competes in the Eurovision song contest and European football competitions? It is regarded as an honorary member of the west in the same way that Australia still is, or apartheid South Africa used to be. And the reason is not simply geopolitical, but cultural and ethnic.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the creation of the state of Israel, the reality today is that it is - by the manner of its creation, self-image and attitude towards its neighbours, and how it is regarded by the west - a western transplant sustained by an American life-support machine. Under such circumstances, the very idea that peace in the Middle East is in any meaningful sense possible is illusory. Israel has been the primary means by which the US has exercised its hegemony over the region. It has, using the classic imperial device of divide and rule, vested its means of control over the Middle East - as Amy Chua argues in her book World on Fire - in a small but privileged ethnic minority state, namely Israel. Whatever the recent rhetoric about democracy, such a mode of control means that western hegemony in the region has been primarily exercised by force. The Arab world has been rendered embittered, divided, resentful and politically frozen, in a manner that should surprise nobody. It is understandable that terrorism has become such a fixture in Arab politics: it is the weapon of the impotent, the disenfranchised and the unorganised in the face of profound grievance.
An enduring peace in the Middle East requires two things: first, that the Arab states accept Israel's right to exist; and second, that Israel must come to see itself as an integral part of the region. The latter requires the kind of transformation in Israeli - and western - attitudes that is not even conceived of, let alone discussed. Israelis typically regard themselves as superior to their neighbours, and the root cause of this mentality lies in their sense of racial superiority. Indeed it is impossible to explain Israel's attitude towards the west on the one hand and its Arab neighbours on the other without understanding its racial character and motivation. Israelis aspire to be treated on a par with westerners - that is, of course, white westerners; by the same token they have contempt for Arabs, including those who are citizens of Israel, whom they look down on as less civilised than themselves. Israel behaves in the manner of a settler colony whose people do not believe they are of the region but who none the less think they have every right to be there.
There is a deep irony here. Israel was created as a result of one of the worst racial atrocities in modern history. It was in part the sense of guilt and sympathy that persuaded the west that it must help the Jews create their own state. From the outset, two factors were always likely to haunt the project: first, it involved the annexation of land that was Arab; and second, it implied the foundation of an ethnic state, with all the exclusivist and racist attitudes that this potentially involved.
Let us hope that the failure of the war in Lebanon might begin the process of persuading the Israeli people that their long-term future lies in viewing their Arab neighbours as equals and seeking to live with them in peace, rather than viewing themselves as an appendage of the most powerful country in the world situated thousands of miles to its west.
· Martin Jacques is a visiting research fellow at the Asia Research Centre, London School of Economics
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1844046,00.html
American support may no longer be enough
Israel's long-term future lies in connecting with its Arab neighbours, not a western superpower thousands of miles away
Martin Jacques
Monday August 14, 2006
The Guardian
This has been a war that did not happen by accident. The kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hizbullah was merely the pretext, long since forgotten in the absurdly disproportionate response by the Israelis, and the death and destruction that their country has wrought on Lebanon. Israel has, throughout its short existence, lived by the sword, safe in the knowledge that its military power, as an honorary western nation, is far superior to that of its enemies. Israel has managed to justify this behaviour, in the eyes of the world (or at least the west), by two means: first, the insistence that its very survival always hangs by a thin thread; and second, the remorse felt by the west over the suffering of the Jews in the Holocaust.
Article continues
Based on previous expectations, this was another war that the Israelis should have won. It was of their choosing, long in the planning and preparation; and from the outset they enjoyed the open support of the US. How wrong the Israelis have turned out to be. This is not a war they have won: indeed, as they have fallen so far short of their objective - the effective destruction of Hizbullah as a military force - it might well turn out to be a war that the Israelis have, in effect, lost. They surely expected that Hizbullah's resistance would crumble within a matter of days, but a month later Hizbullah appears to be as strong as ever, inflicting heavy casualties on the massive Israeli assault launched after the UN security council vote, its ability to fire rockets at Israeli cities little, if at all, impaired. Just as the US found that superiority in conventional arms was of little use in Iraq when confronted with urban and guerrilla resistance, rooted in the overwhelming opposition of the people, so Israel has discovered the same in Lebanon.
The ceasefire that is due to come into force today represents a serious setback for both Israel and the US. Its terms represent a significant retreat on what was previously proposed. One should not be deluded by the Israeli offensive launched after the ceasefire agreement had been adopted: it was a last desperate attempt to gain advantage before hostilities are obliged to cease, an attempt to snatch some kind of victory from the jaws of defeat. It is, in short, not a show of strength but a display of weakness. More importantly, the failure of the Israeli action against Hizbullah raises deeper questions about the means by which Israel has sought to govern relations with its neighbours, just as the failure of American policy in Iraq has brought into question the underlying precepts of neoconservative strategy. The common denominator has been a dependence upon, and belief in, the efficacy of military power above all else. Is it too much to hope that, at least in the longer run, Israel's failure in Lebanon will force a rethink among Israelis on the best means to secure their future?
Israel, though geographically part of the Middle East, has never regarded itself as part of the region, politically, culturally or ethnically. It identifies itself with the west. And the west reciprocates. How else can one explain the intimate relationship that Israel enjoys with the US, or the fact that Israel competes in the Eurovision song contest and European football competitions? It is regarded as an honorary member of the west in the same way that Australia still is, or apartheid South Africa used to be. And the reason is not simply geopolitical, but cultural and ethnic.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the creation of the state of Israel, the reality today is that it is - by the manner of its creation, self-image and attitude towards its neighbours, and how it is regarded by the west - a western transplant sustained by an American life-support machine. Under such circumstances, the very idea that peace in the Middle East is in any meaningful sense possible is illusory. Israel has been the primary means by which the US has exercised its hegemony over the region. It has, using the classic imperial device of divide and rule, vested its means of control over the Middle East - as Amy Chua argues in her book World on Fire - in a small but privileged ethnic minority state, namely Israel. Whatever the recent rhetoric about democracy, such a mode of control means that western hegemony in the region has been primarily exercised by force. The Arab world has been rendered embittered, divided, resentful and politically frozen, in a manner that should surprise nobody. It is understandable that terrorism has become such a fixture in Arab politics: it is the weapon of the impotent, the disenfranchised and the unorganised in the face of profound grievance.
An enduring peace in the Middle East requires two things: first, that the Arab states accept Israel's right to exist; and second, that Israel must come to see itself as an integral part of the region. The latter requires the kind of transformation in Israeli - and western - attitudes that is not even conceived of, let alone discussed. Israelis typically regard themselves as superior to their neighbours, and the root cause of this mentality lies in their sense of racial superiority. Indeed it is impossible to explain Israel's attitude towards the west on the one hand and its Arab neighbours on the other without understanding its racial character and motivation. Israelis aspire to be treated on a par with westerners - that is, of course, white westerners; by the same token they have contempt for Arabs, including those who are citizens of Israel, whom they look down on as less civilised than themselves. Israel behaves in the manner of a settler colony whose people do not believe they are of the region but who none the less think they have every right to be there.
There is a deep irony here. Israel was created as a result of one of the worst racial atrocities in modern history. It was in part the sense of guilt and sympathy that persuaded the west that it must help the Jews create their own state. From the outset, two factors were always likely to haunt the project: first, it involved the annexation of land that was Arab; and second, it implied the foundation of an ethnic state, with all the exclusivist and racist attitudes that this potentially involved.
Let us hope that the failure of the war in Lebanon might begin the process of persuading the Israeli people that their long-term future lies in viewing their Arab neighbours as equals and seeking to live with them in peace, rather than viewing themselves as an appendage of the most powerful country in the world situated thousands of miles to its west.
· Martin Jacques is a visiting research fellow at the Asia Research Centre, London School of Economics
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
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Comments
BUT, and if anybody has a deeper understanding of Zionist doctrine than me I'm all ears, the expansion of Israel, the Eretz Israel plan, the Zionist expansion plan, does not preclude the neccessity for peace with its neighbours. It is based on aggression towards, and the taking of lands from, those same Arab neighbours.
The Arab world will not sit back on its hands and refrain when lands are taken from then.
And why should they?
The report also doesn't take into account the pipleine / oil transportation deals that Israel has in line with Turkey and the Caspian sea states. (see the plans for the oil terminals on the MEditerranean coast) Plans which need territorial control over Syria and Lebanon.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/AllDocsByUNID/5a7229b652beb9c5c1256b8a0054b62e
And they should know all about hatred and bloodthrist for all they need do is look in the mirror.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
Several interesting points here.
First of all Israel's inability to curb Hizbollah. this is in continuation what is seen elsewhere in asymmetrical warfare, where rebels and guerilla groups prove near impossible to stamp out, from Afghanistan to Iraq, and now Lebanon. This should make the powers that be stop and think whether military force is a desirable option anymore. For Israel, this might be a reminder that military force will only get them so far, and they must come to terms with their neighbours peacefully for any lasting effects.
Secondly, Israel's honorary western status which also is true. I dont know if it's fair to slap on the general racist accusations that accompanied this, but a valid point nonetheless. Perhaps Israel needs to start thinking of themselves as part of the middle east.
As for to make peace, arabs must accept Israel on the one side, and Israel must treat with them on the other. It is not impossible to do so, as has been shown in the past with the peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt. they may have to give concessions to get there, but that's diplomacy for you. As a personal speculation, I wonder if they couldn't have sealed lasting treaties with Syria and in extension Lebanon if they would withdraw from the Golan Heights for instance. That could be a bargaining chip right there.
Sooner or later Israel must negotiate deals that both they and their neighbours can live with, and all parties must be willing to disregard past events and conflicts. Although there is animosity towards Israel in many arab countries, the problems are really Syria and the occupied territories. If those get resolved, things would look much better.
Peace
Dan
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965