The
Rosh HaShanah War
by
Angelo M. Codevilla
Commentary
on what will likely be called the Rosh Hashanah war of 2000 misses a key
twin point: namely that US policy bears substantial responsibility for the
war, and that it does so in part because the Israelis unwisely relied on the
US as a safety net for any and all high risk behavior on their part.
The New York Times’ news analysis of October 3 argued that the
sight of Palestinian “policemen” carrying on a shooting war against the
Israeli army is incongruous because just days ago Prime Minister Barak and
Yasser Arafat had been sitting together in a suburban back yard chopping
words for a final peace settlement. The Times concluded that such
words had been ephemeral, masking enduring tensions. A day later,
writing in the Wall Street Journal, Ariel Sharon also emphasized the
underlying tensions, and concluded that if Arab leaders wanted peace, they
absolutely had to stop inciting their people to kill Jews. Both analyses are
correct. Nevertheless they do not explain why tensions that had existed for
many years should have erupted into war now. Why should the ever greater
satisfaction of Arab desires, demands, grievances ever since 1993 have led
to clashes deadlier than those of the Intifada? A better question is, why
should they not have? After all, an old Italian proverb says,
“l’appetito vien mangiando” or appetite comes from eating.
And indeed the Palestinian Authority has grown in every way, its girth
increased by European, but mostly Israeli American aid. As the shooting goes
on, it is hard to forget that the AK47 assault rifles that the Palestinians
are using (instead of rocks) were bought (from the former Soviet empire)
with American money, and that the “police” units now pulling the
triggers were authorized by the Israeli government. Who did anyone
think would be the target of those rifles, whom did anyone think that the
“police” were being trained to hate and fight? Hottentots?
In 1982 the PLO was in the process of being physically exterminated.
Its passing was not regretted by the Arabs it had oppressed in Lebanon,
Jordan, or the West Bank. Nor was it mourned by those who remembered the
blood of innocents it had shed in airports, on buses, and in the 1972
Olympic village. It was reduced to impotence in Tunis, incapable of
terrorizing itself to power over the Palestinian people. In 1990-91 the PLO
became even more odious to the Palestinian people because of its support for
Saddam Hussein, as a result of whom thousands of Palestinians were expelled
form jobs in the Gulf. How then did this band of despicable,
discredited, corrupt thugs wind up in control of the Palestinian Arabs, with
the appurtenances of government officials, writing textbooks of hate?
The answer is all too uncomplicated: Two US Administrations thought that the
more money and “responsibility” they gave to this band, the more
inclined it would be to “join the international community.”
But the premise of US policy was not a hypothesis, which could be abandoned
if and when falsified by reality, but rather an article of faith. And
so the more that American money and influence enabled the PLO to make itself
into the PLA, a typical corrupt, internally violent and externally warlike
third world regime based on ghoulish “special security forces,” the more
the US government has given it money as well as pressed Israel for further
concessions, and vice versa. Why should anyone, especially Arafat’s
thugs, have taken any lesson from America’s behavior other than that
violence and the threat thereof pay? After all, pay it does – supply
side violence.
The US government’s feeding of the mouth that bites its interests can be
explained in part by the fact that no matter what happens, Arab violence is
not about to engulf America. Why Israel does so is more complex. In
1993, when the Israeli foreign ministry’s envoy in charge of explaining
the new “peace process” to the foreign policy community reached Stanford
he told me, as he told everyone else, that the Israeli public was so tired
of manning the ramparts that it was willing to “take risks for peace.”
Israel, he said, did not share the US State Department’s view that
empowering a Palestinian state and giving up territory to Syria would make
for good neighbors. But, he said, the increased dangers stemming from
risky deals would be offset by the US government’s commitment to bail
Israel out of any ensuing trouble. And indeed the only argument that
Ehud Barak, never mind Yossi Beilin, have made to allay the Israeli
public’s fear that Palestinian power and Syrian strategic gains pose
mortal danger is not to look too closely at the number and position of Arab
guns because mighty America will obviate all dangers. Hence, because Israel
has conducted its policy toward the PLO - PLA with the equivalent of what
economists call “moral hazard” (i.e. somebody else will cover any
losses) it is not surprising that the PLO –PLA has ended up biting the
hand that feeds it. The more Israel feeds, the more it gets bitten.
And why not?
Because of American and Israeli policies, the PLO – PLA have every reason
to believe that war will yield benefits. The Clinton Administration’s
reaction to the Rosh Hashanah war has been the kind of even handed
condemnation weighted toward blaming Israel for being so beastly as to draw
Palestinian violence, and then for shooting when shot at. And why not? After
all, the spectacle casts shadows on the judgment of US policy makers. The
merest suggestion by New York US Senate candidate Rick Lazio that the US
reduce its payments to the PLA drew Washington’s scorn.
The United States’ lack of support for Israel in this crisis demolishes
Israeli policy makers’ prime argument. No. Washington will not
make up for troubles brought on by agreements and arrangements Washington
itself has sponsored. Nor can it.
The "peace process" has proved to be a supply side policy
encouraging violence, based on faulty premises about the United States.
Any policy not based on these premises may not be better. But it
certainly would be more realistic.
