Soccer Dad

The idf and the peace process fallacy

The Jerusalem Post has an excellent story Officer who defied death prefers to recall soldiers' heroism.

Lt.-Col. Effie Deffrin was leading his troops through Wadi Saluki when his tank was hit by a hail of antitank rockets.

He was rushed by helicopter to Safed's Rebecca Ziv Hospital in critical condition, and an officer was sent to his wife, who had given birth to their third child two weeks earlier. "They told her to bring the baby and come to the hospital to say good-bye to me," Deffrin told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

Wounded in the lungs and head, doctors were not certain he would live through the night. But two weeks later, the 35-year-old was back in command of the Eshet Battalion.

Lt. Col. Deffrin also witnessed other acts of extreme bravery.

One combat support soldier from the Ordinance Corps, Dimitri Kamishlin, "jumped out of the tank that he was in, ran without any cover into a burning tank nearby, and pulled out the entire crew," Effie said. "People don't realize the quality of this generation. We don't value them enough. People say that they have no ideology, no beliefs. But I saw otherwise."

Last year the IDF was hamstrung by an indecisive, ill-prepared government and yet it was able to inflict severe damage upon Hezbollah. Gen Yaakov Amidror didn't agree with the conventional wisdom that Israel had lost the war militarily.

* Hizballah casualties were not less than 500 and may have reached 700 - a figure greater than all the casualties Hizballah has suffered during the last twenty years. It will take Hizballah at least two years to rebuild its capabilities and to recruit and train new people.

* Israel also developed a system which made Hizballah's long-range rocket launchers good for one use only. Within less than five minutes of launch they were destroyed by Israel's air force, an unprecedented achievement in modern warfare.

* The determination of Israel's government to respond and to retaliate is a very important factor in restoring deterrence. Now those around Israel understand that Israel has certain red lines, and that if these lines are crossed, Israel's retaliation will be intentionally disproportionate. As a small country, we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of reacting proportionally.

* Middle East leaders understand that Israel is prepared to use military force, and that in the future we are not going to be as tolerant of attempts to act against us.

* Nasrallah said at the beginning of the war that there would be no international forces and no Lebanese army in south Lebanon. The entry of these forces is, from the Israeli point of view, the greatest success of the war.

It is because of soldiers like Deffrin and Kamishlin that these successes were possible and increase Israel's security. Unfortunately there are also plenty of people like Aaron David Miller who are willing to do all they can to undermine the security of Israel by their silly peace processing.

First, the viability of an authoritative, pragmatic Palestinian center is at serious risk. Some, of course, argue that it never existed. But my view is that between 1993 and 2000, Palestinians had a leader who, together with four Israeli prime ministers, collaborated on a process of peacemaking that got them further than ever before.

It is true that, at the end of the Camp David summit, Arafat still refused to negotiate for anything less than a Palestinian state created on the June 4, 1967, borders with Jerusalem as its capital. But the fact remains that he was the undisputed and authoritative leader of a people increasingly willing to live in a state alongside (rather than instead of) Israel — and he was there at Camp David, engaged in talks that broke taboos and created a basis for serious progress. The Arafat conundrum — that it was hard to do a deal with him but impossible without him — is a better situation than what we confront now.

Actually it is the Arafat conundrum that brought exactly to where we are. The peace processors like Miller (and Ross and Indyk etc.) placed their bet on the wrong horse, Arafat. It was said that only Arafat could make a deal. It was said that only Arafat's terms could bring peace. And then when presented with 99% of those terms, he didn't say let's negotiate more, he unleashed a so-called intifada.

Rather than acknowledge that Arafat and the ideology he represented wouldn't countenance a Jewish state in the Middle East, Miller laments the absence of Arafat and plainly wishes for a new one.

There may always be another chance to end the Arab-Israeli conflict, but we shouldn't push our luck. Events in the last several years have moved us dangerously close to a point beyond which the two-state solution — and perhaps any solution — will no longer be available to end the conflict. To even have a chance of a breakthrough, the United States, together with the Arab world and the international community, would have to step up and launch a comprehensive effort to end the violence, promote economic recovery for Palestinians and create a negotiating process to tackle the core issues. Like it or not, Hamas would have to be a part of that solution.

Actually creating a Palestinian state dedicated to the destruction of Israel, is not a solution. It will, as we have seen over the past 14 years, use its territorial and materiel gains to launch attacks at Israel. A two state solution where the second state is dedicated to the destruction of the first, is no solution.

Miller and his like minded colleague need to stop looking at appeasing extremists as a way to peace. What's needed for peace is for extremists to be marginalized, destroyed or changed. Their prescription will accomplish none of those objectives. All it will do will empower another group of extremists and prolong the conflict for the foreseeable future.

Ironically it is the Israeli soldiers who fought Hezbollah and Hamas who do more to advance peace than the slick, well paid, "expert" peace processors like Miller whose ideas have never worked outside the ivory towers they reside in.

israel, peace process, second lebanon war.