"Chronicle of a Suicide Foretold: The Case of
Israel"
The state of Israel proclaimed its independence at midnight on
May 15, 1948. The United Nations had voted to establish two states
in what had been Palestine under British rule. The city of
Jerusalem was supposed to be an international zone under U.N.
jurisdiction. The U.N. resolution had wide support, and
specifically that of the United States and the Soviet Union. The
Arab states all voted against it.
In the sixty years of its existence, the state of Israel has
depended for its survival and expansion on an overall strategy that
combined three elements: macho militarism, geopolitical alliances,
and public relations. The macho militarism (what current Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert calls the "iron fist") was made possible by
the nationalist fervor of Jewish Israelis, and eventually (although
not initially) by the very strong support of Jewish communities
elsewhere in the world.
Geopolitically, Israel first forged an alliance with the Soviet
Union (which was brief but crucial), then with France (which lasted
a longer time and allowed Israel to become a nuclear power), and
finally (and most importantly) with the United States. These
allies, who were also patrons, offered most importantly military
support through the provision of weapons. But they also offered
diplomatic/political support, and in the case of the United States
considerable economic support.
The public relations was aimed at obtaining sympathetic support
from a wide swath of world public opinion, based in the early years
on a portrait of Israel as a pioneering David against a retrograde
Goliath, and in the last forty years on guilt and compassion over
the massive Nazi extermination of European Jewry during the Second
World War.
All these elements of Israeli strategy worked well from 1948 to
the 1980s. Indeed, they were increasingly more effective. But
somewhere in the 1980s, the use of each of the three tactics began
to be counterproductive. Israel has now entered into a phase of the
precipitate decline of its strategy. It may be too late for Israel
to pursue any alternative strategy, in which case it will have
committed geopolitical suicide. Let us trace how the three elements
in the strategy interacted, first during the successful upward
swing, then during the slow decline of Israel's power.
For the first twenty-five years of its existence, Israel engaged
in four wars with Arab states. The first was the 1948-1949 war to
establish the Jewish state. The Israeli declaration of an
independent state was not matched by a Palestinian declaration to
establish a state. Rather, a number of Arab governments declared
war on Israel. Israel was initially in military difficulty.
However, the Israeli military were far better trained than those of
the Arab countries, with the exception of Transjordan. And,
crucially, they obtained arms from Czechoslovakia, acting as the
agent of the Soviet Union.
By the time of the truce in 1949, the discipline of the Israeli
forces combined with the Czech arms enabled the Israelis to win
considerable territory not included in the partition proposals of
the United Nations, including west Jerusalem. The other areas were
incorporated by the surrounding Arab states. A large number of
Palestinian Arabs left or were forced to leave areas under the
control of the Israelis and became refugees in neighboring Arab
countries, where their descendants still largely live today. The
land they had owned was taken by Jewish Israelis.
The Soviet Union soon dropped Israel. This was probably
primarily because its leaders quickly became afraid of the impact
of the creation of the state on the attitudes of Soviet Jewry, who
seemed overly enthusiastic and hence potentially subversive from
Stalin's point of view. Israel in turn dropped any sympathy for the
socialist camp in the Cold War, and made clear its fervent desire
to be considered a full-fledged member of the Western world,
politically and culturally.
France at this time was faced with national liberation movements
in its three North African colonies, and saw in Israel a useful
ally. This was especially true after the Algerians launched their
war of independence in 1954. France began to help Israel arm
itself. In particular, France, which was developing its own nuclear
weapons (against U.S. wishes), helped Israel do the same. In 1956,
Israel joined France and Great Britain in a war against Egypt.
Unfortunately for Israel, this war was launched against U.S.
opposition, and the United States forced all three powers to end
it.
After Algeria became independent in 1962, France lost interest
in the Israeli connection, which now interfered with its attempts
to renew closer relations with the three now independent North
African states. It was at this point that the United States and
Israel turned to each other to forge close links. In 1967, war
broke out again between Egypt and Israel, and other Arab states
joined Egypt. In this so-called Six Day War, the United States for
the first time gave military weapons to Israel.
The 1967 Israeli victory changed the basic situation in many
respects. Israel had won the war handily, occupying all those parts
of the British mandate of Palestine that it had occupied before,
plus Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and Syria's Golan Heights.
Juridically, there was now a state of Israel plus Israel's occupied
territories. Israel began a policy of establishing
Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.
The Israeli victory transformed the attitude of world Jewry,
which now overcame whatever reservations it had had about the
creation of the state of Israel. They took great pride in its
accomplishments and began to undertake major political campaigns in
the United States and western Europe to secure political support
for Israel. The image of a pioneering Israel with emphasis on the
virtues of the kibbutz was abandoned in favor of an emphasis on the
Holocaust as the basic justification for world support of
Israel.
In 1973, the Arab states sought to redress the military
situation in the so-called Yom Kippur war. This time again, Israel
won the war, with U.S. arms support. The 1973 war marked the end of
the central role of the Arab states. Israel could continue to try
to get recognition from Arab states, and it did succeed eventually
with both Egypt and Jordan, but it was now too late for this to be
a way to secure Israel's existence.
As of this point, there emerged a serious Palestinian Arab
political movement, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO),
which was now the key opponent of Israel, the one with whom Israel
needed to come to terms. For a long time, Israel refused to deal
with the PLO and its leader Yasser Arafat, preferring the iron
fist. And at first, it was militarily successful.
The limits of the iron fist policy were made evident by the
first intifada, a spontaneous uprising of Palestinian
Arabs inside the occupied territories, which began in 1987 and
lasted six years. The basic achievement of the intifada
was twofold. It forced the Israelis and the United States to talk
to the PLO, a long process that led to the so-called Oslo Accords
of 1993, which provided for the creation of the Palestinian
Authority in part of the occupied territories.
The Oslo Accords in the long run were geopolitically less
important than the impact of the intifada on world public
opinion. For the first time, the David-Goliath image began to be
inverted. For the first time, there began to be serious support in
the Western world for the so-called two-state solution. For the
first time, there began to be serious criticism of Israel's iron
fist and its practices vis-à-vis the Arab Palestinians. Had Israel
been serious about a two-state solution based on the so-called
Green Line - the line of division at the end of the 1948-1949 war -
it probably would have achieved a settlement.
Israel however was always one step behind. When it could have
negotiated with Nasser, it wouldn't. When it could have negotiated
with Arafat, it wouldn't. When Arafat died and was succeeded by the
ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas, the more militant Hamas won the
Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006. Israel refused to talk
to Hamas.
Now, Israel has invaded Gaza, seeking to destroy Hamas. If it
succeeds, what organization will come next? If, as is more
probable, it fails to destroy Hamas, is a two-state solution now
possible? Both Palestinian and world public opinion is moving
towards the one-state solution. And this is of course the end of
the Zionist project.
The three-element strategy of Israel is decomposing. The iron
fist no longer succeeds, much as it didn't for George Bush in Iraq.
Will the United States link remain firm? I doubt it. And will world
public opinion continue to look sympathetically on Israel? It seems
not. Can Israel now switch to an alternative strategy, of
negotiating with the militant representatives of the Arab
Palestinians, as an integral constituent of the Middle East, and
not as an outpost of Europe? It seems quite late for that, quite
possibly too late. Hence, the chronicle of a suicide foretold.
by Immanuel Wallerstein
http://fbc.binghamton.edu/
