"You and I and the Next War"
By Uri Avnery
02/27/07 "ICH"
-- -- -"WE ARE ready for the next war," a reserve soldier in the Israel
Defense Forces told a TV reporter this week, on the scene of a
brigade-size maneuver on the Golan Heights.
What war? Against whom? About what? This was not stated, and not
even asked. The soldier saw it as self-evident that war will
break out soon, and it seems that he did not particularly care
against whom.
Politicians are used to expressing themselves more cautiously,
in words like "If, God forbid, a war should break out" But in
Israeli public discourse, the next war is seen as a natural
phenomenon, like tomorrow's sunrise. Of course, war will break
out. The only question is against whom.
AND INDEED--against whom? Perhaps Hizbullah again?
Quite possibly. In the Knesset and the media, a lively debate
took place this week about whether Hizbullah has already
regained all the capabilities it had before the Second Lebanon
War, or not yet. In a Knesset committee, there was an
altercation between one of the Army Intelligence chiefs, who
vigorously insisted that this was so, and the Minister of
Defense, who voiced his opinion that Hizbullah has only the
"potential" to get there.
Hassan Nasrallah, who has a wonderful talent for driving
Israelis up the wall, poured oil on the flames by announcing, in
a public speech, that arms were flowing to him from Syria, and
that he transfers them to the south in trucks "covered with
straw". Let them all know.
Our commentators reacted by declaring that "no later than this
summer" the Israeli army will be compelled to attack in Lebanon
in order to remove the danger, and, on this occasion, also to
eradicate the shame and restore to the army the "deterrent
power" that was lost on the battlefields of that unfortunate
war.
OR PERHAPS Syria, this time?
That is also possible. After all, this week's brigade maneuver,
the first for a long time, was held on the Golan and obviously
directed against Damascus.
True, the Syrians have offered peace. They are going out of
their way to tempt Israel to start negotiations.
But that is out of the question. President Bush has forbidden
Israel to take even the tiniest step in that direction. Bush is
threatening Syria with war (see below) and it is unthinkable
that Israel, the loyal camp-follower, would make peace with
somebody America does not like. No, peace with Syria is not on
the cards. Forget it.
And, as the Romans did not say: "si non vis pacem, para
bellum"--if you do not want peace, prepare for war.
Preparations go well beyond training the forces on the ground.
They also have a psychological dimension. The day before
yesterday, an extra-large front page headline in Haaretz
announced: "Syrian Arms Race With the Help of Iran". The other
media followed suit. It was said that Russia was supplying Syria
with huge quantities of anti-tank weapons, of the kind that
penetrated even the most advanced Israeli tanks in the recent
war. And, as if that was not enough, Russia is also providing
Syria with anti-shipping missiles that would be a real threat to
our navy, and long-range missiles that can reach every corner of
Israel.
The news story puts together three countries--Syria, Russia and
Iran--which are, quite fortuitously, the three members of Bush's
new "axis of evil".
Clearly, this media campaign is being orchestrated by the army
chiefs and is connected with the maneuver. As a matter of fact,
it is the first action by the new Chief-of-Staff, Gaby
Ashkenazi, who observed the maneuver in the company of the
Minister of Defense, Amir Peretz. (A quick-witted photographer
caught Peretz viewing the action through binoculars. But the
lens caps were still on, and so he obviously saw nothing but
black.)
Truth is that no danger lurks in that direction. There is not
the slightest possibility that Syria would attack Israel. The
military capabilities of Syria, even with all the Russian arms
they may get, are vastly inferior to those of the Israeli army.
That is the considered view of the entire Israeli intelligence
community. If Syria rearms, it is for defensive purposes. They
are, quite justly, afraid of Israel and the United States.
But if one wants war, what does that matter?
AND PERHAPS these are simply diversionary tactics, in order to
shift attention away from the real target of the next war--Iran?
For many months now, our media have been voicing dark warnings
about Iran almost daily. Within a few years they are going to
have the capability to carry out a "Second Holocaust", as well
as the will to do so. The picture is of a crazy country, headed
by a Second Hitler, who is prepared to have Iran annihilated if
this is the price of wiping Israel off the map.
Against such an enemy, of course, the old Hebrew adage applies:
"He who gets up to kill you, go and kill him first."
AFTER THE Six-Day War, a pacifist satire bore the title: "You
and I and the Next War". ("You" in the feminine form.) Perhaps
it should be revived now.
During the last few days, a very large ad appeared in the
newspapers, signed by a group calling itself "The Reserve
Soldiers" and claiming to represent the disappointed reservists
of the last war. The ad sets out all the reasons for removing
Olmert from power, and reaches its climax with the dire warning:
"He will remain on his chair and direct the next war."
Perhaps that is exactly what he has in mind. We never had a
prime minister mired so deeply in a quagmire of troubles. In a
few weeks, the Commission of Inquiry of the Second Lebanon War
will publish its findings. True, it was Olmert himself who
appointed the commission and handpicked its members, in order to
avoid falling into the hands of a judicial board of inquiry,
whose members would have been appointed by the Supreme Court,
and who might have been much less considerate. But even so, he
may survive the findings of the commission only by the skin of
his teeth. At the same time, several corruption allegations
against him are being investigated by the police.
True, Olmert succeeded last week in appointing new police chiefs
(including a personal friend) as well as a new Minister of
Justice to his liking, but this also does not guarantee him full
immunity.
In the meantime he only exemplifies an old truth: a clever
person knows how to extricate himself from a trap that a wise
person would not have fallen into in the first place.
He has no agenda. He said so himself. He is the chief of an
amorphous party, without members or institutions and without
real roots in the community. Public opinion polls show that his
ratings are nearing the bottom (only the Minister of Defense has
sunk even lower.) Olmert remains in power only because many
believe that all the available alternatives would be even worse.
A cynical Prime Minister, entrapped in such a situation, could
easily be tempted to start another military adventure, in the
hope that it would give him back his lost popularity and divert
attention from his private and political troubles. If this is
the aim, it really does not matter much against
whom--Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians or Iranians. The main
thing is that it should happen as soon as possibly, preferably
this summer at the latest. What remains is to convince the
public of the presence of an existential danger, but in our
country that is not too difficult.
ALL THIS reminds one, of course, of another outstanding
leader--George W. Bush. Amazing how these two find themselves in
almost the same situation.
The American political system is admired by many in Israel, and
from time to time the cry goes up that it should be adopted by
us, too. A strong leader, elected fairly directly by the people,
who appoints competent ministers--what could be better?
But it seems that the American system has created a terrifying
situation: President Bush has two more years in office--and in
this time he can start any war at will, even though now the
American public has clearly shown in the congressional elections
that it loathes the Iraq war. As Commander-in-Chief of the most
powerful military forces in the world, he can widen and deepen
the war in Iraq, and at the same time start a new war against
Iran or Syria.
The two houses of Congress can, in theory, stop him by cutting
the allocations for the armed forces, but most of the members of
these two august bodies are windbags who are terrified out of
their wits (if they have any) by the very thought. Any marine in
Baghdad has more guts than the whole bunch of Senators and
Congressmen together. They would not even dream of impeaching
the President.
Thus, one single person can cause a world-wide catastrophe. He
has no brakes, but has a strong drive towards war: to fulfill
his "vision" (dictated to him by God Himself in private
conversation) and to retouch his image in history.
Is this practical? Well, the American army is too small to
conduct another major war on the ground. But Bush and his
advisors believe that there is no need for that. They are the
successors to the American general who in his time talked about
"bombing Vietnam back to the stone age". After all, it worked in
Serbia and Afghanistan.
The neo-cons, who still reign supreme in Washington, are
convinced that a rain of many hundreds of smart bombs on all the
nuclear, military, governmental and public installations in Iran
could "do the job". Their friends in Israel will applaud, since
that would relieve Israel of the need to do something similar,
if on a smaller scale.
But an American and/or Israeli adventure would be a disaster.
Bombs can devastate a country, but not a people like the
Iranians. Only the wildest imagination can foresee how the more
than a billion Muslims in scores of countries--including all our
neighbors--would react to the destruction of a Muslim country
(even a Shiite one). This is playing with fire, which may start
a world-wide conflagration.
Bush and Olmert and the Next War: HELP!
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush
Shalom.Click here
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