Is terror an option for the occupied and oppressed Palestinians?
“We, as opposed to the distinguished guest (President Obama), know our people – ourselves – very well. And the bitter truth is that for years – perhaps since the days of the protest against the first Lebanon War – we have neither been leading political moves nor forcing our leaders to carry them out… Scolding from our good uncle in America is not the thing that will convince us to change our outlook, our way, our reality. This is not what may move us towards the end of the occupation, the evacuation of settlements and an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement… Let’s admit it: Until things go up in flames and we bleed and hurt – we won’t budge. That’s the way we are.”
Given that since Sheizaf offered his thoughts we have learned that there is not going to be any serious pressure from outside on Israel while Obama is president (because he is not going to confront the Zionist lobby in America and Netanyahu’s government), Lenchner’s contribution suggests to me that the following question should be asked. And answered.
What could cause Israeli Jews to “bleed and hurt” to the point where they WOULD budge and insist that their government abandon the annexation option and go for disengagement, to end the occupation of the West Bank?
Things would go up in flames, and Israeli Jews would bleed and hurt, if the frontline Arab leaders did a Sadat and launched a limited war for peace. But we can be absolutely certain that will never, ever, happen. (It can also be taken as read that Iran will never, ever, start a war with Israel. And nor will Hezbollah. These two parties will only respond if attacked by Israel or by Israel-and-America in the case of Iran).
In theory it is only the occupied and oppressed Palestinians who could cause Israel to bleed and hurt by resorting to a well planned and sustained campaign of terror.
Given that Zionist terrorists forced the withdrawal of the occupying British as a prelude to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, it has to be said that Israel’s existence is proof of what can be achieved by terrorism.
But more to the point is what Israeli Jews would have done after the 1967 war if the boot had been on the other foot – if they had been the Palestinian Arabs. As it was put to me in 1980 by the best and the brightest of Israel’s Directors of Military Intelligence, then retired Major General Shlomo Gazit, “If we had been the Palestinians, we would have had our mini state a long time ago.” He meant that they would have mounted a sustained campaign of terror against the Israel of the pre-1967 borders, in the knowledge that there are limits to the amount of death and destruction the soft underbelly of any public opinion will tolerate before saying to government: “Enough. Do a deal with the terrorists.”
Also to be noted in passing is that Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister and defense minister, once said in an American television interview, “If I were a Palestinian at the right age I would have joined one of the terrorist organizations at a certain stage.”
In my analysis which is, of course, informed by the benefit of hindsight, a well planned and sustained campaign of terror against the Israel of the pre-1967 borders is the option the PLO ought to have taken in the late 1960′s and early 1970′s. But in answer to my headline question, I say it’s too late for that today. Israel’s security apparatus in all its manifestations is in more or less complete control.
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