Hammers and Nails

Thanks for those who have provided positive feedback on my response to the flotilla assault. Things are going, predictably, from bad to worse, with Turkey "apoplectic" (using Slate.com's words), Egypt opening their border to distance themselves from Israel's blockade, Americans wondering out loud whether this was done on purpose so Bibi & co. could show that they're not beholden to the Americans, and Israeli discontent getting louder.

In the midst of all this, I'd like to share an op-ed from Amos Oz, whose moral voice I think many are striving to hear in Israel and around the world. Thanks to Joan Wachstein for sharing it with me.

FOR 2,000 years, the Jews knew the force of force only in the form of lashes to our own backs. For several decades now, we have been able to wield force ourselves — and this power has, again and again, intoxicated us.
In the period before Israel was founded, a large portion of the Jewish population in Palestine, especially members of the extremely nationalist Irgun group, thought that military force could be used to achieve any goal, to drive the British out of the country, and to repel the Arabs who opposed the creation of our state.
Luckily, during Israel’s early years, prime ministers like David Ben-Gurion and Levi Eshkol knew very well that force has its limits and were careful to use it only as a last resort. But ever since the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel has been fixated on military force. To a man with a big hammer, says the proverb, every problem looks like a nail.
Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip and Monday’s violent interception of civilian vessels carrying humanitarian aid there are the rank products of this mantra that what can’t be done by force can be done with even greater force. This view originates in the mistaken assumption that Hamas’s control of Gaza can be ended by force of arms or, in more general terms, that the Palestinian problem can be crushed instead of solved.
But Hamas is not just a terrorist organization. Hamas is an idea, a desperate and fanatical idea that grew out of the desolation and frustration of many Palestinians. No idea has ever been defeated by force — not by siege, not by bombardment, not by being flattened with tank treads and not by marine commandos. To defeat an idea, you have to offer a better idea, a more attractive and acceptable one.
Thus, the only way for Israel to edge out Hamas would be to quickly reach an agreement with the Palestinians on the establishment of an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as defined by the 1967 borders, with its capital in East Jerusalem. Israel has to sign a peace agreement with President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah government in the West Bank — and by doing so, reduce the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a conflict between Israel and the Gaza Strip. That latter conflict, in turn, can be resolved only by negotiating with Hamas or, more reasonably, by the integration of Fatah with Hamas.
Even if Israel seizes 100 more ships on their way to Gaza, even if Israel sends in troops to occupy the Gaza Strip 100 more times, no matter how often Israel deploys its military, police and covert power, force cannot solve the problem that we are not alone in this land, and the Palestinians are not alone in this land. We are not alone in Jerusalem and the Palestinians are not alone in Jerusalem. Until Israelis and Palestinians recognize the logical consequences of this simple fact, we will all live in a permanent state of siege — Gaza under an Israeli siege, Israel under an international and Arab siege.
I do not discount the importance of force. Woe to the country that discounts the efficacy of force. Without it Israel would not be able to survive a single day. But we cannot allow ourselves to forget for even a moment that force is effective only as a preventative — to prevent the destruction and conquest of Israel, to protect our lives and freedom. Every attempt to use force not as a preventive measure, not in self-defense, but instead as a means of smashing problems and squashing ideas, will lead to more disasters, just like the one we brought on ourselves in international waters, opposite Gaza’s shores.

It's a trap!

Like most of you, I'm still trying to process the raid on the Gaza flotilla and its aftermath. One thing is clear to me, though: no good comes of it.

Let me start by saying this: I agree with the Israeli assurance that, once those commandos hit the decks and the people on board started attacking (including with captured firearms), there was little the IDF sailors could do except respond in kind. Here's my quesiton: why did those sailors need to board those boats at all?

We've been hearing and reading about the flotilla for some time, and this is not the first attempt; everyone knew it was a publicity stunt and that the participants WANTED the IDF to storm the boats and cause a ruckus. No one could have anticipated the incident turning deadly, but it was clear from the get-go that they wanted to put Israel in the worst light possible. It was clearly a trap; so why did the Israeli Navy and government walk right in?

Israel is losing a very important battle right now: that of world opinion. I know there is a long-held sense of fatalism: that Israel never has the upper hand there, never has world opinion on its side, so why try? That Israel should look only after her strategic needs. The problem is that world opinion is part of that strategy, and it is becoming increasingly important. Perhaps there was a time to blow off world opinion to some degree, but when the country's leadership seems so tone-deaf that it's alienating long-standing allies, like the US and Turkey, one wonders what is going on? Before, it was merely the bad timing of building more settlements and Avigdor Lieberman insulting Turkey (which are both bad enough); now 10 people, mostly European protesters, are dead.

I agree very much with this analysis in Ha'aretz: Israel needs a full inquiry into the matter, and her leaders need to take a long, hard look at their policies. How is killing 10 protesters bringing Gilad Shalit back? How is this securing Israel's safety well into the future? How is making Israel a pariah state--eliminating several years of goodwill in Europe and the US and Turkey--going to ensure and Israel for my children and grandchildren? How is giving Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran more ammunition helping achieve any strategic goals?

Israel deserves better, and the world deserves better, than this mess now docked at Ashdod. In the meantime, let's hope Bibi Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Gabi Ashkenazi are better at extracting themselves from the trap than they are at avoiding it. So far, I'm not impressed.