Israel’s 13 years of appeasement

A good summation by Daniel Pipes of Israel’s situation. From her birth until 1993, Israel followed a policy of deterrence against her enemies; force was met with greater force, and Israel’s enemies feared her. Then, under the leadership of a “tough old soldier” turned delusional peacenik (my characterization not Pipes’s), Israel threw away the accumulated wisdom that had kept her safe, adopted appeasement, and her “enemies rapidly lost their fears, coming to see Israel as a paper tiger.” Pipes concludes, paralleling what was said here at the start of the current miniwar:

The pattern since 1993 has been consistent: each disillusionment [with the “peace process”] inspires an orgy of Israeli remorse and reconsideration, followed by a quiet return to appeasement and retreat. I fear that the Gaza and Lebanon operations are focused not on defeating the enemy but winning the release of one or two soldiers [see my blog entry, “Saving Corporal Shalit”]—a strange war goal, one perhaps unprecedented in the history of warfare—suggesting that matters will soon enough revert to form.

Pipes’s idea of reverting to the even earlier policy of deterrence obviously does not get at the root of the problem; only the transfer of the Palestinians from the lands West of the Jordan would do that. But deterrence would be infinitely better than everything the Israelis have done since the day of that insane and unforgivable handshake 13 years ago.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 19, 2006 07:44 PM | Send