A historic act by the chief of staff
Amram Mitzna
Haaretz, November 2, 2003
For the past three years, the Israeli government
has been waging an "uncompromising war against
terrorism" through the Israel Defense Forces and
the security services. In the course of this
"combat," the IDF returned to the Palestinian
cities, put checkpoints throughout the West Bank,
placed entire cities under curfew, isolated
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat,
demolished houses and liquidated terrorist
leaders. Nevertheless, the terrorism intensified,
the casualties - on both sides - continued to
rise, the hatred between the two nations deepened
and the State of Israel, like its Palestinian
neighbor, continued to decline.
The economy began to collapse, and with it the social resilience that made possible Israel's establishment and its firm stand in the face of the external threats that have been aimed at the country throughout its existence. The demographic balance has been reversed and a concrete threat has been created to Israel's continued existence as a democracy. Cracks have begun to appear even in the army, the symbol of national unity, which has always been left out of political disputes. Israel plunged to an unprecedented nadir in all spheres, but Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his sons dictated the tone: to invoke the right of silence.
For three years, an attempt was made to silence
the criticism by means of the old slogan,
"Quiet, we're shooting," and the contention
that the critics were adversely affecting the
security of the state. The concept, which
Sharon and Shaul Mofaz - first as chief of
staff, then as defense minister - formulated
with considerable talent was that all the
Palestinian organizations, and in effect the
entire Palestinian population, support
terrorism and desire Israel's destruction; that
the Palestinian Authority is no less an enemy
than the leaderships of Hamas and Islamic
Jihad, and therefore we must not talk with it,
still less believe it; and that terrorism can
be defeated by the use of military force.
The failure of the concept was apparent from the
initial stages of the fighting. The dry figures
showed immediately that the more we pounded the
Palestinians, the more terrorist attacks there
were. The more we beefed up our presence in the
territories, the more casualties we sustained.
And the more we lashed out at Arafat, the
stronger he became. It was obvious to any
sensible person that IDF policy in the
territories was undermining the security of
Israel's citizens and was contrary to the
state's interests. Far from defeating terrorism, the prevailing policy - closures, checkpoints, liquidations - is creating terrorism. It is heightening the hatred of Israel, isolating the country internationally and placing us in existential danger.
However, both the government and the IDF
continued to labor under the mistaken concept
that maintains terrorism can be defeated only
by means of military force. As though in a
stupor, the government ministers followed the
Sharon-Mofaz concept and missed no opportunity
to torpedo every attempt to extricate Israel
from the quagmire into which Sharon has plunged
it, after extricating itself, battered and bloodied, from the Lebanese quagmire into which Sharon plunged it 20 years earlier.
The criticism of the government's policy that
was voiced last week by the chief of staff,
Lieutenant General Moshe Ya'alon, came as a
surprise not only because of the way he chose
to make it known, but mainly because of the
fact that, until now, the chief of staff was
part of the same concept and loyally carried
out the orders of the political level. The
future commission of inquiry that will examine
this period will certainly expose the scale of
the failure that occurred here, but there is no
doubt that the remarks by the chief of staff -
which exposed in the clearest possible way the
immense gap between the concept that has guided
the IDF and the reality of the situation -
herald a turning point.
The method the chief of staff chose and the
procedure involved can be criticized, but the
time has come to start dealing with substance,
and the substance is that, for the first time,
the head of the army is admitting that the IDF
cannot win and that the policy being pursued by
the government is undermining security and
causing irreversible damage to Israeli society,
to the IDF and to the state. The most flagrant
example is the dispute between the IDF and the
defense minister over the route of the security
fence. The army proposed a true security fence,
whereas the defense minister was guided by
political considerations.
Even if the Israeli public does not express
gratitude to the chief of staff for his important act, history will do so. In contrast to the prime minister, who is cut off from the nation, doesn't feel the suffering and is not getting the message of the depth of the despair, and the defense minister, who is mixing politics with security considerations,
the chief of staff is looking the country's
mothers straight in the eye. He knows there is
no justifiable explanation for the death of
their children at Netzarim. He knows their
presence there is not contributing to security
and he is beginning to understand that there is
no reason for us to be there at all. In contrast to the prime minister and the defense minister, who are treating the IDF soldiers like pawns on a chessboard, the chief of staff is concerned. Listen closely to what he is saying.
The State of Israel can defeat Palestinian
terrorism, but only if the fighting is paralleled by a political process. Separation from the Palestinians by agreement, which will make possible Israel's reestablishment as a Jewish, democratic state within permanent borders that are recognized by the entire international community, will be a true victory not only over the threats of terrorism but also over the demographic threat. The military path
has failed, and the time has come to return to
the path of negotiations. The Geneva
understandings prove this is possible. History
will not forgive those who choose to send the
nation's children into a needless war.
