Samson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict by Obadiah Shoher Copyright (c)1998-2006 Obadiah Shoher Jerusalem, Israel www.SamsonBlinded.org ISBN: 978-1-84728-218-7 Cover design A.Christolyubov All rights reserved Table of Contents Foreword to the Second Edition 9 Foreword to the First Edition. On hate. 11 Theory 13 Cruel measures are sometimes the kindest 17 Machiavelli: goodness and cruelty 17 Realism, not superficial morality 20 No easy way out 21 Create a credible threat, act brutally 23 Arab mentality and discontent 24 Peaceful relations with Arabs are possible 24 The other Arabs do not care about the Palestinians 25 Arab countries have no reason to make peace 25 Territory is not worth lives, but sometimes there is no choice 26 Israel should restrict democracy 27 No inherent right to a state, no inviolable state 28 No historical right 32 The feasibility of conquering the Arab states 33 Abandon the pretense of humane war 34 Making Arabs Agree to Peace 36 Objectives of Peace 39 Israel does not need peace 39 Israel can sustain neither modern war nor a credible threat 40 An end of belligerence is imperative 40 The creation of a Palestinian state would not bring peace 41 No Palestinian state without a pan-Islamic peace agreement 42 The inadmissibility of vacillation 42 Israeli vacillation is provocative 43 Vacillation is costly and politically detrimental 44 Piecemeal compromises blur objectives 44 The fallacy of minor concessions 45 Abandon half-measures 45 Delaying the solution makes the problem chronic and harder to cure 49 Does Israel want economic and social progress in Arab countries? 50 Determine military strategy and adhere to it 59 Determine the Territorial Objectives 63 What area do the Israelis want? 63 Why does Israel need the territories? 64 The possibility of ceding the territories 65 Returning the territories might not lead to normalizing Arab-Israeli relations 68 Western perceptions of Arab nationalism are exaggerated 69 Annexation will not necessarily impede peace 69 A culturally attractive Israel could annex the territories more easily 70 Israel as regional empire 70 Conquer only militarily weak, economically viable states 72 Annexing foreign land 74 Winning tolerance of foreigners to annexation 75 Annexation tactics, expansion from a security belt 79 The threat of expansion would bring peace 79 Proper Military Strategy 80 Hiring foreign infantry 80 Harsh measures, not limited victory 81 The necessity of using chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons 83 Do not let potentially hostile regimes build Chemical Biological Nuclear arsenals 84 Humane war is costly and ineffective 90 Make retaliation personal 91 Deterrence does not work 92 Use large forces for conquest 93 Force Arab disarmament and turn Arab states into protectorates 93 Minimize the involvement of I.D.F. infantry 94 Non-military harassment of Arabs 95 Cruelty to prisoners 101 The Sinai treaty was misguided 102 Ideological warfare 103 Counteracting Guerrilla Warfare 112 Terrorism is a war like any other 112 Terrorists justifiably target civilians 112 Jews have historically engaged in terrorism 114 Terrorists should be respected as warriors 115 Attack terrorist bases 115 Attack governments and civilians who support terrorists 116 Attack Arab countries in response to terrorist acts 119 Retaliate against civilians for terrorist attacks 121 Destroy oil infrastructure in retaliation 126 Harsh actions are less painful 127 Strike the general population to quash terrorists 128 Define acceptable cruelty formally 129 Persecute the families of suicide bombers 129 Invaders lost Lebanon and Afghanistan because of restraint toward civilians 130 Destroy the terrorists' support base 130 Abandon formalities; rely on suspicion and preemption 131 Collective liability 134 Act by stealth 135 Get the Arabs to fight for Israeli objectives 137 Acceding to terrorist demands does not lead to peace 137 Formal peace might not end terrorism 138 No tactical negotiations with terrorists 138 Political negotiations with terrorist groups are possible 139 Terrorism's future is bright 140 Riot control 142 Avoid urban combat 142 Practical counter-terror measures 143 Influence of counterterrorism on freedom 144 Deal with WMD terrorism reasonably 145 Israeli-Arab Policy 147 The clash of European and Arab mentalities 147 A peaceful solutions must accommodate the Arab mentality 147 Jews should respect Arabs and demand respect from them 148 Divide the Arabs 149 Sabotage oil exports 151 Policy toward Palestine and Israeli Arabs 153 Only cruelty can instill fear in poor people 153 Israel has no interest in making Arabs rich 153 Israel doesn't need to promote wealth in Palestine 154 A Palestinian state offers benefits 155 Necessary cruel steps to annexation 156 Downgrade Israeli Arabs' citizen rights 157 The usefulness of sharia 165 Create the Palestinian state in Jordan 166 Judea 169 The case for Judea 169 Incompatible objectives 171 Judea might engage in annexation 172 Technical details of establishing Judea 173 Spiritual aspects of Judea 175 Religious jurisdiction 175 No concern with secular ethics 176 Judea would take the heat off Israel 178 Prospects for War and Guarantees of Peace: Doubtful 179 The Israeli Defense Force is not invincible 179 American support is not guaranteed 179 Modern anti-Semitism 188 The Need to Reconsider Values 190 Looming disillusionment 190 Define ethnic boundaries 191 Reliance on religion should be restrained 194 Changing the army 195 Political reform 198 Steps to be taken in the Diaspora communities 199 New goals 202 Edward Said's The End of the Peace Process 222 Building the state in the real world 222 The fate of the Palestinians is not Holocaust 222 Jews and Palestinians are not equal 223 The Palestinians claim special rights 224 No reason for preferential treatment of Arabs 225 Inequality is inherent in every conflict 226 Equality requires applying much harsher standards to Jews than to Palestinians 226 Misrepresenting and fact-twisting 227 Lie 229 Refugees: Double standards for Jewish and Palestinian refugees 230 Defeated aggressors cannot make demands 233 Settlements 234 The Palestinian Authority refuses Jews the right of return 235 Racism and incitement 235 Palestinian nationalism 238 Accusations against the United States 238 The requirement to sympathize with the Palestinians 239 Misjudgments of military matters 240 The democracy of Zionism 240 Historical errors 241 Terrorism 241 Cruelty and torture 242 Liberties 243 Refusing to accept reality 243 Land ownership 244 Jerusalem 245 Socialist values 246 Support for Arafat 247 Colonialism 247 The Palestinians are content with Israeli rule 248 Irresponsibility 249 Said rejects Israel's right to exist 250 Conclusion 250 Foreword to the Second Edition In the first edition of this book, I wrote about Palestinian claims, "Some chances lost cannot be regained." That equally applies to the Jews. Present Israel is doomed. A nation defined in religious terms cannot survive in a secular state. Religious Jews despise Western culture and alien religious practices in the Promised Land; secular Jews dislike outdated religious rites. Reformism gained strength in America and is poised to invade Israel, subverting the religion. The socialist state suffocates enterprising Jews, and welfare programs dilute their work ethics. Democratic centralism suppresses the strongly opinionated population. Military expenditures have reached an economic dead-end. Why are the Jews, who waged such asymmetrical warfare against the British seventy years ago, now sheepishly obedient to the Israeli government? One reason is a much stronger security apparatus in Israel than in the Mandate Palestine. More importantly, people shrink from the uncomfortable realization that their government is their worst enemy, an apathy that dooms their country. Egyptian society is boiling. Support for the Muslim Brotherhood visibly grows, and that radical group already controls the largest body of the parliament. Many adherents are moderates, but so it was before every revolution. Moderates clear the way to power for radicals who often begin their rule by butchering the moderates. Ageing Mubarak is losing his grip on his country and the people sense that. Democratizers further destabilize the situation by demanding the transparent election framework that will bring to power the Islamists, the only group untainted by corruption and perceived as able to combat it. Egypt barely controls its South, and a despised and corrupt police is both powerless and unreliable. Decades of propaganda etched, in the minds of two generations, Israel as the archenemy. Restitution of Sinai was not enough; they want revenge. Israel did not demilitarize Egypt when she could have, and now the enemy is coming back with a vengeance, armed with nuclear bombs. Iran strives for Middle East dominance, a hard take for a non-Arab Shiite country. Nuclear technology is a must for the Iranian military, and Persian pride will not let them accept inferiority to Arab Egypt in this important aspect. Pakistan exports nuclear technology and scientists, and no one outside that country knows the whereabouts of all its bombs. The secular Pakistani elite is unstable, and Islamic politicians ascend the election ladder. Islamic Algeria has firmly embarked on the nuclear path. The terrorist state of Libya conducts its nuclear program in the utmost secrecy, and Israel's age-old enemy, Syria, takes fundamental steps in the same direction. North Korea will sell its A-bomb to cash bidders, even if they're terrorists. Muslim countries have obtained nuclear weapons, which will inevitably detonate in Israel. Ancient Judea lingered in existence after Israel fell. Creating a small, ethnically and religiously homogeneous state of Judea can prolong Jewish presence in the Promised Land. A small state, however, will not survive among the surrounding sea of hostility. Modern Israel is not unique. Jews tried to reestablish their country several times in the past two millennia. A third of the Jews died in the Holocaust; wiping out another third in Israel would be apocalyptic. Glorious nuclear suicide or evacuation to relative safety of the Diaspora? Modern Jews were given a chance to return, but flouted the wise biblical instructions on the scope of their state. Jews did not drive away the hostile aliens and the Arabs fought back. Jews had no heart to destroy the enemies and the enemies developed nuclear weapons. Most of all, Jews created a society bereft of Judaism - a Western democracy with no claim to the Promised Land, and no place in the land. Foreword to the First Edition. On hate. Several reviewers classified this book as hate literature. This cannot be true, as hate is irrational and I argue for pure rationality; hate veils itself in morality while my policies are stripped from any notion of moralizing; hate is wasteful while my aim is efficiency. Hate is like any ideology: silly, costly, and going nowhere. Hate is a political label: it is politically correct to hate communists, but not, say, Muslims. I am indifferent to Muslims as to any Gentiles who observe Noahide laws, find Arabs mildly amusing as any indigenous culture, and deeply respect the terrorists as determined soldiers. I suggest many policies which aim at these groups. But any political book advocates against someone; discrimination is central for politics. Even alliances are formed generally against someone. Republicans want more votes at the expense of Democrats, and attack them to that purpose. My recommendations involve threats of violence, but international politics is always built around such threats; balance of power is the only proven strategy for maintaining peace. My editors and I carefully re-worded possibly ambiguous propositions, and made sure the book never advocates violence per se, but only threatens reprisal for others' violence. The aim is to mitigate violence, not launch it. Nazis hated Jews; Hutu and Tutsi hated each other; Catholics at some point hated Protestants. The hatred, no doubt, run along the lines of economic competition, but the final concept was distorted beyond any semblance of rationality. To follow the first example, a reasonable idea to prosecute swindler Jews evolved into expulsion of all Jews, only remotely useful for Germans, and into entirely unreasonable mass murder. Vengeance, however, tends to cross the line and become hatred. It is an interesting subject, but beyond the scope of book about rational ends and means. We cannot afford to hate enemies; we must act efficiently. I do not hate Neo-Nazis. They are just enemies, and must be dealt with rationally. I dislike anti-Semites, but cannot object to their opinions as long as they remain passive. Xenophobia is all too human. How many Jews tacitly dislike Gypsies? I do not blame Gentiles for not helping the Jews; how many Jews helped Rwandese? I do, however, believe in the biblical "chosen-ness" of the Jews, and, accordingly, their inherent difference from other peoples. That does not make me a racist, but makes me to hate many Jewish violations of Or Hara'ayon. Jews who offend non-hostile Gentiles are guilty. I would rather see hysterical reviews of my book by anti-Semites than glowing reviews of some Jews who see only imperial ambitions in the book. I equally despise condemnations from Jews who reject even questioning the historical right to the land. Unwarranted self-righteousness, lack of compassion to the underdog, the despising of Gentiles while at the same time requiring them to support Jews-these traits of many Jews I really hate. I am liberal-in the traditional sense of the word before leftists usurped it. I dislike irresponsible idealists who in the worst totalitarian manner shut out voices of realism, and keep their heads in the sand of theoretical ideology. These totalitarian moralists are bad for us, but catastrophic for the next generation which will suffer the crisis the idealists created-the crisis we still can defuse. Theory Most of us want to believe that peace is the natural state of humanity. At the very least, we prefer to see it as a lasting solution, interrupted sometimes by readjustments in the balance of power by means of armed conflicts. But in the real world, we have to make choices. It is not uncommon to prefer ideological or religious values to one's own life. Preference is a matter of value judgment; there is no objectively best option. Indeed, in the Ten Commandments, fundamental to modern Jewish, Christian, and Muslim cultures, the religious prescriptions precede the prohibition of murder. Killing enemies in war is not prohibited. Once people are ready to die for their values, their religion may condone killing for them, since the commandment of negative reciprocity-Do not do unto another what is hateful to you-is satisfied. It is not hateful to die, and therefore not prohibited to kill.1 That approach attached moral legitimacy to scores of wars, notably the Crusades, but also recent ideologically inspired wars, down to the Falklands. Rational-or honest-minds might argue that the causes for wars are usually silly or superficial, that enmity is forced on people on both sides otherwise content with each other. But that is a different issue, namely, do soldiers really need to die for the goals they fight for? Why does the traditional interpretation of You shall not murder exclude from the prohibition executing criminals and killing in war? Because people are normally ready to die to save their neighbors or their country. Reciprocity allows them to kill. The prohibition of murder's place following the religious rules in the Ten Commandments suggests the subordination of life to ideology. Both the case law of the Hebrew scriptures and the prescribed punishments for religious transgressions support that conjecture. The parties to the Arab-Israeli conflict have shown in numerous wars that they are ready to die for the cause, an attitude not limited to the military. Israeli civilians stand ready to suffer daily losses from suicide attacks, and Muslim civilians likewise have no trouble sacrificing themselves. The maiming of thousands of locals in Osama's attacks on the American embassies in Africa raised no domestic outcry. Israeli rhetorical condemnations of the terrorists and Arab denouncements of Baruch Goldstein2 aside, only the facts matter: Israelis and Muslims are ready to die for religious or nationalist causes. War is lamentably acceptable to both. Consider the application of You shall do nothing to your neighbor you do not want him doing to you. No one wants to give way in any conflict, whether bargaining in the marketplace or fighting on the battlefield. Should the buyer pay the asking price without question? Would the seller like someone imposing a price on him? Should he not refrain from imposing prices on others? The two parties would have to bargain since neither should impose a price. The dilemma is superficial. The commandment is fulfilled so long as both parties agree on how to resolve the conflict. A gambler's winnings at cards or on the stock market fits the definition of stealing, because someone loses without being fairly compensated, but such wins are not criminal, since both parties played the game willingly. Arabs condone war as a means of resolving conflicts, so the Israelis are justified in fighting them, since both accept the use of force to resolve conflicts. Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela turned the tables by renouncing violence and turning world opinion against violence done to them. Muslims see their best hope in asymmetric warfare, which justifies Israel's military ventures. Why doesn't normal market bargaining lead to violence? Because neither party is a monopolist. It is easier to buy elsewhere or wait for another buyer than to risk a fight. The situation is different when monopolists bargain. They have to reach an agreement, at almost any cost. Such disputes can be violent. The dispute over jurisdiction is a monopolistic bargain: the Palestinians have assets the Israelis want, namely territory. If the Israelis and the Palestinians set out to settle their differences from two irreconcilable sets of axioms, they would never reach an understanding, but conflicting interests are not conflicting axioms. People deal daily with others whose interests conflict with theirs and resolve the conflicts without resorting to violence. There are many acceptable axiomatic systems of conflict resolution. Israel solves other conflicts through trade, diplomacy, or public relations. People choose the costlier-riskier, more intrusive-means only after they exhaust the less costly ones. Can Israel be sure she has exhausted diplomacy in her conflict with the Palestinians and their allies? The answer involves a highly subjective judgment, based largely on the cost-benefit ratio of either means-which is different for both parties. Powerful Israel can go to war easily, so accepting resolution by violence is no great leap, and historically, Arabs have also forgone goodwill negotiations for the more immediate means of combat. If both parties agree on the means of resolution and choose one based on feasibility and expediency, they proceed from similar axioms, and each treats the other the way both expect and accept. The notion of means should be treated broadly. In the marketplace, one side cannot insist the other not borrow to pay or buy elsewhere. When the parties are of disparate size, such as mega-corporations and their customers, the smaller cannot demand that the bigger act small and desperate to sell. The "means" might be defined in terms of the rules the parties accept. When both sides circumvent Thou shalt not murder by using the reciprocity rule to make murder acceptable killing, they cannot argue about how to do the killing. Israel cannot complain about terrorism, nor can the Palestinians about helicopter raids on terrorist enclaves in crowded cities. To put it differently, if the Arabs are ready to fight for jurisdiction instead of appealing to the British Mandate Administration or the United Nations, they should expect the Jews to fight too. Whether military means can be avoided remains to be seen-but peace is unlikely for now. There are other means of conflict resolution, like competition in humility, for example, but philosophical dispute in such a case is futile, since life does not operate by elegant mathematical formulae, whether in humility or anything else. As Mao Zedong remarked, a statement may be both true and false at the same time, when people value their own interests and their enemies' differently. Fear, the product of force, is the only common denominator for all people. Righteous people can be just and treat others as they want to be treated-the positive formulation of the commandment. Compromise based on consideration of others' interests and aspirations, not the cost-benefit ratio of war, is theoretically possible. Politics has never achieved such a thing, however. Establishing a precedent of just conflict resolution would be a greater contribution to humanity than re-establishing the biblical state. Should the Israelis miraculously opt for that solution, opportunist Arabs would exploit their weakness. There is no chance either party will strive to be objective, just, compassionate, and considerate. Popular opinion pardons some killing as long as the ideology behind it suits them, as contemporary approval of the Crusades shows. Only egregious murder is disgusting-the Holocaust, the French slaughter of the Algerians, the Rwandan atrocities. The West condemns the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, where people see the damage as disproportionate, but the Islamic world does not. They see the loss inflicted as partial payment for the death and, humiliation of countless Muslims. On the other hand, many in the West see Palestinian guerrilla terrorism as an acceptable response to Israeli aggression. People are ready to kill and persecute for things much less than national conscience. Police shoot escaping pickpockets, and courts imprison people as non-violent as tax evaders. Both in international relations and in law enforcement, killing is mostly a threat kept credible by occasional realization. Killing of petty criminals or Palestinian protesters would be extremely unjust if all of them were killed. But only few people die in each group. Threatening them with minuscule chances of being killed is a proportional response to their violence, which also involves only a minor chance of killing. In effect, criminals' sentences consist of assured but moderate (jail sentence) and of improbable but harsh (a small possibility of being killed) components. The product of the highest severity of killing, multiplied by the minor chance of being killed, is reasonable. "Justified" killing may still not be just, even though rationalized, e.g., when it's a matter of impassioned differences between people of opposing ideological bent. A Quaker pacifist would consider any killing in any war immoral and unjust, but throughout history people have been ready to kill en masse to convert others, religiously or politically. The readiness of militant Jews to conquer a tiny plot of land in which to practice their religion is not uncommon. On the contrary, what is without precedent in history is the restraint the rest of the world urges upon them. The countries that recently fought to control the places so insignificant for their national conscience as Grenada, Falklands, Algeria, and Chechnya, criticize Israel for holding on to Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. Other countries had dissipated their affection on their huge territories, and cannot understand the intensity of affection the Jews feel to the Temple Mount. Any comparison can be subjected to reductio ad absurdum. Many compare Eretz Israel3 to the Lebensraum the Nazis demanded. In that quest, the Nazis purposefully exterminated Jews and Gypsies and reduced Slavs to serfdom. Israeli Jews occupy a tract of land smaller than a county in many states, land around which their national identity and hopes have revolved for millennia, the land every Jew prays to return to: "Next year, in Jerusalem!"4 The proper comparison is the Russian defense of Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad or the British defense of London in WWII. Indeed, a century ago most of the population of Palestine (but not, significantly, of Jerusalem) was Arab. But democracy, the best system of majoritarian decision-making (itself a questionable concept, as many philosophers including Plato recognize), is not perfect. Consider California, where the white non-Hispanic population is no longer the majority. Suppose other ethnic groups, projected to reach a super-majority by 2050, amend the state constitution, relegating Caucasians to inferior status by declaring Spanish the official language. Would anyone challenge the right of Caucasians to fight for their own jurisdiction within California? Many would not. Ethnically, religiously, and even ideologically diverse states that fail as melting pots dissolve. Who was there first and who came later does not matter; much of Israel was not settled fifty years ago. A coherent and importantly distinct group living compactly is entitled to sovereignty, or at least it makes sense to give them sovereignty to keep them from living in perpetual conflict with their neighbors. What, except anti-Semitism, denies the same logic to the Jews in the Middle East? Cruel measures are sometimes the kindest The cruelty of the stronger increases suffering in the short run but decreases it over the long term by stopping wars sooner and crushing the will to fight. Low intensity perpetuates conflicts. Tolerating enemies is provocative. That notion is unpopular with shortsighted democratic politicians, but it is the only practical approach for the oldest living nation on earth. 5 Americans used that approach with Japan, killing many with two nuclear bombs to save even more and tens of thousands of American soldiers in an invasion of the Japanese home islands, even though the United States could have demonstrated the nuclear threat without actually bombing.6 Israel, however, cannot effectively threaten her opponents-either by nuclear deterrent, which long ago lost its credibility because of the international outcry against its use, or by conventional war, which American pressure would stop as soon as Israel began to win. The call for morality in international relations precludes the use of the balance of power to resolve conflicts. Formerly, stronger states restored the balance of power in their favor by warfare. Now they succumb to weaker but supposedly equal neighbor states, as does Israel when it withdraws from Arab lands or America when it gives in to trade demands and defaulted loans. Morality is a restriction, and impedes the efficiency of military efforts. Machiavelli: goodness and cruelty Niccolo Machiavelli affirmed that two ways lead most directly to peace: destroy a people's will to fight by either utter goodness or by utter cruelty, usually expressed as extermination. The second option is impractical in the ostensibly humane modern world, which abhors suffering. That luxury corrupted the Romans is obvious, but to say the same of modern Western civilization is taboo. The recent examples of Russia, India, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Algeria show that impoverished people are willing to fight for principles, to bear and to inflict suffering. Only weakness, the fear of material loss, or the hope of preserving the status quo by accommodating adversaries weakens that will. The desire for peaceful coexistence runs aground on two problems. First, it accommodates evil alongside merely diverse views. Only Nazi atrocities and threats brought the major powers to declare war. Later, the civilized world hesitated a long time before it stopped the massacres in Rwanda and Yugoslavia. The distinction between justice and mercy blurs into nonexistence. Second, the desire for accommodation is hypocritical: compromise gives way to confrontation when either party hopes to avoid loss; the embargoes on Iraq and Cuba inflict considerable suffering without endangering Americans. The Americans were not brutal in Iraq7, but heavy fighting or orders relieving them of responsibility would have evaporated the civil gloss. The Torah says that one can feel compassion only for a neighbor, a well-known member of a closed group with shared values. The mass media bring distant people together, creating the illusion of a global neighborhood. Mistaking timid civility for humane concern and compassion is either a mistake or hypocrisy. Few people are really compassionate toward all, and their example is important but futile. Compassion to aliens is superficial, and people rarely act upon it. Conquest by virtue is ambiguous, since in the view of her neighbors, Israel would show virtue by getting out of the Middle East altogether. Israel has designed various agricultural programs to help poor Arabs in other countries, and the status of indigenous Arabs in Israel is comparatively high; but Arab popular opinion calls that a sign of Jewish weakness, not of goodwill. People need to denigrate their benefactors to preserve self-esteem, attributing hidden motives and hating them.8 The help is taken for granted, and its cessation or decrease causes bitterness. The "good" option is unrealizable, hardly ever attempted by practical statesmen, and never successful. No regime that comes to power by force can sustain itself by grace without first exterminating its enemies. Goodness as a device to mollify subjugated people9 is a theoretical construct. Machiavelli hardly discusses the statesmanship of kindness.10 Absolute cruelty is superficially as much an extreme as absolute goodness and should be as unrealizable if the object of application of either were immutable. Cruelty, however, eliminates the object itself by destroying opposition and dispersing potential supporters to other countries where they are eventually assimilated and lose nationalist aspirations. Sufficient cruelty can often reduce the dissident population to conformity. Goodness, on the contrary, emboldens dissent-exactly the case with Palestinian nationalism. Israel, therefore, is left with the most ineffective yet apparently most common third option, low-intensity violence dragging on and on in the futile attempt to avoid acting inhumanely while forcing people to forsake their interests. The aim is to wear the enemy down on various fronts: economy, human resources, the popular will to sustain losses in life and excessive taxation, and the goodwill of foreign sponsors. That path may eventually lead to peace as people grow used to Israel's existence and the enemy's aggression dissipates. Hostilities would not cease even after centuries of coexistence if fresh grievances occurred continuously, as in the case of Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. Mutual acceptance depends on assimilation, or at least the blurring of important differences. Since Jews strive to remain distinct from others-a major source of the hatred of them throughout history-Israelis should not expect time to heal Arab wounds and discontent. In any case, prolonged suffering is more painful than any reasonable speedy solution. Unlike Arab dictatorships, Israel faces the problems of any other democratic country, including popular resistance to heavy taxation for military purposes in peacetime. Low tolerance to human loss is another factor, though military superiority has so far allowed Israel to come off-in statistical terms-almost unscathed. Another important factor, the goodwill of the United States, is available now but could end quickly if Arabs finance an effective public-relations campaign. Money, a malleable press and public relations agencies, and grassroots anti-Semitism are there. The Vietnam War demonstrates the possibility of stopping American military intervention by appealing to popular opinion. The seemingly irresolvable situation has, however, a solution, a combination of the first two options. Israel should drive the Palestinians into Jordan and Lebanon and treat the other Arabs with kind indifference but react with cruelty to any violation of her interests. Negotiators know an opponent is much more likely to give way if pressured from the beginning and then offered a way out. Human nature often leads one to seek the friendship of a strong and haughty neighbor. In both personal and international relations, a strong, accommodating neighbor can provoke hatred. People find satisfaction in attacking a weak giant or at least showing him disregard. When the giant is likely to punish the attack, the best bet is to associate with him. As the saying goes, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Prudence suggests starting peaceably and disguising plans. As Benjamin Franklin remarked, "A spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar." That, however, hinges on the possibility of enforcing the situation deceit obtains: the flies get stuck in honey. In the real world, the flies would revolt against the forces of adhesion and the person who lured them in, crying injustice and asking others to help them get away. Jews already tried honey when they agreed to the 1947 partition and peaceful coexistence with the Arabs, though the original plan earmarked all of Palestine for the Jews. That did not work, because the Arabs wanted it all. Once the flies corral one spoonful of honey, they look for more. Once terrorists demands are met, they increase. The Jews act the same way. Settlement could be achieved only as equilibrium of power: more demands less resolutely supported and stiff opposition to further concessions. Realism, not superficial morality Passionate (one might say, neurotic11) Jews are neither cold politicians like the British12 nor disciplined soldiers like the Germans nor fearless like the Spanish.13 The typical Jew is no statesman. So why should Israel make things worse by revealing her weaknesses and exacerbating them with soul-searching and reluctance to admit the most evident things about the way states are created? Often misunderstood, Machiavelli, one of the greatest humanists of the Renaissance, left a message to future generations. He disdained government force and war; he admired just, wise rulers. He considered murder and deceit distasteful but natural, but like a good surgeon, he saw the need to do repulsive and painful things quickly and effectively. It is better to live and let live, but if you decide on territorial expansion and war, at least do it knowledgeably. Strategists as far removed in time as Sun Tzu and Clauzewitz shared that attitude. Politics is a cold-blooded game with no place for moralizing and hesitation for the victors. Be coherent and single-minded; smother the weakness of humanism, and weaken the enemy by inducing him to act according to moral rules while you disregard them as fiction, inapplicable in crises. Israel has yet to accept and adopt the truth of warfare. Right now she rolls down the dangerous road recently traveled by Nazi Germany, hysterically imposing unrealizable political objectives on a strong army. There is no way to peace except to gain the enemy's respect. Bernard Lewis relates a legend about an Arab ruler who said, "Among my people, I aroused respect untainted with fear and love untainted with disrespect." Perhaps possible in an enlightened monarchy, democracy's policy swings preclude such politics. Israelis, hated European aliens among Middle Eastern peoples, cannot arouse such feelings and might hope at best for respect engendered by force and fear. And Arabs,14 who equate strength with arrogance and hauteur, understand that and would take any other policy for weakness. While few Arabs hated Jews a century ago, they despise them now, because the Israelis combine weakness with anti-Arab ambitions, the worst mix possible. Fear is the standard-in fact, the only-instrument that lets states exist. Even people who believe in "state by consent" agree that government's most important functions, such as taxation, law enforcement, and defense, ride on the fear of reprisal for non-compliance. Force and the fear of force undergird the balance of power, to which the United States subscribed after Wilson's homilies failed. The most we can hope for in international relations is the judicious and adequate use of power or the threat of it. The Americans stole a piece of Mexico but not of Canada because of their cultural affinity with the latter. They spared Haiti because there was no profit in controlling and upgrading the alien population, not to mention damaging their international image. Arabs will agree to Israeli annexation if they admire her the way Mexicans admired the United States. Lacking this sense of inferiority, Arabs will resist encroachment, as the Canadians did. No easy way out Hard lines often repel people who have lived all their lives in democratic countries and prefer indecision and tolerance, expecting the legal system to work, the citizenry to behave reasonably, the courts to be just, and the police to protect and serve. That does not happen in most countries. The hard-liners in many countries who argue against compromise with perceived evil and for harsh action against it, are not extremists but rather realists who realize that civility will not solve the problem. I lived in the former Soviet Union and also in Arab countries, all ugly dictatorships. I have spent much time among Palestinians and have several Palestinian friends. Many Palestinians I know still have the Bedouin respect for the strong and disdain for the weak. When Jordan killed eight thousand Palestinians in a couple of days, it aroused little concern; indeed, Palestine has good relations with Jordan. But Palestine continually carps at Israel, specifically because it has unconsciously found a weak spot, namely Israel's rhetoric of morality and her attempt to wage a moral war. Quick, cruel action would stop the war and save lives, as actually happened in Dir Yassin, the Arab village destroyed during the War for Independence by a joint Irgun-Lehi-Palmach operation. Though civilian casualties among the villagers who refused to evacuate were unavoidable and women and children anywhere near Arab fighters were killed, Israeli soldiers shot down between sixty and two hundred people in heavy urban combat, saving scores of thousands of lives by stopping the war and causing the Arab civilians-misinformed by their mass media which reported the fight as a massacre-to flee. That was not good, but it was necessary.15 Statehood, war, and conquest are ugly, but if there is a national resolve to embark on that path, it should be done efficiently16 without inflicting prolonged sufferings on one's own or the subdued. Crush the will to fight, drive them away, and live peacefully. Sovereignty over non-assimilated people is not invulnerable but prevails until the aggrieved are able to rebel, as in Ireland or Chechnya. Citizens let police protect their property from anyone who refuses to recognize their legal rights. The police are fairly efficient against minor law-breakers, but countries are big and their relations to each another less clear than that of owner to thief, so they cannot rely on some international police force for automatic intervention or arbitration. States have to stand ready to protect their holdings, especially if the citizens back the military effort. Sovereignty is sustained by the ability and will to fight for it. Create a credible threat, act brutally Paper agreements are broken as often as they are signed-unless they are enforced. Lebanon revoked the peace agreement it signed in 1983 a year later. Arabs are notoriously flexible about promises and generally have little respect for agreements. Peace is established on the battlefield and sustained by threat. Defense is a tactical device, ineffective long-term. The threat required may be small when people are tired of war, as in the case of Alsace-Lorraine after World War II, but the threat must be strong and credible with poor and aggressive people like the Arabs who are highly tolerant of suffering. Defense hardly ever wins peace; the threat of offense does. Arabs will not make peace with Israel unless they fear attack. They are comfortable in thinking Israel will not attack them and have no reason to negotiate, especially when certain concessions are involved. Arab disinterest in peace means changes in Israeli military doctrine. Among the reasons countries make peace are economic benefits (there are none in the present case) or fear. Present Israeli policies give Arabs nothing to fear. Even when they attack first, Israel wages war humanely without inflicting unbearable loss of life or destruction of property. Even in 1967, the Arabs' nightmare, Israel took only non-essential land. Every offensive war-and Israel's wars are technically offensive, since they aim to settle Jews on land the Arabs held before 1948-succeeds only when important enemy territory is conquered or threatened. Modern warfare enables territorial control by air force and tank divisions, two Israeli specialties. Thus, Israel need not overextend herself conquering vast tracts of land. The negotiations with Syria over the Golan Heights showed how little bargaining power Israel has. She offered to return most of the Golan Heights, keeping only the ridges needed to maintain first-warning stations and to prevent Syria from firing directly on the Jewish valley below. Predictably, Syria demanded all the Heights. Why would it do otherwise? Syria does not need peace or economic relations with Israel. On the contrary, Syria blackmails the United States by threatening Israel. What does it take to make a country cede conquered territory? the threat of continued economic loss or military operations. A disadvantageous status quo can be accepted de jure only if things threaten to get worse, that is, only if peace prevents further aggression. If Israel wants to retain the Golan Heights, she should take or threaten to occupy a much larger territory and then offer a trade. The Arabs may be forced to seek peace by other measures as well. They should be advised that Israel would annex any territory occupied in retaliation for terrorist attacks permanently-including the Palestinian autonomous regions. And Israel may have not much time to advance on that path, since only Egypt maintains current Middle Eastern stability, and that will change as soon as Islamic radicals succeed the current leadership-and 94% of Egyptians polled supported the 9/11 attacks. In fact, 40% of Arab Britons cheered the attacks. The percentage was probably higher if the truth were known, since many British Arabs were uncomfortable expressing admiration for the nation's enemy. Arab mentality and discontent People tend to respect and even enjoy those who defeat but do not oppress them. Israel should consider that as she insults the Arab world by oppressing Palestinians instead of defeating Arabs. To say that Arabs are totally different from Westerners is incorrect. Westerners have historically shown similar cruelty and treachery, but Arabs are cruel and treacherous in the present day, and that makes the difference between the West's current world-view and theirs. The ever-growing disparity between Arab and Western capabilities also angers Arabs. While a free and enterprising people would have sought to bridge the gap by raising themselves, Muslims-rather like socialists-try to lower others. That is the source of their aggression and terrorism. Unable to achieve economic dominance, they contend in the military sphere. Losing in conventional military operations against tiny Israel, they resort to terrorism. The struggle adds apocalyptic dimensions to the Muslim self-image: they did not blame God for past economic failures, and the current abundance of petro-dollars is no proof of his favor now. Early military successes established the truth of Mohammed's teaching in his followers' eyes. Arab failure on the battlefield today comes dangerously close to demonstrating that Islam is exhausted. In the hope that more devotion and self-sacrifice will incur divine favor, Muslims preach all-out war against the whole world. Such hysteria cannot last long, especially in the world of MTV values. The next generation of Arabs, like the communists before them, will likely succumb to Western mores, thus obviating the struggle against Israel. If Israel holds on a few decades more, she can win without war. Peaceful relations with Arabs are possible In the end, both Jews and Arabs need peace and normal relations with each other. That is not impossible. Many states become friends after protracted hostilities-the United States and England or France and Germany for example-but first the shooting war must stop and time pass. If Jews and Arabs had a common enemy, the waiting period would shorten drastically, as post-World War II politics demonstrated, when Germany and France became allies and the Soviets and Western Europe became enemies. Since, however, the only likely candidate would be Christian, ergo Western, taking on such an enemy for the sake of accommodating the Arabs makes no sense for Israel. The other Arabs do not care about the Palestinians To explain their position to the outside world, Arabs invented a reason for a non-peace solution: the Palestinian problem. That is ludicrous, since the other Arabs hate Palestinians17 and ostracize Palestinian emigrants settled in their countries. The P.L.O. fomented nationalist unrest and otherwise meddled in Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia, though even that is forgotten with the demand for a Palestinian state, not even in question in the early 1970s when Anwar Sadat offered Israel peace. Minor Arab contributions to the Palestinian cause show solidarity on the surface but perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in substance. Arab countries have no reason to make peace In a notable but commonly ignored example, Egypt concluded a peace treaty with Israel in return for repatriated territory. Other Arabs have no reason to seek peace with Israel. They do not need peace for economic reasons. They lose nothing by preserving the armistice. Israel does not threaten them, hence, there's no cause for them to desire peace. From the Arab point of view, Israel looks weak in repeatedly asking for peace. She ignores the Arab mentality. Arabs must be forced to the peace table. Israel should turn the tables and change the rules. She does not need an armistice now. She should abandon it and tell the Arabs they have three months to negotiate and resettle the Palestinians or hostilities will resume. Israeli interests and policy in the Arab world What are Israel's interests? Defining them too vaguely eventually leads Israel to one of two extremes. If she overextends herself, Israel will go abroad "in search of distant monsters" and eventually bankrupt herself in foreign operations. If she does not guard her interests adequately, Israel's threat of deterrence will deteriorate and provoke more enemy attacks. Although it is tempting to insist on full normalization of relations with her neighbors, the approach would lead nowhere, since the notion is vague. Considering intra-Arab tariff agreements and preference policies, Israel will be drawn into endless disputes about opening Arab markets, which will always be more open to other Arabs, and trade relations with Israel will remain less than normal. A customs union with Israel is unacceptable to Arabs, whose weak economies would be swamped by Israeli exports, and Israel would not welcome an influx of Arab Gastarbeiter. Opening foreign markets is neither unprofitable nor uncommon-witness Great Britain's relentless pursuit of commercial interests by military means. Indeed, Britain would not have allowed a boycott such as the Arabs' on Israel. The proper policy, however, seems to be laissez-faire. Israel cannot dictate Arab economic policies and preferences. That leaves two practical definitions of national interest: military-no Arab military or terrorist territorial violations-and economic-no discrimination against Israeli companies compared to other non-Muslims. Economic benefits likely do not justify the expenses of a large-scale war, especially since the Arab markets are relatively minor and oil is available elsewhere. This reasoning, to be sure, refers only to protracted war. Only an overwhelming initial strike and the establishment of local police enforcement, supported by the threat of aerial attack with weapons of mass destruction, makes sense while the Arabs possess oil. That, however, means crushing all resistance. The model is Roman punitive expeditions, not the current American involvement in Iraq. Should Jews decide that economic interests in small Arab markets justify maintaining a standing army, that decision may become a proper objective. Military threats to protect economic interests were common until the 19th century in those nations that needed standing armies anyway to control their empires. Maintaining an army solely to promote economic interests in the Middle East is economically unjustifiable. The really large markets, however, usually belong to NATO members or affiliates, against whom Israel can hardly use force. The profit from such small markets would not pay the bill but would rather cost the Israeli economy its technological edge through addiction to low-end, low-profit, low-tech markets guaranteed by military power. Territory is not worth lives, but sometimes there is no choice No piece of land, much less sovereignty over it, is worth lives. Taking that approach to its logical conclusion, however, means Jewish withdrawal from the Middle East. The objective, therefore, is to maximize Jewish landholdings without significantly raising the death toll. Wars cause deaths, not only traditional pitched battles but terrorist acts. Because I'm inherently partial, I prefer measures to reduce the loss of Jewish lives, even at the expense of Arabs, but if the Arab death toll can be minimized without harming Israel, I would support it. I would never, however, put leftist dogma masquerading as liberal morality before Jewish lives. Arabs coexisted peacefully with small Jewish communities for centuries, but now Jews are so sufficiently strong and culturally diverse a group that Arabs would not tolerate them even in an autonomous region in a federal state. Few governments in history have accepted large alien minorities as citizens without trying to assimilate, disperse, or subdue them. Nations often antagonize a weak but defiant neighbor, especially if it was once strong and aggressive.18 If the Israelis dismantled their state, Arabs would likely prey on them. The humiliation of losing its statehood would break the Jewish nation's spirit and ignite anti-Semitism.19 The option of stateless coexistence with Arabs is now closed, and the Israelis must have a viable state, and viability expands as much as possible without increasing Arab resistance, worldwide opposition, and major loss of life. Should the Israelis fight for the present state, surrounded by recalcitrant Arab states, or should they use the Israeli Defense Force to buy land in Africa, Latin America, or Eastern Europe? Should they negotiate administrative autonomy in, say, Australia? The Jews do not need land per se. Agriculture is almost worthless in a modern economy, so no small area is worth fighting for. The only territory the Jews as a nation need is Eretz Israel-not for its economic significance but to achieve intangibles like religious fulfillment, national consciousness, and honor. Even in the rational world, those values seem odd only when related to Jews. People honor those who risk their lives to defend the principles they hold dear: Christianity, socialism, freedom, or sovereignty, even if that requires some killing. Confronted with the offer of settlement in Uganda, Weizmann remarked that the British would not move their capital to Paris. The analogy startled his interlocutor: "But London is ours." "Jerusalem was ours when London was marshes," Weizmann replied. Neither British help nor a United Nations resolution achieved the goal-only force. Israel should restrict democracy The possibility of democracy in Israel at present is a hopeless myth. Israel is not at peace; therefore she is at war, an ambiguous and expansive war. Trotsky's neither peace, nor war policy proved a disaster, and Israel rolls the same road. Democracy tolerates differences of opinion about national policy instead of requiring a unified national effort. Democracy, inherently weak and unfit for wartime, is for peacetime. The democracies of Ancient Greece waged only short, expansive wars unless they were forced to alliances in some utterly undemocratic way. They were also free from political ambiguity: everyone wanted booty. Totalitarian regimes demonstrated tremendous capacity for warfare in WWII: the United States struggled to overcome small, recently industrialized Japan and a Germany already ruined by the time the U.S. army intervened in Europe. Many countries have realized the need to restrict freedoms and introduced wartime censorship, restricted freedom of association, and postponed elections, essentially suspending democratic processes.20 Secret arrangements with foreign governments, disinformation, and suspension of due process complete the undeclared temporary conversion to autocratic rule within a generally agreed policy framework. No inherent right to a state, no inviolable state No government takes the idealist claim of the right to statehood seriously. Otherwise, Russia would let Chechnya secede, and Britain would have agreed to an independent Ireland long before it did. Taken to its logical extreme, the right to statehood would dissolve modern states into village-size communities and eventually abrogate the host states. The anarchist's dream is another man's nightmare. The anarchist ideal sees ownership of land as jurisdiction over it. Where dissenters can secede and establish independent colonies, wars will be fewer, but while the concept of nation-states remains, territorial wars will continue, though progressively deterred by increasing expensive military devastation. Jews and Arabs have different interests and will likely never define fairness the same way; however, such agreement is a prerequisite for the peaceful resolution advocated by humanists like Noam Chomsky.21 The common interest that arises from sharing enemies is unlikely today when an enemy of the Jews is almost automatically a friend of the Arabs, as were the Nazis. It is difficult to imagine a shared goal sufficiently important to unify the adversaries. Economically, Israel is less attractive to Arabs than old partners like Britain and France or influential ones like the United States and, increasingly, China and Japan. For political guarantees and military aid, Arabs can apply directly to the United States without reference to Israel. Neither side is interested in formal peace, preferring armistice and minor unrest, which bring both Israel and the Arabs from the strategic periphery into the focus of world affairs and pays dividends in economic and military aid, unnecessary for peaceful coexistence but advantageous for strong governments. A foreign enemy distracts people from local problems, letting Arab dictatorships and Israeli socialism survive. Jews have claimed Jerusalem as their eternal capital for two millennia; their national consciousness centers around it. They want the city, but ideologically motivated Arabs also want it now. Where's the solution acceptable to both? Neither trusts the traditional broker and both suspect the United States of pursuing its own interest. The balance of power, the equilibrium point of many military and moral forces, settles such disputes, not someone's idea of justice, as opinions differ. Any peaceful solution would be arbitrary and therefore unacceptable to many. In minuscule Jerusalem, a hundred yards is a league. Why should the Palestinians have only the West Bank instead of all their pre-1948 territory, including today's Israel? Why should the Jews agree to partition instead of claiming the Promised Land in its entirety, including all of Palestine? The answer hinges on the equilibrium of force, the route David took to conquer the Temple Mount. If religious justification seems flimsy, consider the arguments other states offer for their existence. The desire of enlargement is an obsession and a driving force of many states. If that objective is universally acceptable, which one is not? Why was splitting along religious lines acceptable in Yugoslavia and Indonesia but not in Israel? If African tribes hardly out of the Stone Age are entitled to sovereignty on their ancestral lands, how much more are the Jews? If world opinion accepts the suppression of the long-standing nationalist aspirations of weak minorities, the Spanish Basques or the Russian Tatars, why not suppress the hardly three-decades-old nationalism of a non-nation with no distinctive culture, i.e., the Palestinians? Why do the people who set up the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem during the Crusades condemn Israeli control of the city? If white settlers displaced the aboriginal Americans and Australians to create viable states, why should Jews not do the same? If no state objected to the creation of Saudi Arabia by conquest, why refuse a similar justification for Israel? If ethnic populations were relocated from Poland and Czechoslovakia to pacify Germany, why reject a similar approach in Palestine? Questioning the Jewish right to the land ignores the crucial issue: what right do Arabs have to it? Jews bought land from individual Palestinians. No one was evicted, nor was private ownership violated. Much of the territory was unused desert and marsh before the Jews made the land productive and valuable, acquiring the right of homestead. As for state control of unused, untitled land, the Palestinians never had a state-the Turks, then the British, controlled the land-nor were the Palestinians recognized as a nation, a recognition which would have let them claim tribal sovereignty over the land. By the time the colonial powers turned the territory over to the locals, they de facto included not only Palestinians but Jews as well. The only reason Britain decided to split the land earmarked for Israel into two countries was to settle the nomadic Arabs even Jordan did not want. The Jews did not seize the land from Palestinians; neither had a formal claim on it. Many mistakenly believe Palestinians today lay claim to land they once owned. Rather, the Palestinians claim they lost jurisdiction over a country they never had. Before the rise of Palestinian nationalism in the 1970s, the rioters and guerrillas were anti-Jewish, not pro-Palestine. If private ownership of some land means jurisdiction over the whole country, the Jews who bought land had a better claim to Palestine in 1947 than the indigenous Arabs who largely lacked title. But private ownership of land is unrelated to jurisdiction even over that parcel, let alone over any wider entity. The Arabs claimed more land than they actually needed and already had in Palestinian dominated Jordan. The Jews had to force an accommodation. Respect even for private property is limited: in times of famine, the survival instinct prevails and food storages are routinely sacked with no public outcry. Since many people value religion and ideology above life, property rights are a fortiori subjected to religious values. Even if Jerusalem actually belonged to the Arabs, the Jews were justified in taking it over, because of all religions, Old Jerusalem is central only to them. Golgotha is more important to Christians than the Temple site, and Muslims have no scriptural connection with the place at all after Mohammed reoriented Muslim worship to Mecca. Private property is not an issue in the conflict; Israel generally respects Arab ownership of particular buildings and land. Assertions to the contrary usually refer to the nationalization of unowned land and a hostile environment for Muslim owners. Driving other people away is better than living in hatred. Significantly, the war has little to do with Israeli political freedoms, since it is not a sure thing that the Arabs would have refused them those rights. Nor does the war pursue religious aims, since several kinds of worship flourish in Israel. The war is oddly about government and municipal control over territory. Borders are graphic representations of the current power equilibrium. They are in constant flux and always have been. The attempts of nation-states to sanctify borders to preserve a status quo beneficial to them are futile. If the Palestinians are ever strong enough, they will squeeze Israel out. Israel should do likewise. While Arabs naturally prefer to see the land they settle inviolate, Jews want that land as the center of their national ambitions. A ridiculously small part of Arab holdings in Dar Al Islam is the ultimate secular goal of Jews. For centuries, countries have fought to reach a situation where further border adjustments are not worth wars. The rights to life and property should be preserved for Palestinians as long as that does not involve attacking Jews. But there is no right to have a country, let alone a country within specific borders; that is done by force. The violence, moreover, is not endless. A few crushing defeats can change a nation's mind, especially when a good economy switches the focus of ambitions, as was the case with France under Napoleon and later with Germany. A balance of power struggle is usually bloodless. Indeed, that would have happened if Jews had been honest with the Arabs in 1948 when Israel was founded. The Arabs accepted the medieval Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem,22 created by brute power for the familiar goal of profit. If 20th century Jews had used force, the Arabs would have had no problem, but the Jews made a crucial mistake: they attempted to justify their claims not by force but by religion. It is one thing to say to someone, "Give me this thing, because I'm stronger and will kill you if you do not." It is quite another to argue that you want to take this thing for ideological reasons which are irrelevant to him. He will not only find counter-arguments but will also develop the will to fight, because as he sees it, your position is wrong and his, right. People are more sensitive to infringement of religious values than of their compatriots' property interests. Ideological reasoning provoked the Arabs, yet was probably irrelevant to most Jews, as their support for settlement in Uganda instead of the Middle East at the dawn of the Zionist movement showed. Many, probably most, of Israel's founders were socialists and thus secular. Religious justification of an invasion of the Middle East meant nothing to them and deceived the rest. The fact is, the Jews took the land because they wanted it and could take it. That is reasoning, not justification. They need no one else's help, as they did not in campaigns so widely separated in time and yet so similar as Joshua ben Nun's conquest of Canaan and the 1948 War of Independence. No viable state has ever been created, let alone sustained, peacefully.23 All desirable land was settled in antiquity. If the Jews wanted a state, driving indigenous peoples away or subjugating them was the only option, the only viable way the countries are created. More recently, Germany was consolidated from homogeneous kingdoms-with a common language and culture-only by blood and iron. Less than fifty years ago, the French killed millions in the futile effort to preserve their colonies. Other nations established their states in blood long ago and now have the luxury of moralistic piety. Israel cannot afford morality at this stage of the state's formation. It is impossible right now to deal with the Arabs humanely and democratically. There is no need to cast the creation of a state, an amoral entity, in moral terms. The creation of Israel was not fair to the Palestinians nor could it be, since it robbed them of land they considered theirs. But since the Israelis decided to do it, they should do it wholeheartedly, without making excuses, offering reparations, or saying the Palestinians abandoned their villages of their own free will. They should not seize significant territories from the Arabs, then offer to return them for a flimsy paper agreement. The question is not some idyllic justice unknown in international relations based on power, but the normal, generally accepted way of doing the business of statehood. No one is singled out for prosecution for a crime everyone commits; why single out Israel for admonition and reproach? How can the modus operandi of every state known to history be called a crime? A crime is an exceptional wrong. Statehood itself might be viewed as bad, but Israel's birth pains are milder than most others'. A world used to popular contract, mutual accommodation, and peaceful resolution of disputes would be wonderful. No such thing exists, however, as America's first European settlers learned from the natives. All nations were created in bloodshed and are sustained by power; anything on paper is inevitably irrelevant. Israel cannot be built on agreements with the Arabs. International agreements are the legal by-products of inhumane military victories. No historical right Justification of an Israeli state by historical right is sheer nonsense. If Jews have a right to return after two millennia, Arabs have even more right to return after fifty years. The Jews, moreover, were not forced out of Judea any more than the Arabs from Israel. Facing a hostile regime, both chose to emigrate. The Israelis need not appeal to a twenty-century-old historical right. Indeed, there is no such thing as a historical right. Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Rome, and Turkey learned that painful lesson about the same land. American Indians don't rule their country now. Thirty years of occupation since the Six-Day war of 1967, coupled with the indigenous population's abandonment of the land and de facto Israeli sovereignty, is a much more valid argument. Might does not make right, but why care about the right? Arabs won't consider Jewish national longings, and Jews are deaf to the prohibition of ceding Islamic land. Rights exist only in a given system of axioms, and are not valid for outsiders. Between groups, power is the only argument, moderated by the prohibition of atrocities. Israel appeals to some Christians by recalling her biblical right to the land, forgetting that most Christians believe they themselves replace the Jews as the New Israel. In any case, the land is destined for some Israel, whether old or new, and not for Muslims, who make a religious point of oppressing Christians. Serbs and Bosnians are still enemies after six hundred years. It takes only a few hotheads to stir people up. Palestinian will always remember what they perceive as Israeli injustice. The most expedient solution is to expel the Palestinians, disperse them, and pressure them into assimilation with other Arabs. Jews preserved their national aspirations in the Diaspora because of Jewish distinctiveness. Palestinians lack a persistent sense of a unique identity. Life in a small remnant of their country contiguous to Israel would remain a continuous humiliation to them. The notion of continuing the guerrilla warfare would be too present, too tempting. If the Palestinians stay where they are now, the conflict will go on, not because the people on either side are inherently bad, but because a conflict that involves nationalist ambitions cannot be arbitrated; and even if it could, enough people on both sides would not be satisfied, leaving the fire smoldering, ready to flare up on the slightest pretext. This book often presents contradictory advice, such as either transferring Haram esh-Sharif to Arab diplomatic jurisdiction or destroying the mosques there. Either option is workable. Whichever one prefers is a subjective choice. Israel must at last choose a policy, adhere to it, and work to bring it to life, instead of floundering about, losing lives and money and effort and goodwill. If there is a decision to expand, it should be carried out intelligently and efficiently. If Jews want their own state, it cannot be a multi-ethnic democracy. If war threatens, Israel should strike first. Evil ends should not be exacerbated by prolonged means. Israel has shied from the problem for decades, only because she is uncomfortable with the solution-unwilling to pose clear questions and see clear answers, losing thousands of lives and spending hundreds of billions of dollars.24 The solution this book suggests is inhumane, but current policies are cumulatively worse. The feasibility of conquering the Arab states In a war to repel aggression, Israel should require unconditional surrender, a bit of age-old wisdom lost on Israeli politicians who repeat the WWI error of leaving humiliated enemy to re-arm. The habit of settling for an armistice is supremely damaging and costly. Armies love victory; indecision is demoralizing. Israel must occupy the capitals of enemy states. To avoid loss of Israeli personnel, that goal should be carried out in two stages. The first is the aerial destruction of economically significant objects and the devastation of the capital itself. Enemy civilian losses should be ignored, since the people willingly participated in the war by accepting and supporting their governments. Second, a local collaborative government should be installed, supported by a few Israeli mechanized ground troops and the threat of further air assault. Its aim should be to exact reparations in oil. There would be no need to guard the whole country, as the Americans do in Iraq, just the oil wells and pipelines. After some years of humiliation, Israel might agree to local elections based on a constitution prohibiting major military development, much as the United States did in post-World War II Japan. Given how poor the Arabs would be without oil, Israel would have enough power to enforce her demands. Should conquered lands and revenues be restored at all, or should they be annexed? Victorious nations do not usually return occupied territory, even if it is not economically or militarily valuable. Different considerations have dictated rare exceptions. The United States granted Philippines sovereignty to maintain its image of an anti-imperialist popular democracy that keeps its promises. Preserving the distant, heavily populated land as a colony against the wishes of its people was unfeasible, especially since the Philippines agreed to let the American military bases stay. If a state occupies foreign land to trade later for normalization of relations, it must maintain credibility. Once the Arabs see they could regain lost territory without a peace treaty, they will have little reason to sign one. No country restores conquered land to a hostile neighbor unwilling to establish peaceful relations. It was very odd for Israel to give in to Lebanese and Syrian pressure. What could the political weight of a failed or terrorist state be, anyway? Abandon the pretense of humane war Israel must abandon morality while at war. Saving Israeli lives must be the priority, no matter the casualties among Arab soldiers, government officials, or civilians. Most Israeli politicians would subscribe to that, though Israeli strategy in Lebanon led to great Israeli casualties, because the conflict was kept to low intensity to save Arab lives-at the cost of Jewish lives, a sop to the media and perceived Israeli moral values.25 If Israel is not Jew-centric, then all the fuss about historical rights and religious justification is hypocritical. People who fight selflessly for high ideals are often ready to sacrifice their lives. That, however, is not the case with the Jews who view themselves as the ultimate end of the Israeli state, not as a means to some political purpose. Soldiers die for fellow soldiers but not to save the enemy, military or civilian. The Israeli government should not force romanticism on its combat personnel. To sacrifice one's life to save the enemy's children and women is noble, but it cannot be forced on anyone. The Soviet Union fought to spread imperialist socialism; America, to defend democracy. Religious Jews could say that Israel has the transcendent biblical objective of establishing herself in the Promised Land, but the same scriptures tell Jews to slaughter the Canaanites. Secular Jews see no purpose for Israel except bettering their lives and are not about to die to save Arabs. Any enemy casualties are acceptable; using weapons of mass destruction is preferable to risking Israeli soldiers in close combat. Taking Nablus off the map to nail a few terrorists is clearly excessive, but destroying the house they are in from the air is better than a pitched battle. Countries, not armies, prosecute wars. Soldiers hate the enemy, not just opposing soldiers. A requirement of not harming civilians divides the perception of the enemy schizophrenically and undermines the resolve to fight. No Western army worried about civilians until the 18th century when attitudes changed. In heavy urban battles, most inhabitants died; plunder and torture were commonplace. Romantic ideas of either knightly or Christian warfare (oxymoronic as that is) prevailed for a short time when armies were small, fighting near their kingdoms, easily re-supplied, and opponents were ready to engage in the open. Napoleon's army lived off the land, and the powers in WWII did not care about civilians in either Leningrad or Dresden, but targeted them to break the enemy. Korea, Algeria, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, and Iraq all saw large civilian losses. Wars are about indiscriminate killing, especially in conflicts with guerrillas purposely mixing with the population. Civilians are spared when armies fight other armies, not whole populations. The objective then is to destroy the enemy's military capacity, and inflicting undue casualties on civilians only distracts armies, burdens them with spoil,26 and makes conquered peoples rebellious. Exactly the opposite happens in Israel's wars, especially in anti-guerrilla operations. The Arabs are generally loyal to their leaders, especially if they oppose Israel. They support Arab armies and Arab guerrillas. Poor, uneducated societies are more coherent in their views than the Western liberals imagine. Muslims laughed at the American attempts to prove that the United States fights Islamic terrorists, not the general population; they knew there is no difference. No army is separate from the people, as was the case in the West before universal conscription. And Arabs support their armies economically. Monarchs paid for their wars; modern governments rely on taxes and military material factories. Therefore, civilians are part of the war effort-and fair game. Advocates of a humane war strategy are often ignorant of military reality and history. Not only is half-measure warfare more prolonged and bloodier than a quick confrontation in the same situation, but any army in its rage treats civilians criminally. Military professionals recognized that grim reality when carpet-bombing Dresden, A-bombing Nagasaki, or slaughtering the fleeing Iraqi army and many civilians in 1991. Israel should not practice the utter stupidity of shielding enemy civilians at the expense of her soldiers' lives. As the immediate Arab threat fades, it is difficult to convince Israelis to risk their lives for policies they do not support, especially when the Israeli vote splits almost evenly between two major blocks, and the opposition carps at everything the government does. The resolve to protect Israeli soldiers, never mind enemy casualties, will do a lot to stiffen the will to fight. People fighting for cherished values can be cruel, since values are more important than the lives of a hated enemy who opposes them. Soldiers hesitate to inflict suffering when they are not sure they support the war. They give the enemy the benefit of the doubt. They are less willing to risk their own lives. Undecided soldiers fight indecisively. Therefore Israel should avoid half-wars and focus on ideologically charged conflicts and wage them without mercy. Making Arabs Agree to Peace Behavior that is rational in small groups does not work in complex adaptive social systems. The laws governing finite interactions do not apply to the infinite. Too many parties are involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict, too many interests clash, the actions are too unpredictable. The parties have no fixed positions. Attitudes adapt to changing circumstances, precluding systemic response. The notion of reaching peace through good-faith negotiations is a rationalist fantasy not unlike a centrally planned economy. Neither decrees nor any number of people voting set the prices and demand, but rather myriad market interactions are in play, many of them imperceptible or seemingly irrelevant. Price setting involves a lot of mini-confrontations, sellers refusing to take less, buyers refusing to pay more. Not goodwill but the relative market power of suppliers and consumers set prices. The invisible hand-innumerable conflicts, power exchanges, exhaustion-makes peace, political or economic. Kindness might work in small groups but does not on the large scale where it cannot be tailored to each person's perception and builds rancor, not goodwill. Preparing for a drawn-out war when nearly everyone is talking about peace is odd in the extreme. We figure that two reasonable people can always reach a mutually acceptable solution. To suggest otherwise is counter-intuitive. The Israeli situation differs from the model of two reasonable people arguing. At issue is a monopoly both parties want-or think they want. Partition is humiliating, as if the Mongols demanded joint jurisdiction over the Kremlin with the Russians because the Mongols controlled their homeland for centuries. The possession of Jerusalem was a sensitive issue for Christendom for centuries until the religious cynicism of the 19th century arose. For Jews and Arabs, the city is also a political concern. The parties to the conflict are not two. Not all the world's Muslims will sign the peace treaty, and asymmetric warfare will let them ignore it to pursue their goals. There are no courts and police to enforce the agreement; U.N. guarantees did not prevent the war in 1967, and NATO's protection is dubious. Israel lacks the depth of defense necessary to wait for support to materialize. Another difference is that crowds do not think rationally. The soldiers on either side might not see each other as enemies, but mobs do. Soldiers facing death might forget indoctrination; people who support terrorists from safety of their homes are prone to hatred. Countries reach agreements, but Israel is not fighting a country. Guerrillas have no reason to honor treaties, and they do not fear reprisal. The nations of Europe, which share religion, ethnicity, and culture, have fought each other for centuries for every imaginable reason, regardless of treaties and alliances. The latest sixty years of peace make some think it will last forever, though it took, first, a dangerous common enemy, the U.S.S.R., and now common trade adversaries, the United States and East Asia, to make it gel. Europeans are educated, hard-working, law abiding, and prosperous; none of that generally holds for the Arabs. Domestic wars became economically unfeasible for Europeans only decades ago, and their ideological and ethnic differences are now blurred. Jews, on the contrary, want to preserve their difference from the Arabs, which is ample ground for hatred. Israeli kings who achieved tactical victories over their neighbors, undoubtedly thought they established lasting peace-until the reversal came in a few decades. The Middle East will continue as perpetual battleground. The United States took California from Mexico, yet Mexican Americans do not blow up buses. Mexico accepted the loss of California because the Americans never offered to return it, claimed historical justification for the annexation, or asked humane Mexicans to pity European refugees to the New World. Americans were powerful and proud of it, therefore admired. Palestine, even if a state, can relate to Israel as Mexico relates to the United States: admiring and hoping for more job opportunities. Israel, however, does not want such attachment, as it would come at the cost of flooding the Jewish state with Palestinian immigrants. Israel needs to make war to win peace. At their height, the Romans learned not to wait for the enemy to strike first but launched preemptive campaigns, usually with the limited objective of de-militarizing the enemy and installing a friendly ruler. In his dictum, Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum, Vegetius Renatus criticized the policy of waiting passively for barbarian incursions. Pacifism is the end, not a means. The subsidies to Muslims should stop, as neither payments for good behavior nor sanctions that punish violence work. Once people realize someone will pay them to keep quiet, the asking price goes up. Force backed the pax romana, but money cannot buy peace. The United States has often tried to buy allegiance, only to watch its money end up in hostile hands, and breeding hostile minds. Money is not everything-and nothing compared to ideology. If both Israel and the Arabs risked losing aid and either side declared a cease-fire, the other side would blackmail by threatening hostilities. Even if they gave in to economic sanctions, they would resume hostilities once the money stopped. America's Arab clients will turn on their benefactors in the hatred that dependence generates. Germany did not repent after WWI, even though the Allies did not invade the homeland and practically abrogated reparations; but the Marshall Plan changed its tune after the devastation of WWII. Force is the only convincing argument in no-holds-barred, no-guarantees international relations. Good behavior cannot be bought or even defined. If it means cessation of hostilities, Israel would be happy to preserve the status quo with an armistice, but the Palestinians cannot accept that-except to buy time and find the money to finance the next round. Few soldiers go to war for ideology, and those who do forget all about it on the battlefield. Israeli soldiers generally do not hate Muslims, though many despise them. Tellingly, second-generation Israeli Jews of Arab origin hate their ethnic brethren far oftener, nearly as much as Arabs hate Israelis. Overcoming hatred is a major problem on both sides, but it won't happen any time soon. Both need an external enemy to blame their problems on. Only prosperous societies can live without enemies, and the Palestinians are desperately poor. Voluntary settlement is not possible. Some Arab militants will not accept even the most reasonable solution, a Palestinian state on the West Bank and in Gaza, autonomy for Muslim sites in Jerusalem, and compensation for seized property. Islamic radicals demand the right of return for the refugees' descendants, autonomy for Israeli Arabs, and a boycott and perhaps evacuation of the Jewish state. They will be few, and most Arabs will accept the offer; but suicide operations require no army. No peace treaty can improve Israel's military status quo, though it might foster goodwill between Jews and Palestinians that could be nurtured into cooperation. Israel has the option of settling with the Arab countries and then dealing with the terrorists and, purportedly, reducing her military requirements. Whether the Arab countries could be made to sign a peace treaty is not clear-so far they make more demands than compromises. Muslims would remain hostile to Israel, not letting her demobilize. Time dulls hatred, but it rekindles when new generations forget the past. Israel is the Arabs' perfect enemy, non-threatening yet a good excuse for internal failures, and social upheavals will resurrect enmity. Israel is a foreign object in the Middle East, and the Muslims will try to cast her out. Objectives of Peace Israel does not need peace An Arab-made peace with Israel would exist only on paper; in Islam, jihad is a perpetual obligation. The military jihad is interrupted only temporarily by truces, and a truce is what Israel has now. Arabs see themselves as morally bound only by lawful agreements-and a peace agreement with an infidel state in Dar al-Islam is by definition illegal and allowed only to deceive infidels. That Jews are not infidels in Islam, but enjoy special status, will pose no difficulty for radical imams; Israel is not a theocracy, but a secular state, and thus in their minds infidel, promoting the Great Satan's values. Few Muslims concede that jihad is an outdated, unrealizable obligation like those common in mature religions or reinterpret it as peaceful competition. Fundamentalist guerrillas who oppose settlement with Israel see jihad as a military obligation and would honor no indemnity of the West. Arabs have always violated cease-fires with Israel; why imagine they would observe peace treaties? Normalization would not help: Russia, Germany, and the Great Britain had perfectly normal relations days before the World War I. If Israel would define why it needs peace, rather than demanding it, she could calculate feasible concessions. Peace is not required for salvation. On one hand, no large-scale war with the Arab coalition looms, and on the other, some authoritarian ruler bent on war can start a war regardless of any paper treaty. The people in the rich Arab countries that can afford an expensive war are accustomed to prosperity and do not seek a fight. Israel can agree to an armistice. America and the Soviet Union ended several wars-Japan, Afghanistan; Korea, Vietnam-without formal peace agreements. Peace is irrelevant even for economic purposes: should Israel become an attractive financial center, Arabs will find ways to invest there. They have already solved the ideologically much bigger problem of investing for interest at all, prohibited by Islamic usury laws. Peace is important only if Israel wants to become a regional superpower and needs an unburdened economy, stability, and good relations with her neighbors. Even then, peace does not lead inevitably to fully normalized relations, witness the situation with Egypt. Indeed, it is unrealistic to expect Arabs to start treating Jews as equals or superiors after centuries of dhimmi-ship27 and known weakness. Israel must first become economically and culturally attractive to Arabs. Then a diplomatic solution will follow. Israel can sustain neither modern war nor a credible threat The politics of warfare must stop, since Israel cannot depend on military means forever. Even assuming a ratio of Jewish casualties to Arab casualties of 1:100, the Israeli population would be wiped out in any confrontation involving large-scale use of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Israel's population is much more concentrated than its enemies' and much more vulnerable. Moreover, military expenditures have brought the country to an economic dead end. Weapons are more technologically advanced than average goods, and the cost of weapons rises faster than the GDP. Poor economic development and increased military costs will at some point mean Israel can no longer finance her defense. Even the Soviet Union, which ignored its people's welfare, could not sustain the arms race. Protracted warfare devastates Israel, causing emigration and undermining the aim for which Israel was established. Whatever the objective, Israel must strike quickly and decisively to force the Arabs to accept Israeli terms-or acquiesce to theirs. An end of belligerence is imperative There is an important political reason for ending hostilities. The political fragmentation brought about by the departure of the authoritative figures of modern Israel's early history creates a situation where quick decisions, especially difficult ones, are impossible. Indecision impedes military action, particularly preemptive action, so important for a small country without much depth of defense in a protracted low-intensity war. Whatever Arab intentions, peaceful or not, tiny Israel is little more than thirty years past a major war, twenty years after a confrontation with Lebanon, and surrounded by large, aggressive neighbors professing a belligerent strain of Islam and uninterested in peace negotiations. Some of them maintain large standing armies, and all are obtaining modern weaponry. The Israeli government would be crazy not to maintain military readiness-though nothing will be of any effect without depth of defense. No developed country can sustain the cost of defense in a war of attrition. The minor destruction Israel causes hardly bothers Palestinians. Israel uses significant resources to answer low-cost guerilla actions. Egypt mobilized repeatedly to exhaust Israel with reciprocal mobilizations.28 The mass media make every incident significant, raising anxiety levels. Israel should use attrition wherever possible (against the Saudis, for example) and resist it through preemptive destruction of enemy forces. Low-level breaches of an armistice are rarely intended to annoy the opponent but more often are either military operations per se (the war of attrition) or preparation for a larger conflict. Israel has not profited from armistices and need not limit her response to provocations. Attacking an unprepared enemy upon the first reasonable provocation is better than waiting for escalation and imminent war. Zero tolerance to truce violations would have prevented the Yom Kippur War. An enemy's regrouping or rearming signals the end of any truce. Israel should have attacked Gaza when the first Hamas troops assembled there. The creation of a Palestinian state would not bring peace That Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state will lead to peace with other Arab countries is wishful thinking. Arabs list recognition of Palestine among other prerequisites for peace with Israel. Many Arab groups declare openly that recognition is not enough: Jerusalem must also be partitioned. There will be no end to Arab demands. Since Arabs do not want Palestinians living among them, they will demand the right of return to Israel for the descendants of refugees and, taking a cue from Jewish Holocaust organizations, will demand reparations for refugees. The only peace Israel should consider is a comprehensive agreement settling all disputes with all Arab states. Unfortunately, no recent Israeli government has insisted on that self-evident requirement.29 A settlement would eliminate neither hatred nor the danger to Israel from guerrilla warfare but only make large-scale war less plausible-though still possible if Israel punished Arab terrorist sponsor states. The conflict would not likely subside, as long as Israel offers an attractive vent for Arab grievances. Perhaps the guerrillas would turn against America instead. Indeed, they lost interest in Russia after evicting its troops from Afghanistan and returned only when Chechnya offered irresistible provocation. These considerations are, however, irrelevant. Israel should not pursue non-essential policies. She should not acquire land she does not need. If there is a good reason to hold territory, it must be held, and the guerrillas should be dealt with. If Israelis do not want to defend the territory, it is not essential and must be shed. The argument that Muslim insurgents hate the West, not for its values but for what it does to them, is tautology. Even if America withdrew from global politics, it would remain a large part of the global economy and culture and always act internationally on its values. While Al Qaeda now concentrates its propaganda on U.S. military presence in the Muslim world, a total American withdrawal would only mean Arabs would find another focal point of hatred: satellite broadcasting, movie content, fast food chains (attacked even in Europe), stock and money markets, and agricultural exports. Military withdrawal from Muslim hot spots would not solve the problem for America. Arabs launched an oil boycott against the West with the resultant price hike ostensibly because of the Israeli conflict with Egypt. Decades after the settlement, Arabs-even those dependent on the United States for protection-continue to increase the prices. The story of Tunbs, one of three tiny islands involved in an inter-Arab dispute,30 shows that Arabs cannot formally accept even minor border adjustments unless they are imposed by some major power. The islands are rather like Israel: economically insignificant land far from the core territory of Arab rivals not under any threat. Iran and Israel offered significant political concessions and aid. In response, the Arabs stiffened their position as the best strategy of improving their bargaining position and esteem. The conflicts kept them prominent in foreign affairs, and major powers courted them. The emirs involved agreed to Iran's de facto annexation of the islands, yet objected to save face. They also asked that the British, not the Iranians, expel them. Likewise, Arabs would have no problem if the United States prohibited a Palestinian state, but they protest if Israel, their neighbor and supposed equal, delays Palestinian statehood. The British cared not a whit about the annexation, if only it were done without much fuss, as the Americans likely feel about the Palestinian issue. If the Tunbs dispute among Muslim powers lasted for decades, how much dimmer are the prospects of a settlement with Israel? No Palestinian state without a pan-Islamic peace agreement Agreeing to a Palestinian state without Israeli membership in NATO and peace treaties with all Arab countries is impractical. Otherwise, Jerusalem would be the new stumbling stone and the new reason for Arab support of the guerrillas. Having seen the effectiveness of guerrilla warfare, Arabs will hardly stop at Jerusalem. Nothing precludes them from demanding the abolition of the Jewish state. Israel should not let up on the Palestinians until a comprehensive agreement is achieved. A cease-fire is psychologically dangerous, because it is hard to convince people to go back to war after a hiatus. A cease-fire with the Palestinians will not only drive many Israelis, no longer willing to tread the dangerous path of expansion, to the political left, but will also impair the national resolve to fight, should hostilities reemerge. The inadmissibility of vacillation The Israeli Defense Force wins wars; the Israeli government is generally good at negotiations. Only the absence of a grand strategy lets belligerency drag on for almost six decades. Israel may choose to shrink her borders, or she may choose to expand. In the latter case, she has the relatively easy military choice of Palestine and South Lebanon, the politically incorrect choice of Jordan, and the hard military choice of the Sinai. She could give in to all demands and either abandon the idea of a large standing army or sacrifice the economy to political and military ambitions. Settlers may leave the occupied territories, confine themselves to a network of defended settlements, or maintain control over the whole place. The means are available to sustain any policy. Moderately foolish policy is better than no policy. Nothing is so costly in lives, material, reputation, and public resolve as constant wavering. A policy must be devised, agreed upon and unambiguously fixed as the Basic Law. Israeli vacillation is provocative Israeli vacillation provokes Arabs. First, the wavering curve's nadirs offer the Arabs clear clues of what Israel might accept. Subsequent greater demands are not credible and induce the Arabs to demand ever further concessions. Second, indecision makes everyone afraid. Having a powerful but unpredictable neighbor leads Arabs to beef up their arsenals and launches a spiral of violence. Israel's errors recall Germany's before World War I: concentration of military might, regional dominance, absence of clear objectives, and aggressive, unpredictable policy that threatened potential enemies. Israel's mistakes have provoked an arms race, cemented the Arab coalition, obviated internal Arab disputes, and united Arabs to oppose the common enemy. Many Jews claim they do not intend to threaten the Arabs, but the issue at hand is Arab perception of events. Jews must state their objectives clearly in terms of self-interest, follow a predictable policy, and stop panicking her neighbors who never know what Israeli is up to at any given moment. If, however, Israel decides upon the aggressive course, she should not threaten. Attack the designated targets immediately. Do not let the Arabs prepare and the U.S. intercede. Governments rarely give way to threats, certainly not autocratic governments and not in religious matters. To delay aggression would greatly increase the cost of victory. Vacillation damages the Israeli psyche, too. Israeli government officials in office must stop stating their private views on the peace process publicly. If they do not agree with state policy, let them leave office and promote their viewpoints. Government policy should be coherent. People who adopt radical ideological goals may want to adhere to them, though not practice them immediately. People remember the most far-fetched suggestions. In the present case, it is peace at almost any cost versus keeping the territories at almost any cost. That polarizes and radicalizes society, both sides ignoring the middle options, but middle options are often the reasonable ones. Though most Arabs did not demand a Palestinian state thirty years ago, now even most Jews agree to it. Israeli society must agree on a path to normalization-offense, defense, or peace for concessions-and stop wavering. Vacillation is costly and politically detrimental Oscillations between the desire for peace at any cost and the desire for expansion create ineffective policy. Israelis today are discussing the equivalent of Sadat's 1972 offer. Begin was looking to give up the Sinai in return for recognition of de facto Israeli jurisdiction over the West Bank territories. In the end, Sinai bought a dubious peace with Egypt, but Egypt was ready to accept Israel anyway, a matter of Arab acceptance of political reality. Therefore a moderate Egypt asked only for the return of the Sinai, while fundamentalists disregarded the agreement, anyway. Consequently, Israel would have risked little by keeping Sinai, valuable not only for unprecedented depth of defense, but also as the approximate extreme of Eretz Israel, theoretically the ultimate goal of Israeli policy. Egypt would eventually have agreed to divide the Sinai with Israel, if not immediately then after some years. As almost every country has at one or another point of its history, Egypt acquiesced to force. It lacked sovereignty for millennia, its statehood relegated to a semi-mythical time of the pharaohs. Only decades ago, the British re-shaped Egypt as they wished, as its straight, arbitrarily drawn borders show. Egypt also abrogated its claim to Gaza and the Negev. Partition of Sinai would have left Israel with oil wells in the isthmus, the reserves the Jews were exploiting when the Camp David accords transferred the Sinai to Egypt. Israeli leaders submitted to international pressures and lost sight of their primary objective. Concessions have not led either to normal Israeli-Arab relations or Israeli dominance. Israeli wavering damages her image before the world opinion. Foreigners know very little about the history or subtleties of the Jewish-Arab conflict. Israeli indecisiveness proves to them that she is wrong, that even she doubts her policies. Piecemeal compromises blur objectives Concessions obscured the objective of peace when only short-term goals were in sight. Exchanging territory for peace makes sense if it means liquidating Israel's immense standing army and freeing the economy from military pressures. But peace with Egypt did not reduce the Israeli army, since other enemies remained. The same army could have kept the Egyptians at bay without conceding most of the territory Israel held at the time. Any other country would consider such a loss of territory a defeat, not a political gain-most certainly so if the territory was historically significant for the national conscience. Joshua did not trade the Promised Land for peace treaties. Israeli acceptance of compromises on Sinai, Golan, and Gaza only prompts the victorious enemy to ask for more concessions. Peace is best achieved in a single agreement, when one side has a lot to trade in and the other is desperate to recover territorial losses. The more territory Israel gives to Arabs under interim agreements, the less her bargaining power and the less Arab interest in settling the conflict. The fallacy of minor concessions Although all the Arab demands could be settled somehow or other, giving in to them all would reduce Israel to insignificance. Concession is futile and leads only to more demands, until the Jews would eventually find themselves in the sea. The fallacy of an endless chain of minor compromises, none with a clear offsetting gain, shows in the fact that though Israel refused Sadat's 1971 offer of normalization with the Arab world in return for Sinai and the Golan Heights,31 in the thirty-odd years since, Israel agreed to return most of the territories but has not achieved peace with her Middle East neighbors. She continues that policy now, transferring Gaza and the West Bank to the Palestinians without a peace treaty with other Arabs, most of whom stated previously that the Jewish settlements in Palestinian regions were the only impediment to peace after 1976. Although not exactly appeasement, acquiescing to demands certainly provokes more than would a one-time settlement undergirded by the goodwill of the stronger power. Arabs have long since spotted its willingness to make concessions as Israel's national weak spot, and they pound it with their intifada. Although Israel has the right to agree to whatever concessions she wishes, she should do so as the strongest power dispensing favors, not giving way before the demands of others. Abandon half-measures A clear understanding of policy makes the futility of half-measures transparent. What is the point of settlements in the occupied areas? They were introduced on the assumption that no Israeli government would abandon so much investment; the restoration of Sinai-an object of major Israeli investments-to Egypt showed that is not the case. Israel, however, continued to build new settlements on the West Bank. They will not anchor the occupied territories for Israel but rather make the territorial question worse, as previously useless land becomes investment property. They are of little military value: after the Arabs built mobile armies, area defense is not viable. Settlements, in need of defense, will become liabilities in a major conflict. The acquisitions would be defensible if they could be maintained under the current democratic political structure. Settlements are no way to acquire territory: they are at odds with Israel's professed desire for peace, and ultimately a cowardly means and exactly the opposite of Machiavelli's prescription. The settlers themselves are not cowards. They live surrounded by enemies, but the government uses their villages as a pretense for claiming the land instead of taking it by military means. Other than the biblical justification, the settlements are indefensible. Israel uprooted a dense network of Arab villages in her territory in 1948 and 1967 and helped the inhabitants leave. If Israel abrogates her biblical claim, refuses to use force, and acquiesces in the establishment of a Palestinian state, what's to keep the Palestinians from driving Jewish settlers out? In other words, most people object to the settlements because they undermine the 1948 U.N. territorial mandate. I object to them because they are ineffective and provocative and strengthen support for the U.N. two-state plan. Jews need not exterminate the locals as Joshua supposedly did, behavior not readily reconcilable with the tolerance the Torah teaches.32 Israel has clear guidelines in dealing with Palestinians: the Ten Commandments, which prohibit murder and robbery but not killing in a war for the Promised Land, nor do they prohibit running people off, provided the land and other property is justly compensated. Those who compare Israeli policy with the Nazis should imagine the Germans moving the Jews to Switzerland forcibly but compensating them for their real estate. If the Jews intend to keep the occupied territories, they should do it the only effective way, by occupying the land, annexing it, driving the Arabs out, fencing it off, and facing the international consequences. In all probability, friends and foes alike would let it pass after a brief period of ostentatious antagonism to satisfy their liberals and fundamentalists. Nobody cares about the Palestinians. Everyone wants the issue to go away. If Israel acted illegally and ruthlessly-but quickly and effectively-in a few years, most nations would accept the de facto situation, just as they agreed to Israel's acquisition of Jerusalem contrary to the U.N. resolution. All modern borders were established by violence, except in artificial ex-colonies like Iraq, where violence still reshapes demarcation lines. The shock of two world wars was not enough to end warfare. World War I left deep demographic and economic scars on European nations, but only twenty years later they were ready for another war of unprecedented scale. The United States suffered vast human and material losses in World War II, yet jumped into the Korean War in only five years and the Vietnam War little more than a decade later. World War II had relatively little bearing on Africa, though it exhausted the empires into releasing their colonies, and almost none on Arabs and Latin America. World War II did not change the pattern of state relations. The chemical, biological, and nuclear deterrents are responsible for the current sixty years of relative peace. They do not, however, deter poor, uneducated Muslims ruled by autocrats who kill more of their own than a nuclear attack would. Many people believe the Americans tend to side with the weak and thus would turn against an Israel that bullies Palestinians. Few other nations behave so, and Israeli actions would likely get the tacit approval of Great Britain at least. American idealism is largely a self-serving myth.33 Many Americans, feeling safe in trans-Atlantic isolation, resent violence and are prone to compassion, but their support has often been misplaced. They defended Vietnamese against a freely supported government, and Iraqis against a dictator voted for in a recent referendum. Acquiescence in Pinochet's butchery meant to relieve Chileans from Allende's inflation. The Americans lauded Oliver North for defiantly covering the support of Nicaraguan contras fighting against local socialists who bullied the population with free health care and education. The Americans remained isolationist until Franklin Roosevelt dragged the country into the war by hook and by crook. The United States officials returned at least one ship of Jewish refugees to Europe because of the problems with their immigration documents. So much for compassion for the weak guy. In Yugoslavia, Americans defended one set of scoundrels against the other. Both Muslims and Christians committed atrocities, and the United States entered the conflict against ex-communists. Idealistic-or so wanting to be-U.S. public opinion restrains the government's antisocialist policy when it leads to supporting odious dictators, and the government even condescends to that opinion when the communist threat in a particular country is eliminated. But economics drive United States foreign policy: an economy open to foreign trade and investment, paying its debts even if to a dictatorship. When neither ideology nor the economy is in question, the United States enters conflicts reluctantly, as in Rwanda, only when public pressure forces it to play international gendarme, a role model for realpolitik cases. Political liberalization is a by-product of the American drive for free markets-but not always, as American support of Diem, Trujillo, Pinochet, and other ugly characters shows. Since annexation would solve the Palestinian problem and advance economic liberalism, the United States would approve Israeli action in that direction. Even without United States support, Israel proved her ability to wage wars successfully on her own. Good strategic planning, preemption, and her current technological edge assure Israel's victory in the unlikely event of an ensuing conflict-and the guerrillas will hardly balk at detonating an A-bomb in Tel Aviv as soon as they get one, anyway. Israel does not need American support to demilitarize the Arabs. A dominant Israel would enjoy United States support like never before. The successful 1967 war led the U.S. government to reevaluate its relation with Israel; the devolution of Sinai prompted it to closer ties with the emerging strong Egypt. If you decide on annexation, carry it out. Do not weep, offer condolences to Arabs, or blame the army or the government, and do not allow refugee camps in any country to start up as a journalists' Mecca. Be prepared to kill protesters, drive refugees far away (Dir Yassin may prove a small exercise in dealing with quasi-armed civilians), and force neighbor countries to absorb them. Major Muslim states may attempt to show solidarity, and Israel must be ready for war. That, however, is unlikely, since wealthier Arabs will be relieved of the Palestinian problem, if Israel forces weaker states like Jordan and Lebanon to assimilate them. The violence is insignificant by Arab standards which disregarded thirty to a hundred thousand Kurds killed34 by Saddam Hussein in quashing an insurgency and hundreds of thousands Iraqis by Iranians; twenty thousand Muslims, terrorists along with civilians by Hafiz Al Assad; an estimated 1.5 million dead in Afghanistan civil war and the same number in Sudan; forty thousand in the Algerian Islamist revolt and also in Tajikistan; two hundred Muslim civilians killed by Al Qaeda in bombing two United States embassies; hundreds shot by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's troops in a single demonstration; and eight thousand Palestinians butchered in Jordan and another thousand of them dead in Lebanon; the Islamic government of Iran marched teenage soldiers through minefields, an alternative to sapping.35 Annexation would bring Israelis the credentials of a strong nation in their neighbors' eyes. Israel should establish de jure recognition of the status quo by annexing the land legally without discussions about the future of the territories.36 Treating the matter as settled is the best way to settle it. If, however, Israel intends to give the territories away, then she should leave and forget about it. If guerrillas come from there, stop issuing visas to Arabs. Replacing them with Asian and Eastern European Christian Gastarbeiters would reduce the costs of Israeli entrepreneurs: Palestinians in Israel earn higher wages than many Eastern Europeans and Asians. Temporary immigrants, furthermore, do not require pension plans, and the Israeli government would save on security precautions. The current policy is stupid. It is not even a policy but rather an absence of policy. Israel spends for three ends without achieving even one. She controls the occupied territories as if she intended to hold them. She gives them away as if she agrees to Palestinian sovereignty. And she sponsors further settlements, so Jews can somehow cling to the land even if Israel abandons it. The last notion is truly ridiculous. If the Arabs controlled the land, they would drive even the stoutest settlers away by cutting the roads and harassing them. The United States managed an airlift only with great difficulty when the Soviets cut the land routes to West Berlin. Hundreds of Israeli settlements cannot be supported by airlift, and attempts to secure the roads would restore Israeli possession of Palestine. Economically impotent, forgotten by all, Palestine would drift into insignificance, another failed state whose best people emigrated. Major guerrilla groups would join the government and moderate, serious anti-Western terrorists could not hide there under Israel's nose, and sporadic violence would be reduced to boring routine. Jews might start buying land in the West Bank and settling there under nominal Palestinian jurisdiction. If Palestine refused to let religious Jews settle there, Israel would be justified in expelling Muslims. The Palestinians would likely agree to have Jews as resident aliens, if only to solve the problem of autonomous settlements. Clashes would ensue, Israel routinely interfering to protect her citizens in Palestine when the local authorities failed. Palestinians would find that the best way to stop clashes and Israeli reprisals is to wall the Jewish villages off and give them administrative autonomy. Such settlements, only formally under Palestinian jurisdiction, would expand in size and number: the Palestinians might object to foreign settlements but not to law-abiding, legally immigrated resident aliens who happen to be Jews. The settlements would be stable and attract more Jews to Palestine. The Palestinians could not pursue a similar policy in Israel, because land there is much more expensive, and Jewish owners usually refuse to sell or lease to Arabs. Israel should spread the blame for the settlements by inviting Christians to settle in the religiously significant areas connected to the Israeli highway system. The Vatican would likely not agree to such provocation, but less scrupulous groups would. Delaying the solution makes the problem chronic and harder to cure Protracted confrontation with Arabs causes systemic deviations in Israeli society-in economy, morale, and politics. Short efficient war would have left no lasting distortions. Long neglected problems, like chronic illnesses, require harsher solutions than were available initially. Although some kind of coexistence with indigenous Arabs was once possible, now that Israel has given them hope for their own state, there is no painless way back. Israel must either give them the territory or destroy the Palestinian settlements and exile them far away-not to refugee camps in neighboring countries. Jordan and Lebanon, unhappy with refugee camps as a source of anti-government and guerrilla unrest, would readily accept an Israeli ultimatum to disallow them. Forced cultural assimilation should accompany deportation: Palestinians are not sufficiently different from Arab Muslims to constitute a distinct culture. Does Israel want economic and social progress in Arab countries? Israel has to decide how to affect Arab countries. Israelis may help the Arabs build prosperous democratic states where people grow averse to war. The instantaneous artificial democratization of feudal Arab societies, however, is futile, as we are seeing in Iraq; in the best-case scenario, it would take decades. Germany, though nominally a monarchy, rigorously adhered to the rule of law and had parliamentary experience, crucial factors in transforming into democracy. In Japan, hierarchy, respect for authorities, and little difference in the political parties' platforms (because critical issues are few) keep the country essentially autocratic under an umbrella of electoral democracy. Arabs are best compared with Russia: no rule of law, religious (Arabs) and ideological (Russians) hypocrisy, contempt for authorities, widespread corruption, technological backwardness, aggressiveness, high tolerance to suffering, and zeal. So far every Russian attempt at becoming a democracy has failed, despite almost ninety years of elections after the downfall of the monarchy. People need certain qualities to keep governments at bay and prevent the slide into autocracy-basic political education, love of freedom, respect for the law-qualities that take time to acquire. That is especially relevant to Palestine: mild autocracy may keep violence at bay, while democracy would bring the Islamists to power, both because they are the only morally untainted group and because they can promise an influx of subsidies from Saudi Arabia and Muslim charities worldwide. Jews have already tried to develop Palestinians economically and showed some progress in agriculture, though none in other sectors. The failure is understandable from a historical perspective. Arabs have lagged behind Westerners for centuries, with no technological progress in Muslim lands. Even medieval Arab science consisted largely in translating and digesting works by Greek authors. Despite all the perks Arab governments provide to students and businessmen, both scientific research and non-oil business in those countries are close to nil, and whatever small trading activity there is involves Indian immigrants. In the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Libya, locals are employed almost exclusively in government sinecures; on the West Bank, they have lived on welfare for three or four generations. A bit more progress, though minor, came in Westernized Turkey and Egypt, but overpopulation, the emigration of educated people, the wave of fundamentalism, and an influx of rural population to urban areas overcame it. It takes time for people to acquire the skills of Western civilization and culture. Most Arabs are only thirty years from camels and primitive farming and generations behind Europeans in that regard. Another approach would be for Israel to fuel the internal religious and class strife in the Arab world. An easy political option would be to flood the Arabs with American proposals on political, economic, and cultural matters, forcing a lively debate on them. There are many ways to support-money, printing presses, international media coverage, recognition, weapons-or discredit political parties during elections. United States observers could raise an outcry about the inevitably rigged elections. The first candidates for Israeli support are the Shia, increasingly oppressed by spreading Wahhabism, and immigrant workers. The time is ripe, further, to destabilize Saudi Arabia: the welfare the royal family passes out has decreased as population has increased,37 and the people could be made resentful of the House of Saud. The easiest would be to supply the Arabs with obsolete weaponry and ammunition and let them kill one another, then introduce puppet regimes, or to install an Israeli peacekeeping administration. Finally, Israel could simply annex its territory, from which a large part of the population would have fled already. Annexing and exiling the remaining indigenous population is more practical, since administration by international mandate or by local traitors would only foment nationalism. But it is wrong to do either intermittently, to promote stability first, and then provoke internal conflict. That is, the Israelis may say one thing and do another,38 for example, support democratic grassroots movements in the Arab world in order to destabilize the situation and offer an alternative to Islamic fundamentalism. If that worked, the democratic Arab states would redistribute the wealth, greatly diminish the state's power, and at the same time make the people more wary of Israeli retribution and thus less belligerent. Wealthy people are peaceful; wealthy governments, militaristic. To feed the Arabs democratic ideology is easy, but it should be packaged as a return to true Islamic roots of equality and communal decision-making. When lying, it is important not to believe the lie and to keep track of the real objective. The policy should be to weaken the Arab states, not destroy them, because destruction would clear the way for guerrilla domination on the ruins of failed states. To that end, Israel might support NGOs advocating human rights in Arab countries. The West should not make human rights in the Arab world a policy cornerstone, since acquiring the appropriate political culture would take Arabs a long time; but freedoms should not be sacrificed, since many Arab opinion-making intellectuals and students long for them, and the general population would also like more liberties. Small but widely publicized liberalization efforts would create good will for the West. No people becomes liberal overnight. Japan, the textbook example of democratization, is an oligarchy with touches of technocratic autocracy. Turkey and Bahrain, the most Westernized Muslim countries, are far from responsible popular democracies. Since Muslims are not ready for democracy, enlightened autocracy under rulers like Hosni Mubarak of Egypt or King Hussein of Jordan is an option. The Egyptian and Jordanian rulers respect law and cannot be likened to demagogues like Ayatollah Khomeini. Yet the game is dangerous even with authoritarian leaders, because they may shift to fundamentalism if their support base weakens. The religious establishment is the biggest coherent group in the Muslim world and influences democratic elections; Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan relies on the clergy. When regimes are overthrown, power goes to the ulema by default. The support game damages Israel in the case of dictatorships. Enemies trained against other enemies tend to be aggressive in general and in time turn against their sponsors, as the Afghan Taliban did to the Americans who armed them. Alliance with the devil is short-term. No country can achieve long-range success by promoting totalitarianism for short-range tactical reasons but will incur the subject population's hatred and see a drift to fascism of some kind. Better to seek and foster potentially powerful and ideologically amenable small groups among the enemy that would oppose and undermine the radical ulema's claim to be the only alternative to corrupt local regimes. A common mistake of supporting one party only must be avoided: any party in the corrupt environment invariably becomes corrupt, and ulema emerges again as the only honest opposition. Rather, many parties should be supported simultaneously to dissipate the protest votes. Support should not be half-hearted, such as only produces resentment, but substantial and unambiguous. That reasoning has an important exception of limited application. Sometimes acting against a stable, democratic country like Egypt under Mubarak is problematic, although the necessity of destroying its chemical, biological, nuclear arsenal is clear. In those cases, an internal coup offers justification for an Israeli attack, since weapons of mass destruction might fall into the hands of rogues-though even then the cost-benefit ratio of supporting a coup is questionable. That doubt is not, however, an absolute prohibition. Collaboration, especially tacit collaboration, with dictators is a valuable tactical tool. Sensible dictators generally shy from foreign involvement. Dictators can hardly risk arming their people and stirring up the will to fight, for fear it might turn on them. The expansionists Caesar, Augustus, Attila, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, and Hitler enjoyed popular support. When Iraqi support for Saddam became acquiescence, he could no longer risk large military exploits. The Arab monarchs and dictators are concerned with their own survival, pressing Israel to create an external enemy. They started wars in 1967 and 1973 to reestablish credibility of rhetoric. Semi-democratic Iran and the P.L.O. crowd39 threaten Israel more than the authoritarian Arab states. Israel should not get involved in supporting and setting up oppressive regimes, since the collaboration would not last long, and drawbacks would soon outweigh benefits. Israel should support only regimes with a good grip on their local affairs-in their conflicts with other Arabs. America should give up promoting democracy in Syria if Assad reins in the Islamic Jihad at home and Hezbollah in Lebanon, especially if Hezbollah grew nationalist and anti-Syrian. Intervention should come only if a regime causes trouble internationally, like harboring terrorists, not for its domestic policies. The best idea is not to meddle with Muslim societies but to exploit changes by offering minimal support to people with acceptable objectives. Politicians rarely possess such skills. As the imperially established borders enclosing different Arab tribes and faiths collapse, Israel can reduce military expenditures since she would not need to maintain cutting-edge weaponry against emerging small states. Small and failed states do not develop nuclear weapons. There is no reason to support dictators for fear of a failed state per se; they would fail anyway. Rather, strategists should consider whether a failed state could be reorganized, as was Yugoslavia. Dividing Iraq into Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish mini-states could work, especially if the United States agreed to relocating the Turkish Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan. Turkey would love to be rid of troublesome people, and Kurds could not oppose relocation. But do Muslims not deserve freedom and democratic government? Israel does not care. Her interests, not the concerns of others, dictate her policy. Many, like socialists, accept limited freedom as long as governments guarantee welfare and pensions. Many people value ideology or loyalty above freedom, especially poor people who have little use of freedoms, and strive for esteem through communal attachment and hatred. People value only freedoms they win. The Arabs do not want democracy imported from Israel or the United States. Fostering dissidents and insurgents, Israeli and American bureaucrats must overcome affinity to foreign bureaucrats that makes them distasteful to dissidents. This treacherous affiliation is well known in the relations of royal houses: Russian, German, and British monarchs corresponded civilly during the WWI slaughter. Supporting democrats and Westernizers without local followings is futile. American diplomats prop up mannerly, nicely dressed, religion-hating leaders, even if they are self-proclaimed. Promoting their values is one thing, advancing them politically is another-and wrong. One should not expect to seed controversy among terrorist groups by dividing them along ethnic or religious lines. Guerrillas of various creeds often work together. Their leaders, used to sending their people to their death, are necessarily cynical. Bribing one group to fight another does not work. The money would go to fighting old enemies, and once a new common goal or enemy appeared, the groups would overcome their internecine hate. Many secular Jews support the ultra-orthodox settlements in the territories financially and politically. Discontent and dissent in Arab countries, however, weakens the guerrillas' financial and social base. Promoting political and religious division in hostile countries is a correct and justified policy. Most Muslims profess fundamentalist, militant Wahhabite Islam.40 The Saudis accept the faction as their state religion and finance everything Wahhabite, from schools to guerrillas abroad. Wahhabism, however, is a theologically questionable 18th century innovation posing as the teaching of the medieval Islamic radical, Ahmed ibn Taymiyya, a controversial figure repeatedly jailed for his unorthodox views. By declaring other Muslim rulers apostates, Wahhabism suits the Saudi dynasty. It is not the only school of thought in Islam and has produced little scholarship. Israel might support Islamic factions through foreign foundations to dissipate Wahhabi authority and remove an important motive of Arab aggression. Israel should keep a watchful eye on theological developments in Islam, since Wahhabism might eventually become a conservative state religion and marginalize the radicals. While Saudi financing accounts for the proliferation of Wahhabism among clerics, they objectively need fundamentalism in order to oppose secularism. Helping them find an acceptable non-Wahhabite way to counter secularism might work. The Catholic Church transformed theology into Christian culture. The process does not have to be slow. Islam might succumb to Westernization quickly, thanks to the pervasiveness and persuasiveness of the mass media. The suggestion to support both anti-state Islamic fundamentalism and Westernizing forces may seem contradictory, but if Israel does both, she addresses different groups simultaneously to split Arab society along many lines. Fundamentalism is not sustainable in the modern world where ideas compete freely and will soon become absurd and lose many adherents. Encouraging it speeds up disillusionment. In a rare demonstration of goodwill toward America, tens of thousands of Iranians rallied in her support after 9/11. Fundamentalism's promise of an egalitarian society undermines governments when Westernization beckons. Fomenting fundamentalism, however, requires caution. If the clerics retain power for long, they will harm Israel a lot more than today's cynical Arab autocrats. Israeli support of Islamic fundamentalism will not be a problem, since even democratically chosen fundamentalism will not last long. As in Iran, the clerics will not deliver, and the population will soon grow dissatisfied with them. Iran provides another example. France, which for years subverted the Shah and did a lot to install Khomeini, received no favor in return. Iran was even more hostile to France than to the U.S. Similarly, Israel cannot expect gratitude from the Muslim fundamentalists she would support but rather must rely on their predictable actions as part of her strategy. The support for radical Islamists, furthermore, is weak: they took only 11% of the vote recently in Pakistan. Any secular party that champions equality and the overthrow of corruption would get more votes than the religious fanatics. Since nationalist rhetoric very clos