Basic Principle of Justice

The basic principle in international law that relies on the principle of justice ex iniuria non oritur ius (from a demand that comes out of evil, no right shall be derived) states that an aggressor defeated in an offensive war is not entitled to argue over ownership of the territory he has lost. For if it were not so, aggression would be encouraged and make a travesty of the principle of justice. To quote international law expert Julius Stone: "Such behavior would provide a guarantee to every potential aggressor that even should his aggression fail, all the territory that he lost in his attempted aggression will be returned to him automatically...Such a principle would amount to raising the absurd to the level of insanity. There is no such principle."

Because of this reality, the Axis states in the Second World War lost extensive territories. Germany alone lost Eastern Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia, the Sudetenland and Alsace Lorraine. Egypt's loss of the Sinai in the Six Day War fell under the same principle of international law. The return of Sinai to Egypt was thus not only a strategic failure, eliminating once and for all the chance for Israel to become a regional power, but overturned the principle of basic justice and precedent by pushing Israel into the cease fire lines of 1949 with Egypt. The return of the Golan to Damascus, the jumping off point for Syria's attempt to destroy Israel in the course of three wars, and an untold number of acts of sabotage, will not only encourage aggression but concedes the Arab argument that Israel was the aggressor in all of its wars. Thus the moral basis for Israel's very right to self defense will be destroyed.

Loss of Nuclear Deterrence

The advocates of retreat to the borders of 1967 speak of Israel's nuclear deterrent capability. They treat mutual assured destruction as if it guaranteed Israel's existence. The reasoning behind this argument is that it is precisely in the borders of 1949, where Israel loses its conventional deterrence, that Israel will have no choice but to keep its finger on the nuclear trigger. The Arabs will know this, realize the danger that threatens them if they attack Israel, and will therefore avoid doing so, thus bringing peace to the Middle East. This argument mistakes the nature of nuclear deterrence which does not cancel conventional deterrence; on the contrary, it is totally dependent on it. Nuclear catastrophe is not a military value, but a moral-theological conception, and the willingness to commit national suicide is unbearable and therefore only avoidable through the alternative of conventional warfare. The loss of conventional deterrence that will follow retreat to the borders of 1949 will also mean the end of nuclear deterrence.

It will open the door to Israel's strategic out-flanking because one cannot even conceive that there will ever be a Prime Minister of Israel who will direct the nation to commit suicide when the alternative is concessions or even total capitulation.

Abandonment by the United States

There was a clear expression of American abandonment as early as the Gulf War. In the midst of Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the U.S. decided to prevent Israel from defending itself against the storm of Iraqi missiles. This was an attack on Israel's deterrent ability of such severity it is hard to imagine anything worse. The image of the terrified Israeli sitting in his safety rooms in a gas mask, and the image of the public fleeing from the central cities, have been major factors encouraging Israel's Araba neighbors to escalate development of the means of destruction by Israel's neighbors.

U.S. policy, which is designed to push Israel back to the borders of 1967, was affirmed on the eve of Operation Desert Storm. Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia conditioned their participation in the war on the establishment of a Palestinian state, on retreat from the Golan and removal of Israel from Jerusalem. There was no difficulty for Bush to give this promise because as James Baker had stated, Washington had never recognized Israeli rule over the Golan and Jerusalem and the "legitimate rights of the Palestinian people" were, after all, already promised at Camp David. Thus, even though the Israeli "right" does not like it, since 1991 Presidents Bush and Clinton have carried out the continuing policy of the United States and one cannot come now with complaints to them.

The chapter of special relations between Israel and the United States, which indeed existed between 1968 and 1990, is finished. George Ball summed this up in picturesque language: "The aircraft carrier which is called Israel has sunk." The Israeli man in the street who has never internalized the statement of Lord Palmersto-- "In relations between states there is no love, only interest"--refuses to believe this. But just as Roosevelt did not lift a finger to save the Jews of Eur-

[(Continued on p.5)]

Outpost               - 4 -               January 2000