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butz youth, who were the army's elite in the state's early period.Whatever the reasons or complex of reasons for its behavior, Israel's "solution" is to ignore the evidence of Arab intentions that daily assails it. Pressed, her political leaders and generals fall back on the alleged power of Israel's army should everything fall apart, the supposed unimportance of territory in an age of missiles, and the technical superiority ever more sophisticated United States arms (exchanged for mere territory) will give them. But Israel has a civilian army pervaded by the attitudes of civilian life: already shirking army duty, once almost unheard of, is widespread as the sense grows that only suckers show up for reserve duty or even initial army service. The strength of Israel's army is eroding daily. Moreover, for all her technical superiority Israel has been defeated in Lebanon by Hizbollah, operating with comparatively primitive equipment. So grievous is that defeat that the only debate in Israel is how best to extricate herself, and whether it is necessary to wait for Syrian agreement!
There is, of course, an obvious objection to the accusation that Israel engages in Holocaust denial: how can Israel be censured for Holocaust denial when the Holocaust of which we speak has not yet happened?
Yet the denial of reality in which Israel engages is in some ways worse than that practiced by the garden-variety Holocaust-denier. Hitler's apologists do not change history: at worst they insult, they wound, they attempt to wipe out the memory of Nazism's chief victims. But Israel today is creating by its own actions (and failure to act) the Holocaust-to-come. By denying the Holocaust being prepared for it, making it immeasurably easier for its enemies to destroy it, Israel is making its legacy to the next generation of world Jews a second Holocaust-that-will-have-been. When it is too late, the survivors will lament that they were victims, a comfortable, traditional stance for Jews, and in the past, when they were powerless, all too true. But this time the Jews will be first and foremost victims of themselves.
Rael Jean Isaac is editor of Outpost.
(Editor's note: The following policy paper, prepared by the Ariel Center For Policy Research, appeared as a full-page advertisement in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz on February 29, 2000).
The United States possesses, in the Persian Gulf, the most advanced early-warning systems in the world. Surveillance, aircraft and ships, spy satellites, and land-based early-warning facilities operate there 24 hours a day. Still, the U.S. was surprised by Iraq's invasion of Iran (1980) and Kuwait (1990). But due to climatic (fog, clouds, rain, sandstorms), topographical, technical, and human limitations, the early-warning systems did not provide the warning they should have. Iraq's invasion led to over a million fatalities, the devastation of Kuwait, and scores of billions of dollars in other damages.
In 1973, the IDF's early-warning facilities de-
tected Egypt's and Syria's preparations for war. Yet
the IDF failed in its interpretations of the threat
assessment, as had happened before in the IDF and in the best
military forces in the world. It was the strategic depth of
Sinai and the mountain ridge on the eastern Golan (which
overlooks Damascus and not the Kinneret!) that made up
for this human and intelligence failure. Critical territorial
features -- and not advanced technology -- enabled the fending off of the Arab tanks, the mobilization of
Israel's reservists, and the snatching of victory from the jaws
of defeat in the Yom Kippur War.
The most sophisticated weaponry in the world was used by the U.S., Britain, and France against Iraq in 1991. Despite the fact that they were acting against an
The U.S. was surprised by Iraq's invasion of Iran and Kuwait. The early-warning systems did not provide the warning they should have.
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March 2000 - 5 - Outpost