[(Continued from p.5)]
manifests itself in leftist moral assaults on the country's legitimacy (essentially the same motivation as behind the terrorists who trashed Seattle recently and who earlier rushed to support Saddam Hussein in US streets). Nations who doubt their moral legitimacy also lack the backbone to defend themselves and fight their enemies. Instead, they try to win over their enemies through self-debasement. This is what happened in England after Munich. This is what has produced Oslo.Why is it that none of Israel's various deals with its neighbors are based on a period of proof of good intentions for the Arabs? Why has there never been any testing period at all before implementing "redeployments" and withdrawals, in which the Arabs can prove their intentions and exhibit good behavior, to build trust and cool down the conflict? There was no such "proving period" with the Egyptians under Camp David, who got everything --all of Sinai down to the last grain of sand-- more or less in one swoop. With no need ever to prove their intentions.
In the case of the Palestinians, not only is it true that there was never any "proving period", during which the PLO might have been asked to prove itself capable of governing or to exhibit its good behavior before being awarded additional assets; to the contrary, despite the fact that after each round of concessions the PLO violated every punctuation mark of its obligations, Israel insisted on moving on to the next round of concessions. Israel under both the Labor Lemmings and the Likud's Wye's Men of Chelm.
And now Barak is rushing forward helter-skelter to sign a deal with Syria that is also not based on any proving period. It would be one thing to start turning over small chunks of the Golan periodically, say every five years for 50 years, in between which Syria would demonstrate its intentions and good will and prove itself. But that is not even on the table as an option. Barak has already promised the entire Golan to Assad in one swoop, regardless of Syrian proof of intentions, without even getting any oral promise out of Assad for good behavior.
So the mystery is, how come? Why has there never been an Israeli-Arab accord based on Arabs proving themselves (with the possible exception--maybe--of Jordan).
Well, the answer--in my opinion-- is that this is simply one more manifestation of the Israeli determination to detach all diplomacy and politics from morality. Total moral relativity, to use the PC term. You see, if one insists on a period of "proving its intentions and behavior" for an Arab political entity, then one is asserting and insisting that the Arabs behaved badly in the past. One is saying that the Arab negotiating partner is guilty of past immorality and aggression and evil. Negotiations then must be based on the Arab side proving it no longer is so.
But once one abandons the moral argument, once one declines to insist on the moral justice of one's own position (present and past) and the injustice and immorality of the past behavior of one's negotiating partner, then both sides become moral equivalents. Symmetry prevails. Assad then need no more prove his good intentions or that he has "reformed" than must Israel. It offends the Syrians or the Palestinians when Israel paints them as the guilty parties and aggressors and terrorists and criminals. So out of politeness, Israel declines to raise moral aspects, agrees to moral symmetry. No "proving period" can be justified for the Arabs, any more so than for Israel.
The survival of Israel now depends on Israelis and Jews recovering their moral compass. The alternative is extinction.
Steven Plaut teaches at the University of Haifa.
"We gave a new momentum to the peace process. Momentum, simultaneity, these are the key concepts. After years of blah, blah about a safe passage, we ordered opening. We released prisoners. After years of talking fruitlessly about letting the Palestinians build their own seaport, I just ordered to allow them to build it. We dismantled certain outposts." This is the world according to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
It was quite a performance. Barak was in New York City for a three-day whirlwind of self-congratulation. He quoted Robert Frost, extolled William Clinton and Hillary Rodham for their "unflagging diplomatic efforts to help us find our way toward peace," and "detailed his vision" for the illustrious Charlie Rose. He magnanimously pitied his predecessor, Mr. Netanyahu who "somehow" went astray.
On November 20, Barak addressed the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations. These are spiritual descendants of the Court Jews forever limbering their spines by helping the State Department force its bitter pills down Jewish throats. Underscoring how he hobnobs with Clinton, Chirac and Schroeder, Barak failed to mention that WolfgangTierse, the speaker of the Bundestag, had just toured Hebron and the Machpelah cave with Palestinian guards from Force 17. (The armbands of this gang show a map uniting all of "Jordan" and Israel). Tierse was too busy to speak with Hebron's Jews. Barak proclaimed to the Conference that all Israeli troops would be out of Lebanon by July 2000. "The 17 year tragedy will be reaching its end," he claimed. Back in the Middle East, agents of his government are begging Syria to accept a unilateral Israeli withdrawal without also taking the Golan Heights just yet.
In fact, the tragedy seventeen years ago
was that Israel withdrew from Lebanon, ceding control of that
[(Continued on p.7)]
Outpost - 6 - December 1999