Israel caught in a dilemma, but can escape with U.S. help

Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, once said Israel was both a "powerful military force" and "weaker than a spider's web." This apparent oxymoron has been a key belief among certain Arab leaders, explaining much of their strategy. It also carries a nub of dismal truth about Israel's dilemma.

That dilemma was revealed again in the recent tragedy of Lebanese civilians killed and injured by Israeli rockets — and followed by a world uproar.

With its "powerful military force" fully activated, Israel could have presumably wiped out Hezbollah by now. But in such an all-out military choice, the carnage among Lebanese would have increased massively. According to most calculations (verified by the current uproar) such an all-out decisive military action would have gravely wounded Israel's political position, and might have damaged its long-range chance for survival.

But what happens to that long-range chance for survival if Hezbollah is allowed to endlessly attack Israel with rockets from Iran by way of Syria? That is Israel's dilemma, the "weakness" to which Nasrallah refers. One dimension of this weakness is exposed by the fact that Europe and the U.N. are less outraged by the Hezbollah/Syria/Iran attacks than by Israel's defensive efforts against them.

It would be an unhelpful error to dismiss that disproportionate reaction as a product of "anti-Semitism." Of course, there is plenty of that in Europe, and an overwhelming amount in the Arab world.

But today, the sharp, growing edge of anti-Semitism is created not by the old Christianity-rooted anti-Jewish attitudes, but by anti-Israelism. The European anti-Israelism stems from such factors as dependence on oil and panic at the encroaching totalitarian Muslimist movement. In the Arab world, it stems from the political agenda of the same movement. A campaign against anti-Semitism itself will not diminish Israel's dilemma, or its "weakness."

What remedial choice is left? Many suggest "negotiation" and its practice, "diplomacy." In the arena of international conflict-resolution, few words ring with as much virtue as "negotiation." Just say the word, and the flutter of doves can be heard in the rafters.

For the democracies, it is indeed a deservedly noble word, founded on the idea that all conflicts are best resolved by the give and take of rational negotiation between conflicted parties. But therein lies another dilemma for Israel. It has learned, the hard way, that "negotiation" with the likes of Hezbollah, Hamas, or their supporters is counterfeit. It does not involve the "give and take of rational negotiation."

The end of Israel, amounting to another "final solution" is their non-negotiable objective.

What about the modifying influences of such interveners as continental Europe and the U.N.? These parties lend another deadly poison to negotiations: their failure of nerve. Because of their special interests and indifferences, they have not had the backbone to push an equitable "give and take" on the Arab side. They apparently do not remember that counterfeit negotiation — with sham on one side and capitulation on the other — proved to be a weapon of mass destruction in the 1930s. And such negotiations can again be weapons of mass destruction, used against Israel and eventually against the Western world.

A large part of the Arab world had cohered around Iran and the militant Muslimist movement, had an unlimited source of rockets, and understood Israel's strategic "weakness." Israel was faced with the famous Hobson's choice, defined by the dictionary as a choice between undesirable alternatives.

Endless bombing of Israel from Lebanon, all-out Israeli invasion of Lebanon, counterfeit negotiations designed to bleed Israel dry — were all deadly alternatives. In its attempt to selectively attack Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel took the least undesirable alternative in this Hobson's Choice.

It may not work, but it was all that was left. And it may be the only choice that can work, at least to end this crisis. It is most grievous to the Israelis that their selective military defense will necessarily kill or wound Lebanese civilians, especially if Hezbollah insists on launching its rockets from populous areas. Prime Minister Golda Meier once said that the Israelis might be able someday to forgive the PLO for killing Israelis, but could never forgive the PLO for making Israelis kill Palestinians.

But war is hell, and what choice does Israel have but persist in its defensive war until this intolerable situation alters?

And there have been inklings that with persistence, Israel's Hobson's choice might work. The militant Arab world has its own strategic weaknesses. In the face of Israel's persistence and the nervousness of Europe, the U.N. and the more ameliorative Arab nations, there could emerge a new and better stage whose exact nature we cannot foresee.

But that possibility depends heavily on the ability of America to resist its own failure of nerve — and to continue, in the main, to support Israel's persistence, while seeking that other and better stage.




Earl Raab is director emeritus of Brandeis University's Nathan Perlmutter Institute for Jewish Advocacy. He is executive director emeritus of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Relations Council.