Withdrawal: The Root Of Defeat,Daniel Greenfield

The Winograd Report focused on why the Second Lebanon War failed - but understanding why the war failed is not nearly as important as understanding why the war began.

From its birth, the State of Israel gradually expanded its territories, pushing back its enemies, increasing its frontiers and building new towns and villages to hold them. And then, in the last decade and a half, Israel began to shrink.

While Israel's population may have grown, the Land of Israel has been reduced, carved up, given away, tossed aside. The State of Israel, born with a vision of Jews returning to their land, has traded away that land in exchange for treaties with its enemies and the promise of a New Middle East built on economic cooperation that has never materialized outside the realm of Shimon Peres's oratory.

If one wishes to understand the mentality and mindset of a political class that has embraced withdrawal as a means of achieving security for Israel, no other words are needed but these, from a Jerusalem Post column by M.J. Rosenberg, director of the Israel Policy Forum's Washington Center:

"The invocation of the worst years in the history of the Jewish people as analogous to today's situation seems particularly absurd when you are walking along the seafront promenade in Tel Aviv."

Rosenberg goes on to say that Tel Aviv is "the place in Israel that is most antithetical to the Zionism of the settlers who choose to live not in an Israeli city, town, village or kibbutz but as a tiny minority among a Palestinian population hostile to its presence... The good news is that less than 5% of the Jewish population of Israel has chosen to abandon life in Israel for life on a hostile frontier."

Those are the words of a political class that walks the promenade of Tel Aviv, sits in its cafes, gazes at the sunsets - and even more closely watches its overseas bank accounts and IPOs. A political class that believes urban life somehow insulates it from the realities of life. Rockets have fallen on Haifa but so far not on Tel Aviv; until they do, war seems unreal and far away.

Magical thinking allows you to believe you can protect yourself from harm by drawing a line between you and danger and withdraw behind it. Withdrawing from harm is a natural childhood instinct - running away from what threatens us by going to a "safe place." For a child, that safe place might be a magical kingdom. For an adult, it can be the nightclubs and beaches of Tel Aviv, the lifestyle of an urban city permeated with a sense of unreality. An adult's magical kingdom to sate an adult's desires. But while the urban elites drench themselves in escapist hedonism, the frontier withers.

There are no safe places in the real world. For two thousand years Jews ran - from east to west and west to east, from Christian nations to Muslim nations and from Muslim nations to Christian nations and back again. Actually, the lucky ones ran. The unlucky ones died, hacked to pieces, burned at the stake, beaten and beheaded, hanged and pierced with swords, forcibly converted to foreign faiths, persecuted until they assimilated and perished.

After two thousand years, the Jews returned to their own land to make their stand. Under-equipped militia forces with old, surplus Czech weapons faced down the armies of five Arab nations, including Jordan's British-trained Arab Legion, and more than held their own. And then did it again and again. The price was heavy enough to break the heart but the point had been made. The Jewish people could live free from persecution in their own land - if they were willing to fight for it.

With the "Peace Process," Israel instead embraced withdrawal. Politicians preached that running away would bring Israelis to a "safe place" in the "New Middle East" that would surely materialize once Israel gave its enemies almost everything they wanted.

Israel kept retreating and the enemy kept advancing. It advanced into the roads and towns along the frontier and into Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and Haifa. Rockets fell, buses exploded, and cafes blew apart with the blasts of suicide bombers. At each new stage of withdrawal, there was ample warning that the very idea of withdrawal had already failed.

There was no "safe place" that could be created by retreating farther back, and magical lines on maps do not protect you from harm.

The Second Lebanon War was brought about not by Ehud Olmert but by Ehud Barak, who believed that Israel could give up its security zone in Lebanon and still be safe. The first installment of the price of that withdrawal came when Hizbullah used the border to attack Israel and shell Israeli towns and cities all the way into Haifa. So too the ongoing shelling of Israeli towns from Gaza is the product of the withdrawal from Gaza.

Retreat in the face of an enemy advances his position and reduces your own. Israel's limited territory insured that the retreats of the past decade and a half have put its cities back on the firing line. By neglecting and dismantling the frontier, the way is opened to the cities the frontier is meant to guard. Israel's urban elites in Haifa and Tel Aviv who clamored against the settlements and against Israel's security zone in Lebanon are finding that they are now the frontier.

In 1948 the frontier was not in Hebron, but at Tel Aviv, where the Egyptian army stood poised to invade the city. Israel pushed back the enemy at great price and secured and expanded its territory. Settlements and army bases went up to hold the frontier and protect the nation and the residents of Tel Aviv and Haifa - until in their arrogance the residents of those cities foolishly declared that the problem was in the frontier: If only we could pull back from the frontier, there would be peace.

Israel has pulled back from the frontier and now the frontier approaches Tel Aviv once more. From the frontier to the promenade of Tel Aviv, security is never achieved by withdrawal, and in the aftermath of withdrawal war inevitably follows.

Daniel Greenfield is an Israeli-born artist, writer and freelance commentator on political affairs with a special focus on Jewish concerns and the War on Terror. He maintains a blog at www.sultanknish.blogspot.com.

Read Comments (2)

Withdrawal: The Root Of Defeat , Daniel Greenfield

Mr Greenfield, Withdrawl & Defeat
Date 01:05, 05-20, 07

A powerful article with two major problems.

1) Land for peace has been the primary equation of the Israeli government since 1990. Whether you mention, Barak and Lebanon or Hizbullah or Hamas, the government of Israel has to do a better job of receiving international guarantees in advance of making any deals. Security is only available to Israel if it achieves real peace in Lebanon, or in Gaza. Unilateral moves may be politically expedient but often militarily unwise.

2) Technology is advancing too far and too fast to enable Israel to remain secure from strikes by individual terrorists and militia as well as unfriendly governments anywhere in the State of Israel.
Tel Aviv will be the front line tomorrow unless meaningful negotiations are undertaken by Israel with the Palestinians, the Syrians and the Arab League with serious involvement of the US, EU, and the UN. The world is becoming smaller each passing day. Peace is no longer an option, it is the only option.

Larry Snider

Re: Mr Greenfield, Withdrawl & Defeat
Date 05:05, 05-22, 07

Land for peace has indeed been the primary and failed policy of succeeding governments since 1990, primarily Labor governments. It has been an unmitigated disaster at every stage.

Security cannot be achieved through withdrawal and concessions. International promises have absolutely no meaning because they do nothing to restrain the terrorists and militias actually on the ground. Lebanon is a perfect example of that. Israel and the terrorists are never held to the same standard leading to Israel concessions which are exchanged for more terrorism.

Technology does not change the fundamental military equation. It only complicates it. The basic reality though remains unchanged. The peace option has been tried and thousands are dead on every side. Peace is a failed option. Security is the only option.