Soul searching

Sunday, October 05, 2003, Yom Kippur, 5764

But there is a growing concern that just as in 1973, the country's leadership was blindsided because of a self-delusional concept about its strength and Arab weakness, Israeli policy in 2003 is helping to perpetuate, rather than shorten the cycle of violence.

The bombing of a site about 15 kilometers out of Damascus where Jerusalem says various terrorist groups have trained and stored equipment for decades – backing up the claim with videotaped footage from Iranian TV – was much more of a message to Damascus and Beirut (and perhaps Tehran) than it was a message to the Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for the weekend suicide bombing in Haifa that took 19 lives.

The prevailing wisdom, spun by Jerusalem and to a certain extent backed by a carefully-worded White House statement issued on Sunday afternoon was that the Israel Air Force strike at the site known as Ein Saheb was part of the international efforts against a terrorist ‘axis of evil between Tehran. Damascus and Gaza.' The White House statement warned Israel and Syria to avoid steps that could deteriorate into broader hostilities, but its emphasis was on Syria being on ‘the wrong side' in the war against terror.

Lacking any credible military response against Israel – except short-range Iranian-supplied Hezbollah rockets positioned in south Lebanon and Scuds with chemical warheads, both considered strategic, not tactical, response weapons – Damascus announced it would go to the UN Security Council to complain about the attack.

Judging from the White House statement, any Security Council resolution that attacks Israel for the air raid without equally condemning the suicide bombings and other forms of terror against Israeli citizens is likely to face a U.S. veto.

But despite the apparently dramatic change in its strategy against terror, with Israeli sources saying that Jerusalem was ‘taking off the gloves' and observers saying it was trying to hitch a ride on the American war on terror, there are growing concerns about Israeli policy having grown captive to a ‘concept' that prevents it from finding a way to break the cycle of violence through anything other than force.

The weekend newspapers were full of commentaries that drew direct connections between the hubris of Israel's self-confidence in 1973 that made its leadership fail to read the signals – including blunt statements by Anwar Sadat, then president of Egypt – that the Arabs were serious about going to war if necessary to force Israel off occupied Arab land. And the subtext was clear – the government and military command should use this Yom Kippur for some serious soul searching about their actions over the past year and what they have planned for the future.

The mourning for the 2,850 soldiers killed in a little less than three weeks of fighting in 1973 continues to this day. Indeed, the 1973 war is perhaps the most traumatic moment in the 55-year history of the state, signaling the start of the breakdown of a general Israel consensus around a pragmatic center. Yet the '73 war ended at Kilometer 101 on the road to Cairo with a glimmer of hope as Israeli and Egyptian generals met to negotiate disengagement, and tentatively starting down the road that eventually led to the Sadat trip to Jerusalem after Menachem Begin was elected in 1977.

There's no glimmer of hope nowadays. Recent polls shows that nearly 75 percent of Israelis worry the future will be worse for their children. While the same proportion agree on the outlines of a two-state peace deal with the Palestinians they doubt such a deal is possible because of Palestinian rejectionism. Ironically and tragically, those numbers are reflected in Palestinian polls, with a large majority siding with the two state solution, but the same majority doubting Israel is ready for it.

Thus, as the most somber day of the year, Yom Kippur, descends on the country, and millions of Jews around the world go to synagogue to start 24 hours of soul searching and begging God's forgiveness for the sins of the outgoing year, there are no signs that the current political leadership will be questioning their own deeds of the past year.

The hawkish Right blames Yasser Arafat for all the terror continues calling for his expulsion. Several of the spokesmen calling for the move use the metaphor of ‘lancing a boil,' saying it would be painful in the short run but cleansing in the long run.

Meanwhile, the dovish Left has failed to galvanize a popular opposition, even though the combination of the government's incompetence at protecting Israeli lives and a recession deepening by the day should be giving the Left all the ammunition it needs to attack the government.

So, it's not only the government and military leaders who should be doing some soul searching this Yom Kippur.

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The Other Israel edited by Tom Segev, and published in September 2002, is a selection of essays, articles, and other jouranlist writings by a range of Israeli voices articulating practical, legal, and moral dissent to the Israeli government. The book questions popular assumptions about Israel's true supporters: are they those who support occupation, settlement and reprisal, or those calling for reconciliation and a just settlement? The book challenges the narrow perception that Zionism means taking over 'Judea, Samaria and the Gaza dsitrict.' Contributing writers include: David Grossman * Amira Hass * Avi Shlaim * Ilan Pappe * Gideon Levy * Meron Benvenisti * Neve Gordon * Shulamit Aloni * Baruch Kimmerling * Ami Ayalon * Ze'ev Sternhell * Gila Svirsky * Uri Avnery

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