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CounterPunch
September
2, 2002
The Return of
the Dinosaurs
by Uri Avnery
How did the dinosaurs die out? There are many
theories about this. For example, that a meteor hit earth and
the ensuing dust cloud obliterated the sun.
I have a theory of my own: the dinosaurs
suffered from a lack of proportion between body and brain. The
tyrannosaurus, for example, had monstrous physical dimensions
but his brain was the size of a pea. Then our ancestors, the
little mammals, arrived and displaced them everywhere.
Now we are witnessing the return of the
dinosaurs. Human dinosaurs. People who control immense power
structures and who have the brains of a bird.
Take the American tyrannosaurus. He has
power that no empire in the history of the world could even have
dreamed of. The US military machine can take over the whole world,
wage war anywhere, destroy any country, eliminate any people.
Over this immense body reigns the brain of George W. Bush, and
around him a small group of people whose moral standard and intellectual
capacity are like those of the caveman.
But why should we look down on others?
After all, the Israeli tyrannosaurus is no different from his
big brother. Compared to all his neighbors, he has immense military
capacity, and over this huge power reigns the brain of a child.
This week the Chief-of-Staff of the Israeli
army, General Moshe Ya'alon, gave an interview to Ha'aretz. Not
two months have passed since he assumed office, but the country
is full of his philosophical output. We have learned about his
mental world, his intellectual capacity and his leadership pretensions.
From these three viewpoints, his outpourings are rather frightening
- especially since every word of them has been approved, at least
post factum, by Ariel Sharon.
The mental world of Moshe Ya'alon is
composed of a heap of hackneyed myths that are taught in Israeli
elementary schools instead of history. He repeats them like a
not-very-intellectual pupil. But his pretensions are those of
a super-leader, who stands above the government, the Knesset
and the people.
His predecessor, Shaul Mofaz, was a man
of the extreme right. Yaalon goes further. He reminds one of
the words of King Solomon's son, Rehoboam, who told his people:
"My father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise
you with scorpions." * (1 Kings 12, 11)
(* The Hebrew word for "whips"
means also "fools".)
These are the main teachings of Ya'alon:
The Palestinian danger is a cancer. This
is an existential threat. We are David, they are Goliath. They
have the backing of a quarter of a billion Arabs. We have no
intention of annihilating them, while they are not ready to recognize
our right to exist here as a Jewish state. The State of Israel
has put on the table (at Camp David) a proposal that would have
solved the problem, but they rejected everything. It is not a
question of occupation. The aim of the Palestinian people is
to bring down the State of Israel. The Oslo agreement was a Trojan
horse. The aim of Arafat is to eliminate the State of Israel
by stages, using terror and demography.
We learn several things from these teachings.
First: Ya'alon is quite devoid of any new, original or creative
thought. Any schoolchild in Israel could say exactly the same
things. Second: speaking politely, the validity of each of these
arguments, which seems to him self-evident, is doubtful. Speaking
bluntly, they are a heap of rubbish.
Very briefly:
It is not the Palestinian danger that
is a cancer, but the occupation that breeds terrorism. There
is no existential danger. We are Goliath, very big, very well-armored,
very unwise. Almost all of the quarter of a billion Arabs are
ruled by regimes dependent on the USA, which don't give a damn
for the Palestinians. A large groups of ministers in the Israeli
government indeed aim to destroy the Palestinian national entity
by driving the Palestinians out of their country ("transfer").
At Oslo, the Palestinians recognized the existence of the State
of Israel, and that is all that is demanded of them. The character
of our state ("Jewish" or otherwise) is not their business.
At Camp David, Ehud Barak put forward proposals that were very
far from "solving the problem". If it were Arafat's
aim to destroy Israel "by stages", he would have accepted
Barak's proposals and moved to the next stage. If Rabin's successors
- Prime Ministers and Chiefs-of-Staff - had not sabotaged the
Oslo agreement, it would by now have brought peace and security.
Demography is not within the purview of Ya'alon (three children)
or Arafat (one daughter). Anyone worried by this aspect of the
conflict should move out of the Palestinian territories at once.
There is a psychological condition called
paranoia vera, whose victims take a fallacious assumption ("the
earth is a cube") and build a whole logical structure on
it. The more complete the structure, the more serious the condition.
Ya'alon builds his conclusions on his
fallacious assumptions: the present war (the one he, accidentally,
is commanding) is the most important in the annals of Israel
since 1948. No withdrawal from any place is permissible, because
it would encourage the Palestinians. Therefore, not even one
single settlement can be dismantled, isolated as it may be. The
building of the "security fence" (between Israel proper
and the occupied territories) is a mistake ("I would invest
the money somewhere else".) Concessions under fire will
cause an existential danger. This is an endless war. Generations
will pass before certain elements in the region will resign themselves
to the existence of Israel. (Ya'alon quotes a 1969 speech by
Moshe Dayan, in which he prophesied a war of many generations.)
There is no alternative.
But the most severe danger, according
to Yaalon, is the internal one. Israeli peace-lovers and human
rights activists are undermining the existence of the state and
the army and preventing victory. Victory means that "the
Palestinian side internalize very deeply that by terrorism and
violence they will not vanquish us." Therefore, absolutely
no concession is allowed. The withdrawal from the South of Lebanon
was a mistake, and so was the withdrawal from Josef's tomb (an
isolated site in the middle of Nablus).
This means: there is no place for any
offer of compromise and idea of a settlement. What is needed
is a more and more repressive occupation. For example: Israel
must decree that no one would be allowed to be a candidate in
the Palestinian elections if he is "touched by terrorism",
much as the American military government in occupied Germany
did not allow ex-members of the Nazi party to be candidates in
German elections. Ergo: only candidates appointed by Israel will
be allowed to be elected and lead the Palestinian people. (Under
such a rule, Ben-Gurion, Begin and Shamir would not have been
elected in Israel.)
And who is the man who built this beautiful
structure? Ya'alon modestly introduced himself: "Personally,
I see myself as a Jew, Israeli, humanist, liberal, democrat,
peace and security lover." No more, no less.
He forgot to add another attribute: brazenness.
An phenomenal Chutzpah is needed for a general on active duty
to dismiss with contempt the decisions of the elected governments,
past and present, from the Oslo agreement to the security fence.
All this, of course, given as "professional expertise".
The question is, what, exactly, is Ya'alon's
profession? Talleyrand said that "War is much too serious
a matter to be left to military men." He knew what he was
talking about, since his boss (Napoleon) was a professional soldier,
who put his generals in charge of much of Europe.
A military officer has an important profession.
He learns to move forces, use weapon systems, command troops,
plan battles. But nothing - nothing at all! - in his professional
career prepares him for analyzing intricate political moves,
understand international relations or delve into the depths of
history. From these points of view, his "professional expertise"
is as valid as that of a plumber, an engineer of an ear, nose
and throat specialist. It certainly is less than that of a historian,
an Arabist or a professor of international relations.
Not to mention that it would be unthinkable
for an American, British, French or German Chief-of-Staff to
make a fraction of such a statement while still wearing a uniform.
In Israel, in the 36th year of the occupation, it sounds quite
natural.
The dinosaurs are back.
Uri Avnery
has closely followed the career of Sharon for four decades. Over
the years, he has written three extensive biographical essays
about him, two (1973, 1981) with his cooperation.
Copywrite 2002 by Uri Avnery.
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Sharon's
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The Sexual Life of Catherine M.
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at the State Dept.
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