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CounterPunch
February
15, 2003
Lessons from Israel
A War Without
Legitimacy
By LEV GRINBERG
Despite the fact that the war against Iraq is
presented also as aimed to protect Israel from Sadam's aggressive
intentions, Israeli public opinion is not convinced that the
war is needed. A new
poll shows that only 46% support waging the war without international
legitimacy, and 43% oppose it. In addition, a new coalition of
peace organizations has been formed to join the world protest
on February 15. Apparently the Israelis know something about
preemptive wars that President Bush ignores. I would suggest
learning some lessons from the Israeli experience.
Israel has waged two wars that were defined
as preemptive: The 1967 War, named The Six Days War, and the
Lebanon War in 1982. In both cases, Israel had serious reasons
to assume it was going to be attacked, a hundred times more so
than the US's current concern about its security. In 1967, Gamal
Abdel Nasser closed the Tiran Straits, Israel's only southern
outlet to the sea. He also asked the UN to withdraw the forces
camped in the Sinai Desert to separate between Israel and Egypt.
Nasser kept escalating his verbal attacks against Israel, and
threatening military moves were made by both Egypt and Syria.
In response, Israel launched a preemptive war.
In 1982, the Lebanese border was quiet,
following a ceasefire agreement between Israel and the PLO which
held for about a year, but Israel had intelligence that PLO was
fortifying its position in Southern Lebanon and preparing for
a future military confrontation. Using a dubious pretext the
IDF invaded Lebanon, headed by Defense Minister Ariel Sharon,
who lied to the Israeli public and government, claiming that
his intentions were purely defensive, i.e., take over Southern
Lebanon to prevent Katyusha missile attacks against Israel. Within
two days, the IDF was deployed on the outskirts of Beirut, which
was kept under siege for two and half months; its entry into
the city was blocked by pressure from Israeli and international
public opinion concerned about the potential catastrophe that
would ensue from a military invasion into a city where tens of
thousands of fighters were entrenched. Following the withdrawal
of PLO forces from Beirut, the notorious massacre at the Sabra
and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps pushed out on the streets
almost 10% of Israel's citizens in an unprecedented mass demonstration
against their government. Sharon was fired from his job as the
result of the conclusions of an inquiry committee regarding his
ministerial responsibility in the affair.
The outcomes of both preemptive wars
are well known: Both ended in a military victory and a moral
and diplomatic defeat. Israel's pre-1967 image as a peace-seeking
nation has been tainted by the seizure of the West Bank from
Jordan, the Sinai Desert from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from
Syria. The impressive achievements of the peace treaty with Egypt
and the withdrawal from Sinai in 1982 were tainted by the capture
of Lebanon a month later. Getting out of both proved difficult:
it took the IDF 18 years to extract itself out of Lebanon, and
it has yet to extract itself from the West Bank, Gaza Strip and
the Golan Heights. Israel's activities in these occupied territories
are perceived as illegal not only by their inhabitants, but also
by the majority of international public opinion and a significant
share of Israeli citizens, including soldiers. Israel constantly
commits illegal acts in order to maintain the occupation, while
the local population and the majority of international public
opinion perceive acts of resistance to the occupation as legitimate.
Moreover, the preemptive war engenders new security problems,
due to the illegitimacy of the occupation. The most obvious example
is the Yom Kippur War (1973), when Israel was unable to launch
a renewed preemptive war in order to defend its presence in the
Sinai, and had to sustain the first blow, which caused the highest
casualties toll since its establishment.
My suggested conclusion is that there
are fundamental reasons for the predictable failure of preemptive
wars:
1. Even when the threat is serious and
real (unlike the current case of Iraq), the aggressor is invariably
the country that initiates the attack, and thus de-legitimized.
The US's current problems with international public opinion and
its own citizenry would undoubtedly exacerbate once it launches
the attack and is perceived as the aggressor, unlike in the 1991
war, in which Iraq had attacked Kuwait.
2. Preemptive wars are not waged against
an aggressive army that can be crushed and forced to stop the
aggression, but against a hostile regime that is said to foster
aggressive intentions. Hence, preemptive wars are waged against
the sovereignty of the attacked state. In order to extricate
the hostile regime a full occupation of civilian population is
necessary, and withdrawal before a new and stable regime is put
in place becomes very difficult, due to the danger that a new
hostile regime could rise once again. Preemptive wars therefore
necessitate a permanent deployment of foreign military power
in occupied areas. Israel remained in Lebanon for 18 years for
fear of Hizballa takeover, and has already marked the 35th anniversary
of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as a result of its
fated attempt to avert Palestinian independence.
3. Preemptive wars create mounting protests
by international public opinion and among the citizens of the
aggressive state. The use of violence is perceived as illegitimate,
a fact that undermines the fighting capacities of the military
and prevents the establishment of a friendly regime once the
takeover has been completed. The lack of legitimacy subverts
the soldiers' conviction about the necessity of the war and feeds
the resistance in the occupied territories, widely supported
by the local population.
All these obstacles are bound to arise
in the planned preemptive war that the Bush Administration attempts
to launch against Sadam Hussein's regime. All the US's military
and technological might and its dominant global economic position
would make no difference. There are no just wars, unless they
are defensive wars perceived as vital for saving life. Soon it
would be Bush, rather than Sadam Hussein, who would be putting
the world in danger. American aggression would no longer be regarded
as an expression of its might, but as a public admission of weakness.
Having already exposed the underbelly of the world's only superpower,
Osama Bin Laden would soon become the great winner of the war,
and the religious belief that God is on his side will only grow
stronger. Again, there is a lesson to be learned from Israel's
experience with the rise of Hizballa in Lebanon after 1982 and
of Hamas and Islamic Jihad among the Palestinians in the 1990's.
Military occupation is not the way to fight terrorism; it is
the sure way to boost and encourage it. You have been warned.
Lev Grinberg
is a political sociologist and senior lecturer at Ben Gurion
University. He can be reached at: lev@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
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