Tuesday, December 01, 2009

The Other Option

Lawrence Hart, a graduate student at CSU-Northridge, has an editorial in the Jerusalem Post entitled "The option no one wants to think about". Essentially, it says that Israel has lost its edge when it comes to counter-terrorism operation, and should take a page from Sri Lanka's book.
The Sri Lankans had more or less lived with this horror since 1983. Then 9/11 happened and a new dynamic, promoted by president George W. Bush and the United States, gave the Sri Lankans a new outlook. With a new administration elected on the promise of stopping the LTTE permanently, the country embarked on a full-scale military assault. It sent its army, much stronger than the Tamil tigers, into Tamil-occupied territory and began to take back town by town, going street to street in some cases, and killing anyone who resisted.

Jehan Perera of the Sri Lankan Peace Council said, "This government has taken the position that virtually any price is worth paying to rid the country of terrorism."

The price paid was indeed a heavy one. Many innocent people died. The Sri Lankan government deeply regrets the killing of innocent civilians, but most government officials believe they made a conscious choice to pay that price, and that the alternative status quo was simply no longer acceptable.

It was bloody and dirty, and they took a lot of criticism for it. The UN estimates that during the final months of fighting in Sri Lanka, at least 7,000 Tamil civilians were killed and 13,000 were wounded. But they also wiped out the scourge of terror, not stopping until total victory was declared last May. Today, Sri Lankans can once again walk the streets of their cities, visit the marketplaces and conduct business without the fear of being murdered in such gruesome ways that not even their loved ones can identify their bodies. It is a new dawn for Sri Lanka.

Israel can take a real lesson from this experience. The threat facing the Jewish state from the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon is no different than the threat to the north of Sri Lanka, and its coastline into the south that the Tamils occupied before the Sri Lankan army began its war of elimination.

THE TIME has come to admit that there might not be a solution to the Palestinian problem, but there is a way to end it. The next time terror forces Israel to take military action, this option should be considered. Israel must realize that there will be no peace with an intransigent enemy that refuses to act in good faith. Palestinian rejectionism and Iranian-backed Hizbullah threats to our existence will never be placated; they will not stop until Israel is destroyed. Once the population realizes this unfortunate reality, there is only one way to change it. Israel must take the Sri Lankan initiative and move into these areas one by one, cornering, enveloping and killing off all armed resistance.

We've already discussed how Sri Lanka can be a very instructive example. But I want to take a look at Mr. Hart's particular comparison, because I think it reveals something that is both very dark and very important at the same time.

Mr. Hart's proposal represents a possible future -- call it the Sri Lanka option. It is one where Israel simply abandons the idea of a negotiated settlement, recognizes its superior military might, and crushes all who get in its way. Effectively, it is the path that anti-Zionists seem to suspect Israel wants to take. What isn't clear, though, is why Israel hasn't taken it yet. The uninformed, of course, call Cast Lead (or the occupation generally) "genocide", but clearly they have no idea what the term means. If Israel was attempting to launch a genocide in Gaza, then they are the Keystone Kops of the genre (1,200 deaths out of a population of over 400,000? Please.). Trust me: if Israel was interested in genocide, they could do a far more thorough job of it.

There is a segment of Israel's most passionate critics -- a very naive segment, but perhaps not a consciously malicious one* -- whose political action rests on a simple premise: things can't get worse there. And if they do, the world won't tolerate it. And that's the ultimate check against Israel ever adopting the Sri Lanka option. If you tell them that their actions are likely to give succor to the Israeli right and diminish the prospects of the Israeli left, they'll say "as opposed to what? Israel can't make things worse. And if they do," say, by adopting Mr. Hart's eliminationist proposal, "the world won't stand for it. The whole edifice would come down." There is an upside, and no downside, to increased pressure, isolation, demonization, and hatred. Things can't get worse.

The history of the world (not to mention Sri Lanka itself), alas, does not seem to bear this outlook out. It is quite rare to see a state fall. When they do, it generally is either because of intractable domestic violence or a completely collapsed economy. One thing that almost never destroys a state, however, is wrongful conduct. North Korea is still around. China is still around. Burma is still around. Cuba is still around. Iran is still around. Zimbabwe is still around. Uzbekistan is still around. States don't fall because they do wrong.

We have an incredible capacity to allow the most hideous evils to pass by with only shocked gasps. We have an incredible capacity to look past grievous sins with only occasional tuts. I have an Israeli friend from Sderot, the town best known for serving as Hamas' local firing range and for being mostly ignored by the international left. He told me once that Israel's original sin was not the Nakba, it was not finishing the job. Not because such an act would have been justified -- it wouldn't have been, it would have been gravely evil, just as Mr. Hart's proposal is. But he simply observed that had they done so, they'd have come in for far less criticism than they do today for comparatively far milder harms. This observation, first expressed by Machiavelli, has been made before.

And Mr. Hart seems to be operating under the same logic. If Israel took its advice, it would come under virulent criticism. The trade unions would be outraged. The UN would be outraged. I'd be outraged. And all of our outrage would likely be for naught. States don't fall because they do wrong.

Maybe the rules for Jews are different. It's plausible. The normal standards don't apply to us, after all -- it is quite easy for me to imagine that a world which yawned through countless acts of barbarism, massacre, torture, mutilation, and murder would suddenly see its passions aroused when Jews are the perpetrators -- to the degree that they would be willing to intervene and stop it. But I'm doubtful. I think we'll see what we usually see: angry words, little action, and lots of forgetfulness.

There is, in other words, another option. The choices aren't "status quo" or "just peace". There is also "ethnic cleansing". And the more Israel sees that adopting liberal policies or using the tools of reconciliation yield no quarter from its critics (as when its most integrated, reconciliation-minded soccer team is the target of protest), the more likely these options become.

It can get worse. It can always get worse. And if it does, the world will do what it always does: ignore it.

* There is another segment, of which I genuinely think groups like the STUC belong to, that also does not believe things can get worse but also has no interest as to whether they get better. These groups are fundamentally malevolent, and insofar as they exist in a deliberately symbiotic relationship with Israeli extremists to further their own cynical ends, they ought to be held to account with their partners in Israel if the horrors they stoke come to pass.

UPDATE: A repost to this quote of the evening seems appropriate:
I have yet to see a serious act of violence that was not provoked by the experience of feeling shamed and humiliated, disrespected, and ridiculed, and that did not represent the attempt to prevent or undo this "loss of face" -- no matter how severe the punishment, even if it includes death.... [T]hese men mean it literally when they say they would rather kill or mutilate others, be killed or mutilated themselves, than live without pride, dignity, and self-respect.... The emotion of shame is the primary or ultimate cause of all violence.

JAMES GILLIGAN, VIOLENCE 110-111 (1996).

15 comments:

joe said...

David, I have nothing to say about your larger points but if you think genocide just means mass killing of a group you also don't know the definition. According to Raphael Lemkin it's a lot broader than that, and I'd give him some deference because he invented the word. This is more than semantics because it's also a legal term.

David Schraub said...

The casual definition of genocide, from Merriam-Webster, is "the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group".

The technical legal definition from the convention is "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group," where "in part" requires that the part be a "substantial" part of the overall group, or alternatively, the part of the group that the allegedly genocidal entity had access to. So, for example, if Iran tried to kill all the Jews in Israel, that would be genocide even though there are plenty of Jews outside Israel.

But I don't think this has much effect on what I wrote in the post.

chingona said...

I'd give it a few more decades before I'd declare the Sri Lankan operation a success. Just saying.

joe said...

Your post was so long I basically read it in two sittings. So...

I like this quote, and it aptly sums up a lot of armed conflict, except in a lot of cases (i.e. most modern US wars) it's not utter debasement but a mere feeling that "national honor" will be somehow diminished that starts the war drums.

"Maybe the rules for Jews are different. It's plausible. The normal standards don't apply to us, after all -- it is quite easy for me to imagine that a world which yawned through countless acts of barbarism, massacre, torture, mutilation, and murder would suddenly see its passions aroused when Jews are the perpetrators -- to the degree that they would be willing to intervene and stop it. But I'm doubtful. I think we'll see what we usually see: angry words, little action, and lots of forgetfulness."

This last sentence is at war with the rest of the paragraph. At the very least consider revising for clarity. You can easily imagine the international community acting a lot differently than how you think it will act in all likelihood? Beyond that stylistic matter, since you just got done saying there's a glaring double standard at work you may want to explain why that's not operative in this case.

PG said...

"You can easily imagine the international community acting a lot differently than how you think it will act in all likelihood?"

Why is this stylistically problematic? I assume you are familiar with the difference between imagination (I can easily imagine getting laid off from my job, given the general circumstances of recession) versus what is most likely (I most likely will not be laid off from my job because my employer has made efforts to avoid layoffs). The realm of possibility is a great deal larger than the realm of probability.

"since you just got done saying there's a glaring double standard at work you may want to explain why that's not operative in this case."

He said maybe the rules for Jews are different here, because they have been different in some other instances. And he just explained at length why he thought they probably wouldn't be different here.

I'm all for contrarianism (and I agree with chingona that I'd give Sri Lanka some time before assuming their solution actually worked), but have the grace to actually read carefully with an effort toward comprehension.

David Schraub said...

I think it is fair to hold judgment on whether Sri Lanka's option worked, but I think it is quite clear that, regardless of whether it works or not, it won't suffer any repercussions for it aside from (temporary and surprisingly muted) verbal condemnations. And that's the point -- taking this option has surprisingly few tangible negative consequences (aside from, obviously, being grossly immoral).

Rebecca said...

What is "STUC"?

David Schraub said...

The Scottish Trade Union Congress (see this post, to which this one was a sub silentio sequel).

joe said...

re imagination: Yes, we can imagine a lot of things. A lot of people imagine Obama will put all of Middle America in forced labor camps. But there reaches a point where these things are too implausible to warrant mention in a serious discussion. I think that given the basic adherence of the international community to realpolitik, any serious intervention under this hypothetical would be out of the question, especially for non-Arab states. At most I could envision some sort of attempted embargo that wouldn't mean much unless the U.S. signed on. And on the miniscule chance that happened some other big country (China, India, or maybe Russia) would bow out in accordance with its own geopolitical interests and become Israel's new best friend.

"He said maybe the rules for Jews are different here, because they have been different in some other instances. And he just explained at length why he thought they probably wouldn't be different here."

It's still pretty conflicted as an argument. He did (basically) say the world at large doesn't really give a damn about genocide, but that's not a lengthy explanation, and it hurt my eyes to see it as an aside in a longer sentence on double standards. Part of that's stylistic, but since he just got done saying genocide gets met with depraved indifference I think he needs to really hammer home the idea of *huge* double standards (especially in terms of concrete state action as opposed to General Assembly resolutions or what have you) if he wants to overcome that presumption. And he doesn't do that; he concludes it would be incorrect. So the whole exercise basically translates to me as "I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'." And as a rhetorical matter, to the extent David wants to remind us Israel is held to a double standard, he shouldn't juxtapose that with an example where the standard appears basically uniform.

"I'm all for contrarianism (and I agree with chingona that I'd give Sri Lanka some time before assuming their solution actually worked), but have the grace to actually read carefully with an effort toward comprehension."

Come on now. I made a good faith effort at reading, even if you disagree strongly with my conclusions.

PG said...

"I think that given the basic adherence of the international community to realpolitik"

Except the international community has in the past intervened when it decided that the claim that the genocide-esque measures were necessary was false. See, e.g., NATO response to extended ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, which if you ask the Serbs was merely part of the civil war and entirely justified in order to preserve the integrity of the nation. It's possible to wake up the international community to genocide; it's just that the alarm bell seems connected to a certain degree of whiteness.

"David wants to remind us Israel is held to a double standard, he shouldn't juxtapose that with an example where the standard appears basically uniform."

Huh? He points to other situations that indicate Israel is held to a different standard as making it possible for him to imagine that Israel could be treated differently once again if it acted as Sri Lanka has. Then he says that's probably outweighed by the general disinclination to interfere in the majority group's method of settling a violent conflict. Why is saying "This factor could come into play, but it's probably outweighed by this larger factor" stylistically bad? I thought this was normally called nuanced analysis.

joe said...

I'll just use my study break to de-lurk to say the efficacy of the Yugoslavia intervention has been called into question. And I suspect Israel is a more attractive ally in the eyes of many global powers.

PG said...

Which puts the Yugoslavia intervention in the same category as Sri Lanka's counter-terrorism strategy: it's debatable in its effectiveness, but it did still happen.

joe said...

We weren't comparing NATO intervention in Yugoslavia to actions by the Sri Lankan government. The comparison is to the hypothetical world intervention against Israel that David can imagine. The efficacy was a tangent to me saying Israel has more protection than Yugoslavia.

joe said...

I just remembered why I mentioned it; the NATO intervention being ineffective is evidence the international community doesn't care *that* much or they'd try harder.

PG said...

The calculus is not the effectiveness in preventing the genocide, but the likelihood that there will be consequences for inflicting it. There are autonomous regions within Serbia for the ethnic minorities, and the people responsible for the genocide are in prison for life, awaiting sentencing or died during trial. NATO didn't prevent the ethnic cleansing, but the goal of the cleansing (getting rid of those minorities that wanted autonomy) was defeated.