Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Where I Stand—Brian Greenspun: Forcing Israel’s hand

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

HOW MUCH LONGER will the United States force Israel to wait before it can avenge the deaths of her children?

Perhaps the single most perplexing question that Americans have about Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is what is he waiting for and what will he do to exact a price for the senseless and murderous deaths of 20 Israeli teenagers at the hands of a suicide bomber. After all, Sharon was elected in a landslide by Israelis who, after giving peace a chance and getting nothing but the insidiousness of street warfare, wanted a tough guy to run the show and run Arafat's thugs out of their lives.

Now, if it is one thing we have learned during the short half century of Israel's statehood, it is that life in that part of the world is, at the least, complicated. It is complicated by those who use murder and bloodshed as a political tool and it is complicated by those who use oil and other resources also as a political tool. The United States falls into category two and the Palestinians under Arafat, with an assist from Syria, Iran and other bad actors in the region, head up the first.

The Gulf War, for all its noble calling, was about oil. It was about taking care of our friends -- those are the folks with the oil -- and punishing our enemies (here's where you get to that enemy of my friend is my enemy stuff). Don't get me wrong. I was as much for our involvement in Iraq as the next guy. The only difference, if any, was that I was willing to admit to less noble reasons. Not that our country doesn't act out of principle, because it does. It is just in that case, the overriding principle was our interest in the free flowing of that region's oil resources.

That brings us back to Israel and the beating it is taking from suicide bombers and other killers who look for greater glory for themselves and greater pain for Israeli children who have done nothing other than to try and grow up in the only democracy in the Middle East.

It was not too long ago that the world publicly condemned and privately cheered Israel's unilateral decision to attack and destroy Iraq's nuclear plant at Osirak. That decision made President George Bush's Gulf War decision an easy one else he would have been looking at a nuclear war rather than one that resembled a day at the target practice range. And it wasn't that long ago when the world publicly condemned and privately cheered for the way Israel shellacked its enemies who preyed on innocent men, women and children from secret hideouts in Lebanon. And what about the way that tiny democratic state single-handedly destroyed a large part of the Syrian Air Force and most of its air defense systems? That got some raves at the Pentagon and in other Western countries where bullying and belligerency are frowned upon.

So what gives now?

Secretary of State Colin Powell goes over to Israel and asks, probably begs, Sharon not to retaliate for the murders of all those children, and Sharon gives in. And he was right to do so!

As hard as it is to look your fellow countrymen in the eyes and tell them you are going to do nothing to avenge the deaths of their children, Sharon acted wisely. He did so not just because the Americans were pressuring him not to act but because he knew it was the only way that he might bring cooler minds and warmer hearts to bear on the issue of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Shortly afterward, a cease-fire was arranged and a timetable was set by which a cooling-down period might follow and, with the greatest of luck and a miracle or two, peace talks might pick back up.

Well, perhaps Sharon had the best intentions, but others not so intent on peace have had other plans. For certain, the violence in Israel has decreased, but the death toll hasn't stopped rising. Cease-fire means something other than cease. Perhaps the phrase should be "less firing and fewer deaths" because the fact remains that the bad guys are still winning and the good guys are still dying.

So what will or should happen next? How much longer is the man responsible for Israeli security going to sit on his hands and succumb to American pressure and his own desire to go many more extra miles for peace or, at least, peaceful coexistence? I fear not much longer at all.

I know I am biased on this subject but I am quite certain that the rest of the world, regardless of the propaganda machines employed by those who would have us believe Israel is responsible for killing its own, agrees that the time has come to protect the people rather than serve the interests of those who wish you ill. I suspect that if the killing does not stop, and I mean like Sharon says, stop, then he will take an action that will not please Mr. Arafat and his friends.

It will be an action that may redraw the lines of history and refocus the art of defense upon those who wish Israel harm. It will be an action that may turn back the clock of peace in that part of the world and test the pacts of peace already committed to by major players in the Middle East. And it may be so swift and so unsuspecting that Israel's friends will take notice and her enemies will take cover. It will, in short, be bold, dramatic and effective. Just like one would expect from Ariel Sharon.

And, years later, perhaps, the world will look back and remember that it, once again and just as cowardly, publicly condemned and privately cheered tiny Israel. An Israel that will finally know peace with her neighbors.

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