Samson Blinded: a Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict

Samson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict

Samson Blinded:

A Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict

by Obadiah Shoher

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Copyright ©1998-2006 Obadiah Shoher

Table of Contents

Foreword to the Second Edition

Foreword to the First Edition. On hate.

Theory

Cruel measures are sometimes the kindest

Machiavelli: goodness and cruelty

Realism, not superficial morality

No easy way out

Create a credible threat, act brutally

Arab mentality and discontent

Peaceful relations with Arabs are possible

The other Arabs do not care about the Palestinians

Arab countries have no reason to make peace

Territory is not worth lives, but sometimes there is no choice

Israel should restrict democracy

No inherent right to a state, no inviolable state

No historical right

The feasibility of conquering the Arab states

Abandon the pretense of humane war

Making Arabs Agree to Peace

Objectives of Peace

Israel does not need peace

Israel can sustain neither modern war nor a credible threat

An end of belligerence is imperative

The creation of a Palestinian state would not bring peace

No Palestinian state without a pan-Islamic peace agreement

The inadmissibility of vacillation

Israeli vacillation is provocative

Vacillation is costly and politically detrimental

Piecemeal compromises blur objectives

The fallacy of minor concessions

Abandon half-measures

Delaying the solution makes the problem chronic and harder to cure

Does Israel want economic and social progress in Arab countries?

Determine military strategy and adhere to it

Determine the Territorial Objectives

What area do the Israelis want?

Why does Israel need the territories?

The possibility of ceding the territories

Returning the territories might not lead to normalizing Arab-Israeli relations

Western perceptions of Arab nationalism are exaggerated

Annexation will not necessarily impede peace

A culturally attractive Israel could annex the territories more easily

Israel as regional empire

Conquer only militarily weak, economically viable states

Annexing foreign land

Winning tolerance of foreigners to annexation

Annexation tactics, expansion from a security belt

The threat of expansion would bring peace

Proper Military Strategy

Hiring foreign infantry

Harsh measures, not limited victory

The necessity of using chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons

Do not let potentially hostile regimes build Chemical Biological Nuclear arsenals

Humane war is costly and ineffective

Make retaliation personal

Deterrence does not work

Use large forces for conquest

Force Arab disarmament and turn Arab states into protectorates

Minimize the involvement of I.D.F. infantry

Non-military harassment of Arabs

Cruelty to prisoners

The Sinai treaty was misguided

Ideological warfare

Counteracting Guerrilla Warfare

Terrorism is a war like any other

Terrorists justifiably target civilians

Jews have historically engaged in terrorism

Terrorists should be respected as warriors

Attack terrorist bases

Attack governments and civilians who support terrorists

Attack Arab countries in response to terrorist acts

Retaliate against civilians for terrorist attacks

Destroy oil infrastructure in retaliation

Harsh actions are less painful

Strike the general population to quash terrorists

Define acceptable cruelty formally

Persecute the families of suicide bombers

Invaders lost Lebanon and Afghanistan because of restraint toward civilians

Destroy the terrorists’ support base

Abandon formalities; rely on suspicion and preemption

Collective liability

Act by stealth

Get the Arabs to fight for Israeli objectives

Acceding to terrorist demands does not lead to peace

Formal peace might not end terrorism

No tactical negotiations with terrorists

Political negotiations with terrorist groups are possible

Terrorism’s future is bright

Riot control

Avoid urban combat

Practical counter-terror measures

Influence of counterterrorism on freedom

Deal with WMD terrorism reasonably

Israeli-Arab Policy

The clash of European and Arab mentalities

A peaceful solutions must accommodate the Arab mentality

Jews should respect Arabs and demand respect from them

Divide the Arabs

Sabotage oil exports

Policy toward Palestine and Israeli Arabs

Only cruelty can instill fear in poor people

Israel has no interest in making Arabs rich

Israel doesn’t need to promote wealth in Palestine

A Palestinian state offers benefits

Necessary cruel steps to annexation

Downgrade Israeli Arabs’ citizen rights

The usefulness of sharia

Create the Palestinian state in Jordan

Judea

The case for Judea

Incompatible objectives

Judea might engage in annexation

Technical details of establishing Judea

Spiritual aspects of Judea

Religious jurisdiction

No concern with secular ethics

Judea would take the heat off Israel

Prospects for War and Guarantees of Peace: Doubtful

The Israeli Defense Force is not invincible

American support is not guaranteed

Modern anti-Semitism

The Need to Reconsider Values

Looming disillusionment

Define ethnic boundaries

Reliance on religion should be restrained

Changing the army

Political reform

Steps to be taken in the Diaspora communities

New goals

Dar al Islam is not the enemy of the West

Edward Said’s The End of the Peace Process

Building the state in the real world

The fate of the Palestinians is not Holocaust

Jews and Palestinians are not equal

The Palestinians claim special rights

No reason for preferential treatment of Arabs

Inequality is inherent in every conflict

Equality requires applying much harsher standards to Jews than to Palestinians

Misrepresenting and fact-twisting

Lie

Refugees: Double standards for Jewish and Palestinian refugees

Defeated aggressors cannot make demands

Settlements

The Palestinian Authority refuses Jews the right of return

Racism and incitement

Palestinian nationalism

Accusations against the United States

The requirement to sympathize with the Palestinians

Misjudgments of military matters

The democracy of Zionism

Historical errors

Terrorism

Cruelty and torture

Liberties

Refusing to accept reality

Land ownership

Jerusalem

Socialist values

Support for Arafat

Colonialism

The Palestinians are content with Israeli rule

Irresponsibility

Said rejects Israel’s right to exist

Conclusion

Foreword to the Second Edition

In the first edition of this book, I wrote about Palestinian claims, “Some chances lost cannot be regained.” That equally applies to the Jews.

Present Israel is doomed. A nation defined in religious terms cannot survive in a secular state. Religious Jews despise Western culture and alien religious practices in the Promised Land; secular Jews dislike outdated religious rites. Reformism gained strength in America and is poised to invade Israel, subverting the religion. The socialist state suffocates enterprising Jews, and welfare programs dilute their work ethics. Democratic centralism suppresses the strongly opinionated population. Military expenditures have reached an economic dead-end.

Why are the Jews, who waged such asymmetrical warfare against the British seventy years ago, now sheepishly obedient to the Israeli government? One reason is a much stronger security apparatus in Israel than in the Mandate Palestine. More importantly, people shrink from the uncomfortable realization that their government is their worst enemy, an apathy that dooms their country.

Egyptian society is boiling. Support for the Muslim Brotherhood visibly grows, and that radical group already controls the largest body of the parliament. Many adherents are moderates, but so it was before every revolution. Moderates clear the way to power for radicals who often begin their rule by butchering the moderates. Ageing Mubarak is losing his grip on his country and the people sense that. Democratizers further destabilize the situation by demanding the transparent election framework that will bring to power the Islamists, the only group untainted by corruption and perceived as able to combat it. Egypt barely controls its South, and a despised and corrupt police is both powerless and unreliable. Decades of propaganda etched, in the minds of two generations, Israel as the archenemy. Restitution of Sinai was not enough; they want revenge. Israel did not demilitarize Egypt when she could have, and now the enemy is coming back with a vengeance, armed with nuclear bombs.

Iran strives for Middle East dominance, a hard take for a non-Arab Shiite country. Nuclear technology is a must for the Iranian military, and Persian pride will not let them accept inferiority to Arab Egypt in this important aspect.

Pakistan exports nuclear technology and scientists, and no one outside that country knows the whereabouts of all its bombs. The secular Pakistani elite is unstable, and Islamic politicians ascend the election ladder.

Islamic Algeria has firmly embarked on the nuclear path. The terrorist state of Libya conducts its nuclear program in the utmost secrecy, and Israel’s age-old enemy, Syria, takes fundamental steps in the same direction. North Korea will sell its A-bomb to cash bidders, even if they’re terrorists. Muslim countries have obtained nuclear weapons, which will inevitably detonate in Israel.

Ancient Judea lingered in existence after Israel fell. Creating a small, ethnically and religiously homogeneous state of Judea can prolong Jewish presence in the Promised Land. A small state, however, will not survive among the surrounding sea of hostility.

Modern Israel is not unique. Jews tried to reestablish their country several times in the past two millennia. A third of the Jews died in the Holocaust; wiping out another third in Israel would be apocalyptic. Glorious nuclear suicide or evacuation to relative safety of the Diaspora?

Modern Jews were given a chance to return, but flouted the wise biblical instructions on the scope of their state. Jews did not drive away the hostile aliens and the Arabs fought back. Jews had no heart to destroy the enemies and the enemies developed nuclear weapons. Most of all, Jews created a society bereft of Judaism — a Western democracy with no claim to the Promised Land, and no place in the land.

Foreword to the First Edition. On hate.

Several reviewers classified this book as hate literature. This cannot be true, as hate is irrational and I argue for pure rationality; hate veils itself in morality while my policies are stripped from any notion of moralizing; hate is wasteful while my aim is efficiency. Hate is like any ideology: silly, costly, and going nowhere. Hate is a political label: it is politically correct to hate communists, but not, say, Muslims.

I am indifferent to Muslims as to any Gentiles who observe Noahide laws, find Arabs mildly amusing as any indigenous culture, and deeply respect the terrorists as determined soldiers.

I suggest many policies which aim at these groups. But any political book advocates against someone; discrimination is central for politics. Even alliances are formed generally against someone. Republicans want more votes at the expense of Democrats, and attack them to that purpose. My recommendations involve threats of violence, but international politics is always built around such threats; balance of power is the only proven strategy for maintaining peace. My editors and I carefully re-worded possibly ambiguous propositions, and made sure the book never advocates violence per se, but only threatens reprisal for others' violence. The aim is to mitigate violence, not launch it.

Nazis hated Jews; Hutu and Tutsi hated each other; Catholics at some point hated Protestants. The hatred, no doubt, run along the lines of economic competition, but the final concept was distorted beyond any semblance of rationality. To follow the first example, a reasonable idea to prosecute swindler Jews evolved into expulsion of all Jews, only remotely useful for Germans, and into entirely unreasonable mass murder. Vengeance, however, tends to cross the line and become hatred. It is an interesting subject, but beyond the scope of book about rational ends and means. We cannot afford to hate enemies; we must act efficiently.

I do not hate Neo-Nazis. They are just enemies, and must be dealt with rationally. I dislike anti-Semites, but cannot object to their opinions as long as they remain passive. Xenophobia is all too human. How many Jews tacitly dislike Gypsies? I do not blame Gentiles for not helping the Jews; how many Jews helped Rwandese? I do, however, believe in the biblical ”chosen-ness” of the Jews, and, accordingly, their inherent difference from other peoples. That does not make me a racist, but makes me to hate many Jewish violations of Or Hara'ayon. Jews who offend non-hostile Gentiles are guilty. I would rather see hysterical reviews of my book by anti-Semites than glowing reviews of some Jews who see only imperial ambitions in the book. I equally despise condemnations from Jews who reject even questioning the historical right to the land. Unwarranted self-righteousness, lack of compassion to the underdog, the despising of Gentiles while at the same time requiring them to support Jews—these traits of many Jews I really hate.

I am liberal—in the traditional sense of the word before leftists usurped it. I dislike irresponsible idealists who in the worst totalitarian manner shut out voices of realism, and keep their heads in the sand of theoretical ideology. These totalitarian moralists are bad for us, but catastrophic for the next generation which will suffer the crisis the idealists created—the crisis we still can defuse.

Theory

Most of us want to believe that peace is the natural state of humanity. At the very least, we prefer to see it as a lasting solution, interrupted sometimes by readjustments in the balance of power by means of armed conflicts. But in the real world, we have to make choices. It is not uncommon to prefer ideological or religious values to one’s own life. Preference is a matter of value judgment; there is no objectively best option. Indeed, in the Ten Commandments, fundamental to modern Jewish, Christian, and Muslim cultures, the religious prescriptions precede the prohibition of murder. Killing enemies in war is not prohibited.

Once people are ready to die for their values, their religion may condone killing for them, since the commandment of negative reciprocity—Do not do unto another what is hateful to you—is satisfied. It is not hateful to die, and therefore not prohibited to kill.[1] That approach attached moral legitimacy to scores of wars, notably the Crusades, but also recent ideologically inspired wars, down to the Falklands. Rational—or honest—minds might argue that the causes for wars are usually silly or superficial, that enmity is forced on people on both sides otherwise content with each other. But that is a different issue, namely, do soldiers really need to die for the goals they fight for? Why does the traditional interpretation of You shall not murder exclude from the prohibition executing criminals and killing in war? Because people are normally ready to die to save their neighbors or their country. Reciprocity allows them to kill.

The prohibition of murder’s place following the religious rules in the Ten Commandments suggests the subordination of life to ideology. Both the case law of the Hebrew scriptures and the prescribed punishments for religious transgressions support that conjecture.

The parties to the Arab-Israeli conflict have shown in numerous wars that they are ready to die for the cause, an attitude not limited to the military. Israeli civilians stand ready to suffer daily losses from suicide attacks, and Muslim civilians likewise have no trouble sacrificing themselves. The maiming of thousands of locals in Osama's attacks on the American embassies in Africa raised no domestic outcry. Israeli rhetorical condemnations of the terrorists and Arab denouncements of Baruch Goldstein[2] aside, only the facts matter: Israelis and Muslims are ready to die for religious or nationalist causes. War is lamentably acceptable to both.

Consider the application of You shall do nothing to your neighbor you do not want him doing to you. No one wants to give way in any conflict, whether bargaining in the marketplace or fighting on the battlefield. Should the buyer pay the asking price without question? Would the seller like someone imposing a price on him? Should he not refrain from imposing prices on others? The two parties would have to bargain since neither should impose a price. The dilemma is superficial. The commandment is fulfilled so long as both parties agree on how to resolve the conflict. A gambler’s winnings at cards or on the stock market fits the definition of stealing, because someone loses without being fairly compensated, but such wins are not criminal, since both parties played the game willingly. Arabs condone war as a means of resolving conflicts, so the Israelis are justified in fighting them, since both accept the use of force to resolve conflicts. Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela turned the tables by renouncing violence and turning world opinion against violence done to them. Muslims see their best hope in asymmetric warfare, which justifies Israel’s military ventures.