Terrorism is a good strategy in some situations, such as getting rid of foreign occupiers. I suppose it could work whenever the objective is clear and the enemy is capable of making the change desired. In those cases, terrorism is a rational, albeit horrible, strategy.
But how could terrorism wipe out Israel?
The citizens of Israel don’t consider themselves visitors. They can’t “go home.” So how can terrorism ever succeed in that particular case?
Imagine a worst case scenario where terror weapons become so effective that Hamas and Hezbollah can literally make Israel uninhabitable. The residents of Israel pack up and become refugees. The Palestinians go skipping into Israel and settle into their new homes that were, in some cases, their old homes. What happens next?
If you guessed radical ex-Israelis would start using terrorism on the residents of New Palestine, you would be right. It’s a certainty, especially if the tools of terrorism are so good that they are capable of depopulating a country. It wouldn’t require many angry ex-Israelis to once again depopulate the entire country through terror.
Surely any form of terror that is effective enough to cause all Jews to leave Israel would be good enough to cause any future residents to move too. You have to wonder if Hamas has thought it through.
I think Israel’s best strategy would be to label their current conflict a “War on Stupid.” It wouldn’t be a racist thing, because it only applies to the people who think Israel can be wiped out by terror and replaced by Palestinians who would live in peace. By any objective measure, that’s stupid.
Sometimes labels change reality because they change how we think of things. Imagine if the captured terrorists in Israeli prisons were forced to wear dunce caps and write essays on their theory of how terrorism could “wipe out Israel.” After they write the essay, assuming they directly answer the assignment question, they are released without serving any further time. Israel could publish the essays so everyone can get a good chuckle out of them. I think it would make terrorism less glamorous.
Simple : terror. This is the way muslims conquer :
From the "holy texts"
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/052.sbt.html#004.052.220
Now this seems innocent ... after all the paedophile prophet implies it was "allah" who did it. But unfortunately upon closer inspection. Why was there terror ...
1) kidnapping and raping people's wives
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/muslim/008.smt.html#008.3432
2) impregnating captive women and killing them or getting ransom
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/muslim/008.smt.html#008.3371
3) genocide on jews and christians
4) genocide on muslims
http://www.faithfreedom.org/challenge.htm is a good starting point
The list has a certain tendency to go on quite a bit. Just google on a few terms, you won't have trouble finding any.
Note that ANY muslim is FORCED to either do this (including rape, genocide, etc) or is an apostate (does not follow the teachings of islam, not even the first pillar).
Note that a veil is most certainly not obligatory in islam. Only "modesty" (for both men and women) is required. Anyone you see with a veil is going above and beyond the requirements. Including the requirements to commit mass murder on innocent people.
Posted by: A | July 08, 2007 at 12:00 PM
Great minds...
Posted by: Sondra | July 06, 2007 at 10:18 AM
It's "funny" how some people don't have a sense of humor! Lovely approach to the Israel-stine issue.
Posted by: Yannis G | July 06, 2007 at 01:54 AM
hi, i really like reading about your thoughts on these things because they are really original.
but i know you like to hear both sides of the story as well, so i'm gonna give you the palenstine side.
i think the west is very arrogant in evicting people from their lands, solely becasue of their race, then bombing them regularly for decades, then turn around and say 'look how primitive they are, they are savages'.
the problem in the middle-east isn't solely about the muslims not accepting the jews, in fact before 1947, jews and christians lived under islam rule in peace for about 2000 years. the jewish state, as understood in the middle-east, and not denied by israel, means a state, only for jews, no european christians, no muslims, only jews. that is what most palenstinians are against, not jewish people, but this ideology of a jewish state.
the current proposed 2 state solution is practically unworkable. if you look at the map, the 2 seperate states are divided in patches, with israel getting the fertile land and sole use of the roads connecting it, and palestinians getting the bits and pieces in-between. the land is not big enough to sustain the palestinians made refugees by israelis occupation. it is not fertile enough to sustain the people who orignially live on these lands, let alone the extra refugees. in short, the 2 state solution, in which israel gets over 50% of palestinian land according to pre-1948 borders is not physically possible.
what most palestinians want is to return to their lands as in the pre-1948 border. israel has stated since 1948 that that will never happen. right now hamas is talking about allah and killing non-believers, but i see it as a ploy to get people into suicide bombing. now suicide bombing is wrong, but what options do they have? israel is not prepared to discuss letting the refugees return to their homeland, as dictated by the un resolution. america, which had stood by that resolution untill, last year, when george bush, told sharon, he can keep the settlements, in violation of the un resolution. when thurst upon with such injustice, and with no avenue for discussion, where will the anger go?
the press of the west like to potray the suicide bombings as evidence that the arabs are savage. i would describe their decision not to charge israel modern tanks and modern bomber planes with 40-year-old AK47s as 'not completely stupid'
i know people who have met the hamas leaders and they are not religious nutters. i don't think if they get back palestinian lands, they will exterminate christians and jews. because that would give the west an excuse to come in and take over again, undoing decades of hard work. most people in palestine envision a state just like it was pre-israel, where jews and christians and muslims lived together peacefully. they support hamas right now, because fatah has dropped its demands for the full return of illegally occupied palestinian land. in a sense, fatah has dropped the gun. and hamas is there to pick it up. and when you have israel tanks and planes shooting at you, you don't question who shoots back.
one last thing, the thing about ahmadenejad being a holocaust denier, well that's a deliberate mistranslation by the foriegn press, my friends who know the language assures me he was calling a meeting not to deny the holocaust, but to examine how the jews have benifited from the sympathy granted to them as a result of the holocaust.
why he did this is because, the view in the middle-east is that, when israel seeked british support for its formation, the reason the british gave in was because they were feeling guilty about their inaction during the holocaust.
of course all i have written are just points of views, because intentions can never be conclusively proven. but seriously, the palestinians are more logical then the west thinks.
Posted by: arlo | July 05, 2007 at 02:09 PM
Well, no, but good try, Scott. Let me give you a few of the reasons why other scenarios might make more sense.
First off, remember that the president of Iran is hand-chosen by the Mullahs. They choose the candidates and then the people "vote," but the outcome is already decided before that happens. They are not a democracy on the scale of Israel, and to believe otherwise is to be naive.
Second, the president of Iran is a true believer that the twelfth Mahdi can only return from the well in which he's been hiding when Armageddon happens. This means his goals are not obtainable unless he nukes Israel. He really doesn't give a hoot what his people think -- the Mullahs haven't really cared about popular opinion since the Ayatollah Khomeini deposed the Shah of Iran back in 1978. President Carter allowed this to happen, thereby losing us the most progressive Islamic democracy in the region. Well done, president Carter.
Sure, inflation is up and gas lines are long in Iran. But hey, Scott, do you remember the long gas lines and high inflation we had under Carter? You were, what, about ten years old when that was going on, right?
Did we declare bankruptcy or do anything like that? Did we depose our government? Sure, the Iranians are a littl more hot-headed than we are, but cool and collected compared to the Arab region's population (Iranians aren't Arab, as I'm sure you know).
And what do most leaders do when they are faced with domestic problems, Scott? They try to use some foreign situation to override the people's anger domestically.
So the worse it gets in Iran, the more that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be tempted to cause foreign problems. You seem to forget that if you take over a country, you can plunder its riches. If we leave Iraq, that's exactly what Ahmadinejad will do -- go into Iraq, take over their oil, ally with Turkey to eliminate the Kurds in the north, depose their government, and get their gasoline to make their own people shut up. They'll align with Iraq's Shi'ite population and kill the Sunnis (or drive them into exile in other Arab states, causing a refugee crisis in those countries).
This will result in a killing field that will make Cambodia look like kindergarten. Millions will die, Ahmadinejad will start to look at his non-theocratic neighbors (Saudi Arabia, et. al.), and sharpen his spear to take on Israel. All with the money and oil he plundered from Iraq when we pulled out. Gee, that sounds keen.
Also, remember that the strategy of the terrorists is similar to "death by a thousand cuts." All they want to do is to keep killing a few Americans a day so that will be the lead story in the New York Times and on the major old-media networks every night. This will turn the American people against the war, and we'll surrender and they'll win.
As an Israeli general said about the US versus the terrorists: "America has the means to win, but not the will. The terrorists have the will to win, but not the means. So they'll try to remove the will of the American people to fight, until they get the means. And then it will be over for all of us."
I'm glad you're not in charge of our foreign policy, Scott. If you really tried to do the things you say, the consequences would be enormous and horrible. Please don't look for a new job with the State Department, OK? We'll all be a lot better off if you just keep on drawing and writing clever books. And please continue not to vote. Thanks.
Posted by: Bruce Harrison | July 04, 2007 at 04:10 PM
I think that all of the Jewish folks should agree to give the country of Israel to the Palestinians.
This should happen 1 day after all the non-Native Americans leave the continental U.S.
Fair is fair, huh?
http://boskolives.wordpress.com/
Posted by: jerry w. | July 03, 2007 at 03:39 PM
Palestinians weren't a bit concerned when they were selling their lands to Jews during the Ottoman era. I find it funny that now they are fighting to "get it back".
I mean seriously, Arabs have happily sold those lands to Jews. And now they are trying to get them back. How ironic is that? They shouldn't have been traitors to their own nation in the first place.
Oh and before labeling me as an anti-Arab, please note that I am a Muslim.
Posted by: Izzy | July 03, 2007 at 05:45 AM
More faulty premises Scott - the solution envisioned by Iran and its proxies Hamas and Hizballah isn't to force the Israelis to move somewhere else, it's to kill every last one of them. It's stated in the charter of Hamas (surely a fun read) and the religious and political leaders in Iran have made it perfectly clear what they want to do. The day after they get a big enough nuke, they're going to launch it at Israel.
They've already said they would consider the destruction of arab lands around Israel to be an acceptable sacrifice. Given that the palestinians elected terrorists to run their government, they aren't innocent in the proposed genocide.
When Jordan owned the West Bank and Egypt owned Gaza, nobody tried to force them to hand them over to the palestinians. 5 arab countries eviced Arafat for being an irritating terrorist, but Israel was expected to make him as comfortable as possible. Jordan is the real palestinian state, but they live in squalor in camps there without rights. The UN has preserved palestinians in refugee amber for over 60 years, for no other reason than as a continuing grievance against Israel. Let's just call it what it is: hatred of jews.
Posted by: Joe Melnick | July 02, 2007 at 10:53 AM
The goal of terrorism is not strategic, it's symbolic. They're saying, "f*ck you" and like as not they're saying it to the United States rather than Israel.
If the US would leave Israel to dangle, then a very personal house-to-house war could be waged to see who got to stay and who went to meet their god. With US weapons and logistical support, the Israeli army is unbeatable by anything the Palestinians can put into the field.
Yeah, I know, not funny.
Posted by: functioning moral compass | July 02, 2007 at 09:24 AM
I think the Arabs would solve the problem by killing all the Jews.
Terrorism is just a stop gap measure.
Posted by: bubba | July 02, 2007 at 08:05 AM
I am a bit surprised that you also are fooled in believing that anybody fighting on other side are terrorists, or am i wrong? IMHO the key criteria separating terrorists is deliberate civilian targeting. Anybody fighting foreign ARMY was always called 'fighters' or something like that. But I usually don't hear that in todays media.
Greetings from Lithuania
Posted by: Tomas Liubinas | July 02, 2007 at 03:55 AM
The feuds between Hamas and Fatah have already shown that the theoretical scenario of driving Israelis out of Israel will not end in a peaceful life for Palestinians. What will come is a civil war between the parties.
As I repeatedly like to point out: Nothing unites a neighborhood better than one idiot neighbor who ridicules the rest. But if this guy leaves the neighborhood the remaining neighbors will start going on each others nerves.
Maybe this knowledge keeps most terror cells from uniting and building a joint effort for their mutual goal. Everyone of them is afraid of not getting enough power once the goal is achieved. Or even more possible, the bosses of the terror cells enjoy their position of power so much that they actually don't want to have a change in scenery. They like to fight the foreign oppressors unto eternity as long as they can stay in power in their own little kingdom.
Posted by: Steffen | July 02, 2007 at 12:28 AM
The "War On Stupid" is clever. A better idea is to have everyone is Israel should wear a "Hey, Knock it Off!" T-shirt. T-shirt slogans have historicaly been an effective way to bring peace to hostile regions. People can then light candles. Mission accomplished.
Posted by: Dave K. | July 01, 2007 at 09:45 PM
Why is an occupation an OK thing in Iraq now, but a bad thing in the North America of 1776?
Why is terrorism against an occupying power a bad thing in Iraq now, but a good thing back in 1776?
Posted by: Dave | July 01, 2007 at 07:03 AM
Shai,
"...our legendary successful presence here is a thorn in the eye of the Arabs who are still reeling from their memory of the battles with Christian crusaders..."
...most of which the Arabs actually won, if you can find an objective history book and study it carefully. Why do you think the Crusaders ended up being kicked out of the Near East and sent packing back to Europe (those who weren't killed, that is?) Their principal achievement was to sack (Christian) Constantinople, thus bringing about the final overthrow of the Roman Empire. Fighting the Muslims was too difficult.
Posted by: Tom Welsh | July 01, 2007 at 05:23 AM
I don't agree that the (considerably more competent) terror attacks on Israel are necessarily stupid. Their purpose seems to be to a) to get the 72 raisins they are expecting if they die as martyrs. b) to keep reminding the Muslim world that they should attack Israel. Of course, they'd be much more sensible to try non-violent resistance if they genuinely think they're being oppressed by the Israelis...
Posted by: Custard | June 30, 2007 at 11:49 PM
Run for president you lazy bastard!
Posted by: Sam D | June 30, 2007 at 10:01 PM
I think the flaw in your logic is that you seem to assume that:
a. Israel = Israel as officially recognised by the international community + the occupied territories that are only settled by totally crazy ass ultra-orthodox jews that even most israelis don't like.
b. You assume that most israelis want the occupied territories for the sake of occupation rather than as a security device and would therefore not accept an alternative security device if they could be convinced there was a better one.
c. You seem to have ignored the middle ground: there are a lot of palestinians who just want the occupied territories back and a contiguous state that allows them to get on with their lives.
Without addressing the above, one just plays into the fiction that all israelis and palestinians want to wipe each other out and there's no middle ground and there's no solution (apart from dunce hats...)
Posted by: ish | June 30, 2007 at 06:32 PM
Scott,
Thanks. Now that you know the motive for terrorism in Palestine, you could visit terrorism in Palestine pre-1948 and immediate post-1948. Then you could address state terrorism once Israel was recognized as a state.
In fact if Palestine terrorism should succeed in evacuating a number of Jews from Palestine, AKA Israel, any further attempt to keep their state of Palestine by resisting the new Haganah, new Irgun, new Stern Gangs, could be labeled 'state terrorism' by the underground Zionists to further their cause of new victim status. There could be refugee camps in Brooklyn, Berlin and Miami for the people without a land anymore. I am sure our welfare system could absorb a number of new victims of poverty and persecution. Germany would jump at the chance to demonstrate that Germany never was anti-Semitic.
Terrorism by Irgun, Haganah, Stern Gang and other bands of refugees from the gas chambers of Europe CA 1945-1948 certainly succeeded in emptying a good part of Palestine Mandate and Post Palestine Mandate turned State of Israel, by terrorism. Of course F-16s over Gaza do not terrorize anyone but the people from the land without people. Anyway, they are used to it, having put up with home demolitions and targeted and non-targeted killings for about 60 years, they are not easily terrorized now. Even the children have gotten used to it and brave the fire and brimstone to walk to schools with pock marked walls. It is no longer such a sad event to bury another Palestinian kid killed for throwing rocks at IDF's brave soldiers. Palestinians just love making more Palestinian babies. Maybe Jews should make more Jew babies to replace the Jews killed in terrorist suicide bombings. They could do that in a night or two.
I wonder what Americans would do if Cherokees, Chocktaws, Chikasaws, and Chattanoogass should rise up and become terrorists to regain their lands lost to the Euro-Americans and their Afro-American slaves. And if the 'Indians' should chase the Euro-Americans back to Europe and the Afro-Americans, and the Asho-Americans back to their own continents, would I try to organize a terrorist gang of white guys to try to get it back? Maybe it would be fashionable again to kill as many Indians as we could. After all, we could resurrect the theory that the only good Indian is a dead Indian. I even have my dress blue uniform from my Army days with the cavalry stripe down each leg. I could buy a horse and a sword.
What if the Native Hawaiians should rise up and run the Haolis out. What if the Native Alaskans should rise up and run the whiskey drinking drunken round eyes back south. Oh
Hell, you know what I mean!
When Hilary becomes president, our women could send all the men back where they came from and live forever with cloning more women. Lesbians have demonstrated that women do not need men for sex, and scientists have demonstrated that with a little tweeking of biology, sperm are no longer necessary in reproduction.
Posted by: Frank Goodman, Sr. | June 30, 2007 at 04:52 PM
You may believe, as Palestinians do, that Israel's land is theirs. Though I dispute this, I don't pass judgment on that, and I'm not going to try to convince those who believe it is that it is not. The value of Scott's comment is that it underscores the idiocy of the Palestinian approach to their claims.
As a national movement, the Pals are not defined by who they are, but who they aren't; by what they want rather than what they do not want; by what they encourage rather than what they resist. The reason for all this is that the Palestinians as a "People" were invented in a context of Arab League belligerancy, and are their tool to rid the Middle East of Israel. Of the usual elements of a "People" such as self governance, language, press, instititutions, etc., until very recently they possessed none.
At various times they were Ottoman, Jordanian, Egyptian and Syrian, all of whom "occupied" parts of "Palestine" without ever feeling the need to establish a Palestinian state, but now they are "Palestinian". WHy? Why now? Why between 1948 when Israel was established, and did not "occupy" the West Bank and Gaza, did the Palestinians not establish a state in the territory they now demand for one? Answer: because the problem is that the land was conquered by "Europeans", and before 1967 it was "occupied" by Arabs.
The reason the Arabs so hate the idea of Israel is because, I think, the Israeli state is "western" in nature. We are "European" in our way of thinking, doing business, our outlook on the world, toward personal freedom, toward religion, and in a host of other ways. As such, our legendary successful presence here is a thorn in the eye of the Arabs who are still reeling from their memory of the battles with Christian crusaders, and the fall of the Arab domination of world trade and intellectual development with the rising of Europe starting in the 14th century. They look at all we accomplished, and look at themselves, and feel shame. In a word, the key problem Arabs have with Israel is "pride". That we exist is in itself a humiliation.
Well, EXCUUUUUUSSSSSEEEEE MMEEEEEE!!!! Ever think of taking all that aid money, more per capita than was received by recipients of the Marshall Plan, and doing something positive with it rather than building up an arsenal? How about building universities rather than arms smuggling tunnels?
What's odd here is the attitude of Europeans, then. It turns out that Israel is sort of an odd-duck. They just finished a few centuries shaking off the Catholic church, gave birth to the idea of humanism and equality of all men, had witnessed the birth of nationalism in Italy and Germany and were cudgeled by its after-shock, so the last thing they feel they can support is - shock - a particularistic state based on religious/nationalist origins, especially when it pisses off the people who supply them with oil. Such a dilemma.
Now, what are we Israelis supposed to do with that? How far backwards do we bend to ensure that we don't hurt anybody's feelings, that Europe gets its oil, while ensuring as well that we are not targeted for murder, while our supposed allies stand by flummoxed by their self-inflicted angst?
Here's what. Israelis on the whole are ready to come to an agreement with the Palestinians that cedes to them the West Bank (historic Judea and Samaria) and a capital in the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem - they already have all of Gaza - in exchange for peace, and with relatively minor changes in the Green Line so that as many as possible of the region's Jews are in Israel, and as many as possible of the region's Arabs are in Palestine. Land links from side to side could be accomplished with bridges and tunnels.
But this idea, when it was proposed by PM Barak, didn't even reach the stage of quibbling over details. The Palestinians rejected it outright, with no counter-offer, and started the 2nd intifada.
Palestinians won't grow up. There comes a time when all nascent nations must decide what is possible, not just what they want, and then do the best they can with it. Israel did that, and the Palestinians should, too. That the Palestinians continue to reject, with European acquiesence and encouragement, knowing full well that the only chance they have at getting something better is a battle to the death with the Jews shows, I think, something amiss in their national direction that points to the assertion I made earlier.
In a phrase, the Palestinians are more interested in Israel not having a state than they are in Palestinians having a state." Israel's fate then is to fight them until one of us clearly wins, which is what wars were supposed to do until the UN made them illegal except for the members of the Security Council.
The Europeans, for their part, just want G-d to die already, and nothing would prove G-d's departure more fulfillingly than the elimination of those who "arrogantly" claimed for 3300 years to have been chosen by Him. For them, Israel's loss at the hands of the Arabs is the killing of two birds with one stone.
Posted by: Shai | June 30, 2007 at 04:07 PM
How does killing the native inhabitants of a country through the homicide bombings of foreign terrorists displace a nation's "occupiers"? Once you have explained that we can talk further,
Posted by: Noah Vaile | June 30, 2007 at 02:18 PM
Interesting article!
Thanks
Posted by: Usb flashdrive | June 30, 2007 at 01:47 PM
Irrational love and hate lead to irrational thinking and actions. Some Jews have blind devotion (AKA "love") to the idea of Israel to the point of being incapable of seeing any fault with the country. They see any criticism as a hateful attack. I call this Toby Keith Syndrome. Some Arabs hate Israel, and by extension, Jewish people, to a point that is also beyond reason and logic. Refer to Bill Clinton as a great President to a Fox News talk show host, or mention George W Bush (or Dick Cheney for that matter) to any die-hard liberal for a prime example of blind hatred.
I believe the real point behind /most/ anti-Israel terrorism is blind hatred. Anyone attempting to get a person with irrational hate to use logic will find themselves the target of irrational hate.
Posted by: Jason Allen | June 30, 2007 at 12:00 PM
"Even seeing how little it takes to get Arabs to fight Arabs, you don't realise that the goal of all Arab terrorist organizations is to use the existance of a common enemy to keep their followers following them, and not going after eachother."
WOW... you mean like ..then hitler, then communism, then vietnam, then terrorism?
Posted by: ArgenBert | June 30, 2007 at 11:40 AM
Again, you mistake their goals.
Even seeing how little it takes to get Arabs to fight Arabs, you don't realise that the goal of all Arab terrorist organizations is to use the existance of a common enemy to keep their followers following them, and not going after eachother.
HUNTERS DON'T WANT TO WIPE OUT ALL GAME ANIMALS.
THEN THEY'D HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO HUNT BUT EACHOTHER!
If Israel and America flew to other planets and left their respective territories empty, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Fatah, Al Qaeda and all the other terrorist organisations would have to come up with new enemies before the news broke in the Arab world, or the results would make what's happenning in Iraq look like a church social.
Not kidding.
D. Mented
Posted by: D. Mented | June 30, 2007 at 11:04 AM