[lbo-talk] Re: What is Israel's Objective?

Bryan Atinsky bryan at alt-info.org
Thu Jul 13 22:05:03 PDT 2006



> Seth Kulick wrote:
>>
>> I was listening to angryarab's appearance on Flashpoints yesterday,
>> and I think he said something along the lines of how the left should not
>> analyze this as some sort of larger strategic move. Basically because the
>> Israeli and US governments are too dumb for that, and that in general,
>> especially with the ones in office now, they react the one way they really
>> know how, with a massive use of force. I may be misquoting, though.

I would have said something similar to this, though I don't know how much stems from the Israeli government's intelligence or lack thereof. One of the longtime domestic Israeli critiques of the military echelon and governments is their reliance on short sighted tactics vs. long term strategies, bumbling from one immediate (strong armed) 'solving' of immediate concerns, without really even considering long term impact and

how it effects moves toward future goals. I would say, in this case more than usual with a relatively inexperienced Israeli gov. who wants to also prove itself capable of using a strong hand, that the Israeli military command is probably running the show probably even more than with past Israeli governments, with the gov. cabinet just giving the approval for actions.

But when trying to understand what Israel is trying to achieve here, it is important to see that there are two very similar precedents to what is going now. Namely the 1993 Operation Accountability, and the 1996 Operation Grapes of Wrath. In which, coincidentally or not, Peres was foreign minister during the first and prime minister during the second.

And speaking of not thinking about long term effects of policy, Grapes of Wrath was likely a significant factor in Peres losing the election to Netanyahu a short time later. If I remember correctly, the backlash against Peres due to Grapes of Wrath from the Palestinian citizens of Israel (Arab Israelis) caused them to avoid the elections or blank ballot and the numbers who did that were larger than the vote gap between Peres and Netanyahu.



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