LA STAMPA
10 settembre 2006
IL QUINTO ANNIVERSARIO
11 settembre, la memoria sprecata
di Barbara Spinelli
INIZIATA da George W. Bush subito dopo l'attacco alle Torri di New York, la guerra contro il terrorismo non accenna a finire e già è durata molto tempo: cinque anni, più della prima guerra mondiale, poco meno della seconda. E nessuna vittoria in vista, nessuna indicazione su come l'impresa potrebbe andare a finire, ma anzi un proliferare di guerre etnico-religiose, di aggressioni terroriste in vari punti del globo, di disarticolazioni dei poteri statali in Medio Oriente, nel Golfo, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in India, nelle Filippine. Disarticolazione è un vocabolo terrorista, le Brigate Rosse si ripromettevano simile risultato quando attaccavano «il cuore dello Stato». Oggi la disarticolazione è epidemia planetaria e non sono le democrazie e neppure l'America ad avvantaggiarsene, anche se traumi come quello del 2001 in America non si sono riprodotti. Un grafico di Foreign Policy illustra l'approdo cui siamo giunti a cinque anni dall'11 settembre: fra il 2002 e il 2005 gli attacchi terroristici contro l'America sono scesi da 62 a 51 rispetto al ‘98-2001, e i morti sono diminuiti drasticamente (2991 fra il 1998 e il 2001, 3 fra il 2002 e il 2005). L'America è al momento risparmiata ma non l'Asia centrale e sud-orientale, l'Africa, e in primis il Medio Oriente (10.615 morti e 5517 attentati nel 2002-2005, contro 609 morti e 1376 attentati nel 1998-2001).
Alcuni esperti americani si consolano con queste cifre: l'avversario non è in grado di nuocere come nel 2001 e in fondo si torna al pre-11 settembre. Ma un'America che si protegge dal mondo mettendo a repentaglio il mondo non può sentirsi né vittoriosa né sicura. Il suo governo s'è lanciato in guerre mondiali con la pretesa di imitare il coinvolgimento Usa nei conflitti europei del '900, ma il suo disegno è per la verità isolazionista, autarchico. I critici di Bush impiegano un termine calzante, quando ne riassumono i difetti: lo chiamano incurious [1]. La persona incurious è priva di curiosità, di desiderio di conoscere, d'apprendere: ignora volontariamente le cose attorno a sé, è disattenta, distratta, prigioniera di sue astratte fantasie. La politica della memoria, nelle mani dell'incurious, produce danni perché è disordinata, procede a casaccio, dunque è inservibile. La sua tentazione è la self-fulfilling prophecy, la profezia che si auto-realizza e che di regola non è affatto una profezia ma una falsa definizione dei fatti [2]: le conseguenze di tali definizioni sono diabolicamente reali, ma non per questo è reale anche l'originaria definizione.
Lo stesso vale per la memoria, che è una profezia sui generis: ogni giorno Bush evoca le guerre antitotalitarie del '900, ma quasi si direbbe che non sa quel che evoca. La lotta odierna contro il terrore ha temporaneamente protetto gli americani in America (il tempo di vincere questa o quella elezione), ma ha frantumato l'influenza statunitense nel pianeta. Per cinque anni è stata condotta senza pensare il mondo, addirittura ignorandone la fattura. È stata ed è fatta con vista breve, con conoscenza nulla, con ricordi storici storti. È perduta in Iraq, può naufragare in Afghanistan. Con le guerre Usa nel '900 ha poco a che vedere. Allora il centro dell'Occidente era forte. Oggi i mondi attorno all'America franano e il centro non tiene. Come nell'oracolo poetico di Yeats: «Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world», pura anarchia si rovescia sul mondo. Nonostante questo precipitare i discorsi ufficiali restano eguali a se stessi, e non solo in America: sono ripetitivi, vacui, annunciano offensive globali contro terrori globali senza riconoscere che il terrorismo ha preso forme ormai locali, nazionali, distinte. Gli slogan sul conflitto globale sono un regalo che ogni giorno facciamo a Bin Laden, aggrappato a quest'immagine che lusinga la sua potenza e nasconde le sue spossatezze. È vero, dopo l'11 settembre gli occidentali e parte dell'Islam (innanzitutto sciita) solidarizzarono con l'America e la missione afghana. Ma continuare a invocare l'iniziale unità senza domandarsi quel che nel frattempo è accaduto sul terreno è poco sensato. I talebani sono di ritorno da molto tempo in numerose province nel Sud e nell'Est (compresa la zona assegnata agli italiani) ed è impressionante come le due cose s'intreccino: la ripetitività dei discorsi occidentali e la negligenza dei fatti. Son ripetitivi non solo i governanti Usa ma anche la Nato, gli europei. In questi giorni lo stupore li ha assaliti, di fronte alla forza talebana che si consolida nelle zone trasferite dagli Usa alla Nato - è «sorpreso» il generale James Jones, comandante delle truppe atlantiche in Europa, s'è detto «sorpreso» il segretario alla Difesa Rumsfeld, a Kabul nel dicembre 2005: sono anni che in Afghanistan siamo sempre più esterrefatti. Neppure ci siamo accorti che sradicare le colture di oppio senza rassicurare i suoi diseredati coltivatori è consegnare questi ultimi ai talebani. Quando una sorpresa dura troppo a lungo c'è qualcosa che non va: il buon senso sta svanendo. La potenza che aveva ambizioni imperiali, a forza di sorprendersi, si perde. Forse ha ragione lo storico Niall Ferguson: gli imperi moderni, Usa in testa, durano ben poco, molto meno degli antichi.
Il fatto è che la guerra in Afghanistan non è solo lotta al terrorismo come sostiene il ministro della Difesa Parisi. Per ottenere risultati pratici deve conquistare anche cuori e anime delle popolazioni, dar loro la sicurezza che manca, aiutare lo Stato centrale a ridivenire autorevole. Se fosse solo lotta al terrorismo la missione in Afghanistan dovrebbe terminare, tanto somiglia - sempre più - all'esiziale intervento sovietico. D'altronde il terrorismo talebano è già stato in parte indebolito, non con la guerra bensì con interventi su flussi bancari e con l'intelligence. Per questo è utile esaminare le nostre sconfitte e imparare da esse, non solo in Iraq ma anche in Afghanistan: questa è vera memoria, non quella che ogni minuto evoca Hitler e Churchill. Se usano questa memoria viva, pratica, i responsabili italiani ed europei potranno rinegoziare con la Nato la missione, correggendo gli errori Usa. Altrimenti avranno ragione Fini e coloro che non vedono differenza alcuna, fra le scelte di Prodi e quelle di Berlusconi dopo l'11 settembre.
Eppure le differenze ci sono, innumerevoli. Oggi è l'ora dell'Europa ed è grande merito di Prodi, di D'Alema, averlo intuito presentandosi come custodi-sentinelle della tregua in Libano. Il conflitto libanese è stato cruciale perché ha evidenziato proprio questo: è il momento dell'Europa, del multilateralismo, dell'Onu, perché l'impero Usa periclita. L'impero non garantisce più sicurezza mondiale, non garantisce neppure più il punto nevralgico che è Israele. Negli Stati Uniti si moltiplicano le polemiche contro la lobby ebraica, in Israele aumentano le voci di chi considera l'America non più parte della soluzione ma del problema: lo studioso Jason Gitlin, su Haaretz di venerdì, sostiene che «gli Stati Uniti non sono più una risorsa nella regione ma un peso» [3]. Israele scopre l'importanza dell'Onu, cerca contatti e aiuti in Europa, in Italia. È una novità che tanti analisti Usa trascurano quando sostengono che nulla è realmente cambiato dopo l'11 settembre. Anche Berlusconi vorrebbe cancellare la novità, opponendosi all'operazione libanese.
L'Europa ha vantaggi notevoli, se i governi volenterosi congiungono le proprie forze: è capace di maggiore attenzione alle situazioni locali, e per esperienza storica sa i pericoli dei nazionalismi ideologici-millenaristi. Non globalizza tutto, generalizzando. Ma soprattutto è più restia a usare la memoria come arma politico-elettorale, come ancor oggi fanno Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld. La memoria è una delle grandi vittime di questi cinque anni. È stata usata a sproposito, manipolata, sprecata. Si è parlato di Hitler e del cedimento democratico che va sotto il nome di appeasement con leggerezza stupefacente. Per questa via Bin Laden ha guadagnato lo statuto di possente avversario, contro il quale l'Occidente schiera eserciti. Forse la prima cosa da fare è dimenticare questi paragoni, smetterli per un po', comunque approfondirli. Non descrivono le situazioni effettive, non aiutano. L'Iran che cerca spazio nell'universo musulmano somiglia alla Prussia dell'800 più che a Hitler: secondo Vali Nasr, studioso degli sciiti, Teheran aspira a divenire una potenza regionale come la Germania di Bismarck, e della disputa atomica si serve a tale scopo. È impregnato di messianesimo, ma quel che cerca è una resa dei conti con i regimi sunniti, non uno scontro democrazia-dittatura né la rovina d'Israele. La democrazia è anzi strumento privilegiato dagli sciiti: il loro peso nella regione aumenta enormemente, se ovunque è applicata la regola democratica «un uomo, un voto». Comunque la voce iraniana s'è fatta grossa perché le guerre Usa hanno magnificato il suo peso, innalzando gli sciiti in Iraq e indebolendo i sunniti talebani in Afghanistan (Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival, La Rinascita Sciita, Norton 2006).
Negoziare con l'Iran è inevitabile, con o senza sanzioni, e chi è preveggente in Israele lo vede: Shlomo Ben Ami, negoziatore a Camp David nel 2000, consiglia su Haaretz la «distensione con l'Iran», e la sua «integrazione in una politica di stabilità regionale prima che la bomba sia acquisita» [4]. Gideon Samet, sullo stesso quotidiano, spera nei mediatori europei e chiede che Olmert cambi la strategia nucleare: «Perché Israele non consente ad abbandonare la politica ormai antiquata dell'ambiguità (ammettere e non ammettere il possesso della bomba), e non accetta supervisioni del proprio programma nucleare in cambio di supervisioni internazionali in Iran?» [5]. Ma per far tutte queste cose urge mutare linguaggio, ripensare la storia passata, connetterla meglio col presente, rimeditare parole come democrazia, profezia, impero. L'Europa può farlo, se non sarà incurious come l'America di Bush.
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[1]
www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3
'Incurious George' - Bush's new title?
April 17 2004 at 10:24AM
Los Angeles - "Incurious", a rarely used word, is making a curious comeback as pundits dust it off to describe President George Bush's alleged lack of curiosity about intelligence reports prior to September 11, 2001, according to a California language expert.
Paul JJ Payack, founder of the Global Language Monitor, which tracks word usage on the web and elsewhere, said that since he first spotted it used in a March Time Magazine report, it had appeared 5 000 times, jumping about 1 000 uses after the New York Times lead editorial on Thursday was headlined "The Price of Incuriosity".
"Americans knew George Bush was an incurious man when they elected him, but the hearings of the 9/11 commission, which turned (on Wednesday) from the FBI's fecklessness to the CIA's blurred vision, have brought that fact home in a startling way," the Times said.
The Times then went on to criticise the president for not seeming to show enough curiosity about a CIA briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US".
Other newspapers and several columnists have also used "incurious", a word Payack says made its first appearance in the 16th century, to describe the president.
Part of the reason may lie in its having a punning quality - calling the president "Incurious George" in headlines, as some web articles have, conjures up visions of the popular children's book monkey "Curious George".
www.tpl.toronto.on.ca/images/pro_trl_curious_george_big.jpg
Payack said the term "incuriosity' has rocketed to the top of the Global Language Monitor's PQ (Political-sensitivity Quotient) Index, which is an algorithm that tracks politically sensitive words and phrases in the media and on the Internet.
"Incuriosity" is followed by "Quagmire", "Two Americas", "Global Outsourcing" and 'War for Oil" on the Global Monitor list of most popular current political phrases, he said.
He added that "Quagmire", which came into vogue to describe the Vietnam war, now is being applied almost to Iraq in hundreds of thousands of uses.
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[2]
www.aredinthehouse.com
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
By Stephen Fleischman
(Stephen Fleischman, television writer-director-producer, spent thirty years in Network News at CBS and ABC, starting in 1953. In 1959, he participated in the formation of the renowned Murrow-Friendly "CBS Reports" series. In 1983, Fleischman won the prestigious Columbia University-Dupont Television Journalism Award. In 2004, he wrote his memoir).
A self-fulfilling prophecy-as defined by Robert K. Merton, 20th Century sociologist who coined the phrase-is that a prediction, in being made, actually causes itself to become true. There are a couple of vivid examples in the works right now.
In the nearly five years since 9/11 and the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City, up to the alleged recently thwarted plot to destroy twelve commerical airliners in mid-flight between Great Britain and the United States, President Bush has been working furiously to bring about a self-fulfilling prophecy with his war on terror.
“War on Terror.” The phrase is meaningless. What is terror? An emotion. You can’t go to war against an emotion. But it’s being used and promoted by the administration for its fear-producing effect and by the mainstream media as a rating or readership enhancer.
When the al-Qaeda 9/11 attack took place, instead of coordinating a massive international police action to apprehend Osama bin Laden, the brains of the operation, the United States, instead, decided to wipe out an independent country, Afghanistan. The justification was that Bin Laden had been given sanctuary there and was using the place for a terrorist training ground. Bush made it perfectly clear. He wanted Bin Laden “dead or alive” like a good Western lawman should. After some shock and awe bombing, the US Army’s Special Forces hit the ground running, but flubbed an attempt to capture Bin Laden in the Tora Bora Mountains.
The Taliban, the regime in power, once courted by American oil companies and US government officials for concessions in the building of an oil pipeline across their country, was now demonized and driven out of power. The US has been carrying on a military operation against the Taliban’s guerrilla force ever since and Afghanistan continues to be a terrorist producing machine.
The failures in Afghanistan did not deter George Bush’s war on terror. He simply moved on to Iraq where he and his neo-con toadies, hiding under a rock in the Pentagon, always wanted to be. The self-fulfilling prophecy was picking up steam. Regime change was achieved in short order. Saddam Hussein was history within the first few weeks after the US Air Force’s shock and awe bombing of Bagdad. But three and a half years later, the US military is still spinning its wheels in Iraq, bogged down in a quagmire, an occupation, an insurgency and a civil war all brewing at the same time. With more than 2,600 American servicemen dead, 20,000 wounded and $307 billion dollars (and counting) of American taxpayer treasure down the drain, Iraq is now a bigger and better terrorist producing operation than Afghanistan ever was. Isn’t that punishing yourself? Isn’t the war on terror creating Bush’s very own self-fullfilling prophecy?
Two down, another to go. Lebanon. Bush wanted Hezbollah destroyed as much as Israel did. It was simple. Delay a cease fire in the UN and let Israel do the job. First stage in our thrust against Iran. So was Bush using Israel, or was Israel, the tail, wagging the dog? Israel and the United States have a “special relationship”, an oft repeated truism. But do they always have the same national interests?
Yes, Iran has been sending rockets and missiles to Hezbollah for its war against Israel. It’s been deplored around the block. The United States has been sending Black Hawk helicopters and bunker-busting bombs to Israel for its war against Hezbollah. I haven’t heard a word whispered about it. Is there a double standard here?
Israel’s great fear-it will be pushed into the sea. It’s a great fear, and it’s understandable. It’s been there since 1948, since the Israeli-Palestinian question has failed to be resolved.
I’m old enough to remember the great upsurge of feeling when the United Nations established the State of Israel in 1948. A people torn from the Holocaust, returning to an ancestral land. It was inspiring. It might have been a good idea once, a Zionist movement led mostly by Ashkenazi Jews from Northern and Central Europe. They brought with them a great deal of knowledge and a great deal of know-how. They promised to, and they did, make the desert bloom, and Jews, everywhere, rejoiced at the bounty they would bring to the region. But then, what happened? Did they extend the hand of friendship to their Arab neighbors? Was it spurned? Could they create an atmosphere of mutual cooperation and trust between the two strains of Semitic peoples? Apparently not. The country was born in violence, with the expulsion of thousands of Palestinians, and the Israelis have had to defend themselves ever since. They’ve built a mighty military force (which we’ve just seen in action). Could they eleminate the Hezbollah with this enormous power? Apparently not.
Are people in such denial that they learn nothing from history, or even from events of the recent past. Look at Iraq. Look at Vietnam. Look at Algeria. Look at Tito of Yugoslavia or France under Nazi occupation during World War II. As the Vietcong used to say, “we live among the people like fish in water.”
So is Israeli, too, working mightily to achieve the thing it dreads the most, a “self-fulfilling prophecy?”
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"Considering the power and influence that America has wielded over much of this period, Israel has certainly benefited from this alignment and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. That said, a more isolationist, unilateral-acting United States has consistently alienated allies and inflamed enemies, nowhere more so than in the Middle East, where everything from its Iraq policy to the handling of the latest crisis in Lebanon has left America more a liability than an asset in the region".
cfr.:
HAARETZ.COM
Fri., September 08,
2006 Elul 15, 5766
Rethinking Jewish American deterrence
By Jason Gitlin
Just as the war in Lebanon has shaken Israel's sense of deterrence and led to a reevaluation of the state's strategic outlook and military capabilities, American Jewry needs to evaluate the implications of the latest Middle East crisis for the ongoing use of Israel to deter our own communal concerns and the tactics we have employed to support the Jewish state.
Ever since the waiting period that preceded the June 1967 Arab-Israel War, Israel has remained at the center of American Jewry's philanthropic and political agenda. The height of Israel's appeal was reached in the decade following the Six-Day War, during what sociologist Steven M. Cohen has termed "the golden age of American Jewry's mobilized model," when a sometimes paradoxical concern over the state's very existence mixed with a new-found Jewish pride over its military prowess and machismo character.
Recognizing Israel's extraordinary appeal, American Jewry's communal institutions created slogans such as "We Are One" that used Israel to attract supporters and maintain solidarity, as well as to deter discussions about discomfiting and less popular concerns, including Jewish illiteracy and identity.
In the following decades, however, a now well-documented and growing chasm has developed between Israel and American Jewry. As the Holocaust and Israel's establishment have grown more distant, divisive episodes such as Israel's first invasion of Lebanon, the two intifadas and the "Who is a Jew" controversy further frayed ties. Despite these developments, most of American Jewry's communal institutions, which are largely led by individuals for whom the Six-Day War was a transformative experience, seem mired in the mobilizations of old. With each new Mideast crisis, emergency campaigns are launched that inevitably evoke past glories, characterized by heroic Israeli victories and record-breaking fundraising efforts, and, however delusional, envision the possibility of similar outcomes today.
Even before a shaky cease-fire was reached, the controversial nature of Israel's response to Hezbollah's aggression suggests that despite any high profile shows of solidarity, this conflict will likely contribute to a growing disconnect between Israel-Diaspora sentiment, particularly among younger Jews. Notwithstanding any of birthright israel's successes, the war in Lebanon provides further evidence that while Israel should no doubt be an integral component of Jewish life, it should no longer be seen as an easy deterrent to deeper questions about Jewish faith and identity, or the primary tool for rallying American Jews. Moreover, the war and the responses to it highlight the need to explore new and more creative ways for establishing connections to Israel.
Much as Israel's decreasing centrality to American Jewish life requires that our institutions adjust to this new reality, American Jewry's public affairs organizations should also take the United States' diminished international stature into consideration as they set strategic goals and policy agendas. Once again, the decade following the 1967 war serves as a turning point. In this case, it marks the beginning of Israel's growing reliance on its strategic and military relationship with the U.S., a development fueled not only by Cold War considerations but also an increasingly aggressive and conservative pro-Israel lobby.
Considering the power and influence that America has wielded over much of this period, Israel has certainly benefited from this alignment and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. That said, a more isolationist, unilateral-acting United States has consistently alienated allies and inflamed enemies, nowhere more so than in the Middle East, where everything from its Iraq policy to the handling of the latest crisis in Lebanon has left America more a liability than an asset in the region.
The American Jewish community would first and foremost be well advised to help reestablish our country's position in the international community and, secondarily, begin working more directly with its institutions. Instead of continuing to reflexively vilify and petition against the UN or the leaders of the G-8, American Jewry needs to look beyond the U.S. Congress to consider how it can help Israel develop better relationships with other countries and international institutions. While Israel has already begun a raucous debate on the implications of this last war in Lebanon for the country's future, American Jewry has yet to move beyond the standing-in-solidarity stage. It's time we began asking deeper questions about the philanthropic and political ramifications of this war and our relationship with Israel, before the next crisis erupts.
Jason Gitlin, a graduate of NYU's Center for Near Eastern Studies and the Muehlstein Institute for Jewish Professional Leadership, is a writer based in New York
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[4]
"An Israeli-Arab peace and the neutralization of the Iranian threat should therefore be mutually reinforcing. A detente policy with Iran would have far-reaching implications for the chances for peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors".
"The question today is not when Iran will have nuclear power, but how to integrate it into a policy of regional stability before it obtains such power".
cfr.:
HAARETZ.COM
The basis for Iran's belligerence
By Shlomo Ben-Ami
Israel's approach to the conflict with its neighbors has too frequently been characterized by mental fixation: It has generally veered away from diplomatic paths in favor of fighting them and "explaining" to the world how dangerous these enemies are to it, as well as to Israel.
Thus Israel was the last to understand that the PLO, with all its flaws, was the only partner around; as long as the United States did not recognize the organization, Israel remained fixated. Today, it is the Hamas's turn. Here, too, the attempt to get rid of the organization by pounding it militarily - after, due to our fixation, we helped to create it - will not succeed.
Once, Israel was also fixated on the assumption that the Baath regime in Damascus must and can be toppled. This regime is very much alive and kicking today, 40 years after its establishment.
The "Iranian syndrome" is Israel's present fixation. For years, Israel has been telling the world about the Iranian danger, demanding that the international community ostracize the ayatollahs' regime and enlisting it to fight Iran's nuclear program. But, like previous preventive strategies, this one is not likely to succeed either.
Once it became clear that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was on its way to becoming a nuclear power, and once Pakistan became such a power, the countdown toward Iran's becoming a nuclear power began. The limitations of Israel's deterrence, as exposed in the war in Lebanon, did not help to stop the Iranian race toward nuclear power. There is also no chance that the international community would follow the U.S. into an all-out confrontation with Tehran, or even impose sanctions in it. America lost its ability to form international coalitions in Iraq, and it lost its legitimacy for independent action as well.
The question today is not when Iran will have nuclear power, but how to integrate it into a policy of regional stability before it obtains such power. Iran is not driven by an obsession to destroy Israel, but by its determination to preserve its regime and establish itself as a strategic regional power, vis-a-vis both Israel and the Sunni Arab states. The Sunnis are Iran's natural foe, not Israel. The answer to the Iranian threat is a policy of detente, which would change the Iranian elite's pattern of conduct.
But detente, like the strategy of conflict with Iran, is not a matter that Israel can deal with on its own. It is first and foremost an American issue. Unfortunately, George Bush's America is not interested in conflict resolution; instead, like Israel, it is fighting rearguard battles against evil states and organizations. What happens when these collapse is on display in Iraq: Never has the Middle East been more dangerous and volatile than it has been since Saddam Hussein was toppled. The U.S., in destroying Iraq as a counterweight to Iran, is directly responsible for Iran's current strategic edge, as well as for its audacity.
The U.S. also holds the key to returning Iran to a path of negotiations and international cooperation. But to do this, it must make a decision that would be difficult both for itself and for Israel: It must conduct an open dialogue that would recognize Iran's regional importance. This would moderate its demeanor and ultimately lead to a gradual change in its regime.
The saber rattling by Israel and Iran is convenient for both. For Israel, presenting itself as the democratic West's front line in the war against fundamentalist terror and the ayatollahs' regime is helpful in mobilizing the world against Iran's nuclear aspirations. But the international community's capitulation in the face of Iran's determination has proved just how dubious this approach is.
As for Iran, its venomous attacks on Israel and the Jews are its way of mobilizing the Islamic world to support the Iranian regime and its regional aspirations. To the "Arab world," Iran is an enemy. But in the Islamic world that Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is fostering, Iran has a leadership position. Iran is not so much an enemy of Israel as an enemy of any Israeli-Arab reconciliation process, which would ultimately enable the Sunni Arab world to direct all its forces against the real enemy: Shi'ite Iran and its pretensions to hegemony.
An Israeli-Arab peace and the neutralization of the Iranian threat should therefore be mutually reinforcing. A detente policy with Iran would have far-reaching implications for the chances for peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Equally, however, an international peace conference, which would renew the momentum for ending the Israeli-Arab conflict, would remove the basis for Iran's belligerency. Neither sanctions nor even military action can disperse the doomsday cloud hanging over the region. Only divesting Iran of nuclear arms as part of a comprehensive Israeli-Arab settlement could do so.
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[5]
"Of course, there is no one of weight at the shaky top who will dare talk about an international understanding with Iran, with Europe's assistance, instead of brandishing empty threats. Why, for example, will Israel not agree to desist from its outdated policy of ambiguity and allow supervision of its nuclear program in return for international supervision in Iran?".
cfr.:
HAARETZ.COM
The curse of living by the sword
By Gideon Samet
There are all kinds of commissions of inquiry about wars, even ridiculous ones, such as Ehud Olmert's. There is never an inquiry into the failures in negotiating peace. Their victims, after all, are not quantifiable. Yet, the prime minister's political behavior at present is no less dangerous than the way he ran the war. It is paving the road to another war. Olmert's attitude toward negotiations with the Palestinians and with Syria and Lebanon is fraught with mistakes and pretense. What's absent from the prime minister's head, and wasn't there before the war, too, is an iota of true intention to conduct a serious discussion about the future of the territories.
How do we know this? Because time after time he declaimed a promise of withdrawals if negotiations did not succeed and did everything to prevent dialogue with the Palestinian Authority. His predecessor, who is now acclaimed because of his disappearance and the quality of his successor, at least evacuated the Gaza Strip settlements. Olmert is not budging even one millimeter. In the meantime, he is approving more building in the territories. All this is tiringly familiar, but was obscured by a cruel war. While getting bogged down in Lebanon, he sent the Israel Defense Forces to shell, kill, torture and further impoverish the population of the territories. This insane summer shunted aside the continuing rampage of the army in some Palestinian region that we are tired of hearing about.
The tragic truth is that Olmert is now preoccupied mainly with Ehud. There is no point in giving him advice that, he assumes, will accelerate his nosedive in the polls. He does not want to hear that the right thing to do now, for the needs of the nation - as opposed to his needs - is to launch a comprehensive political initiative. Why does he need that headache when he might have to shift the coalition rightward and after the muscle-flexing he did in declaring the Golan Heights Israeli forever? But despite this pressurizing personal difficulty, the time is right - as it has been since the failure of Ehud Barak at Camp David - because there is no other way to extricate Israel from the grip of threats of hostility in the territories, from the direction of Iran, and again Lebanon.
Despite Olmert's bombastic demand to get back the abductees before a discussion about the release of prisoners, negotiations are under way (though the prime minister denies their existence) for a mutual release in both sectors. The gimmick is that Israel, for the sake of some kind of dubious honor, will release hundreds gradually. This is a small sample of what is necessary and possible in the broad scope of the conflict.
Not for the first time, the 22 foreign ministers of the Arab League spoke last week about a peace conference along the lines of Madrid 1991, which, in the end, led to Oslo. The same decision was also made four years ago by the Arab League summit in Beirut, on the basis of the Saudi plan. Israel did not react then because of the clauses relating to the right of return and to Jerusalem. Is it that the Arabs, contrary to us, have to present their final stand at the outset? The initiative for a conference next spring will likely be presented this month at the United Nations. Our ambassador there will deliver a brilliant speech against it.
In the near future, after the prisoner exchange, Olmert may meet, despite everything, with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Apparently, it has not crossed his mind to prepare something for the meeting that will turn it into momentum toward a serious follow-up. He and his predecessor did not want Yasser Arafat; thereafter, they were contemptuous of his replacement; and after that, they wanted to topple Hamas and the star of the elections, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. No creative concept emerged in the Israeli mechanism of denial and refusal toward the Palestinians concurrent with bombing and starving them. The Qassam rockets on the Negev, like the rockets on the North, were not a spur to dialogue, to relieve the suffering in Gaza, to try top projects of the sort that even Shimon Peres has grown hoarse talking about. Instead, we fired thousands of pointless shells and killed hundreds in the past few months alone. The crossings at Karni, Erez and Rafah were shut down. Half the workforce in Gaza is unemployed. Per capital income in the territories is 1:300 in relation to in Israel. And they will keep up the shelling as long as this enables the conflict to be kept on the back burner.
The battered leader of the Labor Party has begun of late to talk a little about a political initiative. His status is even wobblier than that of the prime minister, he sounds like a poor man's dove. His threats to bolt the government are also empty. Behind all the spin-type badmouthing, Olmert and Amir Peretz know that they have to keep on hanging together, otherwise a cruel political reality will hang them separately. The upshot, too, is that it's impossible to give advice to Labor. It will continue to be dragged in the wake. As long as an interim report of a commission of inquiry doesn't say differently, the defense minister will insist, in pursuit of his lost honor, on continuing to play the part and spout the rhetoric.
It all sounds pretty terrible - and it is. Of course, there is no one of weight at the shaky top who will dare talk about an international understanding with Iran, with Europe's assistance, instead of brandishing empty threats. Why, for example, will Israel not agree to desist from its outdated policy of ambiguity and allow supervision of its nuclear program in return for international supervision in Iran? The British prime minister, who is due to arrive here at the weekend, will find a confused leadership, filling up its empty emergency depots ahead of future events, quaking at the thought of an investigation. Maybe it is possible to suggest to Tony Blair, at the painful end of an excellent tenure, to behave differently than Israeli leaders who are glued to their seats, to place all his prestige and the remnants of his term in office on the line for a shift in this accursed business of living by the sword.