Max Hastings: What Israelis Need to Do to Make Peace Happen

Max Hastings, in the Guardian (3-29-05):

When someone says that today the chances for Middle East peace have improved, it is worth asking two questions: can there be a sustainable truce, as long as Israel maintains a significant presence in the West Bank? And do the Israelis seem remotely interested in giving this up? If your answer to both is negative, then you share my view that we should not be deceived into optimism by a pitstop in mutual vilification between Ariel Sharon and the Palestinian Authority.

The key challenge now, as ever, is to convince Israelis that their own security interests are best served by evacuating the Occupied Territories. And this does not mean getting out of Gaza merely in order to strengthen Israel's grip on the West Bank, as Ariel Sharon is busy doing, surviving a challenge from rebels yesterday to hold a referendum on the issue.

These issues are addressed in a new book by Martin van Crefeld, who was born in Holland but has lived in Israel for much of his life, and is an internationally respected military historian and strategic guru, even if also a prophet somewhat disdained in his own country. His book, published in the US (but for which he could find no Israeli, or British, publisher), makes a powerful argument for Israel's withdrawal, not to indulge the Palestinians, but to save itself.

Van Crefeld is no soft touch. He believes unilateral action is essential, because the Palestinians will never become viable partners in a bilateral deal. He accepts that some terrorism will continue anyway, and thus proposes that Israel should shield itself with a security wall established on its pre-1967 frontiers.

He acknowledges that most Arab states will remain irreconcilably hostile, which means that Israel must maintain stringent security measures to protect its people from harm. But he believes these must be based upon internationally recognised borders, because to sustain Israel's explicitly expansionist policy of the past 25 years has become intolerable militarily, financially and diplomatically. No amount of neo- conservative encouragement from Washington, such as the Bush administration offered last week for Israel's West Bank settlements, can change this.

Van Crefeld says that hawks who argue that Israel's security demands a buffer zone beyond its borders are living in the past. In the new age of military technology, Israel's superiority over the Arabs will increase. Iraq is out of the reckoning as a foe. Syria, Egypt and Jordan can't look to US or Russian patronage to build new conventional arsenals - and the conventional threat to Israel is now almost non-existent.

Weapons of mass destruction are another matter. The only credible defence against an Arab state armed in such a way will always be deterrence, perhaps eventually supported by an anti-missile system. He is optimistic that, for all the Arabs' extravagant rhetoric, self-interest will dissuade them from launching a nuclear strike against Israel when they can be sure of an annihilating response.

The key to defusing Jewish settler militancy, Van Crefeld argues, is a guarantee of alternative housing. Most of the 200,000 people who have gone to live beyond Israel's borders have done so not as eager colonists, but because the West Bank offers affordable homes. If they are promised accommodation in Israel as part of a deal, the government will have to deal only with a small minority of madmen, who are convinced that Israel has a divine claim on biblical Israel....