A Note from Mechal [& Zvi] Sobel

Cliopatria's contributing editor, Mechal Sobel, writes from Haifa that a month of war left her weary and worried. She will be at October's American Studies Association convention in California, where she's been asked to speak there on Israel's behalf for"five or ten minutes." Attached to her e-mail is this message by her husband, Zvi, who teaches sociology at the University of Haifa."I would say many things differently," Mechal writes,"but essentially I am in the same place he is." I recommend it to you.

I doubt that sharing some thoughts about these terrible days will ease the pain or even bring about a degree of clarity. What does seem to be clear is that everything that was is no longer; in many respects this is all to the good while in other ways the inevitable changes will be deeply disruptive and indeed hold great danger for our future as a collectivity. I suspect that the first and most significant danger is a belated loss of innocence with regard to our basic, physical safety. We can be beaten. We can lose wars, our cities are vulnerable (meaning they can be destroyed by conventional means), our army is not quite the potent instrument we thought it to be, our lives (if spared) can be made hell, our economy can be held hostage to the whims of fanatic jihadists on their side and self-satisfied, incompetents on ours.

We have always been a rather fragile enterprise as a state. We, since the beginning, have always reacted to every threat as if it were existential, and the cry"oy vei" might be deemed our national mantra. If we compromise we lose. If we talk, we are weak. If we give an inch they will take a meter. The trouble comes however with realization that this is not completely the result of a certain national paranoia, but has sufficient valence for it to have become an iron clad secular theology putting us into a concrete vest from which we have been unable to extricate ourselves. Our political and military thinking is moribund and recent events have demonstrated this in the most painful fashion.

We are a society that has gone from infancy to old age without having experienced a period of satisfying maturity. We have rid ourselves of all the old verities – community, a just society, equality, simplicity, hard work, dreaming the impossible – to one of individualism, the strong eating the weak, the ‘market', fast cars, palatial homes, trips abroad, reality T.V. shows, hucksterism and God knows what else. Naturally, and following from all of the above, our politicians are corrupt, smug, self-satisfied and self-serving. The army is led by careerists with perks that would shame corporate moguls. The citizens are assured that: a) everybody hates us (and indeed this often enough proves itself), b) we have no partners for peace, c) we are strong, d) time is one our side, e) we will destroy all who dare to lift a hand against us, and finally –"oy vei."

I am still among those who feel that we had to take strong military action in response to the cross border raid by Hezbollah. Consider the following: a violent religiously fanatic organization already demonstrably terrorist and jihadist (the Marine barracks in Beirut, the TWA plane-hijacking and the murder of an American passenger, the blowing up of the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aries, the capture and torture of foreign journalists and more) unprovokedly, crosses the international border into Israel, kills four soldiers on patrol, captures two and kills additional who attempt a rescue and for good measure sends rockets in northern communities. When Israel as in the past requests information on the condition of the captives, or Red Cross access, it is denied with the statement that ‘nothing is given without a price.' In the past Hezbollah has mentally tortured bereft parents of soldiers who were kidnapped or missing by not revealing whether they were dead or alive, and then when it transpired they were dead (or had been killed in captivity) bargaining for the return of the the bodies, getting live them for dead us.

Meanwhile Hezbollah built an army with no controls from the legal government of Lebanon and built a state within a state, armed and supported by two outstanding forces for humanitarian concern – Syria and Iran. This militia which along with Iran call not just for our defeat, but for our destruction, our obliteration (think about that for a bit) is then armed with an array of thousands of missiles whose essential purpose is not military (they are not battlefield weapons) but the destruction of civilian targets. The estimate is that they had between 10 and 15 thousand of these rockets in various forms, about 4 thousand of which were fired against us this past month. What were we to do? Good folks in the West say:"Why, you should have talked to them." I presume that would have been the reaction of various western countries whose moral mechanisms have outstripped their basic survival instincts. Indeed, when I asked a close relative of mine in a phone conversations which she had initiated to voice concern for our plight, and in which she criticized our"disproportionality," what would be her reaction if Mexico had launched a murderous barrage of missiles against California, she answered:"We would deserve it." In this way civilizations fade from history and probably deservedly so.

So what about"Proportionality"? I don't really know what it means, but I have my suspicions. There are legalists who could and would draw a formula of proportionality from the mostly unwritten and certainly unstudied books of international law. No doubt these formulas should form the basis for serious study by people who have the luxury to deal with them in an environment of peace and are not immediately threatened by people who want their blood now, at this very moment, and formulas be damned. I suspect that for the most part critics (essentially from the West) their idea of proportionality is drawn from the playing field where it is unsporting to pit Real Madrid against the Nebraska Comets in a soccer game. It's unfair! The Comets don't have a chance in Hell. Stop the slaughter, etc. War is disgusting. Almost everybody killed or maimed is indeed innocent – civilians, soldiers and certainly children and other relatively helpless people.

We had to impress upon the government of Lebanon that Hezbollah cannot be allowed to run riot in the South of their country, thus the Southern section of Beirut, which was a Hezbollah stronghold, was bombed and bombed heavily, and men, women, and children lost their lives. But having said that a message of this kind had to be delivered to Lebanon, do I therefore feel that we are just and pure, or even smart with regard to repeating the message over and over? No. And here is where I fear that I must return to the harsh criticism that I feel is needed for what we did and how we did it and who we are and where we are going. But first, a footnote.

It is clear to me that Jihadists of various stripes are not just folk like you or I who can be reasoned with and convinced that peace is a supreme value, and if only their needs are respected all will be well. They are religious fanatics who are in a war to restore Islam's lost glory and presumed dominance, and Jews are just item number one on a long agenda where blood, murder and suicide are the operational sub-texts. Their aims are plain and simple and their methods for achieving them are similarly so. So what does one do? I guess wherever possible you try to contain them and wear them down using political and economic means. Wherever possible you attempt to drive a wedge between the Jihadists and other elements of Islam who are either committed otherwise or unsure of the rightness or indeed efficacy of their programs. In other instances when the gauntlet is thrown there is little alternative but to fight the phenomenon with force, and in this fight as noted above innocents will die. Either way however, surrender is not an option. Soft peddling of the seriousness of the challenge will not bring tranquility. There really are two sides here and one is relatively sane and the other is completely deranged. If there is resort to all sorts of P.C. bullshit about everybody being basically the same and all of us wanting peace, then the relatively sane are going to lose to the completely deranged and all of our lives including those of millions of Muslims will become hell.

Thus, I feel that our going to war here was not really a choice. That being said, I think that the way it was done highlights and underscores many of the problematics of our society, some of which were alluded to at the beginning of my remarks.

It would appear that our leadership, military and political, were unaware of the true state of our military preparedness. They didn't call up the reserves until it was too late to use them effectively in eliminating the missiles pounding northern Israel. Their mistake was an interesting one, because it was really two mistakes for the price of one. First, I think they didn't call the reserves because they were afraid that they wouldn't come, and how would that look? (In fact, they all came and in some instances, more showed up than were called.) Thus the leadership, having no faith in their own people, dithered until it was too late. Secondly, the military, headed by a pilot, convinced them air power would do it all, and that too was a mistake. They bombed and they bombed almost it seems to prove a point in contention among strategists rather than to achieve an aim which in the end is always political. Why all the bombs on Beirut? Why bombs on roads to be used by refugees fleeing the war after Israel told them to use these very roads to flee? Why was Tyre, center of missile launches against Israel, left essentially O.K., while sites in northern Lebanon were bombed? Why, given the symbolic and historical significance of Kana where over 100 civilians were mistakenly killed in an Israeli shelling in 1996, did the planes once again go after a target where men, women and mostly children were sheltering in that very same town? The air force is an efficient technical instrument with seemingly no thinking of a broader nature visible. If it can be done, why not do it seems to be the operative principal.

While the generals and the politicians evinced little faith in the readiness of the reserves to heed the call to colors, they seemingly had inordinate and misplaced faith in the abilities of the regular army to shoulder the burden. And lo and behold, an army which has essentially been used as an occupying police force for decades, where they were called upon to deal with an oppressed and weak people, beating and killing them when deemed necessary, is not necessarily prepared to take on a well trained and highly motivated guerilla force like the Hezbollah. So they were beaten. And we lost the war. And no amount of posturing, or grandstanding, or twisting or turning is going to change that fact. We lost because of the above, and because our society has become what it has become and creative thinking has (to the extent that it existed) moved from defense and the military to other places. This, of course, is good, but not so good when you need colonels and generals who can out think your enemies. Imagination and"shtick" which were once the hallmarks of the Israeli Army, have departed from among the tents of Zion and have seemingly turned up in the tents of Esau.

Now, one might ask how can the political and military leadership be so opaque regarding the capabilities of the forces available to them. In which country do they live? Who do they talk to other than their lawyers and their brokers?

Clearly, there was no one in charge of this country and I suspect this is true for much much longer than the last month. The air raid shelters were in disgraceful condition, and people could not stay in them for extended periods without turning on each other, or eating their hearts out; the reserves were not properly equipped even in some cases in regard to food and water. Private industry and charity stepped in to partially fill the gap. (How's that as an argument in favor of market forces and privatization?)

Instructions given to the home front (and to the army) were often contradictory and still more often made little sense. (Such as stand near a wall or building when the siren sounds.) Information was two pronged: Asinine nonsense from official sources; ratings-based hysteria from the media.

Leadership in this country is in deep crisis and I doubt if those occupying chairs in high places are aware of how deep and wide it is. Perhaps the signature event that encapsulates this crisis is the decision of the military and political leadership to push forward for the final two days of the war after the ceasefire was agreed but before it came into effect. The reason for this was to improve our ground performance and to enjoy the symbolic victory of planting our flag on the Litani River. Dozens of wounded and 33 died and we don't know why. (Among them the son of David Grossman, one of Israel's leading literary figures who had only days before participated in a press event asking that the military action cease because it was doing nothing worth a damn at that juncture.)

Thus, the country's faith in its political and military leadership has been undermined to an extraordinary degree, and one can only wonder from whence cometh our salvation. Once we start looking it appears that almost everything worth considering will have to be re-thought and re-framed. If anything positive can come of this catastrophe it will be in this re-thinking and re-evaluation of damn near everything, from what kind of society we want here to how we intend to live in this inhospitable region. Eternal verities have been shown to be not eternal and not verities, and policies which seemed like defensible positions are neither positions nor defensible.

1. The wall between us and the Palestinians (costing billions and much distress) makes no sense whatsoever and is easily overcome by tunnels and rockets.
2. Unilateral withdrawal whether from Gaza, the West Bank, or in retrospect Lebanon, is unsustainable. Only negotiations and international involvement in key instances will be workable – maybe.
3. The settler movement, which was on the ropes before the events of the past month, has gotten a new lease on life and this will cost us dearly for years to come.
4. The Jihadists all over the Moslem world have received a massive infusion of support from the street, the mosque and in many instances from the halls of power."Israel and the West can be beaten and time is working for us (the Jihadists)."
5. Israel's one million Arab citizens feel more alienated and more apart than in the past, and the satisfaction expressed by many at Hezbollah's success will play out badly viz. Arab-Jewish relationships in the near (at least) future.
6. The class divide in Israel between a disgusting plutocracy and masses of people with minimum conditions will place great strain on societal stability and solidarity. The gap between haves and have-nots was more than metaphorically played out in the air raid shelters all over northern Israel.
7. Faith in societal institutions has been badly shaken and faith in all echelons of leadership has hit bottom. Also (but this is probably always the case in situations of this kind) no alternative leadership seems apparent.
8. In view of the above, the fear of political instability could lead to a dangerous ascendancy of a simplistic and nihilistic right wing.

Can anything positive result? Perhaps, if we can get over our re-kindled fear of being destroyed and sufficiently large numbers recognize that we cannot bomb"them" into an embrace of the Zionist vision, we will be able to begin taking chances in the path untried – that of serious negotiations on a Palestinian state. Will this bring about peace and acceptance of our presence here? I am not at all sure but no alternative exists which leave us no choice but to try – and pray.