Bribing Israel to Look Away

To help convince Israel that billions of dollars in advanced weapons sales (including smart bombs and air-to-air missiles) to some seven Arab countries will not diminish Israel's "qualitative military edge over any combination of Arab foes" (as the long-standing promise goes), the US reportedly will provide Israel with $30 billion in new weapons of its own over the next decade.

The United States has sought to allay Israeli concerns about the forthcoming package. The senior U.S. defense official said Washington was working on a military assistance deal for Israel expected to top $30 billion during the next decade, a significant increase on current levels.

Rather than take the bait, Israel should take the high road and tell its closest ally, the United States, that the planned weapons sales to the Arabs are counter-productive, will derail efforts to pursue significant reform in these countries, and put in the hands of Israel's enemies the means to threaten Israel's security. Furthermore, the weapons will not deter, as intended, Iran from attacking its neighbors once it acquires nuclear weapons. Rather, the weapons only further fuel the regional arms race.

"This administration does not have an arms sales policy, except to sell, sell, sell," said Daryl G. Kimball of the Arms Control Association. "That approach in the Middle
East can be like throwing gasoline on a brush fire." (Washington Post, July 28, 2007)

More Weapons Sales to Arabs

The Bush Administration this weekend announced plans to sell billions of dollars worth of advanced weapons to at least five Arab "allies" and Israel. The sales to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait are being justified as necessary to counter a threat from Iran ("This is all about Iran," one US official reportedly said) and, undoubtedly, to win Arab support for US plans with regard to Iraq. In a July 29 cabinet meeting, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the sales were to "moderate" Arab countries, who had committed that the "weapons will not be used against Israel."

While these Arab states may not be as radical as Iran, whose leaders pursue nuclear weapons and Israel's destruction, they are neither "moderate" nor "allies" of the US. To refer to them as such is inaccurate and deceptive. With the exception of Egypt, all of these Arab states continue to reject Israel's existence and are led by regimes that limit press freedom and civil society development. They have demonstrated no "moderate" tendencies whatsoever. Referring to these Arabs states as "moderate" alleviates pressure on them to reform their systems of government or provide increased freedoms for their people.

"This will reduce pressure on Egypt and the Arab states to reform their politics. It's another case of trying to purchase stability at the expense of liberty," said Human Rights Watch Washington director Tom Malinowski. (Washington Post, July 28, 2007)

Furthermore, they share no common values with Americans. Nor have they made any effort to pursue bonds of friendship with the US. Thus, they are undeserving of the distinction of "allies," as well. Britain, Canada, the Aussies -- these countries are "allies."

Olmert gambles with Israel's security when he would have others take at their word that these Arab countries will never allow their new weapons to be used against Israel.

Arabs Need to Move On

Arab rulers perpetuate external enemies and threats so that their people will not hold them accountable for their country's political, economic, and social ills. When Arabs begin to speak out and demand accountable leaders, internal dissent will be legitimized and serious reform will be advanced. That, essentially, is the message Mona Eltahawy so eloquently delivers in an op-ed in the July 28 edition of the Washington Post:

"My generation, sadly, might be lost to defeat and humiliation. If so, the best gift we can offer those coming behind us is clear advice: Don't walk in our footsteps, and know that the best way you can help Palestinians is to help your own countries.... The 1967 war was one of the many conflicts with Israel that bookend our ages. Looking around the Arab world today, we must ask: What were they all for? It's time to move on."

Imagine what could be accomplished in the Arab world if all that hate, animosity, and economic resources were channeled to improving their societies instead of perpetuating conflict with Israel.

Soldiers Who Wash Floors in War

Contrary to the images the international media would like us to see -- of IDF soldiers allegedly shooting recklessly at Palestinians and detaining others, seemingly without cause, for hours at border crossings, IDF soldiers who fought in Lebanon last summer, after Hizballah kidnapped two soldiers in a cross-border raid and launched rockets into Israel, displayed quite a different image.

According to an article in the Jerusalem Post Metro magazine on Friday, July 20, 2007 (not yet posted online), IDF soldiers who'd been holed up in a deserted house in a deserted South Lebanon village "saw plain-clothed Hizballah operatives moving back in.... The soldiers nevertheless cleaned the house before evaculating. 'We even washed the floors.'"

"But these soldiers did something more," the Post continued. "Something unlikely for soldiers in battlezones around the world. They left letters for the Lebanese owners. 'We apologized in English and Arabic for taking over their home and offered to replace anything missing. We also expressed that we would one day like to meet in peace."

All the peace conferences and signed agreements in the world will not compensate for the fact that only when the Arabs -- Palestinian Arabs included -- demonstrate this kind of sincere sympathy and respect towards Israelis will there be any chance for lasting peace.

It Ain't the Settlements, Stupid!

Just as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was packing his bags in London for his initial trip to the region as Quartet peace envoy - a foray which, like its predecessors (Mitchell, Tenet, et al.), undoubtedly will fail - Israeli Prime Minister Olmert was already steering him off-course. "Settlements," he announced, will have to go.

"Anyone living with some kind of dream detached from reality that we can keep all the territories, isn't making a correct assessment," Olmert said. "We will have to leave many areas there."

To make matters worse, on the very day Blair arrived, the IDF publicly confronted Jews who'd returned, in protest, to Homesh, one of four West Bank "settlements" forcibly evacuated with those in Gaza.

But as the Gaza withdrawal and its aftermath have proven to anyone willing to objectively consider the facts, the "settlements" aren't the issue and have never been. Jewish communities in Gaza are gone and so is the IDF from much of Gaza, aside from border crossings, yet violence not only has continued but escalated. Qassem rockets hit towns inside Israel almost daily and, last July, Hamas mounted a cross-border raid that netted an IDF soldier still held captive.

It ain't the "settlements," stupid! Rather, Israel's enemies want the whole thing -- all of what they consider historic "Palestine." Now, rather than have Blair focus on pushing serious reform of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah, Olmert has given the Palestinians justification to point their fingers elsewhere.