www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Stupendously-stupid-or-surreptitiously-sinister-311146
Into the fray: The unilateral two-state initiative endorsed by INSS this week is clearly not a ‘creative’ pro-peace measure but a demonstrably anti-settler one.
The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees… by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other – until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.
– Ayn Rand, 1965
O, who can hold a fire in his hand; By thinking on the frosty Caucasus? Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite; By bare imagination of a feast? Or wallow naked in December snow; By thinking on fantastic summer’s heat?
– From William Shakespeare’s Richard II
I am appalled. Just how long will politically biased claptrap be allowed to masquerade as serious policy research?
“Creative” capitulation
When I wrote last week’s column, “The coming canard: “Constructive unilateralism,” I was unaware that, this week, the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) would hold its sixth annual conference in Tel Aviv. Traditionally titled “Security Challenges of the 21st Century,” the focus this year was billed as “Creative Ideas for Israel’s Changing Strategic Environment.”
The speaker line-up was undeniably impressive, with an array of well-known figures from Israel and abroad – politicians, senior military officers and government officials, media personalities, academics and policy analysts.
The program spanned a range of worthy topics that extended beyond purely military and security spheres, including social, economic and diplomatic matters as well.
On some issues the recommendations made, and conclusions drawn, seemed sensible and well-grounded – although I did puzzle over why they may merit the description “creative.”
Thus for example, I found myself endorsing the findings of the team dealing with the question of how to contend with the threat of a nuclear Iran, which urged the US to opt for “strengthening the credibility of the military alternative,” remarking that “the Iranian leadership does not really feel threatened. This impairs the effectiveness of the diplomatic alternative.”
Likewise I tend to concur with the policy prescription for Israeli decision-makers: “…
if all options have failed, and the government of Israel has to choose between an Iranian bomb and the bombing of Iran, it should choose the option of bombing Iran….”
But when it comes to the Palestinian issue, things differ dramatically. Indeed, here the only “creative” suggestion is complete – and completely counterproductive – capitulation.
Poor political science
Readers will recall that last week I warned that comprehensive, coordinated and concerted efforts are being initiated to promote a nonsensical notion, perversely dubbed “constructive unilateralism” (hereinunder CU).
In broad strokes, CU advocates declare a priori – and independently of any reciprocal measure from the Palestinians – that Israel should:
• Renounce any claims to sovereignty beyond a pre-determined line (roughly the present route of the separation barrier, i.e.virtually the entire area of Judea-Samaria);
• Remove all Jewish civil presence across this line either by financial inducements (by offering monetary compensation for evacuation), economic strangulation (by ceasing any development
of Jewish communities in the area) or physical abandonment (by transferring control to the Palestinian Authority); and
• Leave the IDF deployed in areas evacuated, and in territory over which Israel concedes it has no claims to sovereignty.
Clearly, were these measures to be implemented, the political reality that would prevail in the evacuated territories would be largely similar to that which prevailed in pre-2000 South Lebanon, and we all remember how that ended – with the hasty retreat of the IDF and the empowerment of Hezbollah.
Thus, any suggestion to replicate those realities – only this time on a much a larger scale and closer to Israel’s coastal megatropolis – is based on atrociously poor political science and grievous political amnesia. Or worse, a surreptitious and sinister hidden agenda. Read on…
Seamless symbiosis – a reminder
I pointed out that the entity publicly promoting the CU-initiative is an organization called Blue and White Future (B&WF), which describes itself as “a nonpartisan political movement… funded by private donors in Israel… and elsewhere.”
There is, however, an extensive overlap between individuals involved in, the ideas promoted and the vehicles of publication employed by B&WF and INSS, that reveal an almost seamless symbiosis between the two entities, with the former tasked with public activism and the latter with providing the intellectual bona fides.
My diagnosis was dramatically validated this week, at the INSS conference, when the major elements of the CU-concept were given extensive exposure and emphatic endorsement. In a session titled “The Palestinian Issue: Towards a Reality of Two States,” the INSS findings/recommendations were presented by Gilead Sher, co-founder/ chairman of B&WF and a senior research fellow at INSS, who headed the institute’s team that dealt with the study of the topic.
I wish I could find a way to say this more diplomatically, as I have no personal animosity for anyone involved in the compilation of the almost seven-page document produced by the team. Indeed, in some cases quite the opposite. But, sadly I cannot.
