[lit-ideas] [lit-id] fyi, David Brooks, NYT select
- From: Carol Kirschenbaum <carolkir@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 19:51:21 -0700
Op-Ed Columnist By DAVID BROOKS
Published: July 16, 2006
Why is this Middle East crisis different from all other Middle East crises?
Because in all other Middle East crises, Israel's main rivals were the
P.L.O., Egypt, Iraq and Syria, but in this crisis the main rivals are the
jihadists in Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and, most important, Iran. In all other
crises the nutjobs were on the fringes, but now the nutjobs in Hamas and
Hezbollah are in governments and lead factions of major parties.
In all other crises, the Palestinians, thanks to Yasir Arafat's strenuous
efforts, owned their own cause, but now the clerics in Iran are taking
control of the Palestinian cause and turning it into a weapon in a much
larger struggle.
In all other crises there was a negotiation process, a set of plans and some
hope of reconciliation. But this crisis is different. Iran doesn't do road
maps. The jihadists who are driving this crisis don't do reconciliation.
In other words, this crisis is a return to the elemental conflict between
Israel and those who seek to destroy it. And you can kiss goodbye, at least
for the time being, to some of the features of the recent crises.
You can kiss goodbye to the fascinating chess match known as the Middle East
peace process. That chess match was dependent on a series of smart and
reasonable Arab players with whom Israel could negotiate. Those smart and
reasonable interlocutors still exist. They still invite visiting Westerners
to dinner and may still represent the majority of their countrymen. But they
are not running the show now.
Iran has conducted a semi-hostile takeover of what used to be known as the
Arab-Israeli dispute. Iran has deepened and widened its support for its
terrorist partners. Iran and the Islamists are fueled by the sense that the
winds of history are blowing at their back. They pushed the Soviets out of
Afghanistan, the U.S. out of Lebanon, Israel out of Lebanon and Gaza and
they seem on the verge of pushing the U.S. out of Iraq. After centuries of
Muslim humiliation, these people know how to win.
So Hamas and Hezbollah audaciously set the pace of confrontation. Maybe the
moderates will eventually crack down on the radicals (there's a first time
for everything), but in the meantime there will be no peace process. There
will be no shuttle diplomacy. Instead, the main mode of communication will
be death: the minuet of missile launches and retaliations, escalations and
de-escalations that irreconcilable enemies use to talk with one another.
You can also kiss goodbye to the land-for-peace mentality. In all other
crises there was the hope that if Israel ceded land and gave the
Palestinians a chance to lead normal lives, then tensions would ease. But
this crisis follows withdrawals in Lebanon and Gaza, and interrupts the
withdrawals from the West Bank that were at the core of Ehud Olmert's
victory platform.
Israel's main enemies in this crisis are not normal parties and governments
that act on behalf of their people. They are jihadist organizations that
happen to have gained control of territory for bases of operations. Hamas
and Hezbollah knew their kidnappings and missile launches would set off
retaliation that would hurt Gazans and Lebanese, but they attacked anyway -
for the sake of jihad. They answer to a higher authority and dream of
genocide in his name.
What's happened over the past few years, in short, is that public opinion in
Israel has moved to the center at the same time that decision-making power
on the other side has moved to the extreme.
Now there is a debate over how Israel should respond to this situation. Some
say Israel should temper its response so Arab moderates can corral the
extremists, which would be great advice if the moderates had any record of
ever doing that or any capacity to do so in the near future. Others say
Israel simply must degrade the capabilities of its fanatical opponents.
But this is a secondary issue. The core issue is that just as Israel has
been trying to pull back to more sensible borders, its enemies have gone
completely berserk. Through some combination of fecklessness and passivity,
the Arab world has ceded control of this vital flashpoint to Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad and Bashar al-Assad. It has ceded its own destiny to people who
do not believe in freedom, democracy, tolerance or any of the values
civilized people hold dear.
And what's the world's response? Israel is overreacting.
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