Israel, a Middle East superpower of wine and cheese

The Daily Star ^ | Eyal Megged | Eyal Megged

[forkinsocket]

As of this moment, the state of affairs between Israel and the Arabs is discouraging from the Israeli standpoint and encouraging from the Arab point of view. Everything appears to have been reversed: If in the past Israel relied on its wiles and the Arabs fell for its ruses, now the relationship has been turned upside down, as so often happens in life.

Again and again, we encounter this reversal of roles. Once, unable to deal with the superiority of Israel's cunning, the Arabs were sustained by delusions or waited for miracles. Now the situation is topsy-turvy: The Arabs rely on cunning and the Israelis grasp at useless dreams.

If in the past Israel was reputed to be a country that would do everything to avoid abandoning its wounded or captured soldiers and the Arabs were thought of as disdaining these values, here too things have been reversed. The one who strives to bring his warriors home alive is the enemy, not Israel. We are led astray and swallow lies.

Instead of thinking of tomorrow, Israeli strategy chases after yesterday. Had Israel done the right thing at the right time, there would never have evolved a situation in which it embarked on a lost cause to "bring its sons home." Had it made a timely deal with a weak, confused and embattled Syrian president who was begging for rescue through international recognition - not only would the abduction have been avoided but the unnecessary and pathetic war that followed as well.

Now, not only has Israel's societal weakness been exposed, relying on oaths and witchcraft instead of brainpower, but Israelis are being drawn into another obvious tailspin leading to yet another war in the north, this time apparently with Syria itself. Only after the next bloodletting will Israel be obliged to withdraw from the Golan Heights in return for a far less welcome deal than what it could have gotten from a weak and needy Bashar Assad two or three years ago. Thus are the pretentious and the arrogant punished. Thus are those who rely on their American patrons instead of on themselves - those who pursue the past rather than planning the future - dealt with.

The situation is similar on the Palestinian front. Just as negotiations with Hizbullah became an arena of illusions and no real deal was ever made - there was no "prisoner exchange" and Israel's sons were never "brought home" - so there is no real deal on the Palestinian horizon, either. Everything is virtual, in keeping with the computerized internet age we live in. Realities on the ground are immaterial; greed and arrogance control consciousness and thinking is directed toward instant gratification instead of understanding where Israel is going.

To concentrate day after day on ransoming prisoners is to view reality through a keyhole. What the Middle East needs today - as in the past, only more so - is fresh rather than routine thinking. The morass we Israelis are sinking into is mainly in our minds. It is easier to focus on captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit - though here too we don't emerge as geniuses at negotiation - than on the future of our relationship with Hamas.

Just as the problems between Israel and Hizbullah will be resolved by solving the equation with Syria, so we'll solve the Shalit issue only when we reach the necessary far-reaching conclusions regarding the reality we share with Hamas. But meanwhile we live in a virtual reality in which we have no problem deluding the entire world. To negotiate with someone whose company at the table you enjoy and to draft terms of a contract that will never be implemented has, by the way, always been the Jewish philosophy of survival: gaining time. It never really proved itself; it certainly doesn't when the Jews are running a sovereign state.

Bashar Assad and the prime minister of the Hamas government, Ismail Haniyya, are motivated by strategic thinking, and Israel is not. This is very troubling. We Israelis live from hand to mouth, as in the diaspora. They have statesmen, we have lawyers. They rely on their endurance, stubbornness, toughness and patience, while we have become a superpower of wine and cheese.

[forkinsocket]

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[americanophile]

Olmert has become the Jimmy Cater of Israel. I look forward to his departure.

[Convert from ECUSA]

I remember the Israel of years ago that acted quickly and decisively against terrorism, murders against Israeli civilians, etc., etc., etc. I cheered that Israel. I remember the Israel that went after the murderers of its Olympic atheletes, the Israel that successfully performed the Entebbe operation. I pray for that Israel to return very quickly, while there is still an Israel left, because the current crew of Capos running Israel are a greater threat to Israel’s survival than the combined muslim nations.