Avigdor Lieberman’s Brilliant Entrée on the World Stage (Daniel Pipes Analyzes Speech Alert)

Avigdor Lieberman became foreign minister of Israel yesterday. He celebrated his inauguration with a maiden speech that news reports indicate left his listeners grimacing, squirming, and aghast. The BBC, for example, informs us that his words prompted “his predecessor Tzipi Livni to interrupt and diplomats to shift uncomfortably.”

Too bad for them – the speech leaves me elated. Here are some of the topics Lieberman covered in his 1,100-word stem-winder:

The world order: The Westphalia order of states is dead, replaced by a modern system that includes states, semi-states, and irrational international players (e.g., Al-Qaeda, perhaps Iran).

World priorities: These must change. The free world must focus on defeating the countries, forces, and extremist entities “that are trying to violate it.” The real problems are coming from “the direction of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq” – and not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Egypt: Lieberman praises Cairo as “a stabilizing factor in the regional system and perhaps even beyond that” but puts the Mubarak government on notice that he will only go there if his counterpart comes to Jerusalem.

Repeating the word “peace”: Lieberman poured scorn on prior Israeli governments: “The fact that we say the word ‘peace’ twenty times a day will not bring peace any closer.”

The burden of peace: “I have seen all the proposals made so generously by Ehud Olmert, but I have not seen any result.” Now, things have changed: “the other side also bears responsibility” for peace and must ante up.

The Road Map: The speech’s most surprising piece of news is Lieberman’s focus on and endorsement of the Road Map, a 2003 diplomatic initiative he voted against at the time but which is, as he puts it, “the only document approved by the cabinet and by the Security Council.” He calls it “a binding resolution” that the new government must implement. In contrast, he specifically notes that the government is not bound by the Annapolis accord of 2007 (“Neither the cabinet nor the Knesset ever ratified it”).

Implementing the Road Map: Lieberman intends to “act exactly” according to the letter of the Road Map, including its Tenet and Zinni sub-documents. Then comes one of his two central statements of the speech:

I will never agree to our waiving all the clauses - I believe there are 48 of them - and going directly to the last clause, negotiations on a permanent settlement. No. These concessions do not achieve anything. We will adhere to it to the letter, exactly as written. Clauses one, two, three, four - dismantling terrorist organizations, establishing an effective government, making a profound constitutional change in the Palestinian Authority. We will proceed exactly according to the clauses. We are also obligated to implement what is required of us in each clause, but so is the other side. They must implement the document in full.

The mistake of making concessions: He notes the “dramatic steps and made far-reaching proposals” of the Sharon and Olmert governments and then concludes, “But I do not see that [they] brought peace. To the contrary. … It is precisely when we made all the concessions” that Israel became more isolated, such as at the Durban Conference in 2001. Then follows his other central statement:

We are also losing ground every day in public opinion. Does anyone think that concessions, and constantly saying “I am prepared to concede,” and using the word “peace” will lead to anything? No, that will just invite pressure, and more and more wars. “Si vis pacem, para bellum” - if you want peace, prepare for war, be strong.

Israeli strength: Lieberman concludes with a rousing call to fortitude: “When was Israel at its strongest in terms of public opinion around the world? After the victory of the Six Day War, not after all the concessions in Oslo Accords I, II, III and IV.”

(1) I have had reservations about Lieberman and still do, but this speech has him off to a great start. Put as briefly as possible, he announced that “Israel is back.”

(2) Given that the formal name of the Road Map is “A Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” I confess myself puzzled by the news reports (such as the one headlined in the Los Angeles Times, “Foreign minister says Israel not bound to follow two-state path”) declaring that Lieberman has pronounced the end of the two-state solution.

(3) There is much irony in Lieberman now championing the Road Map, an initiative he and many others of his outlook condemned at the time. For an authoritative discussion at the time of its origins, flaws, and implications, see the analysis by Daniel Mandel, “Four-Part Disharmony: The Quartet Maps Peace.”

The fading of the memory of the Holocaust is matched by unfailing hostility of the socialist to colonialism. As if there were something awful about the displacement of Turkish rule by British and French rule, that the Arab peoples of Palestine were betrayed by the allowing of Jewish settlers into the Palestinian mandate.

All of this is to argue that the Arabs ought to be immune to the twists and turns of history. As if the non-Arabs of the Byzantine empire and of the Persian empire had not be conquered and exploited by the new Muslim imperialists, or the Caliphate of Bagdad had not been destroyed--literally--by the Mongols and Iraq laid more or less fallow for seven hundred years as part of a Turkish slave empire. Much is made by modernists about the shortco0ming of Christian civilization, but little about the new "Roman" empire of the Ottomans depended as much as the original on continuing conquests, and died when it met the growing power of Europe.

Anyone wanting to have a good view of what Palestine was like in the 19th Century has only to read Mark Twain's "Innocent's Abroad." to see how much the Jewish "invasion" materially profited the region. If one may gauge by the condition of today's Arabs lands without the benefit of oil, the none may guess how well anAeab Palestinian state will fare under the present leaders. "moderate." or radical. As the case of Vietnam attests, menwho know nothing but war seldom makes good rulers in peacetime. An engineer may become a terroist, but seldom a terrorist an engineer. .

As I noted in my original post, I’m not arguing about the relative moral standing of the various parties to the dispute (one side or the other as a right to exist as an independent state on its own territory because it represents a more desirable political and social arrangement) but from a strictly practical standpoint.

30 years ago it was not uncommon to meet Israeli Jews who were convinced that the Palestinians would eventually realize that they were much better off living under a reasonably efficient and humane Israeli occupation than under the inefficient and inhumane alternatives which were the likely results of self-rule.

We’ve seen how that theory works out.

This of course is the conundrum of “national liberation” movements, as noted in the responses to my post they are often poorly ruled once they achieve “self-government”, in large part because revolutionaries make poor peacetime leaders and ideologues make poor managers, and the result is by most “objective” standards life is often worse than under colonial rule.

But that doesn’t change the fact that since around 1960 the chaos of self-determination has been generally perceived as more legitimate than the stability of colonial rule, and I can’t see any reason why that’s likely to change in the near future - even if we reach the point where some sort of international stewardship of failed states becomes the norm I think will almost certainly be exercised via local leadership was substantial autonomy rather than administration directly supervised by non-citizens of the country in question.

As for the ebb and flow of local authority I think the time frame of Israel’s establishment is very significant: IMO there’s a possibility that had “Israel” been established immediately post-World War I it might have been able to attain “legitimacy”, equally clearly it could not have been established at all on anything like its current terms after about 1960. These are the time frames that matter politically in the 21st century, everything prior to 1945 is essentially irrelevant to the current situation except as “historical underlying factors” not immediately relevant to possible current solutions.

Given this situation, I’m deeply pessimistic about the possibility for Israel’s survival, not only as a political entity but literally in terms of the survival of the population.

One of the ironies of Israel - a state to design to ensure the safety of Jews - is that it is increasingly becoming one of the most dangerous places to be a Jew - essentially Israel has achieved the compaction of a substantial portion of the world’s Jewish population into a very compact “target set”, and I think we can be virtually certain that for example their people the ISI who dream of diverting Pakistani devices to third-party actors. It takes only three modest sized nuclear weapons to decimate the civilian population of Israel - and while the death of 20 or 30 million Muslims in the inevitable retaliatory strikes may be deterable in the case of state actors, it’s clearly an attractive exchange to be some Islamic militants.

This is longer-term the problem with envisioning Israel as a successful garrison state - how you garrison against the possibility of a small handful of nuclear weapons being smuggled into your country as part of a really professional operation run by a competent foreign intelligence service?

The answer is, perhaps you can’t.

So when I look at the alternatives, they don’t seem very attractive: 1) you have a highly unlikely resolution via a two state solution policed (or enforced) by external actors (it’s essentially impossible to negotiate an agreement between two parties one of whom has nothing to lose and one of whom has everything to lose), or 2) you have the gradual moral degradation of Israel into a country that must contemplate the imprisonment or explosion of a large number of its own citizens as well as possible ethnic cleansing in its expanding security zones, or 3) you have a second great modern Jewish Holocaust and the attendant retaliation.

To me the way this seems most likely play out as:

Israel’s international support drops lower and lower in response to the steps a majority of Israeli citizens feel are equired to preserve their political and territorial sovereignty, until eventually Israel is faced declining markets for its exports and perhaps declining American aid.

Life becomes increasingly economically difficult for most Israeli citizens and Israel begins to divide into two camps: one of them fiercely determined to preserve Jewish political authority in Israel at any cost, and one which increasingly sees little future for their children under such conditions.

Emigration by the latter group starts to increase, led by young Israelis who move abroad for better educational and economic opportunities and at some point reaches a tipping point - many initially intend to return to Israel on a permanent basis, but fewer and fewer actually do so.

The United States becomes the primary destination of Israeli emigrants, and at some point the balance of Jewish political influence in United States tips away from unconditional support of Israel as the sole American commitment and increasingly and toward facilitating immigration of Israeli Jews into the United States to join those already resident here.

At some point this will become an extremely contentious political issue within Israel, which will probably be resolved in favor of those who wish to remain, economically disadvantaging those who continue to leave, which in turn creates a greater and greater division of international Jewish opinion into two camps, and which further reduces international support for additional steps seen by the remaining Israelis as necessary to provide security.

As the demographics of Israel change, the secular nationalists and the more nationalistic religious parties increasingly come to dominate Israeli policy, this evokes increasing nationalism and militancy in most surrounding states.

By this time I suppose the rest of the world is going to be pretty much entirely in a “pox on both your houses” state of mind with regard to both the Israelis and the “Palestinians” - who may well have been ejected by this time into neighboring countries against the wishes of both the Palestinians and their new hosts - and I wouldn’t even try and predict what happens from that point forward, except that the good alternatives are not pretty and the bad alternatives are pretty horrific.

What would you have Israel do for peace?
In 1922, 3/4 of Palestine was set aside as an Arab state (Tranjordan).
Israel gave up territory to Egypt and Jordan for peace. Sadly these treaties are unlikely to survive any change in corrupt regime.

Meanwhile, Israel has been trying to give up territory for peace with the "Palestinians" for the last 17 years. Israel tried negotiating with the PLO but in 2000 Arafat responded to a proposal for 99% of Gaza and 90% of the West Bank not with a counter proposal but with a Second Intifada. Later Israel unilaterally made Gaza Juderein and gave it to the PLO/PA. It was then taken over by Hamas and has been used as a staging area to attack Israel. The PLO/PA do not want peace. They are operating on the "Phased Plan" to cut Israel up and conquer it. Hamas wants to conquer it immediately. The Peace Plan put together by the Saudis and supported by the Organiuzation of Islamic States call for Israel to give up all territory won in 1967 and then commit suicide by allowing in millions of Arabs. Meanwhile the International Left is no longer calling for "land for peace" but a binational state, that would lead to mass murder of Jews and Dhimmitude for the rest.
In the 1990s the Israeli right said that Madrid and then Oslo would
1) Not bring peace, but create terrorism
2) Radicalize/Palestinianize Israeli Arabs
3) Make Israeli less popular as it deals with the above.
They were right. Despite this, all of the parties in the Knesset save National Union and the National Religious Party call for some form of Land for Peace.

Finally, what makes you think that I am safer than relatives in Israel. Do you think the Jihadis don't want to nuke NY?
The solution is not to give them power, but to stop them developing nuclear weapons at all costs. And you do realise that almost every country in Europe will be Muslim in a century if nothing is done?

"Israel’s international legitimacy " rests in the same place where France's, Swiss, Mexico's, Russia's, Poland's, etc, etc is. UN authorization was paramount for that short period of time until the shots were fired and Arabs attacked. Then it all reverted back to the same old rule: defend yourself or else.

How many countless nations and ethnicities perished in the human history? For the single reason that they could not defend themselves. How had UN in our civilized times protected people in Sudan, Somali, Rwanda, Cambodia? The borders of Germany and Poland were established in 1945 as the result of war. The borders of India and Pakistan were established in 1947 as the result of bloody partition and one of them would have perished already if not a power stalemate they have.

There are very few borders in the world that never were contested in a bloody conflict. Are the borders of France any more legitimate that they were established some centuries ago and lastly in 1945? Or Poland's - that changed dramatically in size over the centuries; Poland, that was partitioned numerous times and even did not exist for a while? Or less fortunate nations that never got the borders, like Kurdistan or Basque?

Israel exists now ONLY because her people defended her with sweat and blood, and not because UN said so. Arabs ignored UN and UN was ready to do absolutely nothing to defend Israel. We might imagine an ideal world where UN indeed has moral authority and power to do something good, but its not our real world. All the talks that Israel was borne thanks to UN forget that it would have died as quickly, thanks to the same UN, if she did not defend herself. UN not gives, nor takes away any legitimacy from Israel.

If you want to argue that the guilt for Holocaust helped during the UN vote, then yes, it helped. But it was only the last official OK in the Zionists' movement to establish Israel that started long before the Holocaust, and for a good reason. And some, like Soviets, had less than pure motives for voting yes. And, I hope, you are not missing my point that UN vote did not make Israel. Israel's defense of Israel made Israel. Yes, and building a striving democracy on the land that produced nothing for millennia too.

“By this time I suppose the rest of the world is going to be pretty much entirely in a “pox on both your houses” state of mind with regard to both the Israelis and the “Palestinians” - who may well have been ejected by this time into neighboring countries against the wishes of both the Palestinians and their new hosts - and I wouldn’t even try and predict what happens from that point forward, except that the good alternatives are not pretty and the bad alternatives are pretty horrific.”

Welll, then by the picture you paint of Israel’s future, Israeli’s should just give up. The game is over after all, according to you, no matter how the Israeli’s play it. The ending is destruction regardless of the route they take. If I were an Israeli, then my mind would be made up as to what to do. I would fight with all my might to the very bitter end, if it is to be a bitter end.

Like the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, I would do whatever I could to maintain my life and that of my fellow Jews. I would be a Jewish Spartan. And I think that Netanyahur and Leiberman would become my fearless leaders, not negatives, as in your mind, for the Jewish state. Capitulation would not be in my lexicon nor in my soul. If I were younger, and a Jew, I would move to Israel and fight in their armed forces based on the principle of the right to exist against all odds. You can think and think and think all you want, I would want to do, do anything I could to preserve my people and my way of life, and the existence of the only state I was ever allowed to have other than in biblical times, in this upside down world where more and more good is bad, and bad is good. I am delighted that Bibi is now PM, and that Leiberman, if he keeps up with what he is currently saying, is FM.

By the way, yes Lieberman knows the Pali’s (in particular, Hamas) will not be able to live up to the Oslo Accords, and therefore making them stick to it means no concessions on Israel’s part for a two-party state. That is the Pali’s fault isn’t it, for not living up to the Oslo Accords. They could have their damn state if they live up to the Accords. But they won’t, and any sane person knows this. Thus Lieberman is a realist, and has the potential for being an excellent politician to boot. He’s got the Pali’s in a box. Live up to the Accords, or forget about a State of your own. Ball in Pali’s court. Of course we know though that the U.S. (lead by the Muslim Obama), and the anti-semitic EU, will rail against this Israeli policy,which is funny when you think about it, as all of them were pushing for the terms of the Oslo Accords, but what else would one expect of the EU and a new socialist country (the USSA) led by Obama? Makes George Bush and his basic “hands off Israel” policy look pretty good right about now. (With the exception of Condi Rice who was taken in, just like Colin Powell before her, by the Pali propaganda). I think this was because they were both Black and saw the Pali’s as the underdogs being oppressed by their Israeli slave masters, a portrait I’m sure the Pali’s played up to them.

What I want is a world where the truth is spoken, not the fantasy, the faux ideal, not the theories over the practicalities, not the propagandists’ ruminations, not the outright lies, or the sly inferences. Or the blatant omissions of fact which the MSM in this country are experts at. Lieberman’s speech to truth is a good step in the right direction. Let the rest of the world lie through their teeth, Israel can’t afford that luxury.

"No suspicions on my part. M. Dodge maybe should work for Foggy Bottom. The US State Department is just the place for Arabists "

Sigh.

One of the more frustrating things on FR is a the common assumption that if someone is concerned that Israel's security situation is continuing to deteriorate, it must be because they're besotted with love for Islam.

I don't know anyone around here, myself included, who would not prefer living in Israel to living in any of the surrounding states, or to any Islamic state is likely to exist within our lifetimes.

But as I noted in that post, I'm not speaking to the question of the relative moral or ethical qualities of either society, nor to questions of legitimacy based in pre-World War I history or in religious opinion - on either side.

The question is whether Israel is a source of security or a source of risk for the Jews living there.

My take on this is pretty simple: Israel is geographically a very compact country, three relatively small fission weapons would be sufficient to decimate its people and infrastructure.

There is a highly unstable Islamic state - Pakistan - already possessed of such weapons and largely under the control of an intelligence service with many high-ranking members supportive of the cause of radical Islam in the form of the Taliban and perhaps of Al Qaeda.

Such an intelligence service has the knowledge and financial depth to mount a sophisticated operation to get those weapons into Israel, emplaced, and detonated - and such an operation, properly conducted, could be very difficult to stop - there is a considerable chance of its success. (The successful attempts we are somewhat aware of to interdict terrorists have depended on the fact that they are non-state actors and have a difficult time flying under the operational and financial radar of Western intelligence services, this would be much less true of a professionally run state-sponsored effort - even if the was a rogue faction of the state undertaking it.).

Thus when considering mass casualty attacks, by far the most damaging attacks that can be mounted against the world's Jewish population would likely be mounted in Israel.

And there is very little that either Israel or the United States can do about this - both have only very limited political influence in Pakistan and neither has a practical non-diplomatic option for suppressing the ISI and its freelance minions - if they're willing to sacrifice Pakistan to the cause (and clearly some are fanatical enough to do so) there is virtually nothing we can do to stop them other than to attempt to discover and thwart such schemes.

And if Israel is the site of the second great modern Jewish Holocaust, arguments about the relative moral values of Israel and its neighbors, or about the historical rights and wrongs of Israel's establishment and the subsequent expansion of its borders, are going to be pretty meaningless.

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