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The myth of Israel's strategic genius
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs atHarvard University's Kennedy School of GovernmentMon, 01/19/2009 - 12:00pmMany supporters of Israel will not criticize its behavior, even when it is engaged in brutaland misguided operations like the recent onslaught on Gaza. In addition to theirunderstandable reluctance to say anything that might aid Israel's enemies, this tendency isbased in part on the belief that Israel's political and military leaders are exceptionallysmart and thoughtful strategists who understand their threat environment and have ahistory of success against their adversaries. If so, then it makes little sense for outsiders tosecond-guess them.This image of Israeli strategic genius has been nurtured by Israelis over the years andseems to be an article of faith among neoconservatives and other hardline supporters of Israel in the United States. It also fits nicely with the wrongheaded but still popular imageof Israel as the perennial David facing a looming Arab Goliath; in this view, only brilliantstrategic thinkers could have consistently overcome the supposedly formidable Arabforces arrayed against them.The idea that Israelis possess some unique strategic acumen undoubtedly reflects anumber of past military exploits, including the decisive victories in the 1948 War of Independence, the rapid conquest of the Sinai in 1956, the daredevil capture of Adolf Eichmann in 1960, the stunning Israeli triumph at the beginning of the 1967 Six DayWar, and the intrepid hostage rescue at Entebbe in 1976.These tactical achievements are part of a larger picture, however, and that picture is not apretty one. Israel has also lost several wars in the past -- none of them decisively, of course -- and its ability to use force to achieve larger strategic objectives has declinedsignificantly over time. This is why Israelis frequently speak of the need to restore their"deterrent"; they are aware that occasional tactical successes have not led to long-termimprovements in their overall security situation. The assault on Gaza is merely the latestillustration of this worrisome tendency.
What does the record show?
Back in 1956, Israel, along with Britain and France, came up with a harebrained schemeto seize the Suez Canal and topple Nasser's regime in Egypt. (This was after an Israeliraid on an Egyptian army camp in Gaza helped convince Nasser to obtain arms from theSoviet Union). Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion initially hoped that Israel would beallowed to conquer and absorb the West Bank, parts of the Sinai, and portions of Lebanon, but Britain and France quickly scotched that idea. The subsequent attack was amilitary success but a strategic failure: the invaders were forced to disgorge the landsthey seized while Nasser's prestige soared at home and across the Arab world, fueling
 
radicalism and intensifying anti-Israel sentiments throughout the region. The episode ledBen-Gurion to conclude that Israel should forego additional attempts to expand itsborders -- which is why he opposed taking the West Bank in 1967 -- but his successorsdid not follow his wise advice.Ten years later, Israel's aggressive policies toward Syria and Jordan helped precipitate thecrisis that led to the Six Day War. The governments of Egypt, Syria, the USSR and theUnited States also bear considerable blame for that war, though it was Israel's leaderswho chose to start it, even though they recognized that their Arab foes knew they were nomatch for the IDF and did not intend to attack Israel. More importantly, after seizing theWest Bank, Golan Heights and Gaza Strip during the war, Israeli leaders decided to startbuilding settlements and eventually incorporate them into a "greater Israel." Thus, 1967marks the beginning of Israel's settlements project, a decision that even someone assympathetic to Israel as Leon Wieseltier has described as "a moral and strategic blunderof historic proportions." Remarkably, this momentous decision was never openly debatedwithin the Israeli body politic.With Israeli forces occupying the Sinai peninsula, Egypt launched the so-called War of Attrition in October 1968 in an attempt to get it back. The result was a draw on thebattlefield and the two sides eventually reached a ceasefire agreement in August 1970.The war was a strategic setback for Israel, however, because Egypt and its Soviet patronused the ceasefire to complete a missile shield along the Suez Canal that could protectEgyptian troops if they attacked across the Canal to regain the Sinai. American andIsraeli leaders did not recognize this important shift in the balance of power betweenIsrael and Egypt and remained convinced that Egypt had no military options. As a result,they ignored Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's peace overtures and left him little choicebut to use force to try to dislodge Israel from the Sinai. Israel then failed to detect Egyptand Syria's mobilization in early October 1973 and fell victim to one of the mostsuccessful surprise attacks in military history. The IDF eventually rallied and triumphed,but the costs were high in a war that might easily have been avoided.Israel's next major misstep was the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. The invasion was thebrainchild of hawkish Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, who had concocted a grandiosescheme to destroy the PLO and gain a free hand to incorporate the West Bank in "GreaterIsrael" and turn Jordan into "the" Palestinian state. It was a colossal strategic blunder: thePLO leadership escaped destruction and Israel’s bombardment of Beirut and itscomplicity in the massacres at Sabra and Shatila were widely and rightly condemned.And after initially being greeted as liberators by the Shiite population of southernLebanon, Israel's prolonged and heavy-handed occupation helped create Hezbollah,which soon became a formidable adversary as well as an avenue for Iranian influence onIsrael's northern border. Israel was unable to defeat Hezbollah and eventually withdrewits troops from Lebanon in 2000, having in effect been driven out by Hezbollah'sincreasingly effective resistance. Invading Lebanon not only failed to solve Israel’sproblem with the Palestinians, it created a new enemy that still bedevils Israel today.
 
In the late 1980s, Israel helped nurture Hamas -- yes, the same organization that the IDFis bent on destroying today -- as part of its long-standing effort to undermine YasserArafat and Fatah and keep the Palestinians divided. This decision backfired too, becauseArafat eventually recognized Israel and agreed to negotiate a two-state solution, whileHamas emerged as a new and dangerous adversary that has refused to recognize Israel'sexistence and to live in peace with the Jewish state.The signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 offered an unprecedented chance to end theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict once and for all, but Israel's leaders failed to seize the moment.Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and Benjamin Netanyahu all refused toendorse the idea of a Palestinian state -- even Rabin never spoke publicly about allowingthe Palestinians to have a state of their own -- and Ehud Barak's belated offer of statehood at the 2000 Camp David summit did not go far enough. As Barak's own foreignminister, Shlomo Ben-Ami, later admitted, "if I were a Palestinian, I would have rejectedCamp David as well." Meanwhile, the number of settlers in the West Bank doubledduring the Oslo period (1993-2001), and the Israelis built some 250 miles of connectorroads in the West Bank. Palestinian leaders and U.S. officials made their owncontributions to Oslo's failure, but Israel had clearly squandered what was probably thebest opportunity it will ever have to negotiate a peace agreement with the Palestinians.Barak also derailed a peace treaty with Syria in early 2000 that appeared to be a donedeal, at least to President Bill Clinton, who had helped fashion it. But when publicopinion polls suggested that the Israeli public might not support the deal, the IsraeliPrime Minister got cold feet and the talks collapsed.More recently, U.S. and Israeli miscalculations have gone hand-in-hand. In the wake of September 11, neoconservatives in the United States, who had been pushing for waragainst Iraq since early 1998, helped convince President Bush to attack Iraq as part of alarger strategy of "regional transformation." Israeli officials were initially opposed to thisscheme because they wanted Washington to go after Iran instead, but once theyunderstood that Iran and Syria were next on the administration's hit list they backed theplan enthusiastically. Indeed, prominent Israelis like Ehud Barak, Benjamin Netanyahu,and then-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres helped sell the war in the United States, whilePrime Minister Sharon and his chief aides put pressure on Washington to make sure thatBush didn’t lose his nerve and leave Saddam standing. The result? A costly quagmire forthe United States and a dramatic improvement in Iran's strategic position. Needless tosay, these developments were hardly in Israel's strategic interest.The next failed effort was then-Prime Minister Sharon's decision to unilaterally withdrawall of Israel’s settlers from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. Although Israel and itssupporters in the West portrayed this move as a gesture towards peace, "unilateralism"was in fact part of a larger effort to derail the so-called Road Map, freeze the peaceprocess, and consolidate Israeli control over the West Bank, thereby putting off theprospect of a Palestinian state "indefinitely." The withdrawal was completed successfully,but Sharon's attempt to impose peace terms on the Palestinians failed completely. Fencedin by the Israelis, the Palestinians in Gaza began firing rockets and mortars at nearbyIsraeli towns and then Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006.This event reflected its growing popularity in the face of Fatah’s corruption and Israel's
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