ONTRIBUTOR

Israeli Force, Adrift on the Sea

By AMOS OZ

Published: June 1, 2010

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Israeli Force, Adr By AMOS OZ http://w w w .nytim default June 2, 2010

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ARAD, Israel

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FOR 2,000 years, the Jews knew the force of force only in the form of lashes to our
own backs. For several decades now, we have been able to wield force ourselves —
and this power has, again and again, intoxicated us.
In the period before Israel was founded, a large portion of the Jewish population in
Palestine, especially members of the extremely nationalist Irgun group, thought
that military force could be used to achieve any goal, to drive the British out of the
country, and to repel the Arabs who opposed the creation of our state.

Luckily, during Israel’s early years, prime ministers like David Ben-Gurion and Levi
Eshkol knew very well that force has its limits and were careful to use it only as a
last resort. But ever since the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel has been fixated on
military force. To a man with a big hammer, says the proverb, every problem looks
like a nail.

Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip and Monday’s violent interception of civilian vessels
carrying humanitarian aid there are the rank products of this mantra that what
can’t be done by force can be done with even greater force. This view originates in
the mistaken assumption that Hamas’s control of Gaza can be ended by force of
arms or, in more general terms, that the Palestinian problem can be crushed
instead of solved.

But Hamas is not just a terrorist organization. Hamas is an idea, a desperate and
fanatical idea that grew out of the desolation and frustration of many Palestinians.
No idea has ever been defeated by force — not by siege, not by bombardment, not
by being flattened with tank treads and not by marine commandos. To defeat an
idea, you have to offer a better idea, a more attractive and acceptable one.

Thus, the only way for Israel to edge out Hamas would be to quickly reach an
agreement with the Palestinians on the establishment of an independent state in
the West Bank and Gaza Strip as defined by the 1967 borders, with its capital in
East Jerusalem. Israel has to sign a peace agreement with President Mahmoud
Abbas and his Fatah government in the West Bank — and by doing so, reduce the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a conflict between Israel and the Gaza Strip. That
latter conflict, in turn, can be resolved only by negotiating with Hamas or, more
reasonably, by the integration of Fatah with Hamas.

Even if Israel seizes 100 more ships on their way to Gaza, even if Israel sends in
troops to occupy the Gaza Strip 100 more times, no matter how often Israel deploys
its military, police and covert power, force cannot solve the problem that we are not
alone in this land, and the Palestinians are not alone in this land. We are not alone
in Jerusalem and the Palestinians are not alone in Jerusalem. Until Israelis and
Palestinians recognize the logical consequences of this simple fact, we will all live in
a permanent state of siege — Gaza under an Israeli siege, Israel under an
international and Arab siege.
I do not discount the importance of force. Woe to the country that discounts the
efficacy of force. Without it Israel would not be able to survive a single day. But we
cannot allow ourselves to forget for even a moment that force is effective only as a
preventative — to prevent the destruction and conquest of Israel, to protect our
lives and freedom. Every attempt to use force not as a preventive measure, not in
self-defense, but instead as a means of smashing problems and squashing ideas,
will lead to more disasters, just like the one we brought on ourselves in
international waters, opposite Gaza’s shores.

Amos Oz is the author, most recently, of the novel “Rhyming Life and Death.”

This was translated from the Hebrew by Haim Watzman