Ariel Sharon and Israeli conservatives (and George Bush and American conservatives) get it right...and Victor Davis Hanson gets it wrong...
The Jerusalem Post (the leading conservative newspaper in Israel), this morning, leads with the 50 Islamic Jihad operatives arrested overnight, after several deadly attacks on Israelis by Islamic Jihad members...
IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) details 50 Islamic Jihad operatives overnight
Haaretz (the leading liberal newspaper in Israel) leads with the talks between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to quell this violence and to establish a more lasting peace in the region...
Sharon-Abbas summit opens in shadow of violence
Also...hat-tip to AOL News for alerting me to the story:):):)...
Israel Nabs 52 Islamic Jihad Militants in Crackdown
Two Israelis -- one civilian and one soldier -- have been killed in the last week, as well as seven mortar shells fired, one damaging three houses and six cars...
Ariel Sharon says that the arrests in response to these murders -- as well as the regular murders and other terrorist activity engaged in by the Islamic Jihad and its bigger terrorist counterpart in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Hamas, to be sure -- are needed to reduce the threat of violence that Israeli soldiers and civilians face from Palestinian terrorists...
AOL's report indicates that...
"Israel has been very critical of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' strategy for reining in extremists, which favors persuasion over confrontation. At their meeting later Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was expected to demand that Abbas clamp down on militants.
Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said the Palestinian attacks and Israeli arrests endangered the cease-fire, and 'have really cast a dark cloud over the summit.'
'I want to condemn the cycle of violence that preceded the anticipated summit today,'' Erekat said. 'The Israeli arrests this morning will not add anything to sustaining the quiet.'
And on this point, Erekat is wrong, I believe...
I am sympathetic to larger concern that more comprehensive efforts at peace in the region must do more than fight terrorists militarily or even just arrests -- which seems like a PRETTY DAMNED APPROPRIATE response to murder when it occurs, no matter where it happens...though, of course, murder should be a crime that a person is convicted of, fairly, in a court of law, and not just asserted...
But that doesn't mean that the Israeli government is beholden to just watch terrorists in Palestine murder their people without action...
Which is EXACTLY what the Palestinian authorities seem committed, inexplicably, to doing right now...
"A request by Israel to the Palestinian Authority in February to arrest Higawi was ignored, officials said," the Post reports...
Islamic Jihad spokesman, Khadr Adnan, says that if the Palestinian Authority doesn't persuade Israel to keep to the truce, then they will back out and argue that other Palestinian groups should as well...
And I say to Khadr:):):)...
Tough fuckin' titty...
You don't want Islamic Jihad operatives arrested, Khadr...then stop fucking killing Israelis...
I'd say that arresting militants is about the most appropriate thing Israel could do in this situation (though, as I said, there need to be trials and honest assessments of guilt and innocence for specific crimes)...
And Mahmoud Abbas' response is EXACTLY the kind of nonsense that conservatives think that liberals are supporting in efforts against terrorism, and which, if liberals were supporting such nonsense, they would be right to be critical of:):):):):):):)...
This is OF COURSE -- TO ANY NUMBSKULL WHO'S EVER READ ANY OF THE MOST AND EVEN SOME OF THE LEAST INTELLIGENT LIBERAL'S PROPOSALS ON THE MATTER -- NOT what liberals are arguing...a position partially charactured (though with some fair assessment of some of soft power suggestions made by liberals and conservatives) by Victor Davis Hanson in the National Review piece...
Our Strange War...
...that I critiqued here this past month:):):)...
A brilliant yet sadly naive effort by the National Review's own Victor Davis Hanson:):):)...
OF COURSE you cannot win over terrorists with persuasion alone:):):):):):):):):):)...
And anyone who thinks so is a fuckin' dumbass, I think, and does not take seriously enough the threat of the murder of Israeli citizens and soldiers that Palestinian and other terrorism poses to Israelis and all of us...
OF COURSE terrorists must be arrested...specifically, for the murders they commit...
And on this matter, Ariel Sharon and the White House which supports this effort...
In Washington, U.S. officials called on Abbas to take action against militants.
"'We strongly condemn the terror actions of the last several days, directed at taking the lives of Israelis and sabotaging efforts for peace,' State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Monday. 'Now is the time for the Palestinian Authority to act against terrorists.'"
...are RIGHT...and Victor Davis Hanson is WRONG...
Arresting terrorists in this manner is EXACTLY what will best prevent future murders AND undermine the political support that too many terrorists have with Arab and other populations...broad, blunt military action -- except when it is CLEARLY necessary and is a best effort to arrest and NOT KILL terrorists -- is NOT the most just action states and peoples confronted with terrorism can take...arresting militants IS...and it is the most likely to undermine political support for terrorism with those who are sympathetic...
The concern that I believe, at this point, that the Palestians share about the need to search for deeper solutions that are not just based on arresting or killing terrorists that can be easily replaced is one that I share...
I should add, here, though, that terrorists are replaced LESS EASILY when they are arrested than when they are killed, a very important reason to prefer arrest over killing terrorists or fighting them with conventional warfare when they pose such an unconventional threat that needs unconventional tactics, like using military forces to arrest, as Israel has done here, rather than fighting to kill, as is more conventionally done...though if terrorists die while democratic or non or less democratic forces are trying to arrest them, and if democratic or less or non democratic forces do their best to bring them to justice rather than kill them, then that is the risk that one engages in when one commits murder for a political cause...though the killing of intentional or reckless killing of innocents is something that ALL military forces are responsible for...NO MATTER HOW AFRAID THEY ARE OF DYING...though not something to be punished when done in good faith, I don't think)...
The most successful efforts that I've seen and know of in terms of dealing with terrorism -- counterterrorism and international policy scholars, like Richard Clarke or Joe Nye or Henry Kissinger or Robert Kagan or others more familiar with with counterterrorism efforts may know of better options, here...
But the most successful efforts that I've seen in dealing with terrorism were in Northern Ireland...when Bill Clinton and Tony Blair negotiated the peace agreements between the Catholic Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland and the Protestant Ulster Unionists, and the British government...
The peace agreement, to my very limited knowledge of it, involved a truce, an agreement for combatants to turn in their arms -- a portion of the agreement that there was much controversy over and which took much time to accomplish -- amnesty and release of political prisoners for a broad array of crimes, including murder within a limited time span, and a reconciliation process, similar to the successful process initiated in South Africa...the creation of a 108 seat parliamentary Assembly, with proportional representation to protect minority rights, as well as representation of Ulster Unionists and Sinn Fein representatives (Sinn Fein is the political wing of the Irish Republican Army) in British parliament...
As Balraj Puri explains in his piece that asks the very relevant question:):):)...
Belfast Peace Agreement: Any Relevance for Kashmir?
"The Agreement Stipulates decommissioning of all paramilitary arms within two years. (In practice it means surrender of arms by the IRA). It introduces mechanism for an accelerated programme for the release of political prisoners irrespective of the nature of their crime including that of murder within a fixed time frame. It also provides for making the composition of police, which at present is about 90% protestant, more balanced."
Here is the text of the Belfast Agreement...
The Belfast Agreement from the Office of the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister...
The following link is a more or less comprehensive documentation of the otherwise known Good Friday accords...
The Good Friday Agreement...
...as well as a leftist asking if the accords should be supported by Socialists and those loyal to the IRA...
...a fascinating piece on how Socialists and those loyal to the IRA might take on the Good Friday Agreement...
...as well as a right-wing columnist apparently loyal to the Ulster Unionists skeptical/cynical about the prospects of the accords...
John Tyndall: The Delusion of Peace in Ulster
And most facinating to me was a Fox News interview that I watched with Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein spokesman, where Gerry, at a moment post-9/11 when the accords seemed to be straining, publicly worked to keep the peace agreement/process on track...Gerry Adams...a spokesman for a former terrorist organization...leading the effort to keep a peace agreement on track (if that is not progress and a reasonable sign of the success of a peace agreement, Mr. Tyndall...I don't know what you would recognize as a reasonable peace after 32 -- 1966 to 1998 -- years of persistent violence in the region...it's as if NO WAR has a reasonable end, for some people, except for the complete humiliation of an enemy...we tried that, Mr. Tyndall, with the Versailles Agreement after World War I...with DISASTROUS RESULTS...especially the rise of Adolph Hitler and Naziism in Germany and their murderous ambitions to conquer Europe and the world)...
Notice some of the features of that peace aggreement that seem to have much application to the situation in Palestine...including and especially an agreement that would persuade Palestinian leaders to arrest militants as long as terrorist murder maintains itself...Israelis relaxing security measures -- like checkpoints in the West Bank and Gaza -- if an only if they can be relaxed and not compromise legitimate security concerns for Israel...the turning over of weapons by Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and any other groups that might be operating in the region...amnesty and a truth and reconciliation process for political prisoners, including for murder in fixed time periods, and victims of violence, as was successfully employed in Northern Ireland and in South Africa...
...as Balraj suggests...the use of any relevant autonomous regional governments involved...clearly the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government...but any other local governments that might be involved (this is where specific regional expertise would be REALLY HELPFUL:):):)...and the assistance of a broad array of intellectuals respected by the broadest array of members...and the disassociation of all parties with the murder of civilians and soldiers as a means of pursuing Palestinian autonomy...are all important ideas to consider:):):)...
I'll keep reading about other arrangements that might be made...
But these are some REALLY IMPORTANT ONES, I think:):):)...and ones that I think are FAR MORE IMPORTANT than Ariel Sharon's FOOLISH efforts to FORCE Jewish settlers in the region -- who moved there INDEPENDENT of the Israeli government, remember...how would you feel if the government FORCED you from your home because they wanted to further a peace objective?...hopefully most people would understand that objective...but FORCING these settlers from their homes is foolish and counterproductive to secure support from conservatives and ultra-conservatives in Israel for a peace process when it is back on track -- and which the Israeli Supreme Court just recently ruled in favor of this past month...
I've got MUCH MORE to chew on, now, in terms of specific plans to create a lasting peace in Palestine:):):)...
...and to contemplate the relevant portions of those counterterrorism efforts to our counterterrorism efforts with al Queda, in Iraq...
...and, as NPR reports this morning...
...the fresh insurgency that Afghanistan now faces...
It's all so crazy, isn't it?:):):):):):):)...
And the only thing crazier is DOING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND GETTING THE SAME RESULT:):):):):):):)...
If the U.S. and other countries want to deal more effectively and successfully with terrorism and on peace efforts around the world...
We need to start looking at WHAT HAS WORKED...
And stop engaging in the TRIED AND FAILED dark fantasies of folks like Victor Davis Hanson...
See how much thinking has gone into efforts that have succeeded?:):):):):):):)...
And that much thinking AND MORE needs to go into efforts that we want to succeed in the future:):):):):):):)...
And that means FROM EVERYONE:):):):):):):):):):):)...
Even those want to defend their failure to seriously think about these issues as a failure of their critics to understand their incredible, eminent wisdom on such matters...
THAT are working FAR FROM IDEALLY...in places like Palestine and Israel, Iraq, North Korea, Iran - meaning all of the places where the White House has been focussed in the last five years (the latter two spots, thankfully, being negotiated in better directions by both the Europeans, as even the White House has conceded:)... and the South Koreans, despite the WHINING on the part of Administration officials about South Korean's CLEARLY MORE SUCCESSFUL EFFORTS TO RESOLVE THIS MATTER IF THEY WOULD JUST GET THEIR ARROGANT, EGO-BRUISED LITTLE HEADS OUT OF THEIR WHINING, POUTING, PATHETIC LITTLE ASSES:):):):):):):):):):):):):):):))...
Thankfully the White House seems to make the right call on this particular issue of the arrest of militants, I think...
While amnesty and truth and reconciliation for militants may be a necessary part of a long-term peace...
There is no reason that those who kill innocent Israeli citizens and soldiers should EXPECT to go free when they have murdered Israeli citizens...
Though such a process may be necessary to future counter-terrorism efforts, if we are going to learn anything from past and more successful counterterrorism efforts, as have occurred in Northern Ireland...and which similar truth and reconciliation efforts have been VERY IMPORTANT to a post-Apartheid South Africa...
Much more for all of us to think about:):):):):):):)...
Have a good day, everyone:):):):):):):)...
Love,
Ben
