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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bilow who wrote (23339)	4/3/2002 8:50:31 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

There are two groups of Jews. Those who live in Israel and those who do not. The abandonment will be of those who live in Israel by those who do not. The Jews who live in Israel will largely move to other places. The two situations are not remotely comparable, Carl. The French in France had the nation-state and the army and the French in Algeria relied on them. The Israelis in Israel have the nation-state and the army, and they do not rely on diaspora Jews for anything. They rely only on the goodwill of the US. But they will not let themselves be destroyed for the sake of that goodwill, nor will the US ask it. The French did not have the power to subjegate or ethnically cleanse all of Algeria. The Israelis, make no mistake, do have this power (the West Bank is a very small place). It is their own morality that has kept them from doing so, but there are limits to their restraint.

To: Bilow who wrote (23339)	4/3/2002 9:13:33 PM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 281500

Hi all; USMC Field Manual on CounterInsurgency - How to win a counterinsurgency. The Israeli situation is somewhat unique in that they have already militarily defeated their enemy, yet the war goes on. It's not that the Israelis want the Palestinians to peacefully accept Israeli rule. Instead, like the white South Africans, the Israelis want the Palestinians to go away, leave them alone, not come back, and recognize Israel as the legitimate and permanent owner of the land that they have taken. The fight is not over the legitimacy of a government, but instead, like most of WW2, it is a fight over the ownership of land and resources. In fact, the land is worth more without the inconvenience of having enemy civilians living on it. The Germans didn't mind having refugees flee their occupied territories, what they were after was Lebensraum. Making civilians of a particular ethnicity go away is also known as "ethnic cleansing" and is frowned on (at least recently) by the US. Consequently, the US military field manual that applies to guerilla warfare makes the assumption that the government fighting against the insurgents would like to win back the hearts and minds of the population. Israel's actions, on the other hand, are those of a nation that is not trying to win the affections of the insurgent population. Instead, their actions are like those that occur between two different nations caught up in war. In that sense, the conflict looks more like WW2, where the parties did as much damage to each other as possible, than Vietnam or Korea, where winning the hearts and minds of the non combatants was so important. On the other hand, the Israelis are not fighting an effective ethnic cleansing operation. To get ethnic cleansing to work you have to kill a lot of civilians. They're getting there, but I think they need to increase their kill rate by about 100x to make any progress. For comparison with WW2, here's a great link for population losses in that war, as a percentage of total: infoukes.com Of course the US doesn't support ethnic cleansing, and if the Israelis begin doing that her crucial US support will disappear. But the US Marine Corps do have a manual on counterinsurgency and it is fascinating. This is how to make the population submit to your government, as opposed to making them pack up their bags. It's long, and I can't abbreviate it well, but it makes worthwhile reading: Counterguerilla Operations Field Manual 90-8, USMC, August 1986 doctrine.quantico.usmc.mil -- Carl

To: Bilow who wrote (23339)	4/3/2002 11:52:54 PM
From: spiral3	Respond to of 281500

You make the case for an israel/palestine - south africa parallel...I'm afraid it's just too broad a brush. The South Africans were faced with the same dilemma that faces the Israelis. Despite this, they negotiated a settlement where they gave up political power. This largely ended terrorism in their country. My guess is that the Israelis will come to the same place. Actually the dilemma is fundamentally different because in South Africa the ANC was fighting for the establishment of a non-racial democracy (not for the establishment of communism! as some would believe.) Their aim was neither to eliminate the whites nor to drive them into the sea. A few days after getting out of prison, no later, Madiba called for an end to the armed struggle and the people listened to their leader. from your next post Instead, like the white S.Africans, the Israelis want the Palestinians to go away, leave them alone, not come back, and recognize Israel as the legitimate and permanent owner of the land that they have taken. the white S.Africans neither wanted blacks to go away nor to be legitimized by blacks.