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

To: paul_philp who wrote (57772)	11/18/2002 10:56:21 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I have a question. In the spirit of not tolerating mediocre policy, what would you have Israel do if they were unconstrained by the US. What would an ideal set of objectives and policies look like? I agree that the Israelis are in a hole, but obviously it's not just them digging -- it's the Palestinians, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia all digging too. The word "ideal" can hardly be applied to any policy option conceivable at the moment. If the question is, given the current situation, and if the US totally frees Israel to act, what should they do? It still wouldn't be in Israel's interests to act against US interests, so their hand would be only partly freed. The real question is, are the Israelis in a border struggle or an existential battle? I think it's the latter; so do most Israelis. If so, all they can do is keep fighting and wait for conditions to improve through a combination of Israeli victories and outside changes. I imagine they would try to put together a policy of larger sticks and larger carrots. History teaches that temporary quiet is achieved only through major Israeli victories. This is what they have been prevented from attempting to achieve. It's quite unclear if they could pacify the territory but they could certainly toss out Arafat & co, who are are huge negative influence. The Israelis' original idea of Oslo, after all, was that if Arafat did not keep the terms of Oslo they could kick him out again. Why haven't they done it? Ans: America. But, even having done it, how could they hand over any land at all to local Palestinian control when Hizbullah is just over the border waiting to take over? If you think over Israel's current options, I think they lead you to a war to remove Hizbullah from southern Lebanon, Hamas and the PA from Gaza and the West Bank. Then they finish the wall and withdraw from those settlements that they chose to abandon. But even here, how can they withdraw unless a new Mandate is set up? The Israelis cannot unilaterally decree a negotiated settlement. But if they set up a secure border, it will be easier to defend and they will be able to patrol it, as they have done in Gaza. This would be a better policy for Israeli security and would demoralize the Palestinians, which is also a goal of Israeli security. The name of the game in a low grade war is, who gets war-weary first?