In his 2006 book, “The Accidental Empire,” Gershom Gorenberg writes of Israel’s breathtakingly subtle, yet relentlessly evolving occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan. He points out that a then young Amoz Oz warned of the “moral destruction” and corruption that comes to the occupier of a long occupation. But he also quotes Moshe Dayan, speaking to the Palestinian Poetess Fadwa Tuquan of Nablus: “The situation today,” Dayan says, “resembles the complex relationship between a Bedouin man and the girl he kidnaps against her will…You Palestinians, as a nation, don’t want us today, but we’ll change your attitude by forcing our presence on you.” He also chronicles French philosopher Raymond Aron asking then Prime Minister Levi Eshkol if he was worried about rebellion in the West Bank, “No,” Eshkol replied, “This isn’t Algeria. We can strangle terror in the occupied territories.”
Really?
The robust battle in the Jewish community over the negotiated Nuclear Deal with Iran has focused almost entirely on how good or bad it will be for Israel and the likelihood of Iran going nuclear at the Deal’s end, spiced, unfortunately by inflammatory talk of the U.S. underwriting Iran’s acquisition of the bomb and ushering Israelis to the doorways of crematoriums. The anti-Deal side also focuses on Iran’s profile as both a regional and international “bad actor,” and sponsor of terrorism. Importantly, the latter is not denied by the pro-Deal side, but unlike the anti-Deal side, the pro-Deal people are the side thinking about how to mitigate that activity.
The anti-Deal side states the Deal could be better. Senator Schumer says he’s against the Deal and that we should go back and negotiate a better one. But if the Deal included, let’s say, only half of Iran’s frozen $100 billion in assets to be released let’s say, in the first five years, and a cap on Iran’s annual oil sales, and reduction of the poorer quality centrifuges from 6,000 to 1,000, we all know that Israel and their backers here in the U.S. would never sign off on it. True, better it would be, but still not good enough, because it would not be perfect. Only perfect will do for the anti-Deal side, and perfect is the well-known enemy of the good, and in this case, the unachievable. Perfect cannot be achieved here. And if good goes down here in obeisance to the perfect, the result will be an increase in bad actor activity. You can take that to the bank.
Israeli security exports are already on the record as saying that rather than new negotiations convening, Russia and China will move to subvert further sanctions. Already, we read that Quds Force General and master terrorist Qassem Suleimani has been to Moscow. Russia’s sinking economy needs foreign sales. China is rapaciously seeking influence worldwide. The worst of Iran’s international adventurism has been muted during negotiations. But when the deal falls apart, what really then? Curiously it is Israel itself that has the most close-up and historically comprehensive view of what is likely to happen. The precursor test case for failed negotiations is the continued occupation of the Palestinian Territories and what that has wrought.
When Israel emerged victorious from the ’67 War, it moved inexorably – albeit under a cloud of indecision and international ambiguity – to settle and occupy the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights. It’s stated position is that it would have returned those areas for a peace treaty, and perhaps it would have. But that treaty, that perfect Deal, never happened, and those areas – unlike Sinai which was returned to Egypt, under a treaty that was perhaps less than a perfect but has ensured a lasting peace – well, those areas fifty years down the road have evolved into a seething miasma of intifada, terrorist activity, repeated war, and constant lone wolf mayhem, not to mention an international public relations nightmare, isolating Israel ever further. As if that weren’t enough, the situation has bred an armed Jewish terrorism on the Right, the depth and scope of which can no longer be brushed under the rug – particularly after the recent killings. In short, an attempt to keep a people “bottled up” has instead metastasized into an explosion of lethal chaos that cannot be strangled no matter how great the effort.
Now let’s acknowledge that Iran is no sleepy agrarian and small-town West Bank and isolated Golan of back in the day. No, it is an oil-rich, country of 80 million people with an army, an air force, a navy, and a nascent nuclear program and sophisticated operatives throughout the Middle East, Africa, South America, and probably everywhere else. Iran has been under the stricture of international sanctions of one sort or another since 1979. Before that we gave them the brutality of the Shah and his CIA-trained Savak. They made a UN-sanctioned deal with the six “great powers” that many in Israel argue is a good deal, and if we kill it, if we try to “bottle up” and uni- or multi-laterally continue to try and “force our presence” on Iran; worse, if we bomb their nuclear facilities, what Gaza and the Occupied Territories have become, what Iran has shown itself capable of in Beirut, Buenos Aires, and Baghdad will quite likely become the world-wide future for not just Jews, but Americans and American interest everywhere. And it could (and probably will) go on for generations.
This is what no one will talk about, particularly the war hawks beating their drums. Iran is not Iraq. There will be consequences for everyone, not just the men and women who go to fight and their particular families, which means, among other things, be prepared once again for the newly energized dialectic about the “Jewish Lobby,” and how it drives U.S. foreign policy. Families that lose loved ones to a war or terror that didn’t need to happen for the perceived sake of that lobby, what will their attitude be toward their Jewish friends and neighbors, toward Jews in general, and toward Israel in particular?
Now if you ask Benjamin Netanyahu, he will say he doesn’t care. He’ll say this is a price that needs to be paid to save the state of Israel, despite dozens of Israeli security officials’ disagreement. And he will tell you – in messianic, not practical context, because that’s the only way it makes sense – that the existence of the state of Israel is more important than how the world feels about Jews (and of course the Evangelical community agrees). Will civilians rise up against Jewish targets, the way they did against Arab targets after 9/11? Who knows? One thing thought is certain. An escalation of the policies of aggression and repression, and the hatred it engenders, will only and always redoubt to the detriment of Jews and Israel. On the other hand, Israel can exist and engender good will as well if it will prove itself amenable to the reasoned argument of diplomacy and not subvert its future to apocalyptic speculation.
Mitch Paradise is a writer and producer living in Los Angeles.
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