The Stolen War
Is there no limit to the villainy of Hamas? Seems there isn’t.
This week, they did something quite unforgivable.
They stole a war.
For some weeks now, our almost new Chief of Staff, Benny Gantz, has been announcing at every possible opportunity that a new war against the Gaza Strip is inevitable. Several commanders of the troops around the Strip have been repeating this dire forecast, as have their camp-followers, a.k.a. military commentators.
One of these comforted us. True, Hamas can now hit Tel Aviv with their rockets, but that will not be so terrible, because it will be a short war. Just three or four days. As one of the generals said, it will be much more “hard and painful” (for the Arabs) than Cast Lead I, so it will not last for three weeks, as that did. We shall all stay in our shelters – those of us who have shelters, anyway – for just a few days.
Why is the war inevitable? Because of the terrorism, stupid. Hamas is a terrorist organization, isn’t it?
But along comes the supreme Hamas leader, Khaled Mash’al, and declares that Hamas has given up all violent action. From now on it will concentrate on nonviolent mass demonstrations, in the spirit of the Arab Spring.
When Hamas forswears terrorism, there is no pretext for an attack on Gaza.
But is a pretext needed? Our army will not let itself be thwarted by the likes of Mash’al. When the army wants a war, it will have a war. This was proved in 1982, when Ariel Sharon attacked Lebanon, despite the fact that the Lebanese border had been absolutely quiet for 11 months. (After the war, the myth was born that it was preceded by daily shooting. Today, almost every Israeli can “remember” the shooting – an astonishing example of the power of suggestion.
Why does the Chief of Staff want to attack?
A cynic might say that every new Chief of Staff needs a war to call his own. But we are not cynics, are we?
Every few days, a solitary rocket is launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel. It rarely hits anything but an empty field. For months, now, no one has been hurt.
The usual sequence is like this: our air force carries out a “targeted liquidation” of Palestinian militants in the strip. The army claims invariably that these specific “terrorists” had intended to attack Israelis. How did the army know of their intentions? Well, our army is a master thought reader.
After the persons have been killed, their organization considers it its duty to avenge their blood by launching a rocket or a mortar shell, or even two or three. This “cannot be tolerated” by the army, and so it goes on.
After every such episode, the talk about a war starts again. As American politicians put it in their speeches at AIPAC conferences: “No country can tolerate its citizens being exposed to rockets!”
But of course, the reasons for Cast Lead II are more serious. Hamas is being accepted by the international community. Their Prime Minister, Isma’il Haniyeh, is now traveling around the Arab and Muslim world, after being shut in Gaza – a kind of Strip-arrest – for four years. Now he can cross into Egypt because the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas’ parent organization, has become a major player there.
Even worse, Hamas is about to join the PLO and take part in the Palestinian government. High time to do something about it. Attack Gaza, for example. Compel Hamas to become extremist again.
Not content with stealing our war, Mash’al is carrying out a series of more sinister actions.
By joining the PLO, he is committing Hamas to the Oslo agreements and all the other official deals between Israel and the PLO. He has announced that Hamas accepts a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. He has let it be known that Hamas would not contest the Palestinian presidency this year, so that the Fatah candidate – whoever that may be – would be elected practically unopposed and be able to negotiate with Israel.
All this would put the present Israeli government in a difficult position. Mash’al has some experience in causing trouble for Israel. In 1977, the (first) Netanyahu government decided to get rid of him in Amman. A team of Mossad agents was sent to assassinate him in the street by spraying his ear with an untraceable poison. But instead of doing the decent thing and dying quietly from a mysterious cause, like Yasser Arafat, he let his bodyguard chase the attackers and catch them.
King Hussein, Israel’s longstanding friend and ally, was hopping mad. He presented Netanyahu with a choice: either the agents would be tried in Jordan and possibly hanged, or the Mossad would immediately send the secret antidote to save Mash’al. Netanyahu capitulated, and here we have Mash’al, very much alive and kicking.
Another curious outcome of this misadventure: the king demanded that the Hamas founder and leader, the paralyzed Sheik Ahmad Yassin, be released from Israeli prison. Netanyahu obliged, Yassin was released and assassinated by Israel seven years later. When his successor, Abd al-Aziz Rantissi, was assassinated soon after, the path was cleared for Mash’al to become the Hamas chief.
And instead of showing his gratitude, he now confronts us with a dire challenge: nonviolent action, indirect peace overtures, the two-state solution.
A question: why does our Chief of Staff long for a little war in Gaza, when he could have all the war he desires in Iran? Not just a little operation, but a big war, a very very big war.
Well, he knows that he cannot have it.
Some time ago I did something no experienced commentator ever does. I promised that there would be no Israeli military attack on Iran. (Nor, for that matter, an American one.)
An experienced journalist or politician never makes such a prediction without leaving a loophole for himself. He puts in an inconspicuous “unless”. If his forecast goes awry, he points to that loophole.
I do have some experience – some 60 or so years of it – but I did not leave any loophole. I said No War, and now General Gantz says the same in so many words. No Tehran, just poor little Gaza.
Why? Because of that one word: Hormuz.
Not the ancient Persian god Hormuzd, but the narrow strait that is the entrance and exit of the Persian Gulf, through which 20% of the world’s oil (and 35% of the sea-borne oil) flows. My contention was that no sane (or even mildly insane) leader would risk the closing of the strait, because the economic consequences would be catastrophic, even apocalyptic.
It seems that the leaders of Iran were not sure that all the world’s leaders read this column, so, just in case, they spelled it out themselves. This week they conducted conspicuous military maneuvers around the Strait of Hormuz, accompanied by the unequivocal threat to close it.
The US responded with vainglorious counter-threats. The invincible US Navy was ready to open the strait by force, if needed.
How, pray? The mightiest multi-billion-dollar aircraft carrier can be easily sunk by a battery of cheap land-to-sea missiles, as well as by small missile-boats. Let’s assume Iran starts to act out its threats. The whole might of the US air force and navy is brought to bear. Iranian ships will be sunk, missile and army installations bombed. Still the Iranian missiles will come in, making passage through the strait impossible.
What next? There will be no alternative to “boots on the ground”. The US army will have to land on the shore and occupy all the territory from which missiles can be effectively launched. That would be a major operation. Fierce Iranian resistance must be expected, judging from the experience of the eight-year Iraqi-Iranian war. The oil wells in neighboring Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states will also be hit.
Such a war would go far beyond the dimensions of the American invasions of Iraq or Afghanistan, perhaps even of Vietnam.
Is the bankrupt US up to it? Economically, politically and in terms of morale? The closing of the strait is the ultimate weapon. I don’t believe that the Iranians will use it against the imposition of sanctions, severe as they may be, as they have threatened. Only a military attack would warrant such a response.
If Israel attacks alone – “the most stupid idea I ever heard of,” as our former Mossad chief put it – that will make no difference. Iran will consider it an American action, and close the strait. That’s why the Obama administration put its foot down, and hand-delivered to Netanyahu and Ehud Barak an unequivocal order to abstain from any military action.
That’s where we are now. No war in Iran. Just the prospect of a war in Gaza. And along comes this evil Mash’al and tries to spoil the chances of that, too.
Read more by Uri Avnery
- Shukran, Israel – January 1st, 2012
- The Duke of Nablus – December 25th, 2011
- With Friends Like Gingrich, Does Israel Need Enemies? – December 16th, 2011
- A Day in November – November 27th, 2011
- Weimar Revisited – November 20th, 2011
Duglarri
January 7th, 2012 at 12:03 am
Absolutely right- no one who looks at a map (and knows how small a shore-to-ship missile is) could possibly doubt that the Iranians can do what they say and close that strait.
But on the other hand- who was it who remarked that Israel was in a lot of trouble when they appointed an Air Force officer as chief of staff in 2005? Because air forces always promise that they can win wars- that they can take out land targets (see: strategic bombing, 1939-1945; the Ho Chi Minh Trail, 1972, Saddam's Scud missiles, 1991) I think it might have been Mr. Avnery himself. And he was right: Dan Halutz got Israel into the Lebanon mess in 2006 with his calm assurance that the Air Force could do what it couldn't do.
Isn't it pretty much certain that the US Air Force is claiming that they can find and hit every single boat, truck, and cave that the Iranians might have equipped with missiles? And that the politicians ALWAYS believe the air force?
David Grayling
January 7th, 2012 at 1:25 am
The U.S. The paper-tiger. Closing off the Straits would choke any chance of the U.S. avoiding depression. It is equal to shooting itself in both feet, a feat that is well within its capacity.
What can you do with a country like America? Let it sink into a deep ocean would be a good solution!
John_Muhammad
January 7th, 2012 at 3:01 am
It's a very good thing this is posted on antiwar and not on Yahoo! News – every day I deal with the brainless masses who would immediately respond with the invariable "nuke Iran NOW" or "that Hamas bunch you can't trust coz you know them muzzies always lie because their satan god allah told them to in the koran" or endless variations of the same. Sometimes I think we need a few more bags of chlorine in the gene pool after reading some of the comments there.
As for this article, I think it's rather humorous that the IDF can't have their own 'splendid little war' to show how tough they are against Gaza and Palestine. The issue of Hamas maintaining their vow of peaceful resistance remains to be seen, but I can't help but have hope for light at the end of the tunnel for a united- and sovereign- Palestine.
Straits of Hormuz? Fuggeddaboudit- by the time first Israeli or American missile or bomb is identified you can take it to the bank we'll have a brand new Ironbottom Sound in the Persian Gulf, and most of it will probably be American steel providing the new sunken reef material. Iran is no fool when it comes to defending itself and Iranians are a lot more likely to rally 'round the flag than we'd like to think. Our ships are big targets and those anti-ship missiles fly mighty fast and low.
jgmoebus
January 7th, 2012 at 3:39 am
This article is NOISE. The Real Question is, For What Purpose????
This article's antiWar.com commentaters are NOISIER.
If anyone thinks that the IDF is "upset" by a Hamas move toward "non-violence," they have never been in a war. If anyone thinks Hamas is actually, really going to go "non-violent," they do not understand the reality of being and surviving as a Palestinian politician.
The IDF and the Mossad are One: their Business is The Survival of Israel. They have no choice; if they fail, they don't just get fired… they and all that they love are destroyed. How many of you have ever lived under those circumstances?
If anybody really thinks that the IDF and Mossad are not on the same sheet of music, they are ignorant of the Reality of Being Israel.
Politicians do not enable Israel to survive: the IDF and Mossad do. Politicians (in Israel or America) are sh**.
ps: If Hamas, or Hezbollah, or all the other bad guys did not exist, it would, for Israel, be necessary to create them. Just like, for the US, after the Soviet Empire gagged to death, it was necessary toi create a new enemy: Islamo-Fascist bin Laden/al Qaeda "terrorism."
von Salza
January 7th, 2012 at 5:01 am
Only a little correction: the attack of the Mossad against the Hamas leader, in Amman, was in 1997, not in "1977".
Articles for the Weekend » Scott Lazarowitz's Blog
January 7th, 2012 at 5:31 am
[...] Uri Avnery: The Stolen War [...]
JohnWV
January 7th, 2012 at 8:17 am
All our Mideast wars have been against our interests, yet successfully advocated by Israel and its AIPAC minions. Again against our interests, Israel has involved us in increasingly overt operations against Iran. Spies and American military drones in Iranian airspace are the most recent revelations. Since before 9/11, American soldiers have been dying for the Jewish state's “right to defend itself.” We are at war. Those that did this to us are the lobbyists, organizers, columnists, financiers and other traitorous Israel Firsters. Justice and the future of America demand that they be prosecuted and jailed.
lou cypher
January 7th, 2012 at 9:56 am
ps…Israel (namely Ariel Sharon) created Hamas as a counterweight to Arafat and the PLO.
El Tonno
January 7th, 2012 at 11:44 am
Articles by Mr Avnery called "noise" …. which is then followed by noisy commentary.
The shark has definitely been jumped. Shush now.
Jaime
January 7th, 2012 at 3:17 pm
To think that two state organizations can be "One" is to ignore the workings of a modern state. Reality is much more complex. Anyway, I definitely think Mr. Avnery is more knowledgeable of the workings of his country than some commentator.
jgmoebus
January 7th, 2012 at 3:44 pm
Perhaps.
i base my comment on 28 years of service in the US military, including 2 years in Israel working with the IDF and IAF (and, probably, the Mossad, as well).
Again, if Hamas/Hezbollah/etcetcetc etal didn't exist, it would be necessary for Israel to create it.
jgmoebus
January 7th, 2012 at 3:46 pm
Shush yourself.
Like i explained to Jaime below, i base my comment on 28 years in the US military, including 2 years in Israel working with the IDF and IAF(most likely, tho i would never know, the Mossad., as well).
What shark?
WAR AND IRAN « DUCKPOND
January 8th, 2012 at 7:17 am
[...] along comes Uri Avnery,spoiling the fun, by declaring that no such war will happen. He writes: Some time ago I did [...]
Margaret
January 8th, 2012 at 8:36 am
You hop around site to site jg. Defending Israel is your retirement pastime? Well, I should say defending your view of Israels God given right to be above all criticism, especially from its own citizens, eh? I trust you retired to your palatial apartment in downtown Tel Aviv upon retirement. Why were the US Tax payers paying you to train IDF in Israel???? Hmm. But we can't afford healthcare for OUR citizens like Israel does…..hmmm.
MoT
January 8th, 2012 at 9:11 am
The Air Forces always promise the moon but deliver little in and of themselves unless it's to kill and terrorize civilians.
MoT
January 8th, 2012 at 9:13 am
Agreed. But jailing is too kind for what they've wrought upon everyone.
jgmoebus
January 8th, 2012 at 4:26 pm
1 (of 5). Ah, yes….. Margaret…. nice to see you again. It’s always a pleasure.
From your comment — as you seem to have been stalking me “from site to site” — you obviously embody that oft-demonstrated propensity among your ilk to ignore the facts and evidence, and jump to whatever conclusion suits your present mood or in-bred belief system.
It’s hard to believe that somebody could be so completely wrong about EVERYTHING posted in a single comment. But that happens. Let me see if i can confuse you with some Facts and befuddle you with some Evidence, my dear. i know that that is easy to do with folks like you…… almost tooo easy. …tbc…
jgmoebus
January 8th, 2012 at 4:27 pm
2 (of 5). So, you see “defending Israel” as my “retirement pastime,” do you? Before jumping to that moronic conclusion, why don’t you actually read a variety of my comments (all 324 of them). You can find them by clicking on the “jgmoebus” by any of my posts, or, to make it even easier for you, just go to: http://intensedebate.com/people/jgmoebus/comments… .
Or, better yet, do an antiWar.com Search for any of the following:
Confront, Combat, Defeat, and Destroy The Fourth Reich
Israel as a tactical and strategic outpost following orders from DC
The Lie, Hoax, Sham and Scam of the so-called “War” Against so-called “Terrorism”
The Lie, Hoax, Sham, and Scam of the so-called “Terror Event” of September 11, 2001
The Carter-Bush-Clinton-Cheney-Obama Regime …..
THAT, especially the first listed re: The Fourth Reich, is my “retirement pastime,” my Retirement Project. What’s yours? …tbc…
jgmoebus
January 8th, 2012 at 4:28 pm
3 (of 5). And, where have i said that “Israel is above criticism,” except in your addled imagination? Why should an Israeli citizen’s criticism of Israel be immune to evaluation and assessment? Especially if it is wrong? Or is it that ANYBODY who criticizes Israel about anything and everything is automatically right? Even if (or Especially if) it is based upon time-worn and long-exposed Protocolonic Zionistic Elder Conspiracy Theories, or similar such nonsense?
Israel is a tool. It has been since its creation was initiated by the Balfour Declaration following World War I to serve as a tactical and strategic outpost for Anglo-American oil interests in the Middle East. It has been a particularly effective tool ever since its birth, which was guaranteed by The Holocaust engineered and executed by its creators (and i’m not talking about ben Gurion, Begin, or Shamir). Israel does as it is instructed to do by its Handlers, Masters, and Pimps in DC. When it stops doing what it is instructed to do, it will be treated exactly like all other tactical and strategic tools. Do the names Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, etcetcetc etal, ring a bell? …tbc…
jgmoebus
January 8th, 2012 at 4:29 pm
4 (of 5). So you “trust” that i retired to my “palatial apartment in downtown Tel Aviv,” do you? Well, dearie, i do hate to disappoint you so, but you trust wrong. i live on a dinky little sailboat that is presently on San Francisco Bay and is soon to be in Southeast Alaska.
Training the IDF in Israel? My, my, my….we ARE naïve, aren’t we? Or is it simply ignorant of the realities of that big, nasty world out there? Training the IDF? Hardly. i can assure you, dearest, that the US Army has little, if anything at all, to teach the IDF. …tbc…
jgmoebus
January 8th, 2012 at 4:30 pm
5. (of 5) And, don’t blame me if “OUR citizens can’t afford health care.” i was working in Israel back when Hillary and Bill had a Democratic Congress and an apparent mandate from the American people, and these two wunderkinds completely blew (probably forever) any chance whatsoever for genuine health care reform in this country. Just like Obama blew his opportunity for the same accomplishment. But, Margaret…. you have to understand….. that’s (part of) why they (Clinton and Obama) were/are there: to ensure that something like universal health care in the United States does not and cannot happen. And for their successes, they are amply rewarded.
Chow.