Last week, M. J. Rosenberg, the director of policy analysis for the
Israel Policy Forum, excoriated what he views as intellectual and emotional
inflexibility in the behavior of Palestinians, Israelis, as well as
Americans.
Since Israeli forces withdrew from the Gaza a year ago, some Palestinians
have daily fired primitive Kassam rockets across the border on the
Israeli town of Sderot. Yet, as Rosenberg reported, “they almost
never hit their targets, and not a single Israeli has been killed in
these attacks in a year.” Just as habitually, the Israeli army
retaliates with much more accurate strikes that almost daily kill Palestinians, “mostly
innocent kids.”
What sense does that make? Do the perpetrators of those incessant acts
of violence not recognize the futility of their behavior? Do they seriously
believe that two wrongs make a right? “Insanity,” Albert
Einstein once defined “as doing the same thing over and over
again and expecting different results.” How often have we heard
leaders in our own country and elsewhere proudly and defiantly vow
to “stay the course” in spite of obvious and repeated failures
of that course?
Thirty-nine years of ever more restrictive occupation policies have
apparently not convinced Israel’s policy-makers that oppressing
their neighbors will never yield them security and peace. Thirty-nine
years of utterly futile resistance--non-violent and violent--against
Israel’s military occupation did not convince a large segment
of Palestinians that they are essentially at the mercy of Israel and
its American backers. Thirty-nine years of one-sided financial, military,
and political support for intransigent Israeli policy-makers have not
convinced a majority of American policy-makers that they have failed
to end the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. Worse yet, the anti-Palestinian
policies have turned into a major source of Arab and Muslim hostility
toward the United States.
Nevertheless, key leaders in Israel, Palestine, and the U.S. insist
on staying the course. The reason why policymakers are so bullheaded
and resistant to change is obvious: They either fail to see the flaws
in their assessment of the facts, or they refuse to admit that they
could be wrong.
In the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, American and Israeli
neoconservatives advocate staying the course because they hope that
gradually the Palestinians will see no other choice but to get used
to being an Israeli colony.
In the struggle against the undiminished anti-American and anti-Western
terrorism, the neoconservatives want us to believe the only enemy is
militant Muslim extremism that can be defeated militarily--even though
nobody can say how and when. The neocons want to stay the course because
they simply ignore the formidable Arab and Muslim yearning for freedom
from all Western domination.
Last not least, all the terrorists are obsessed by the suicidal illusion
that they can prevail against the overwhelming power of legitimately
entrenched modern states. They stay the course of violence even though
it is bound to fail in the end.
If the United States stays its present course in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, in Iraq, and throughout the Middle East, the present
stalemate is likely to continue. Only a realistic assessment of the most damaging problems and grievances
in the region will lead to effective policy changes. If the Bush administration
is as committed as it claims to progress in the war on the terrorists,
the elimination of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan needs to
be given highest priority. To reduce the strong native opposition to
the U.S.’s military domination of the Middle East, gradually
withdrawing troops and closing bases will be unavoidable if we want
to live in peace with Muslims in general and Arabs in particular.
All the unnecessary confrontations with Muslim societies ought to be
avoided like the plague and be replaced by a policy of resolute. pro-active
conciliation and reconciliation. That, however, would constitute a
substantial and courageous change of course for most of America’s
present policymakers. Are they sane enough to learn from their failures?
Postscript: On April 14, 1912, the British ocean liner Titanic was
heading toward looming icebergs. Despite repeated warnings of the approaching
danger, the captain chose to stay the course. Within hours, disaster
struck.