The new Chief-of-Staff

There is a must-read interview on Ha'aretz with Israel's new Chief-of-Staff Moshe Ya'alon. When Clemenceau said that "war is too important to be left to the generals" he must have been thinking about a different kind of general. Ya'alon framed the current conflict in some of the clearest terms I've seen so far.

Ha'aretz editorial board criticizes Ya'alon for some of his comments. Not as much for their content, as for the fact that they are seen to be too strongly political coming from a military commander whose job is only to implement policies of the elected government and not to influence politics. I don't have a comment on that controversy, but Ya'alons analysis of the situation makes a great deal of sense to me.

On the nature of the current conflict:

"The campaign is between two societies that are competing for territory and, to a certain degree, for existence. I don't think that there is an existential threat to the Palestinian society. There is an existential threat to us. In other words, there is asymmetry here, but it is reversed: Everyone thinks we are Goliath and they are David, but I maintain that it is the opposite...They feel that they have the backing of a quarter-of-a-billion Arabs and they believe that time is on their side and that, with a combination of terrorism and demography, they will tire us out and wear us down. There is also an additional reverse asymmetry here: We do not have intentions to annihilate them and we have also expressed readiness to grant them a state, whereas they are unwilling to recognize our right to exist here as a Jewish state

and on Israel's goals and the definition of victory:

I defined it from the beginning of the confrontation: the very deep internalization by the Palestinians that terrorism and violence will not defeat us, will not make us fold. If that deep internalization does not exist at the end of the confrontation, we will have a strategic problem with an existential threat to Israel. If that [lesson] is not burned into the Palestinian and Arab consciousness, there will be no end to their demands of us.

and on a solution to the conflict:

... the emphasis should be on the path and not on the final goal, on the process of the struggle and not on the final destination. As human beings, we want a solution now. Now. But in the situation of Israel, nowism is false messianism. Nowism is the mother of all sins...The Palestinians have returned us to the War of Independence. Today it is clear that the State of Israel as a Jewish state is still an alien element in the region. It will take generations until various elements in the region accept its existence. Therefore, we have to go back to the ethos of standing fast, not because I am enamored of that ethos, but because there is no choice. It is an ethos of no choice.

At the same time, there is no reason for gloom. We are a power....After 54 years, we are truly a power. Therefore, at bottom, I am truly optimistic.

Read the whole thing

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at August 29, 2002 05:51 PM