Letter from Jerusalem, Oct. 17

My first political memory comes from 1944. The tree outside my house had a sign supporting Roosevelt or Dewey. I was a precocious 6-year old, but I only remember the sign, not its content. Perhaps I could recognize a political message before I could read it.

In 1948 I listened to the party conventions on a little wooden radio alongside my bed, sometime after my parents told me to shut it down and go to sleep.

Never in the 16 campaigns do I remember a time when the major candidates enjoyed less enthusiastic support than this year. We’re just returned from a month in the US, when I met with friends and relatives. Mostly Jews from one coast or the other, most of those close to my age born into the lower middle class and now much better off.

I found five enthusiastic supporters of Bush and no enthusiastic supporters of Kerry. Most of those I met were planning to vote for Kerry, but the typical expression of support for Kerry was hedged by reservation, embarrassment, or even apology, along with a passionate opposition to Bush. One of my two surviving aunts said I was “fucking stupid” to say that Bush was the least undesirable, but even she admitted to be less enamored of Kerry than opposed to Bush.

Back in the Promised Land: the IDF operation in Gaza, “Days of Awe,” is over, with the IDF withdrawn to the outskirts of populated areas. Perhaps another chapter has ended, but it is not yet the time to write the book on this war. During the last few weeks over 100 Palestinians were killed and more acres turned into rubble. One Israeli soldier was killed in the operation itself. For some this was another of our overreactions, in this case to the killing by rockets of two infants from the community of Ethiopian immigrants. For me, it is one more episode in a continuing effort to cope with moderate power against bands of killers. Again the IDF used bulldozers, tanks and infantry, rather than artillery and strategic bombing. The disproportionate losses reflect the advantages of an army that learns from mistakes against gangs that emphasize individual heroism over systematic training and leadership.

What’s next? Probably more of the same. Not a few Arab intellectuals are raising questions about the intifada, and more generally about terror against non-Muslims. They recognize the costs to their own societies of continued rage, uncontrollable war lords, religious zealots, and neighborhood thugs. But there is no shortage of those who sound like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, spout blood libels and all the other standard lines against Israel, Jews, and the American government. There are too many kalachnikovs, M-16s, grenades, rockets, and explosives in too many hands, much of the stuff left over from the Soviet-American competition. It may be possible to wear them down, but it will take a long time. Responding by “getting at the roots of terror,” or answering the social or national demands of terrorists is paying blackmail, or responding rationally to an infant in the midst of a temper meltdown. No matter what is offered, there is always a screech that it is not enough.

Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian schoolgirl who approached their position with a bag. It turned out to be books rather than an explosive. Other kids have been sent toward army units with bombs. American military truck drivers have been ordered to keep driving, even if there are kids in the way; the assumption is that kids are sent into the road to slow down a convoy and make it vulnerable.

It is simpler to fight the army of an organized state. It can surrender and stop the bloodshed when there is a clear loss or a political accord. Those who fight terror have no such luxury.

Here, and most likely in Iraq and Afghanistan there is always another gang leader or fervent believer who exploits losses as further reason for fighting. Yitzhak Rabin’s line was, “there is no bang and we’re finished.” The IDF leadership says that it can reduce terror attacks to “tolerable” proportions, but not stop them altogether. Americans will learn that sooner or later, but recent promises of total victory by both Bush and Kerry indicate that they are not ready to teach the lesson.

Posted by Ira Sharkansky at October 19, 2004 12:07 PM