On a warm summer night in early June 1982, two assassins from Abu Nidal, a terrorist organization financed and hired by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein regime, waited in the darkness of London’s Park Lane. When St. James Shlomo Argov, the Israeli ambassador to the court (my father), was coming out of dinner at the Dorchester Hotel, he was shot in the head. His severe injury prompted the Israeli government, led by Menachem Begin, to declare war on the Palestine Liberation Organization and invade Lebanon the following week, with the stated goal of destroying the PLO’s ability to attack Israeli targets in the Galilee. It became a cause for war. Ironically, the attack on my father was not carried out by the PLO, but by the Iraqi leadership, determined to damage that organization and help establish itself as the unchallenged leader of the “Axis of Resistance” against Israel. Arranged by.
The First Lebanon War has tragic similarities to today’s events in Israel and Gaza. In 1982, Begin’s defense minister, Ariel Sharon, lobbied for an Israeli invasion. Moreover, he never fully disclosed to Begin his plan, code-named “Large Pines,” to bring Israeli troops to the gates of Beirut and seize the Lebanese capital. The war undoes 18 years of costly and bloody Israeli presence in southern Lebanon, forcing Prime Minister Ehud Barak to withdraw Israeli forces from the “safe zone” they had occupied adjacent to the International Armistice Line. It wasn’t until 2000. This war directly led to the rise of the movement known today as Hezbollah. Hezbollah has more than 150,000 rockets and missiles aimed at Israel and is currently waging a war of attrition along Israel’s northern border in support of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The 1982 conflict created significant and damaging tensions with the Reagan administration, including a temporary suspension of arms deliveries to Israel. Then, as today, an Israeli invasion could not envisage a viable “next day” scenario that would preserve Israeli interests. Instead, Israel promoted the fanciful idea of cultivating Lebanese Christian Maronites as rulers of the country (Lebanese President Bashir Gemayel was assassinated in September 1982, less than a month after taking office). (The mirage did not last long, however.)
Fast forward to 2024. Hamas has the full knowledge and tacit support of the Netanyahu regime, which is in thrall to messianic hard-line settler forces that remain hostile to any action that gives legitimacy to the Palestinian Authority (PA). , is funded with Qatari cash. He was tragically and exquisitely successful in forcing Israel into a strategic stalemate. Hamas’ barbaric and heinous attack on October 7 was aimed at taking advantage of an Israel that finds itself divided and polarized in the wake of nearly a year of civil war, leaving the Netanyahu government in a temporary and ailing state. triggered a declaration of war aimed at bringing people together. -Defined “complete victory”.
At the same time, Prime Minister Netanyahu cannot agree to support the formation of a coalition government that includes moderate Sunni Arab states and Palestinians who are not affiliated with Hamas (and therefore by definition affiliated with the PA). Such a federation is a necessary prerequisite for building a functioning local government that is not a division of Hamas and that can provide basic social services to Gaza’s more than two million residents.
Just as it was 42 years ago, the Israeli government today is engaging in astonishingly unseemly wishful thinking, ending the war months ago, introducing a credible alternative civilian authority in Gaza, and recognizing Israel. It has not been able to formulate a series of policy choices that could have been made sooner. More hostages may have been returned by Saudi Arabia.
Henry Kissinger famously said, “Israel has no foreign policy, only domestic politics.” A perfect example of this short-sighted behavior is when presented with the alluring prospect of recognition by Saudi Arabia (and no doubt later also by the world’s largest Islamic countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, and perhaps Pakistan). However, the fact is that Prime Minister Netanyahu continues to be consumed by the following thoughts. His need is to preserve his current hard-line coalition, prevent early elections that are clearly supported by a majority of Israelis, maintain his grip on power, and avoid his ongoing trial on corruption charges. It’s about delaying.
Sadly, Netanyahu’s insistence on a “total victory” without defining what that actually means has put his government at odds with a US administration that is even more supportive of Israel than the Reagan administration was 40 years ago. Before the Gaza conflict, it was unthinkable that US pilots (as well as British and Jordanian pilots) would shoot down an incoming ballistic missile in defense of the Jewish state. The Biden administration’s payback will be to demand that Netanyahu put Israel’s national priorities above political expediency, as the president works through a very tough reelection campaign.
In international relations, there is no such thing as unconditional support. Prime Minister Netanyahu has always fancied himself a master strategist, but he has learned the costly lesson to avoid, succinctly expressed in an old American pop song: “Never pull on Superman’s cape.” I’m reading. This is a lesson that will do great and unnecessary damage to Israel’s international standing and destroy Prime Minister Netanyahu’s legacy. Israel is not “one step away from total victory” in a just and moral defensive war against Hamas. But as the Rolling Stones pointed out years ago, “You can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you can get what you need if you try.” Israel Needs This is ironically reflected in the title of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s 2009 book, “Enduring Peace: Israel and its Place Among the Nations.” As in Biblical times, Israel, despite its technological prowess and status as a regional power, is a small nation in a troubled region. To survive and thrive, we need both regional and global alliances, and alliances require compromise and creativity, both of which are beyond the capabilities of the current Israeli coalition. Alliances can also provide legitimacy and are an antidote to international isolation.
Above all, Israel has allowed itself to become passive rather than proactive for too long. Prime Minister Netanyahu could take a lesson from another Likud supporter, Ariel Sharon. Following the Sabra and Shatila massacres in Beirut in 1982, Sharon herself experienced an ignominious end to her tenure as defense minister, and as prime minister, she envisioned a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in September 2005. and executed it. Sharon realized that the Israeli occupation was real. In any part of Gaza, he will be embroiled in a “forever war” with determined guerrilla fighters, but with no clear strategic interests. This liberation failed for multiple interdependent reasons, most of which stemmed from the rise of Hamas and its victory in the 2006 parliamentary elections, and subsequent violent coup against the ruling Palestinian Authority. Almost two decades later, Israel could take the lessons of the past into account and carry out a very different kind of secession.In the fall of 1968, Prime Minister Golda Meir made her first visit to President Richard Nixon’s White House. During that visit, she graciously offered to join my family and many others to celebrate my Bar Mitzvah at Adas Israel Synagogue in Washington. . During the ceremony, Golda stood up and addressed the congregation without being prompted. Summoning me to lay her arm upon me, she told those present that as the 9th Sabra, it was her earnest desire to no longer have to defend this country from an enemy bent on destroying it. Her hopes clearly did not come true. 54 years later, I wish the same for my daughters and grandchildren, and hope that Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu will find the moral compass to put Israel’s interests above political destiny. I notice.
