Our World: Barak's target audiences
Jun. 23, 2008
Caroline Glick , THE JERUSALEM POST
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What on earth could have prompted the Israeli government to negotiate the
current "cease-fire" with Hamas? What could have brought the government to
negotiate with this Iranian proxy group which makes no bones about its
intention to use the lull in fighting to expand its arsenal and army ahead
of the next round of fighting? What could have motivated Jerusalem to pave
the way for Hamas's acceptance as a legitimate regime in the international
arena?

The most vocal advocate of embracing Hamas has been Defense Minister Ehud
Barak. And on the heels of the "truce," Barak and his associates are now
pushing for the government to approve Hamas's demand that Israel release of
up to a thousand terrorists from its prisons in exchange for Gilad Schalit,
who was illegally kidnapped to Gaza two years ago.

In an attempt to explain his actions, Barak spoke last week to sympathetic
Ha'aretz columnist Ari Shavit. In a supportive column, Shavit explained that
Barak himself is under no illusion about the nature of Hamas or the chances
of reaching a long-term accommodation with the Iranian-controlled jihadist
movement that seeks Israel's destruction. The rationale for the move, he
explains is Barak's assertion that the only way to justify a military
operation - which will involve military and civilian casualties - is to
first demonstrate that Israel had no other recourse but to act in its own
defense.

As Shavit put it, "Since the repercussions of an operation could be grave,
it is necessary first to try the other alternative - so that every mother
liable to lose her son in the Gaza alleyways will know. So that every
civilian in the Gaza envelope liable to get hit during the fighting with
Hamas will know. So that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will know that
Israel did not choose a military move, which the Egyptians fear, before
giving a chance to the diplomatic move they initiated."
SINCE THIS is the line being offered by the government today to justify its
actions, it is worth considering it. The first question that arises is
whether Barak's expressed concern about mothers of soldiers and Israelis who
live within Hamas's rocket and missile range is genuine.

At Sunday's cabinet meeting, Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin gave the
government his first post-cease-fire intelligence briefing. Diskin told the
cabinet ministers that since Thursday, Hamas has stepped up its arms
smuggling and military training. The significance of his statement is clear.
The Hamas that Israel will confront in the aftermath of Barak's cease-fire
will be a more formidable foe that it was before the cease-fire. And
consequently, more soldiers will need to sacrifice their lives in the
postponed confrontation. And since Hamas is using this lull to expand its
arsenals, it will no doubt expand the range of its missiles. Consequently,
more Israeli civilians will be attacked by Hamas rockets and missiles in the
inevitable, delayed showdown than would have been under fire if it had been
launched this week.
In other words, far from being informed by his concern for Israeli civilians
and the families of soldiers, Barak's embrace of Hamas as a negotiating
partner has ensured that more Israelis will be burying their loved ones when
the cease-fire leads inevitably to war. Indeed, it is because of this that
residents of Sderot have been the loudest proponents of military action and
the angriest opponents of the government's cease-fire agreement with Hamas.

So if Barak is unconcerned with the lives of Israeli soldiers and civilians,
who is he playing to in negotiating the cease-fire?

LIKE MANY Israeli leaders in recent years, Barak is concerned with how the
Israeli appeasement lobby will react to a confrontation. He hopes that by
appeasing Hamas now, these people - many of whom are Labor Party members and
voters - will forgive him when the inevitable occurs.

Israel's appeasement lobby is comprised of Israeli Arabs, the Meretz party
to which post-Zionist Labor voters and politicians can always defect,
university professors, and small but well-funded pressure groups like Uri
Avineri's Gush Shalom organization and Peace Now. Here it bears mention that
the Labor party's membership drives in Arab villages in recent years have
given its Arab members - who vote as a bloc - a controlling influence over
the results of Labor party primaries that determine the identity of the
party leader and Labor's Knesset faction. Many Labor leaders - like former
party chief Binyamin Ben Eliezer who was unseated by Arab Labor party
members - have bemoaned this fact and noted that Arab members of Labor don't
even vote for the party in general elections.
What is most disturbing about Barak's pandering to Israel's appeasement
lobby is that past experience has shown clearly that Israel's appeasement
lobby is itself unappeaseable. That is, there nothing that Israel's enemies
can do that will cause members of Israel's appeasement lobby to support IDF
operations.

ON JUNE 1, 2001, a Palestinian bomber exploded himself at the Dolphinarium
nightclub in Tel Aviv and murdered 21 Israeli teenagers. The public outcry
was deafening. Popular support for a counter terror offensive aimed at
destroying the Palestinian Authority and killing or expelling arch-terrorist
Yassir Arafat was at an all-time high as the dimensions of the massacre, and
the identity of the victims became clear.

Yet then-prime minister Ariel Sharon ignored the public and refused to act.
As his spokesmen made clear, Sharon was concerned that the Israeli
appeasement lobby would join forces with Europe to condemn such an IDF
operation. And so, in an attempt to appease his far-Left antagonists, Sharon
waited ten months to act. During that time, he engaged in fruitless US and
European sponsored talks with the Palestinians. He bowed to their pressure
and began referring to Judea and Samaria as "occupied," and so demoralized
his own constituents. And as he took these steps, another 250 Israelis were
murdered by the Palestinians.

Sharon approved Operation Defensive Shield in the aftermath of the
Palestinian massacre of 30 Israelis celebrating the Passover Seder at the
Park Hotel in Netanya. While his supporters often laud Sharon for his
courage in acting, the fact is that had Sharon not acted after the Passover
massacre, the public and his party would likely have booted him out of
office.

Sharon's long refusal to defend his citizens from murder by the Palestinian
massacre machine did not win him any sympathy with the appeasers. During
Defensive Shield Uri Avineri from Gush Shalom and Israeli professors like
Niv Gordon rushed to Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah to act as "human
shields," physically opposing IDF operations. Israeli professors signed
petitions calling for foreign divestment from Israel and urged their
students to refuse to serve in reserve duty. Arab Israeli leaders like MKs
Ahmed Tibi and Azmi Bishara similarly joined forces with Arafat. And of
course, Europe experienced its worst wave of anti-Semitic attacks since the
Holocaust as European leaders, joined by then UN secretary general Kofi
Annan, and their media organs and international human right organizations
lined up behind Arafat and accused Israel of committing war crimes.

IN THE end, the only ones who actively supported the IDF's 2002
counter-offensive were the Israeli public, the US public, and world Jewry.
And ironically, these were the same forces that would have supported an IDF
offensive after the Dolphinarium massacre ten months earlier. The US
government - which did not stridently object to Operation Defensive Shield -
acted no differently than it would have if Israel had taken action at that
earlier juncture. So Sharon's decision to avert confrontation for ten long
months - during which 250 Israelis were murdered and thousands were
wounded - accomplished nothing.

But what about Barak's argument about Egypt? Will Egypt support a future IDF
operation in Gaza when the cease-fire it has mediated falls apart? The
answer here is similarly obvious: Of course not. Since 2000, when Egypt
began hosting "cease-fire" talks among various terror masters in Cairo, the
Mubarak regime has done more than any other government to legitimize Hamas.

Moreover, in diplomatic forums, Israel has no greater enemy than Egypt.
Cairo uses every international and regional stage to attack the Jewish
state.
Then too, Egypt has permitted Hamas to use its territory as its logistical
base for arming Gaza and sending hundreds of terror operatives to Iran and
Lebanon for training.

Egypt has done all of this because it believes that its national interests
are advanced by weakening Israel. Were Egypt to support an Israeli offensive
against Gaza, it would be strengthening Israel. And so under no
circumstances will Cairo ever support an IDF operation against Hamas.
Pretending it will is to engage in reckless fantasizing.

SO THEN, why has Barak led the government to embrace Hamas as a negotiating
partner and a legitimate regime in Gaza?

We are left with two possible explanations. Either Barak is risking the
lives of Israeli soldiers and civilians to pander to the most radical
elements of Israeli society while seeking to win sympathy points from Cairo
in a general election campaign, or he is gullible enough to believe that
Israel's radical left and the Egyptian regime are moved by facts rather than
interests.

It is hard to know which explanation is more distressing.