Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Terror and Non-Violence



Some people have been constantly accusing me of justifying Terror.

Well, in the best case, they just don’t understand my arguments, even though I keep repeating them over and over again, in the clearest way possible. In the worst case, they do understand, but pretend not to; I suspect that they either are out of good arguments, in which case the easiest way is to turn to Demagogy. “You are justifying Terror!” usually works, at least on some listeners, because it uses emotions rather that rational arguments. Emotions sell. Or, they are capable of using good, rational claims, but they think that their listeners can’t understand them. This say something about the credit they give to the audience.

So, let’s state it one more time, loud and clear. I don't justify Terror. “Terror” in its simplest meaning, namely killing innocent people to achieve a political goal, is a terrible crime, regardless of how just and right the goal is.
But in order to be consistent, I can't justify terror from any side, be it the Hamas, or the IDF. The Israeli “Defense” Forces have killed more civilians than all the Arab terrorists combined; I see the killings by the IDF as terror too.
All I said about the Arabic terror was that it worked, from their viewpoint. That's the tragedy! Because of our stubbornness, the most horrible means is also the most effective one: the vast majority of the Jewish public in Israel came to agree to a Palestinian state (which was unspeakable 20 years ago), not because we are so merciful, but because of the Palestinian Terror.

Let’s review the case of "Mahatma" Ghandy. I agree, that the right thing to do by the Palestinians is to carry out a non-violent struggle. This is our worst nightmare: Thousands of Arabs marching into the military outposts and checkpoints. What would the military do? If they don't open fire, then they will prevail and essentially wipe us out. If they do open fire, then hundreds will be willed. Now let’s put aside the question, whether the dead would be innocent or not. Just the international impact of this, will force is to end the occupation.
So, from my stand point, that would be an ideal solution.
The problem is that for this to happened, the Palestinians will have to make a sacrifice of a few hundreds, maybe thousands. I don't think that we can demand from them to do that.

I see the solution in a totally different way than most Israelis. I understand that they think that I'm fantasizing, and I respect that. But, I honestly think that they are the ones who are fantasizing, if they think that we can keep on with this occupation forever. Let's assume the most optimistic scenario, that there will be no Terror attack on us from now on (I wish that this would be true); If we don't agree to give back the occupied Territories, then the Palestinians will eventually dismiss the Palestinian Authority (PA), and demand from Israel to annex all the Territories, and to establish one state with 6 million Jews and more than 6 millions Arabs. Is that what we want?
Personally, I don't care; but I know that for most Jews in Israel, this would be a nightmare.