Which Way To the Front?

The Israelis gotta have a plan in all this. They just gotta!

Tim Cavanaugh | July 18, 2006

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5. Israel is trying to turn elite opinion in Lebanon and Syria against Hezbollah. More plausible. The opinions of the masses matter even less in the Arab world than they do in the democratic world, and a good pitch to the actual leaders would go something like this: "Yes, yes, the Israelis are brutes and villains and Jews and so forth, but they've been there your whole life and they've never threatened your position. This radical Shiite cleric, on the other hand, he's actually got ideas, and ideas do threaten your position."

6. Israel is trying to internationalize anti-Shiism. Even more plausible, and supported by the tepid criticism of Hezbollah coming from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The invasion of Iraq has turned the dream of a Shiite Crescent into a reality. The Sunni states are looking for any means to cut chunks out of that crescent, and with Saddam Hussein no longer available, Israel becomes a useful means to that end.

There are undoubtedly many other possibilities, and I should note that the assumption that there is a master strategy may be rooted in the simultaneously philo-Semitic and anti-Semitic notion that The Jews have figured out the universe and therefore always have a plan. However, in this case it is only reasonable to assume that we're seeing more than just some feckless hissy fit.

Of course, for the hawks and stab-in-the-back theorists who supposedly make up the hard backbone of Israel's support, the answer is (and always is) cowardice and fecklessness. In this view, Israel's hesitation is due to weakness, to the treasonous pacifism of insufficiently warlike Israelis or Americans. I look at an Israel that year after year strengthens its strategic position and expands its economy, and I conclude that that's crazy talk. The Israelis know what they're doing.

And the American position? President Bush summed it up yesterday by finally making the word "shit" suitable for polite conversation. I'll take him up on that offer: President Bush is full of shit. He has no ideas for this situation, nor should he. His strategy on the Arab-Israeli conflict has always been to let nature take its course, and he's not about to change now. The Israelis are in the driver's seat. I just wish I knew where they were heading.