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From: heb_roots_chr@mail.geocities.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 1997 12:31 AM
To: Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup
Subject: R&B News Service - "INTELLIGENCE, SURVIVAL AND ..
To: rb@rb.org.il
From: "Root & Branch Association, Ltd." <rb@rb.org.il>
Subject: R&B News Service - "INTELLIGENCE, SURVIVAL AND 'THE CONCEPT:'
WHO SEES THE COMING CATASTROPHIC WAR AGAINST ISRAEL?" by
Prof. Louis
Rene Beres
INTELLIGENCE, SURVIVAL AND "THE CONCEPT:" WHO SEES THE COMING CATASTROPHIC
WAR AGAINST ISRAEL?
by Prof. Louis Rene Beres
WEST LAFAYETTE, August 6, Root & Branch: Yitzhak Rabin, on the eve of the
Yom Kippur War, assured his countrymen that the Arabs would not attack.
This view, derivative from the similarly misconceived assessment of then
Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan, has come to be known in Israel as the
mechdal, "the concept," the idea that the enemy is not preparing for war.
A scant twenty-four hours before the combined Egyptian-Syrian attack, the
IDF (Israel Defense Forces) Intelligence Branch offered its official
estimate on war's probability. It was, said the generals, "the lowest of
the low."
How dangerous is the situation for Israel today? Officially, there is
enormous optimism about war avoidance. A "Peace Process" is underway,
after all, and everyone knows that peace is better than war. But the
official assessments are wrong. What is more, they are wrong in exactly
the same way that they were wrong back in 1973. Today, Israel faces
another mechdal, another "omission," another instance of "nonperformance,"
but this time an attack with vastly more catastrophic potential. This time
"the concept" could produce an effective end to the State of Israel, an
unconventional war with at least tens of thousands of prompt fatalities.
Who sees this coming catastrophic war against Israel? The "intellectuals?"
Of course not! So many of them are much too busy blaming Zionism for
every ill that plagues the Arabs. In their view Israel can look forward to
a golden age of peace so long as it first surrenders its land and its
strategic options to its "partners in peace." Even better, say these
"intellectuals," if only Israel can become a little "less Jewish" it will
become less objectionable to these partners.
What about the civilian strategists, the "professional" thinkers at
Israel's Centers for Strategic Studies? What do they see? Above all, most
see money - grants, travel, fellowships, publications, all of the perks and
paraphernalia of academic success they have learned to love from their
American patrons. It is a relatively small problem that their scholarship
is generally weak, cliched and mundane ( and therefore of no use in saving
Israel from war), it pays for the glossy brochures, conferences and
canapes.
But there is always the IDF, especially A'man, the Intelligence Branch.
What about them? The Army, it seems, now has another, far more important
mission. Now its major job is to figure out how best to give Israel away
"peacefully" to its partners in peace. This is the once unimaginable
direction in which the generals are now tasked to dedicate their efforts.
It may well be the first time in recorded history that an endangered
country's military has been detailed by the Government to collaborate in
its own national annihilation.
Seeing requires distance. Within Israel, all too many people are already
far to close to see what is happening. Confusing preferences with
expectations, they believe that peace can be accomplished linguistically
and that the Islamic world's incessant calls for jihad are merely for
internal propagandistic purposes. As events will soon reveal, however,
these people are wrong, dead wrong.
Part of the security problem is Israel's shameless imitation of the United
States. Israel is no longer content with mimicking America. Israel now
wants to be America. Abandoning the impressive originality that once made
the Jewish State special and proud, Israel now longs to become Los Angeles,
liberated not only from all things Jewish, but also from the intolerable
burdens of protracted war-preparedness. How sad it all is. In becoming a
servile imitator of everything American, Israel has sacrificed both its
remarkable uniqueness and its remaining opportunities for
national survival.
Let us be candid. Israel's survival thusfar has sometimes had little to do
with being smart. It has, at least on several significant occasions, only
been lucky. When, on January 18, 1991, the scream of air-raid sirens could
be heard in every corner of the land, the Iraqi Scuds that slammed through
Tel Aviv and Haifa neighborhoods caught the country - in the words of a
former Intelligence Chief - "with its pants down." The only thing that
saved Israel during Desert Storm were Iraq's benign warheads. If they had
been filled with chemical or biological toxins Israel would have suffered
terribly.
Israel's record of intermittent security failures should not be
disregarded. Important lessons must be learned from this record. Above
all, Israelis must learn not to trust too much in the politicians, in the
generals, in the so-called intellectuals, least of all in the academic
strategists. Before the country takes false comfort from what the
"experts" have to say about the "Peace Process," it should recall that
their record has been decidedly unimpressive and that Israel exists today
because, in the past, enemy weapons technologies were relatively primitive.
For Israel, "the concept" is not simply a problem of the past. It is, even
today, a mistaken orientation to enemy intentions that blinds the country
to coming catastrophic war. This war is coming because certain Arab and
Islamic states, including Iran, are proceeding at lightning speed with
pertinent unconventional weapons development and because the "Peace
Process" will decisively tilt enemy calculations of costs and benefits
toward future aggression.
Who sees the coming catastrophic war against Israel? All Israelis who are
willing not to look away.
Louis Rene Beres
West Lafayette, Indiana
------------------------------------------------------------------------
LOUIS RENE BERES (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) is Professor of Political Science
and International Law at Purdue University. He is the author of many books
and articles dealing with Israeli security matters
------------------------------------------------------
Aryeh Gallin, President
Root & Branch Association, Ltd.
ISRAEL
P.O.B. 8672, German Colony, 91086 Jerusalem, Israel
Tel: 972-2-673-9013, Fax: 972-2-673-9012
Email: rb@rb.org.il, Web Site: www.rb.org.il
UNITED STATES
Law Offices of Lt. Col. Martin Gallin, Esq., A.U.S.A. (ret.),
860 Grand Concouse, Bronx, N.Y. 10451
Tel: 718-585-3512, Fax: 718-993-3712
The Root & Branch Association, founded by Torah-observant Jews, represents
Jews and Non-Jews who work together on behalf of the Jewish People and the
State of Israel and who promote the study and practice of universal Jewish
teachings.
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