[Peace-discuss] Israeli politics needs war

[C. G. Estabrook]

	December 27, 2007
	Beware of Barak
	by Ran HaCohen

Israeli "Defense" Minister Ehud Barak is definitely the most dangerous 
politician in the Middle East. Ahmadinejad can only dream of having the 
powers – political and military, conventional and non-conventional – 
that Barak already possesses. Netanyahu and other far-right Israeli 
politicians say what they think and are earmarked as extremists, so they 
are under permanent scrutiny. Barak is more extreme than Netanyahu, but 
he's an extremist in disguise.

The person who destroyed the Oslo Process and initiated the second 
Intifada, the person who demolished the Israeli peace camp from within, 
by spreading legends about a "generous offer" rejected by the 
Palestinian, by persuading the Israelis that he "unmasked" Arafat and 
that there was no Palestinian partner – this person still calls himself 
"the leader of the Israeli peace camp." That's one of Barak's most 
dangerous traits: his inherent untruthfulness, his presenting himself as 
the very opposite of what he actually is.

Barak hasn't changed. As Yedioth Ahronoth announced just a few months 
ago ("Labor Leader More Right-Wing Than Netanyahu," Aug. 10, 2007), 
Barak described the renewal of the peace talks as "a fantasy," said 
"there is no difference between Hamas and Fatah"; promised "I will not 
remove roadblocks in the West Bank"; and repeated his old mantra, "there 
is no chance for a settlement with the Palestinians."

Indeed, Barak opposed the Annapolis Summit all along. His opposition 
turned into reserved support just a few weeks before, when it became 
clear the meeting would be nothing but a photo-op. On top of it, to make 
sure nothing comes out of the newly launched process, Barak repeatedly 
calls to resume peace negotiations with Syria, simultaneously with the 
Palestinian track. A characteristic Barakian trick: urging to resume 
peace talks with Syria enables Barak to boost his false reputation as a 
man of peace even as he knowingly works to sabotage any prospect of 
peace. In an official report written under then-Prime Minister Ehud 
Barak in 2000, recently obtained and published in Hebrew by Ha'aretz 
(Dec. 13, 2007), Barak's bureau chief wrote that resuming negotiations 
with Syria had led to extreme distrust and stiffening on the Palestinian 
side, and, on top of it, that the Israeli team had been unable to manage 
negotiations on both fronts simultaneously. In other words, resuming 
negotiations with Syria is a tested measure to make sure the Palestinian 
track doesn't work, and Barak is playing this dirty card for the second 
time.

Barak promised to quit the coalition with Olmert after the publication 
of the Winograd Commission final report, which is likely to blame Olmert 
for the failed war in Lebanon in summer 2006. He has now hinted, through 
his "aides," that he won't keep his promise (Barak never speaks to the 
media; he sends his "aides" to hint at his intentions, so that no one 
can hold him responsible for anything he actually says). It is quite 
likely that Barak's perverse logic leads him to plan his return to the 
prime minister's office by way of a "small" war. Once Olmert is 
officially discredited for the failed Lebanon war, Barak as defense 
minister can hope to take all the credit for a new, successful war – a 
big operation in Gaza ("drawing nearer all the time," as Barak 
tirelessly repeats), a war on Syria, a strike on Iran, or a combination 
of all these. Such a war would also be an excellent pretext to break his 
promise to exit the coalition: after all, it would be "irresponsible" to 
quit when a war is imminent.

Barak knows all too well how to get Israel into a war, even behind the 
government's back if needed: after all, it was young Maj. Gen. Barak who 
in the early 1980s recommended to his superiors in the army to use 
deception in order to allure the Israeli government and public into a 
war in Lebanon.

Rwanda Is Richer

Much of the foreign news in the popular media falls under 
"infotainment": "Man Bites Dog," "Host Eats Guest," "Woman Dry-Cleans 
Cat." Recently this kind of reporting – in both style and contents – is 
applied ever more often to the Gaza Strip, a region under effective 
Israeli control, just an hour's ride from Tel Aviv. We are informed 
about the price of a pack of cigarettes in besieged Gaza – more than $15 
– while 63 percent of Gaza residents live on less than $2.50 a day, 
beating the poverty rate of Rwanda. We watch an amused television report 
about a soft-drink producer in the Strip, who, unable to get CO2-gas, 
found an original way to produce soda pop using some other, available 
gas. Or about a dramatic rise in the prices of donkeys, since there is 
no gasoline for cars, and how the transport of goods is done by animals. 
Great pictures: The soft-drink producer proudly showing his chemical 
invention, shaking off allegations it may cause cancer. A starving Gazan 
donkey auctioned for $60, $75, $100, the seller saying he cannot afford 
to feed it. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh congratulating his people on the 
Muslim holiday of Eid ul-Adha, admitting there are no lambs to sacrifice 
in the starving Strip.

Hermetically under siege, after decades of occupation and years of 
Intifada in which Israel destroyed the little infrastructure that the 
Strip ever had, following many months of total embargo on everything 
except basic food products, which brought the economy to a halt, with 
daily invasions of Israeli tanks and extra-judicial killings by Israeli 
airplanes, and now with gasoline supplies cut and electricity supply to 
be reduced soon, the Gaza Strip (1.5 million people, 80 percent 
refugees) is no longer the world's biggest open-air prison. It's a huge 
laboratory for human experimentation, run by the Israeli army.

Some of these reports came together with the "good news" about the 
international community promising to give more than $7 billion to the 
Palestinian Authority over the next three years. Some Israeli 
commentators described the promised sum as the biggest amount ever given 
to any leader anywhere, though it is significantly smaller than the 
American military support given to the regional power, Israel, in any 
given three years. Others quickly calculated that every Palestinian 
family would "earn" about a $1,000 a month, if the sum were to be 
divided equally; but, they added triumphantly, we all know that most of 
it would get to the corrupt pockets of the Fatah leadership and not to 
the poor guy selling his donkey in Gaza. Dramatic sigh of despair and 
self-righteousness: once again, the Palestinians are to blame for their 
own plight. No one bothers to take the thought a step forward – for 
example, to wonder why Israel is so anxious to keep alive the corrupt 
Fatah leadership, even after it lost the support of its own people and 
was overthrown in Gaza, precisely because of its inherent corruption.

The public discourse in Israel does love questions – but only of the 
kind posed by President Shimon Peres last week: "There's not a single 
Israeli settler or soldier in Gaza now, so why do they shoot at us?" 
Yes, why do they?

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