State of Israel’s ‘fears’

While Daniel Levy, writing on "Israel at 60" at The American Prospect website, is correct that Israel's fears are an impediment to peace, so are the enemies who create those fears. The agents of fear – Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran– are external. Daniel Levy is a valuable and gifted advocate of our pro-Israel/pro-peace perspective, but like many progressive Israelis, he has trouble adjusting to the fact that our camp in the Diaspora must also respond to an anti-Israel left which often demonizes Israel and/or Jews.

It's a problem that so much of the left hates Israel, completely negating its legitimate security concerns. It's an even greater problem that more mainstream liberals or moderate leftists like Tony Judt and even centrist figures like Jimmy Carter, Mearsheimer and Walt now see Israel (or even the idea of a "Jewish state") as of dubious moral worth. It's true that we want to see more forward looking, hopeful and pacific policies emanating from Jerusalem, but I think we play into one-sided anti-Israel forces when we downplay the reality of Israel's enemies. We also lose the possibility of influencing mainstream American-Jewish opinion with such an approach.

Too much of the world accepts the narrative of Israel as a kind of superpower (e.g., the "fourth major world military power" and other such exaggerations). Israel may well have the fourth most powerful air force in the world, but a country as small in both population and area as Israel is, that could lose nearly 1,000 civilians killed (in the recent Intifada) by people who don't even have an army, is highly vulnerable.

That's one reason that it's so desperately important for Israel to pursue policies that are more pro-peace. But the fact that Hamas has emerged as a major contender for power among the Palestinians is a major complicating factor; this makes concessions in the form of withdrawals and the lifting of roadblocks more difficult to sell to an electorate that feels itself increasingly threatened. It's Israel's vulnerability that makes peace so vital, even as it makes its obtainment harder politically.

Contrast this with Russia in Chechnya; Russia's survival does not at all depend upon it making peace with the Chechens. Nor does China absolutely need to make a final peace with the Tibetans, the Uighars or Taiwan.