Democratic Palestine : 35 (ص 19)
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- Democratic Palestine : 35 (ص 19)
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drastically only by the conflict of 1956. No other relationship
brought Israel such enrichment and security over two
decades... France was Israel’s mainstay for a full decade and
more... The preponderance of French equipment in Israel’s
armed forces had a powerful emotional effect on the country’s
youth» (Eban, op. cit., pp. 510-511). In March 1952, Eban
asked the US that Israel be included in any Western-oriented
Middle East defense pact that might be planned (Green, op.
cit., p. 74).
«Between 1968 and 1973 Rabin served as Israeli Ambassador
to the USA and in Washington he developed a new concept
according to which Israel’s security was more dependent on
decisions made in the White House than upon decisions taken
in government offices in Jerusalem» (Amos Perlmutter,
Michael Handel, Uri Bar Joseph, Two Minutes Over Baghdad,
1982, p. 49). Israeli dependency became obvious in October
1973 when only a massive military air lift from the US allowed
Israel to regain the initiative.
Most of the few instances of Israeli territorial withdrawal
have been dictated by international considerations. Eban
describes Ben Gurion’s policy in this respect as follows: «In
1949 he drew back from nothern Sinai rather than incur British
armed resistance and American disfavor. He entered the 1956
Sinai campaign... only when he felt assured of support against
air attacks on Israel’s cities. Two days after declaring that
Israel would never abandon the occupied territory or allow
foreign troops to enter it, he proclaimed Israel’s evacuation in
favor of United Nations troops. The United States and the
Soviet Union had demanded this, and he saw no course but to
comply» (op. cit., p. 516)
In withdrawing from the Sinai in conjunction with the Camp
David accords, Israel for the first time acted according to a
«double track strategy» defined as combining capacity max-
imalization with threat reduction (Heller, op. cit., pp. 3-4).
While the threat reduction involved drawing Egypt out of the
Arab confrontation front, the capacity maximalization was
achieved via massive new levels of US military aid and institu-
tionalized strategic cooperation.
«A leading Israeli defense analyst stated that there are three
major factors, apart from geographic borders, that make up
the strategic balance from the Israeli perspective: ‘Israeli
military capabilities as compared to Arab military capabilities;
the nature and depth of the American commitment; and the
application of military capabilities, especially the question of
strategic surprise. Unfortunately, the second is as important as
the first and third.’ The possibility of a change in the degree
and strength of American support is seen as a potential threat
of the highest order to Israeli security» (Mroz, op. cit., p. 132).
Israeli dependence on the US has led some to argue that the
US can force Israel to make peace; this debate has taken on a
new dimension with the onset of the intifada, the attempts of
Israel’s friends to «save it from itself» and the opening of the
US-PLO dialogue. This issue will be examined later in this
study; here, we will only cite some pre-intifada facts which
mitigate against optimism in this respect: «The Egyptian-
American relationship worries the Israelis insofar as it could
mean that America will no longer see Israel as its sole, reliable
partner in the region. All Israelis realize that Israel’s economic
well-being and security depend on the continued close
Democratic Palestine, October 1989
cooperation between the United States and Israel... Many ad-
vocates of the peace process believe that once peace is achiev-
ed, Israel will need less foreign aid... Israelis are not so certain
that the change would be in Israel’s best interests» (Mroz, op.
cit., p. 57).
The Israeli Labor Party is considered to be most sensitive to
the importance of Israel’s relations with the West, yet it was a
Labor minister who told the Jerusalem Post (June 17, 1986),
«When it comes to our security or the PLO, we have no option
but to differ with the West.»
The dialectics linking Israel with its imperialist backers are
extremely complex and dynamic as can be deduced from
Moshe Dayan’s arguments when he told an assembly of Israeli
ambassadors why a defense pact with the US would be harm-
ful: «A defense agreement would only tie our hands... Reprisal
actions, which we should be unable to carry out if we were
bound by a defense agreement, are the elixir of life for us.
Firstly, they oblige the Arab countries to take strict measures
to maintain security on the frontiers, and secondly - which is
the important point - they help us to maintain tension among
the population and in the army. Without this we shall not have
a fighting people, and without the structure of a fighting peo-
ple we shall be lost...» (quoted in the Journal of Palestine
Studies 37).
COMPREHENSIVE SECURITY
Those who view Israeli security in a comprehensive manner
are less optimistic about its strategic situation than those who
make their judgements in terms of military prowess alone.
Below we cover three studies carried out by respected Israeli
think tanks.
Mark A. Heller’s A Palestinian State - Implications for
Israel was written under the auspices of the Center for Strategic
Studies at Tel Aviv University. Heller argues for a Palestinian
state (a severely restricted one), as the least dangerous of the
options available to Israel for insuring its security, based on
the following disadvantages of perpetuating the status quo:
- the economic costs of Israel’s defense burden;
- the possibility of new Arab war coalitions emerging in the
future;
- the demographic problem involved in absorbing the West
Bank and Gaza Strip;
- the occupation’s negative effects on Israel’s moral fiber, na-
tional cohesion, international relations and Jewish immigra-
tion.
Indeed by 1979 and 1980, Jewish emigration had ‘begun to
exceed immigration by about 10,000 each year (Jerusalem
Post, December 11, 1981), and this trend has continued.
«Privately Israeli officials acknowledge that the birthrate and
the emigration / immigration statistics are most worrisome to
them» (Mroz, op. cit, p. 55).
In Heller’s view, a durable settlement would offset the
geomilitary value of the West Bank and Gaza Strip (usually
viewed as the protection which the West Bank in particular of-
fers for Israeli industrial and population centers). The PLO
should be brought into the settlement so it would not have in-
terests in undermining it. Rather, this process would weaken
and divide the PLO, and busy it with the details of managing a
state, like the Arab governments. Heller reasons that the >
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