Lev Grinberg: Lessons from Israel on Preemptive Wars

["jmreinke" <jmreinke at pioneernet.net>]

Lessons from Israel on Preemptive Wars

[ Quote from Ha'aretz article* referred to below:
  "Despite the extensive preparations being made by the Home Front
   Command - and the tremendous media coverage - the Israeli public
   shares the views of Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon who has several
   times said recently that the threat from the Palestinians is more
   tangible than that from Iraq. " ]

By Lev Grinberg -
political sociologist teaching as senior
lecturer at Ben Gurion University

February 13, 2003

Despite the fact that the war against Iraq is presented also as aimed
to protect Israel from Sadam's aggressive intentions, Israeli public
opinion is not convinced that the war is needed. A new poll
(* http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/262650.html ) shows that
only 46% support waging the war without international legitimacy,
and 43% oppose it. In addition, a new coalition of peace
organizations has been formed to join the world protest on February
15. Apparently the Israelis know something about preemptive wars
that President Bush ignores. I would suggest learning some lessons
from the Israeli experience.

Israel has waged two wars that were defined as preemptive: The
1967 War, named The Six Days War, and the Lebanon War in
1982. In both cases, Israel had serious reasons to assume it was
going to be attacked, a hundred times more so than the US's
current concern about its security. In 1967, Gamal Abdel Nasser
closed the Tiran Straits, Israel's only southern outlet to the sea. He
also asked the UN to withdraw the forces camped in the Sinai
Desert to separate between Israel and Egypt. Nasser kept
escalating his verbal attacks against Israel, and threatening military
moves were made by both Egypt and Syria. In response, Israel
launched a preemptive war.

In 1982, the Lebanese border was quiet, following a ceasefire
agreement between Israel and the PLO which held for about a year,
but Israel had intelligence that PLO was fortifying its position in
Southern Lebanon and preparing for a future military confrontation.
Using a dubious pretext the IDF invaded Lebanon, headed by
Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, who lied to the Israeli public and
government, claiming that his intentions were purely defensive, i.e.,
take over Southern Lebanon to prevent Katyusha missile attacks
against Israel. Within two days, the IDF was deployed on the
outskirts of Beirut, which was kept under siege for two and half
months; its entry into the city was blocked by pressure from Israeli
and international public opinion concerned about the potential
catastrophe that would ensue from a military invasion into a city
where tens of thousands of fighters were entrenched. Following the
withdrawal of PLO forces from Beirut, the notorious massacre at the
Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps pushed out on the
streets almost 10% of Israel's citizens in an unprecedented mass
demonstration against their government. Sharon was fired from his
job as the result of the conclusions of an inquiry committee
regarding his ministerial responsibility in the affair.

The outcomes of both preemptive wars are well known: Both ended
in a military victory and a moral and diplomatic defeat. Israel's pre-
1967 image as a peace-seeking nation has been tainted by the
seizure of the West Bank from Jordan, the Sinai Desert from Egypt,
and the Golan Heights from Syria. The impressive achievements of
the peace treaty with Egypt and the withdrawal from Sinai in 1982
were tainted by the capture of Lebanon a month later. Getting out of
both proved difficult: it took the IDF 18 years to extract itself out of
Lebanon, and it has yet to extract itself from the West Bank, Gaza
Strip and the Golan Heights. Israel's activities in these occupied
territories are perceived as illegal not only by their inhabitants, but
also by the majority of international public opinion and a significant
share of Israeli citizens, including soldiers. Israel constantly commits
illegal acts in order to maintain the occupation, while the local
population and the majority of international public opinion perceive
acts of resistance to the occupation as legitimate. Moreover, the
preemptive war engenders new security problems, due to the
illegitimacy of the occupation. The most obvious example is the
Yom Kippur War (1973), when Israel was unable to launch a
renewed preemptive war in order to defend its presence in the Sinai,
and had to sustain the first blow, which caused the highest
casualties toll since its establishment.

My suggested conclusion is that there are fundamental reasons for
the predictable failure of preemptive wars:

1. Even when the threat is serious and real (unlike the current case
of Iraq), the aggressor is invariably the country that initiates the
attack, and thus de-legitimized. The US's current problems with
international public opinion and its own citizenry would undoubtedly
exacerbate once it launches the attack and is perceived as the
aggressor, unlike in the 1991 war, in which Iraq had attacked
Kuwait.

2. Preemptive wars are not waged against an aggressive army that
can be crushed and forced to stop the aggression, but against a
hostile regime that is said to foster aggressive intentions. Hence,
preemptive wars are waged against the sovereignty of the attacked
state. In order to extricate the hostile regime a full occupation of
civilian population is necessary, and withdrawal before a new and
stable regime is put in place becomes very difficult, due to the
danger that a new hostile regime could rise once again. Preemptive
wars therefore necessitate a permanent deployment of foreign
military power in occupied areas. Israel remained in Lebanon for 18
years for fear of Hizballa takeover, and has already marked the 35th
anniversary of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as a
result of its fated attempt to avert Palestinian independence.

3. Preemptive wars create mounting protests by international public
opinion and among the citizens of the aggressive state. The use of
violence is perceived as illegitimate, a fact that undermines the
fighting capacities of the military and prevents the establishment of
a friendly regime once the takeover has been completed. The lack
of legitimacy subverts the soldiers' conviction about the necessity of
the war and feeds the resistance in the occupied territories, widely
supported by the local population.

All these obstacles are bound to arise in the planned preemptive
war that the Bush Administration attempts to launch against Sadam
Hussein's regime. All the US's military and technological might and
its dominant global economic position would make no difference.
There are no just wars, unless they are defensive wars perceived as
vital for saving life. Soon it would be Bush, rather than Sadam
Hussein, who would be putting the world in danger. American
aggression would no longer be regarded as an expression of its
might, but as a public admission of weakness. Having already
exposed the underbelly of the world's only superpower, Osama Bin
Laden would soon become the great winner of the war, and the
religious belief that God is on his side will only grow stronger. Again,
there is a lesson to be learned from Israel's experience with the rise
of Hizballa in Lebanon after 1982 and of Hamas and Islamic Jihad
among the Palestinians in the 1990's. Military occupation is not the
way to fight terrorism; it is the sure way to boost and encourage it.
You have been warned.