Let us transcend our present era — an era trapped in the trivia and transience of the media, which know nothing of wisdom and courage and of national pride and purpose.
PART I: WHAT MUST BE DONE TO OBTAIN AN "UNOBTAINABLE" PEACE?
What I propose is a Jewish Peace Plan.
Ever since the futile and fatal Israel-PLO Agreement of 1993, I have advocated a Peace Plan to overcome the Israel-Palestinian conflict. It is a Jewish peace plan, the only kind based on a realistic assessment of Israel's enemy.
Genuine realism requires a theological understanding of the enemy. Genuine realists know that territorial compromise with Muslims only whets their appetite for further aggression. Genuine realists know there are no empirical grounds to expect Muslims to renounce Jihadism — the precondition of peace — unless they are so devastated as to expunge their desire to wage war for a hundred years — as the Allied powers did to Nazi Germany.
Israel's leadership must first act on the recognition that if Iran develops nuclear weapons, Israel will cease to be a viable state as I have shown in previous articles. Hence, Israel will have to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons development program.
Israel's leaders must understand that Jerusalem is the focus of Islam's war against the West. The West is steeped in denial. Israel must awaken the West by going on the offensive. After eliminating the genocidal threat issuing from Iran, Israel must pursue a phased strategy for destroying the entire Fatah-Hamas terrorist network west of the River Jordan.
Since the goal of the Palestinian Authority, depicted in its maps, is to conquer all of Palestine, a rational government of Israel should adopt the following course of action:
- Abrogate the Oslo Agreement and emasculate the leaders of the PA. This will demoralize the Arabs. No Arab leadership will speedily arise and command the loyalty of the artificial collection of rival clans called the "Palestinians."
- With the PA destroyed, Israel's Government should declare Jewish sovereignty over Judea and Samaria. (The Arabs in these areas will retain the personal, religious, and economic rights they enjoyed under Israeli law, but they will not vote in Israeli elections.)
- The Government should establish unequivocal jurisdiction over the Temple Mount.
- It should move certain cabinet ministries to Judea and Samaria. (This will convince Arabs that the Jews intend to remain in these areas permanently.)
- The Government should pass a Homestead Act and sell small plots of land in Judea and Samaria at low prices to Jews in Israel and abroad with the proviso that they settle on the land, say for a period of seven years. This would diminish the dangerous population density of Israel's large cities and encourage Jewish immigration to Israel.
- Develop model cities in Judea and Samaria by attracting foreign capital investment on terms favorable to the investors. Based on experience, and given Israel's present Gross Domestic Product of $200 billion, at least 150,000 Jews could be settled in Judea and Samaria within a few years. Their presence will prompt many more Arabs to leave, as tens of thousands have done in the past, and in greater number if offered generous incentives.
- . Adopt a Constitution that stipulates that Israel is a Jewish Republic whose Jewish character is the Republic's paramount principle to which all other principles are subordinate.
- The Constitution should empower the people by making members of the Knesset.
- The Knesset should be empowered to override decisions of the Supreme Court affecting the Jewish character of the Republic.
- Amend the "grandfather clause" of the Law of Return to diminish the number of gentile immigrants, and devote the vast funds thereby saved to assimilate gentiles now residing in Israel.
- Enforce Basic Law: The Knesset, which prohibits any party that negates the Jewish character of the Republic.
- Enforce the 1952 Citizenship Law, which empowers the Government to nullify the citizenship of any Israel national that commits "an act of disloyalty to the Republic." (The term "act" should be amended to protect freedom of speech and press.)
- Put an end to the notorious tax evasion of Arab citizens and their countless violations of building and zoning laws.
- Terminate subsidies to, or expel, Arab university students who call for Israel's destruction, and require Arab schools to include Jewish studies in their curriculum.
- Phase out U.S. military aid to Israel (now only 1.5% of the country's GDP), as well as American participation in Israel-Arab affairs. Both undermine Israel's strategic interests as well as Jewish national pride. Of course, this is a grandiose project. It's not designed for "men without chests." But the God-inspired Jewish people, though few in number, revolutionized humanity. Thus inspired, the Jews can do it again, but with one caveat. They must go on the offensive with the understanding that in a world steeped in barbarism, it's better to be feared than loved.
PART II: WHAT MUST BE DONE TO WIN AN "UNWINNABLE" WAR?
To win: "We should not negotiate with warriors until they surrender. Until then we must kill them."
To the contrary, Israel's government has been wedded to the timid and castrated policy of "land for peace."
I therefore propose a bold and ultimately life-enhancing policy of "Kill for Peace" — a policy seemingly cruel, but not one of indiscriminate killing, but one that would actually reduce Jewish as well as Arab death and destruction. The rationality and effectiveness of such a policy is substantiated not only by Ralph Peters but also by the greatest military theorists in history, Carl von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu.
Moreover, the thinking of these military geniuses is supported by principles of statecraft enunciated by the great nineteenth-century Austrian scholar-statesman Prince Metternich. Accordingly, I shall now enumerate ten principles of statecraft and rules of warfare required for the policy "Kill for Peace" vis-à-vis Israel's Janus-faced enemies: but with this challenge, let us be bold enough to escape the dungeon of political correctness.
Let us transcend our present era — an era trapped in the trivia and transience of the media, which know nothing of wisdom and courage and of national pride and purpose.
First Principle: A wise and courageous statesman must set forth a clear military goal. For Israel, this goal, justified by the historical mission and territorial prerequisite of the Jewish People, is the destruction of the Arab terrorist network in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. The statesman must tackle this goal vigorously.
For this to happen it is necessary that the goal should not only be clear in the eyes of the cabinet, but it should also be made clear in the eyes of the public and even clearer in the eyes of the enemy. Israel's enemies must recognize that they are facing a spiritually dedicated and implacable force that will break them.
Second Principle: In this age of publicity the first concern of government is not only to be right, but more important, to see that everything is called by its right name. Israel's political leaders must stop deluding themselves and others by using such Orwellian language as the "peace process" or about "peaceful coexistence" with the "Palestinians."
Indeed, they should remove the word "Palestian" from their vocabulary, for this mendacious word represents the anti-thesis of Israel's sacred and immemorial right to the Land of Israel. The constant use of this Orwellian language by friends and foes alike signifies that Israel is in a war for its survival. In this war, linguistic and moral clarity will decide the outcome.
Third Principle: There is no compromising with an uncompromising enemy — an enemy that regards compromise as weakness. Israel is confronted by the most evil of enemies — warriors contemptuous of human life who lust especially for Jewish blood.
Fourth Principle: Eliminate this evil at its source by eliminating the enemy's Jihad-inspired leadership. Disarming the enemy must be the immediate object of hostilities, for as long as the enemy remains armed, he will wait for a more favorable moment for action.
Fifth Principle: Know that any strategy conceived in moderate terms will fail because the circumstances confronting Israel are extreme — its very existence is at stake. Therefore, where each of the possible lines of action involves difficulty, the strongest line is the best.
Sixth Principle: Tell the people of Israel that there will be casualties to Arab non-combatants or civilians. But let's not be stupid: most of these civilians are not innocents. They allow terrorists to use them as human shields. Indeed, under the guise of democracy, they knowingly vote tyranny, for tyrants who vow to "wipe Israel off the map".
Seventh Principle: for a change, and in the name of sanity and morality, impose rules of engagement that favor one's own soldiers. Alas, Israel's political elites are so insecure that to prove Israel's moral superiority and thereby avoid hostility from abroad, these elites place greater value on the lives of the enemy than on the lives of their own people.
Accordingly, bomb terrorist havens from the air, rather than endanger Jewish soldiers by house-to-house combat.
Poet-Statesman King David writes: "I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and returned not until they were destroyed. I crushed them so that they are not able to rise ..." (Psalm 18:38-43)
Eighth Principle: Operate offensively, never passively or defensively, and operate continuously. Give the enemy no rest. Hence, no ceasefires. They allow the enemy to regroup, obtain more weapons, and prepare for deadlier attacks. At the same time, they short-circuit the fighting spirit required in military combat, the spirit which Israel especially requires vis-à-vis her fanatical, Jihadic enemies.
Ninth Principle: Sun Tzu, who actually hated war, warns that "to kill the enemy, men must be roused to anger." This leads to a tenth principle, for which we should consult Israel's poet-statesman, the psalmist King David.
Tenth Principle: The statesman must exhibit hatred of his country's enemies. King David said, "I hate them, O God, that hate you" (Psalm 139:21). In this context, to hate God means to hate God's laws as well as the chosen bearer of those laws, the Jewish people. Hatred, however, is futile if it does not issue in action. Therefore King David writes: "I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and returned not until they were destroyed. I crushed them so that they are not able to rise ..." (Psalm 18:38-43)
This is what must be done to Israel's implacable enemies, whose fourteen-century bellicose theology is at war with the ethical and rational foundations of Western Civilization.
We therefore propose a high-minded policy of "Kill for Peace," one that a civilized nation will pursue when attacked by a foe that scorns man's natural rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
This tough but high-minded policy must replace the soft and self-effacing policy of "land for peace." Obviously, this may be beyond the ability of a government led a chance coalition of paltry political parties. Israel therefore needs a very different kind of government, one whose elected leader represents the grandeur and purpose of the nation, something more than its transient parts and passions.
Israel also needs different generals. When bogged down in war, Lincoln discovered Grant and Sherman; Roosevelt had Bradley and Patton; and G. W. Bush found David Petraeus. As we learn from the statecraft of Metternich and of Machiavelli, in the protracted war between Israel and the disciples of Muhammad, better for Israel to err on the side of boldness than on the side of caution. This practical wisdom underlies the proposed policy, "Kill for Peace." No other policy is worthy of a people that cherishes life and human dignity.
Paul Eidelberg is an internationally known political scientist, author and lecturer. He is founder and president of the Israel-America Renaissance Institute (I-ARI) with offices in Jerusalem and Philadelphia. Visit it at http://i-ari.org/
Eidelberg has written several books on American and on Jewish Statesmanship. His magnum opus "The Judeo-Scientific Foundations of American Exceptionalism: Today's Choice for the "Almost Chosen People" is in process of publication. Prof. Eidelberg lives in Jerusalem. â–º More from this writer
These article was published as two separate articles. Part 1 was submitted August 11, 2011 and was entitled, "A Jewish Peace Plan." Part II was the second part of an article that was itself in two parts. The article was called "What Must Be Done to Win an "Unwinable" War." It appeared November 14, 2011 in Arutz Sheva and is archived at
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/ Article.aspx/10837#.TxwxKD8wvWI
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/ Article.aspx/10837#.TxwxKD8wvWI
The complete text of the article used in Part II can be found at The Maccabean Online
(http://www.freeman.org/MOL/pages/september-2011/kill-for-peace.php).
(http://www.freeman.org/MOL/pages/september-2011/kill-for-peace.php).
For more by Professor Paul Eidelberg, whose basic theme is "How to make Israel more democratic by means of Jewish principles and how to make Israel more Jewish by means of democratic principles", see the Israel-America Renaissance Institute website (http://I-ari.org).
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