Ariel Center for Policy Research

A JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND THE ARTS

NATIV  ■ Volume Twenty  ■ No. 4-5 (117-118)  ■ Sept. 2007 ■ Tishrei 5768 ■ Ariel Center for Policy Research

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Whitney Raas and Austin Long

Osirak Redux? Assessing Israeli Capabilities to Destroy Iranian Nuclear Facilities

IDF and Security

Paul Giniewski

The Vexed Question of an Israeli Strike Against Iran

Ran Baratz

Solving the Officer Problem of the IDF

Moshe Sharon

Words Laundry: A Short Guide to Those Obsessed with Peace

Neighbors

Angela Bertz

The Lost Childhood

Tzvi MiSinai

Getting Together - The Issue of Eretz Israel, Its Roots and Its Solutions

Genetics

Shlomo Sharan

Embracing Our Enemies

Jewish Pathology

David Bukay

Bada Bada Nasrallah: The Paparazzi and the Lebanon War (2)

Dov Levin

IBZ: Irgun Berit Zion (United Zion Organization): Ghetto Kovno - The Unique Struggle of a Jewish Community During WWII (2)

Shoah

Limor Abunil

The Establishment of the Arab Salvation Army and the Appointment of Fauzi al-Qawuqji as Its Head: An Arab Political Compromise

History

Michel Gurfinkiel

Is it Really Possible to Save France?

France

“Conspiracy” – Eviathar H. Ben-Zedeff on Blood Libel at Deir Yassin: The Black Book by Uri Milstein ■ “Distrust and Dispute Yoram Beck  on The Heart of a Poem by Uri Zvi Greenberg

Book Reviews

Literature and Art Supplement - Dror Eydar, Editor

Special Supplement Dedicated to Poetry

Rakefet Bar-Sade

“The Music of Dante: The Divine Comedy”

Articles

Yuval Rivlin

“The Hidden Shade: The Holocaust and the Jewish Identity in the Compositions of Roman Polanski”

Liora Bing-Heidecker ■ Miri Gilad ■ Herzl Hakak

Poetry

El Cid: Six Hundred Marks for Two Sandboxes – Translation and Foreword: Arieh Stav

Translated Poetry

Guy Gilad

Photography

Prof. Edward Alexander ■ Dr. Yoram Beck ■ Dr. Aharon Ben-Ami ■ Ephraim Ben-Haim ■ Prof. Louis René Beres ■ Prof. Yirmiyahu Branover ■ Dr. David Bukay ■ Dr. Netta Kohn Dor-Shav ■ Prof. Paul Eidelberg ■ Dr. Raya Epstein ■ Naomi Frenkl ■ Dr. Giora Goldberg ■ Prof. Raphael Israeli ■ Shmuel Katz ■ Dr. Mordechai Nisan ■ Aron Pappo ■ Prof. Shlomo Sharan ■ Dr. Martin Sherman ■ Prof. Eliav Shochetman ■ Prof. Ezra Sohar ■ Yoash Tsiddon-Chatto ■ Dr. Laurence Weinbaum ■ Prof. Hillel Weiss

Editorial Board

NATIV Website in Hebrew: http://nativ.cc


Editor: Arieh Stav Associate Editor: Moshe Shourin Managing Editor: Itta Horol
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SUMMARIES
 

 

OSIRAK REDUX? ASSESSING ISRAELI CAPABILITIES TO DESTROY IRANIAN NUCLEAR FACILITIES

Whitney Raas and Austin Long

Does Israel have the ability to conduct a military attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities similar to its 1981 strike on Iraq’s Osirak reactor? The Israeli Air Force has significantly upgraded its equipment since the early 1980s, but the Iranian nuclear complex is a much harder target than was the Osirak reactor. Iran has three facilities that are critical for nuclear weapons production: A uranium conversion facility, an enrichment facility, and a heavy-water production plant and associated plutonium production reactor. This article analyzes possible interactions of Israel’s improved air force, including the addition of F-15I aircraft and US-supplied conventional “bunker-buster” precision-guided munitions, with the Iranian target set and air defense systems. It concludes that Israel has the capability to attack Iran’s nuclear infrastructure with at least as much confidence as it had in the 1981 Osirak strike. Beyond the case of Iran, this finding has implications for the use of precision-guided weapons as a counter-proliferation tool. Precision-guided weapons confer the ability to reliably attack hard and deeply buried targets with conventional, rather than nuclear, weapons. Intelligence on the location of nuclear sites is thus the primary limiting factor of military counter-proliferation.

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THE VEXED QUESTION OF AN ISRAELI STRIKE AGAINST IRAN

Paul Giniewski

A nuclear Iran has become an increasingly contentious issue. In the light of Western impotence, many Israelis are calling for a preventive strike against a declared genocidal intention. According to Israeli analysts, without preventive military action production of an Iranian bomb is just a matter of time. Moreover, the annihilationist rhetoric used by Iran’s leaders, chiefly by President Ahmadinejad, is not a matter of sloganeering but indeed a program, in which the destruction of Israel is indispensable for the attainment of Iran’s manifest destiny – the “Islamization” of the world. A quasi-consensus is emerging in Israel on the necessity of bombing Iranian nuclear installations. The scenario is still undefined.

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Solving the Officer Problem of the IDF

Ran Baratz

In the previous issue of Nativ, Uri Milstein primarily called for the establishment of a “National Center for the Defense of Israel” and the intellectualization of military thought by introducing an array of qualification frameworks for military personnel in the humanities and social sciences faculties. The present article critically examines Milstein’s proposal and concludes that his solution is untenable from both a theoretical and practical standpoint.

Following a general characterization of the military profession and the strategic-vocational requirements of the senior officer, a different solution is proposed: A modern, updated version of the Prussian model for training the command echelons. The original program merited consistent success in Prussia and remains the best framework ever devised for training strategists. Aside from the obvious – affording practical experience in warfare and the technical knowledge required of every officer in his field – the Prussian model places an emphasis on continuous study and research of military history (including the great military strategists), alongside regular drilling and practical experience, on various strategic levels, by means of pragmatic war games that simulate realistic strategic problems.

Since time immemorial, all the great military thinkers have contended that the military profession is a practical craft, not a science, and this article is premised on this contention. Like any vocation, military officers have their own set of necessary abilities and skills – those that are needed to wage a mental and cognitive struggle against an adversary that is also wielding military force – which must be upgraded and developed via experience and knowledge. Therefore, it is imperative that both learning and exercising these capacities receive equal billing over the course of an officer’s career. With this in mind, a preliminary outline of a strategic exercise program has been included in the appendix.

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WORDS LAUNDRY:
A SHORT GUIDE TO THOSE OBSESSED WITH PEACE

Moshe Sharon

Everybody says that his donkey is a horse.

There is no tax on words.

(Two Arab proverbs)

On December 25,  1977, at the very beginning of the negotiations between Israel and Egypt in Ismailia, I had the opportunity to have a short discussion with Muhammad Anwar Sadat the president of Egypt. “Tell your Prime Minister, he said, that this is a bazaar; the merchandize is expensive.” I told my Prime Minister but he failed to abide by the rules of the bazaar similar to all the Israeli governments and the media.

In the bazaar of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the two sides are not discussing the same merchandise. While the Israelis wish to acquire “peace”, the Arabs wish to annihilate the Jewish state and get rid of the Jews.

To achieve their goal, the Arabs took to the battlefield as well as to the bazaar diplomacy. The wisdom of the bazaar is that if you are clever enough you can sell nothing at a price, however in the bazaar only a foolish buyer pays for something he has never seen.

In the present situation in the Middle East and in the foreseeable future “peace” is nothing more than an empty word. Israel should stop speaking about “peace” and delete the word “peace” from its vocabulary together with such phrases as “the price of peace” or “territory for peace”. For almost a century the Jews have been ready to pay the Arabs any price for peace. They have received nothing, because the Arabs have no peace to sell.

Since this is the situation, Israel should openly declare that peace does not exist as an option in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and that if the Arabs ask for peace; they must pay for it. For unlike the Arabs, Israel has this merchandize for sale and therefore, Israel should be the side demanding payment for peace and fixing its price

Therefore, if anyone asks Israel for plans, the answer should be: “No plans, in fact no negotiations at all.” If the Arab side wants to negotiate, let it present its plans and its “ideas”. To which the Israeli answer should always be: “Unacceptable! Come with better ones.”

Here are ten rules for bargaining in the Middle Eastern bazaar:

  1. Never be the first to suggest anything to the other side. Never show any eagerness “to conclude a deal”.
     

  2. Always reject; disagree. Use the phrase: “Not meeting the minimum demands,” and walk away, even a hundred times.
     

  3. Don’t rush to come up with counter-offers. Let the other side make amendments under the pressure of your total “disappointment”.
     

  4. Have your own plan ready in full, as detailed as possible, with the red lines completely defined. However, never show this or any other plan to a third party.
     

  5. Never change your detailed plan to meet the other side “halfway”. Remember, there is no “halfway”.
     

  6. Never leave things unclear. Always avoid “creative phrasing”. Remember playing with words is the Arab national sport.
     

  7. Regard every detail as a vitally important issue. Never postpone any problem “for a later occasion”. If you do so you will lose; remember that your opponent is always looking for a reason to avoid honoring agreements.
     

  8. Emotion belongs neither in the marketplace nor at the negotiating table. Friendly words as well as outbursts of anger, holding hands and kissing, do not represent policy.
     

  9. Beware of popular beliefs about the Arabs and the Middle East – “Arab honor” for example. Remember, you have honor too, but this has nothing to do with the issues under negotiation.
     

  10. Always remember that the goal of all negotiations is to make a profit. You should aim at making the highest profit in real terms. Remember that every gain is an asset for the future.

To these ten rules another one should be added:

  1. You should never agree to negotiate with more than one side. The Arabs will try to bring as many participants to the negotiating table to put you in an inferior position. Never agree to bring in even so called “friendly participants”. There is no such thing.

The Arabs have been practicing negotiation tactics for more than 2,000 years. They are the masters of words, and a mine of endless patience. In contrast, Israelis (and Westerners in general) want quick “results”. In this part of the world there are no quick results, the hasty one always loses.

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THE LOST CHILDHOOD

Angela Bertz

This article deals with the abhorrent practice of enticing Palestinian children to seek martyrdom. My aim was to show the shocking contrast between Israeli children, who are raised in an environment that aims to not only preserve the innocence of their childhood, but to also motivate them to seek a future suited to the challenges of the 21st century, and a society that strips them of these basic rights.

Israel’s children contrast to Palestinian children, who are almost totally denied this innocence from birth, paraded in pushchairs as suicide bombers before they can even talk, and raised with an evil ideology that promotes hatred 24/7. If the most precious gift a parent can give a child is their innocence, then how does one begin to portray a society that not only teaches them that the only worthwhile way for them to gain respect is through mass murder and senseless death, but even more tragically, shows mothers that have seemingly lost that most natural of instincts – to protect their child at all costs.

To do this I have taken 19 Israeli children from birth through 18 years who have all been victims of terrorist attacks. The beauty of these children cannot be measured in real terms to those that were close to them, and even to those who only knew them through a short biography on a website. One thing stands out: they loved life. To show the vivid contrast between each of them, I have used a piece of propaganda used by the Palestinians either in their schoolbooks, TV or newspapers between each biography.

These words portray a society that has irreversibly lost not only this generation of children, but unless drastic reform or action is taken, several to come.

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GETTING TOGETHER -
THE ISSUE OF ERETZ ISRAEL, ITS ROOTS AND ITS SOLUTION

Tsvi Misinai

The war over control of the Land of Israel has been going on now for many years and there is no end in sight. The main obstacle to a peaceful solution is the Palestinian’s demand for the right of return of their refugees to the State of Israel. This demand reflects the Palestinian desire to control the entire country. The obstacle is based on focusing on rights derived from the past instead of focusing on the future. However, to effectively remove this obstacle, a comprehensive examination of the history of the country and its current inhabitants is required.

In order to resolve the conflict once and for all, one has to keep an open mind and have room for a profound change in attitude regarding the history and identity of the parties involved:

The people of Israel are composed of two main groups. The first was exiled from the Land of Israel after the destruction of the Second Jewish Temple and has managed to preserve its religion and national identity throughout time, until the Zionist movement returned a major part of it to its homeland – the Land of Israel. The second group consists of those who remained within the Land of Israel, though they were forced to abandon their religion. Over the years the latter group lost its original identity. Due to the change in the name of the land by a Roman emperor from Judea to Palestina, the descendants of these forced converts, together with a small minority of others are recently called “Palestinians”. As a result of losing its identity, this group suffered greatly and caused many others to suffer, as well. The time is now ripe for a fresh approach toward the real identity of the Palestinians and toward a solution that matches this identity.

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EMBRACING OUR ENEMIES

Shlomo Sharan

Israel Jewry experiences daily the dreadful consequences of disengagement from Gaza and of Arab disregard for complying with the conditions of the Oslo agreement. Yet Jews and Israel as a nation accept as inevitable the so-called Two-State Solution that will transform Judea and Samaria into a secure base for Al-Qa`idah, Hizbullah, the Islamic Jihad and, of course for Hamas. The Western world does not indicate distress at the Iranian nuclear threat that spells genocide for Israel, although want to protect themselves against that contingency. Moreover, no self respecting nation would negotiate with nations who deny its right to exist and declare their intention to destroy it, as obvious in the recent Saudi Arabian peace initiative. Only the far-reaching use of psychological defense mechanisms that distort and transform reality into a delusional one by Israel and by a large number of Jews here and outside Israel, so that they can maintain their hope of peace despite all evidence to the contrary, affords some basis for explaining Jewry’s irrational behavior at this time. Every measure is taken, by Israel’s governments as well as by the media and various groups associated with the peace movement, to project our wishful thinking about the Arabs and attribute malice and racist motives to the Jews. These delusions will collapse in the forthcoming conflict only to be revived once the memory of the disaster recedes, as it inevitably will, until the next time.

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BA`DAH BA`DAH NASRALLAH:
THE PAPARAZZI AND THE LEBANON WAR (2)

David Bukay

The media in Israel played a decisive role in the inept conduct of the War in Lebanon in several areas:

  1. From the beginning, with a gradually intensifying tempo, it conducted a crusade against the introduction of ground troops into Lebanon, again and again mentioning the “trauma of Lebanon” and the “Lebanese quicksand”. It thereby caused the novice political echelon and the military echelon that was wary of the power and influence of the media to hesitate and to refrain from taking action in accordance with existing military programs (that had been implemented in an exercise several weeks prior to the war!).
     

  2. The media broadcast military activities on the battlefield, deliberations among the military command groupings, troop movements and entry times in real-time and in color photography and thereby provided Hizbullah with invaluable intelligence.
     

  3. The media weakened public morale by describing the sights of “massive destruction” and severe damage caused to northern settlements and forests, thereby escalating the desertion by northern residents. The information about the abandonment transformed it into a mass abandonment. Already in the first days the impression one received from the media was that Kiryat Shmona and Nahariya had been destroyed and abandoned.
     

  4. The media frayed and frazzled the nerves of the public with interminable hours of blather – by irrelevant “experts”, and “wise men” who proved their proficiency with their support of the Oslo Accords and of publicity-seeking scoundrels – that the intelligence was substandard and the performance of the army units was abysmal.

The media considered the war as another reality program, and in the name of the god of ratings contributed to undermining the proper function of the various systems. It was not for naught that Hassan Nasrallah stated that the Israeli media treated him fairly and nicely.

These processes are part of a trend over recent years in which the media delivers clear messages that in Israel everything is corrupt, wretched and irreparable and has caused the public to revile politics and politicians, something which was manifest in the percentage of eligible voters who voted in the last election and in the party for which the young people voted. And even if there is no doubt regarding the patriotism and the love of Israel of the decisive majority of its members, the actions that were taken by the media necessitate a profound soul-searching. It is untenable, as was the case after the last war, to fire everyone in the military and political establishment and not to look inward. That is hypocrisy. The media must examine its actions and decide that it has long ago crossed its Rubicon of failure, tantamount to the Israeli military’s lack of readiness for the Yom Kippur War. Above all, the media must take responsibility, due to its tremendous power, and treat the issues with which it deals with extreme fairness and care, especially those issues dealing with human lives.

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IBZ: IRGUN BERIT ZION (UNITED ZION ORGANIZATION): GHETTO KOVNO -
THE UNIQUE STRUGGLE OF A JEWISH COMMUNITY DURING WWII (2)

Dov Levin

IBZ (Irgun Berit Zion – United Zion Organization) was a secret Zionist organization founded in Kovno, Lithuania at the end of 1940. Its goal, at the time, was to foster Jewish national culture and Zionism, which was jeopardized after the incorporation of Lithuania into the Soviet Union earlier that year. The emphasis was on “general” Zionism, as the founders of IBZ, disapproved of the proliferation of organizations in the Jewish community at the time.

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THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ARAB SALVATION ARMY AND THE APPOINTMENT OF FAUZI AL-QAWUQJI AS HEAD: AN ARAB POLITICAL COMPROMISE

Limor Abunil

After the resolution to partition Palestine, the Arab League decided to establish a volunteer force for the purpose of thwarting the implementation of the partition and preventing the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. This volunteer force, known as the Salvation Army, was led by Fauzi al-Qawuqji. King `Abdallah demanded the appointment of  al-Qawuqji for this job. He knew al-Qawuqji from the 1936 rebellion in Palestine and was very close to him. Therefore, King `Abdallah assumed that al-Qawuqji would assist him to realize `Abdallah's Greater Syria plan. 

Even though this army was established on the initiative of the Arab League, not all of the Arab states helped in its organization. Syria , Iraq and to a certain degree Lebanon were the main patrons of the Salvation Army, contributing not only monetarily but also supplying arms, munitions, and manpower.

Under the pressure of King `Abdallah, the Arab League refrained from proclaiming the establishment of a Palestinian state in Palestine. As a result, the Mufti, Hajj Amin al-Huseini, refused to recognize the authority of the League or to cooperate with the Salvation Army. Instead, the Mufti decided to create a new volunteer army, under his own aegis, called al-Jihad al-Muqaddas. Even though these two armies had the same aims, there was no cooperation between them; on the contrary, there were even attempts on both sides to thwart the political influence of the other side.

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