Israel: the age of permanent war?

Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Thursday, April 9, 2009 - 3:34 PM Share

Ariel Siegelman, an Israeli specialist in counterterrorism, offers the best explanation I've seen so far for what Israel was trying to do in the Gaza attack:

For almost three years [after the 2006 Lebanon war], there were no illusions; we knew that we were training for Gaza. Unlike Lebanon, we knew that when we entered Gaza, the military goals and the execution of the missions in order to reach those goals would be methodical and well-prepared.
The IDF entered Gaza with realistic goals-significantly reduce Hamas' ability to inflict damage on Israel and Israeli targets. We were told specifically that our goal was NOT to topple Hamas and was NOT to destroy all of its capabilities. Those goals would have been too difficult to achieve and would have set us up for defeat and a blow to the morale of the army and the nation. Likewise, the tactics would be unconventional. We were not to think in terms of conquest and holding territory. Concepts of front and rear lines had no place in this war. We were to frustrate and attack at the morale of the enemy, fighting much like he would fight us. The only rule was, don't fight by the rules. The IDF went in, simply to wreak havoc on Hamas without getting into any situations that could afford our enemies the opportunity to achieve anything that would resemble a victory. We were to keep them at arm's length, not attempt to engage them in combat, and use anything within our means to destroy them.

This makes tactical sense, I suppose. But I worry about its long-term implications for the security of Israel, especially the notion of not fighting by the rules, which the article doesn't really explain, but which I think if done badly could further undermine Western popular support for Israel.

He doesn't offer much hope for the future. Israel is recognizing that it is in a permanent state of war, he concludes:

There is no such thing as winning in this new kind of war. The war is ongoing, with periods of more violence and periods of less violence, during which the enemy regroups and plans his next attack. When we feel the enemy is getting strong, we must be prepared to make preemptive strikes, hard and fast at key targets, with viciousness, as the enemy would do to us. Only then can we acquire, not peace, but sustained periods of relative calm."

I know it's easy for me to be critical sitting here in a comfortable hotel room in the eco-topia of Portland, Oregon. But that conclusion-an age of preemptive strikes in a long, twilight struggle--doesn't give me much hope for the future. Especially his advocacy of "viciousness."

IDF via Getty Images

EXPLORE:ISRAEL/PALESTINE, MILITARY

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WALKING WOUNDED

11:45 PM ET

April 9, 2009

cry 'havoc', and let loose the dogs of war

I hope someone with military law background checks in here.

Scuds or homebuilt missiles aimed at area targets like an Israeli city are murder, not battle. So is artillery directed into a known refugee collection center. As I understand it, fire into a civilian occupied target is regarded as 'indiscriminate fire', a violation of the law of war, if it is known that civilians will be killed by the destruction of that target. Given the thousands of Israeli fire missions into Gaza, a large number of civilian deaths was a guaranteed outcome of the 2009 'havoc' offensive.

Israel had credible cause to arrest and kill Hamas missileers, and their leadership. By their own reports, the IDF were effective in retribution, killing scores, arresting hundreds and disrupting Hamas fire, given the single digit number of indiscriminate fire casualties that Hamas missiles inflicted over several years. El Paso suffers more overdoses and drug murders in a month than Hamas gunners inflicted in years of muffler-pipe missiles.

Homicide committed while conducting an illegal act is murder. A campaign simply to inflict havoc among the 1.4 million Gaza civilians who either support or are held hostage to Hamas leadership, that seems both disproportional and counterproductive. It doesn't fulfill the occupiers legal obligation to protect enemy civilians. Such a campaign ought to be a strategic defeat for Israel.

If it's not, it's because Olmert's timing was for political havoc, an attack on US policy, a preemption of the US administration's options. We continue to be hostage to Nuclear Israel's 40 year policy of occupation and annexation.

FINROD

1:25 AM ET

April 16, 2009

Agreed, this may have some drawbacks but...

Let me know when Hamas starts playing by the rules.

Don't get me wrong, Israel should try harder to protect civilians, and try not to fall into the trap of losing their moral high ground.However, I'm betting the IDF will refine their operations in the future to reduce Civilian deaths. And no, the fighting over Israel will never end.

HENRY PELIFIAN

9:41 PM ET

April 9, 2009

the age of permanent war?

The analogy to the United States in Iraq and probably more so to Afghanistan seems unmistakable. The Unites States government by its reckless military conduct has propelled the country into two and probably at least one permanent war or endless quagmire.

Our country ought to have been able to contain in both economic and military ways both Iraq and Afghanistan without dubious military adventures of invasion, a panicky government tantrum or simply bravado-at a high cost in lives American,Iraqi and Afghan as a result of the criminal act of 9/11. Our enemies appear to have a better grasp of the real world than our elected and appointed officials who are causing harm to our country economically, to our security and to our freedoms.

JEFFREYME

12:03 AM ET

April 11, 2009

Mistaken Analogies

Comparing Israel's conflict with its immediate neighbors to the United States' adventurism in Iraq and Afghanistan is ludicrous. Whichever side one takes, it is clear that Israel is engaged in a war for survival, and has been since its birth. It sit among a sea of ideological, theological and tribal enemies, many of which have explicitly stated the goal of Israel's destruction, and have directly engaged in attacks against Israel.

Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan ever attacked the United States. We now know that the Taliban were even willing to hand over Bin Laden in the aftermath of 9/11, and what indirect involvement Afghanistan had by harboring Al Qaeda, was seen as secondary to the goal of occupying Iraq, anyway.

Israel maintains no foreign bases thousands of miles away, and has attempted to negotiate with its enemies for peace, not topple their governments. Israel does not have the choice of picking up and leaving. Just where would it go?

MDREW

9:12 AM ET

April 10, 2009

This is damning stuff.

Can someone explain to me why Palestinians in the territories should want to be fenced off in a separate, surpassingly vulnerable and vilifiable "state" with a regionally hegemonic neighbor, armed and funded by the global hegemon, who believes their "enemy" is indigenous to your territory and has intentions toward that enemy as laid out here, rather than to be citizens of of that hegemon, protected by its laws and security umbrella and with access to its economic advantages?

One state, one peace.

RPM

1:41 PM ET

April 10, 2009

reality check

Sounds like the truth is uncomfortable - as it often is in open societies. The idea that radical Islamic terrorist movements can be 'defeated,' that Afghanistan can be 'democratized,' that Hamas will agree to 'coexist....' these are the untruths. Instead, reality seems to be a permanent state of low-intensity conflict. That is a sustainable state for the bad guys, but extremely difficult for a democracy.

There may be no way to actually win - but the West and Israel can lose if they withdraw or show signs of weakness or indecision. Any step backward will be loudly trumpeted as victory. Simultaneously, as war is by its very nature a 'vicious' enterprise, there will be times when democracies will stray from the best of intentions in terms of individual rights and the law of war. Once again, the bad guys have no such intentions.

This brings to mind comparisons with the Cold War policy of containment. While we hated that people in Poland and Albania were not free, we never tried to change that status quo. As long as the bad guys stayed in their end of the pool life could go on. This is much harder. Much harder.

HKEIRC

5:22 PM ET

April 10, 2009

This is Occupied Territory

Israel has not played by any rules for 40+ years. All the concern about rockets is fine however this needs to happen now.
1. Remove the settlements
2. End the siege of Gaza
3. Return the water use to the Palestinians
4. Agree to the Saudi Peace Plan
5. If the above does not happen remove all US support.

JEFFREYME

12:17 AM ET

April 11, 2009

All of this can be done, as

All of this can be done, as soon as the Palestinian leadership can control its own forces and cease its attacks on Israel. Why would any nation with an advantage over it's foe cede anything, until there is a clear understanding -- not just some silly 10 to 40 year "truce" -- that the violence will end and Israel will never again be attacked?

I wonder exactly what "rules" you refer to, and if you really only expect one side to adhere to them. By the way, Israel has not been "playing"; you choose an odd term to describe the actions of a nation which lives every day with its survival at stake.

WALKING WOUNDED

11:55 PM ET

April 11, 2009

the existential struggle myth

Re jeffrey's 'survival' assertion:

Israel's survival has not been at risk since its conquests of 1967. It proved that in 1973, by threatening to go nuclear, rather than withdraw from occupied Sinai and end its Suez Canal blockade. This according to Kissinger.

Israel is the only regional nuclear power in the ME, with overwhelming conventional forces. It was capable of neutralizing Soviet aid back then, and Iranian aid today. Its survival is not threatened by workshop built missiles, improvised launchers for 4" artillery rockets, or Scuds. During the Hamas missile campaign, which I regard as criminal/murder, Israel inflicted 30:1 lethal retribution, plus hundreds more imprisoned. Hardly an impotent response.

What is strategically at risk today is Israel's 40 year campaign to drive Palestinian inhabitants from occupied old Jeruselem, and the occupied 2/3rds of its belt where many Gaza families came from.

Such a 'lebensraum' campaign of occupation settlements would be expected to excite armed resistance, with all the brutality of assymetric war, in most lands. Including ours. When the city of LA used bribed courts and marshalls to sieze water rights in the 1930's, Owens Valley farmers responded with a hundreds of dynamite attacks. When Federal troops imposed military govt on southern states, some citizens responded with nightriders and murdered collaborators.

Israel has a right to secure borders. Seizing Arab land and water is not the way to get them. Neither is hijacking US policy and electoral politics. Israel is where you go to vote for Israeli policy. Not Washington.

We don't allow zealots to attack Castro's regime from our shores, and we shouldn't be funding Isreali zealots willing to war for an expanded 'eretz Israel'. Sovereign Israel needs to stay within Israeli borders, if they want to enjoy a special relationship and security guarantees with America.

HKEIRC

12:14 AM ET

April 12, 2009

These are the rules

Below you can read a summary of the main rules of occupation.

* Civilians shall be treated as protected persons (article 4 IVGC and article 47 IVGC). They are entitled to respect for their person, their honour, their family rights, religious convictions, and traditions. They shall be treated humanely and never be discriminated against (article 27 IVGC).
Read more about protected persons
To ICRC and Article 4
To ICRC and Article 27
To ICRC and Article 47

* Forcible transfers and deportations of civilians into the territory of the occupying power or any other country are prohibited. Nevertheless, civilians may be evacuated from a given area if the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demand. Civilians who have been evacuated shall be transferred back to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area have stopped (article 49 IVGC).
To ICRC and Article 49
* The occupying power shall not deport or transfer members of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies (article 49 IVGC). This means that settlements are prohibited. The occupying power cannot confiscate land in the occupied territory for the sole purpose of establishing settlements for its nationals. The occupying power also has the responsibility to preserve and maintain the demographic and social configuration of the occupied territory, which may entail restricting even voluntary migrations.
* The occupying power may not force protected persons to serve in its armed forces; moreover, pressure or propaganda aimed at securing voluntary recruitment is prohibited (article 51 IVGC).
To ICRC and Article 51
* Protected persons may only be instructed to perform such work as is necessary to meet the needs of the occupation army, or to provide public utility services, or for the feeding, sheltering, clothing, transportation, or health of the population in the occupied territory. No one under the age of 18 may be instructed to perform work (article 51 IVGC).
* Penal law shall remain in function within the occupied territory, unless those laws threaten the safety of the occupying power’s forces or collide with the international law of occupation. The occupying power may issue new penal laws, however, they must be issued in the language of the occupied state and may not be retroactive in effect (article 64 IVGC).
To ICRC and Article 64
* Collective punishment is prohibited (article 50 of the Hague Regulations of 1907). The Fourth Geneva Convention clearly prohibits the occupying power from punishing a group for the actions of individuals if the group members are not jointly responsible. No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed, and “collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.” (article 33 IVGC).
To ICRC and Article 50
To ICRC and Article 33
* Taking of hostages is prohibited (article 34 IVGC).
To Article 34
* Detention - “If the occupying power considers it necessary, for imperative reasons of security, to take safety measures concerning protected persons, it may at the most, subject them to assigned residence or to internment.” (article 78 IVGC).
To ICRC and Article 78

Civilian internees are protected in a similar way to prisoners of war (POW). The internees should be treated humanely, fundamental judicial guarantees, such as not guilty until proven guilty in fair trial, and by a competent court, right to know the reason for the detention, right to a legal counsel (article 32 IVGC, article 43 IVGC, article 72 IVGC, article 76 IVGC).
To ICRC and Article 32
To ICRC and Article 43
To ICRC and Article 72
To ICRC and Article 76

The fundamental judicial guarantees are stated in article 75 of the First Additional Protocol (IAP), which reflects international customary law. They are also found in various human rights treaties, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
To ICRC and Article 75
To the UN and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

BKAPLOVITZ

1:21 AM ET

April 12, 2009

What's The Impediment? (By Martin Peretz, TNR's "The Spine")

From The New Republic's "The Spine" Weblog:
April 6, 2009

What's The Impediment?

By Martin Peretz

I hold no brief for Avigdor Lieberman, not at all. I have already characterized him as a neo-fascist, and a neo-fascist he is. What's more he is an utterly reckless person, and the weird parliamentary system -too democratic by half- encourages the recklessness of Israeli politicians for many of whom it is by now habitual, perhaps even by now almost generic or genetic.

Today, another loudmouth, Gilad Erdan, minister of the environment, about which he knows roughly nothing, also took to the bullhorn and proclaimed that Israel is not America's 51st state. Believe me, that is not the issue in America's politics where, on the left wing margins, at least, the question is whether the United States is a satrap of the Jewish state. It is a false issue. But at a time when the country is overwhelmed by burdens at once domestic and international it would be wise and apt for Israeli politicians actually to appreciate (and to express that appreciation) for the unyielding military and diplomatic support provided Jerusalem from Washington.

This does not mean that Israel's political class has to fall into line behind every step that the Obama administration takes. But, to be fair, my own sense is that the administration is walking delicately between its ideological presumption that it can engage with reckless states and chiliastic movements and still maintain the country's strategic alliances with kindred democratic allies. I suspect that these are inevitably more divergent paths, and that this divergence will face the president with many wrenching dilemmas. If one can judge by AfPak, he will take the historically sanctioned path.

And, by the way, no, it is insufficient for Obama to say that Al Qaeda will not be conciliated by anything Israel does to palliate the Palestine question. Israel's enemies are Hezbollah and Hamas, Syria and Islamic fanatics spread through every Arab country, including Jordan and Egypt, two vulnerable states themselves beset by religious insurrectionists. Does Obama really believe that the great swath of Muslim hatred for Jews is amenable to a diplomatic solution?

In any case, Bibi Netanyahu is not Lieberman or the callow Erdan from his own party. Netanyahu knows what the stakes are which means that he understands that a "two-state solution" is the only possible resolve for the conflict. And the fact is that, all of the injunctions put before before Jerusalem by the various peace professionals about this solution notwithstanding, the Israeli body politic is itself committed to such a resolve. That has been Israeli policy for at least 16 years. It is a gross lie to deny this. The Greater Israel movement is dead. So is the Peace Now movement that assumed a territorial retreat will resolve everything. This movement died the day after Israel left Gaza.

The outstanding cartographical issues are mostly symbolic and procedural.

So what is the impediment?

It is that Israel cannot assume that any territory from which it withdraws will remain peaceful. What is the evidence that it would? Do you really think that rockets and missiles will not be lobbed into Israel proper on the morning after? And that Palestine's frontier with its Arab neighbors will not become what Gaza's frontier with (relatively well-intentioned) Egypt has become. A cease-fire was made, and the cease fire has not held. What's more, the smuggling of trajectiles and other weapons through the tunnels of the strip goes on unabated. This is despite a United Nations resolution. And in southern Lebanon another cease-fire resolution providing for an end to smuggling from Iran and Syria to Hezbollah is continually violated. One lesson Israel has certainly learned is that U.N. Security Council resolutions are worth less than the paper on which they are printed.

Until this issue is addressed conscientiously and practically there will be no progress on the two-state solution under any borders. And, instead of repeating the two-state shibboleth, it is time for the well-intentioned brokers -President Obama included- to confront the real barrier to peace which is Palestinian and Arab behavior after an Israeli withdrawal. This will be the test, and nothing else.

--Posted By Martin Peretz, April 06, 2009

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_spine/archive/2009/04/06/what-s-the-impediment.aspx

MDREW

4:19 AM ET

April 13, 2009

Don't post Spine columns here

Link to it if you must. But Peretz is a ridiculously contentious figure for you to go around posting his diatribes in full text on other prominent public intellectuals' blogs. That is juvenile. We all know where to find Marty Peretz's views if we want them. You're a moron.

BKAPLOVITZ

1:24 AM ET

April 12, 2009

Obama Speaks Of Compromise (By Martin Peretz, TNR's "The Spine")

From The New Republic's "The Spine" Weblog:
April 7, 2009

Obama Speaks of Compromise

By Martin Peretz

President Obama was a big hit in speaking to a group of students in Istanbul this morning. He did not pander and he did not speak in cliches. It's been a long time since we've had a president who speaks clearly but with complicated thoughts and in nuanced words.

He took on the intricate issues that affect Turkish-American relations, and there were no sweet promises. Again the assembly seemed to appreciate his candor.

And he added a significant trope to his discussion of the long and wearying conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The trope that he added to the palaver was "compromise." When the tiresome peace processors speak of negotiations they almost always mean concessions by Israel: territorial concessions, concessions on Jerusalem, demographic concessions, symbolic concessions, economic concessions, security concessions, historic concessions, moral concessions, concessions to Palestinian pride and to Palestinian shame. There is no concession that Israel has not tried, in one way or another, to meet. And there are forces in Israel which think that too much has already been forfeited. Of course, Palestinian expectations rise with every concession from Israel.

So that the notion, enunciated by the American president almost for the first time, that there are concrete concessions that the Palestinians have to make is almost a new phenomenon. The "land for peace" formula is a bankrupt idea. It doesn't work. What everybody needs but not everybody yet needs is "peace for peace."

The question then is: what must the Palestinians give up to secure tangible possibilities for statehood?

Yes, I know that there is much that they must accomplish among their to really become a nation and have a history as a people. But, whether we gloat or weep about these deficiencies, that's not our business. There are plenty of states that rule over populations that are neither a nation nor a people. I suspect that the Palestinians won't be the last of this unfortunate formula.

But since President Obama has put the idea of reciprocity on the table he is morally obliged to begin to make a list. And so is George Mitchell and Tony Blair and the busily intrusive European Union. The idea that Israel will give up a series of strategic advantages for recognition of its flag is nonsense.

--Posted By Martin Peretz, April 07, 2009

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_spine/archive/2009/04/07/obama-speaks-of-compromise.aspx

WALKING WOUNDED

12:22 AM ET

April 13, 2009

National Review soapbox?

Peretz is articulate, and already has TNR as forum to make his points. Posting a pair of professional op-eds (entire) from Mr. Kristol's neocon flagship, and an even longer piece from the right wing J-post, is pushing it.

A link and maybe a tease (or your two cents) to raise interest should suffice. Unless the intent is to hog bandwidth.

FORLORNEHOPE

5:51 PM ET

April 10, 2009

Lord Manchester's Dilemma

So Israel is setting itself up for the dilemma that Lord Manchester posed to Cromwell. The King only had to win once. For a further historical comparison look at the last western attempt to settle Palestine. The Franks lasted about 200 years. Every time the locals developed a modus vivendi some fanatics came from Europe to stir up trouble. Eventually the neighbours got their act together under the Kurd Saladin. The rest as they say is history. If Israel pursues permanent struggle, the only thing that is certain is that one day it will lose. Perhaps it has gone too far for a one state or two state solution to work. We can only wait and see.

JEFFREYME

7:04 PM ET

April 11, 2009

You are being disingenuous by

You are being disingenuous by substituting your term "pursu[ing]" permanent struggle for what the author wrote --"recognizing" the state of permanent war. The radical Palestinian leadership has consistently claimed to be in a permanent state of war against Israel, ending only when Israel no longer exists.

I am constantly amazed how many critics of Israel polemicize based on the premise that The Arabs and Palestinians are an innocent party to this conflict, and would never do anything bad unless those evil Zionists forced them to do so.

If neither a one-state nor two-state solution will work, what do you propose?

N TORONTO

6:54 PM ET

April 10, 2009

Ariel Siegelman's full article available here...

http://usacac.leavenworth.army.mil/BLOG/blogs/colloquium/archive/2009/03/24/from-lebanon-to-gaza-a-new-kind-of-war.aspx

ELPEDRODURO

12:19 PM ET

April 11, 2009

A new start is needed.

The world body created the Zionist state. One of the most unfair, unjust acts imaginable. How can it be considered "legal"? By what standard of morality can such a thing be allowed? The ancient doctored documents are sufficient? Why should the people of Palestine pay for the sins of the Europeans? Because they were weak, that seems to be the only "reason". Now that the world body has undeniable evidence of the mistake it made, it should retract its mandate and replace it with something fair and just and hence with the possibility to be regarded as legal. Some action which does not create a racist, intolerant, small-group-serving belligerent nation such as Israel is. A one-nation solution with democratic government respecting religious freedom and all the others is a must in that region (not a two-state perpetually warring solution) and let it evolve under democratic rule of all peoples guaranteed by the world body as a propitiation for its sins. And probably less costly in the long run.

KENNETH SORENSEN

1:45 PM ET

April 12, 2009

Americans you are much too nice

What is needed is a hard-nosed approach towards the worlds last colony, and you need to spell out that it should be closed. Very few people want to hear that their country should be closed, and it is in this psychological way that the israelis and their supporters should be dealt with.

Furthermore they should be told that their colony have absolutely none reason-d'etre. And the little moral high-ground they may have had (something about their suffering in WW2) have long ago been forfeited by their arrogant and ruthless behaviour towards the indigeneous peoples of the region.

Power elite from Imperial Russia

Most of the power elite comes from Imperial Russia, and have no blood-relationship whatsoever to the ancient Jewish tribes, which also existed there 2000 years ago, rendering no value today to any right of 'return' (After so many years others have gained right of usage to the land).

It has a destabilising effect

But the most important argument for closing it down is its destabilising effect on world politics, and its role as the worlds number one incentive to terror. Without it, there would have been no six armed conflicts with its neighbours, no terror-campaign following the ousting of 250.000 Palestinians from the West Bank in June 1967, no terror-campaign (the hitherto most severe in World History) involving hi-jacks of aircraft on a massive scale and hostagetakings, , no oilcrisis in 1973-74, no second oil-crisis in 1979 (it would have been the first, and less severe, because it was due to hysteria about a lack of oil(triggered by the fall of the Shah in Iran), following the first), no two intifadas, no 9/11 (which had as chief motivating-factor US support for harsh Israeli policies towards the Palestinians and as second motivating-factor US troops continued presence on holy Saudi soil after Saddam had been ousted from Kuwait in 1991, despite promises given before the war to King Fahd that they would be withdrawn at the end of hostilities. The man responsible for their continued stay was the super-zionist and -lobbyist Martin Indyk , US citizen from 1993 and later US ambassador to Israel), and subsequently no invasion of either Aghanistan in October 2001 or Iraq in March 2003. And no beating of War Drums towards Iran from Israel and their despicable supporters in the US.

Americans! Dismantle the outlawed colony

Americans do yourself a favour. Dismantle the outlawed colony ASP so that the world can get peace.

WALKING WOUNDED

12:43 AM ET

April 13, 2009

... of Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau

S. Africa is an often-ignored model for international intervention playing a role in conflict resolution, peace and coexistence. That gives me hope for poor Palestine. But we think the last fully apartheid gov't of P.W. Botha hadn't crossed the nuclear threshold, in spite of Israeli proliferation to his die-hard racist regime. The lack of a palestinian Mandela or an Israeli de Klerk is a problem. Maybe they wouldn't (or didn't) survive, if they did exist.

Here in the contemporary world, Israel's Likud possesses an atomic Samson Option, threatening regional immolation of capitals, regardless of who attacks them. US force protection ensures that our missile radars are keeping a close eye on the folks possessing todays credible launch capability.

The only model (so far) for a nuclear power devolving it's hold on power and/or unwillingly yielding territory is the former Soviet Union. The jury is still out on whether the KGB/Putin truly folded their tent, or simply privatized, keeping the nukes and oil, and dumping the socialist pension obligations. Russian occupation of Chinese and Japanese territory is still a fact in evidence, like Israel's growing West Bank population.

The Bible stories of Ishmael and Essau are of elder (arab-ish) sons losing their inheritance to the tricky Hebrew patriarchs. It's ironic that the blood of the patriarch's, prophets, and kings runs stronger in the children of palestinian stay-behinds, than in ashkenazi returned from millenia of diaspora in Europe. To make it a word picture, the ancient children of Abe the Sumerian looked kinda like Arafat's cousins. David bin Jesse was not Michaelangelo's Italian body-builder, or a euro-macabee like Dayan, Sharon or Netanyahu, or the iconic midieval Frankish Jesus on my sunday school wall.

Israel's own sephardic jews have accused the euro-israelis of racism, even as their afro-asiatic appearance and language skills are employed by the IDF and Mossad to keep an eye on the previous tenants and other cousins.

JOHNJOHNJOHN

1:20 AM ET

April 13, 2009

Can we stop with all the

Can we stop with all the weird race baiting? If you know anything about Israel, in general it's the "white" Ashkenazi Jews who hold a much more conciliatory attitude towards the Palestinians. By contrast, it's the "dark" Sephardic and African Jews--whose collective experiences make them much more familiar with the hypocrisy and double standards of the Muslim world's demands--who tend to take a more hardline stance.

MDREW

4:23 AM ET

April 13, 2009

Modern Israel

--The Last Crusade