What Should Israel Do?

Not listen to the appeasers, for one thing:

Some U.S. politicians sought to capitalize on the latest violence for political gain. Senator Hillary Clinton blamed the Bush administration for the outburst of violence. “We’ve had five and a half years of a failed experiment in tough talk absent diplomacy and engagement. I think it’s time to go back to what works, and what has historically worked and what can work again.”

Clinton should go back and reread her history. Premature recourse to diplomacy backfires. Bill Clinton’s diplomatic efforts were well-intentioned but they resulted not in peace, but in a far more violent conflict. The fault for this does not lie with Clinton, but rather with an Iranian and Arab leadership that had not abandoned violence as a mechanism to achieve their goals.

Still, the Clinton administration trusted Arafat as a partner far longer than the evidence warranted. They were not alone. Often in Washington, politicians become so wedded to the success of their policy initiatives, that they ignore the reality of its failure.

The Bush administration was not as willing to accept Yasser Arafat’s duplicity. While in December 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell held out hope that Arafat’s call to end armed struggle against Israel was sincere, his decision to withhold judgment was wise. As Arafat won European praise for his ceasefire, Iranian and Hezbollah officials were loading 50 tons of weaponry onto the Karine-A, destination: Gaza. Throughout the intifada, Arafat’s diplomacy was insincere. He, like other terrorists and rogue leaders, ran to diplomats and the United Nations when he feared retaliation, the playground equivalent of sucker-punching a classmate when the teacher’s back is turned, and then crying for intercession as the victim fights back.

Arafat and many Hamas leaders paid the price for their strategy: It was not diplomacy which ended the intifada. Rather, the U.S. and Israeli quarantine of Arafat and Israel’s targeted assassination campaign against other terrorist leaders created accountability and broke the back of the terrorist campaign.

Attacking the enemy where he truly is would be helpful:

WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW in Israel and Lebanon is the direct result of our failure for more than 20 years, and the Israelis' failure, to prosecute this war decisively. What happens next depends on what we do now. The Bush neo-Wilsonians lack the resolve essential for decisive action. On Fox News Sunday Secretary Rice did two things. First, she auditioned for the job of a BBC news presenter by using consistently the term "extremist" when she should have said "terrorist." Second, she took the preposterous position that going to the UN Security Council was a demonstration of American determination and strength. She said -- again and again -- that the UN payoff was that the Iranians were totally "isolated." Yes, Mizz Rice, if by "isolated" you mean Iran is in de facto control of the world oil market and command of growing global terrorism. If "isolated" means having huge, open trade with China and Russia and military weapons and training provided by both. And what are we doing to act decisively against either Syria or Iran? We are, again, abdicating our responsibility and asking the UN to decide for us.

If this White House truly believes feckless UN debating is decisive action, we have been the worst victims of campaign fraud since 1976 when Jimmy Carter bamboozled some of us into believing he was a conservative. We could have gotten this result by staying home in 2004.

The Democrats, (or rather their brain trust, the NYT editorial staff), long ago accepted that America is incapable of winning wars, and believe it should not be permitted to. In a Saturday editorial that could have been written by Rice, the Times accepted that Hamas and Hizballah would not be defeated or their supporters significantly affected by the outcome of this round of warfare. It opined that the proper direction of Israeli force is to weaken and isolate Hamas and Hizballah. Nyet, comrades. The proper direction of Israeli force is to attack and destroy the enemy's centers of gravity. Those are found in Damascus and Tehran, not in Gaza or Lebanon.

Wars are not caused by aggression. They are caused by weakness, which aggressors exploit. Hitler took Austria and Czechoslovakia without firing a shot through the weakness of the appeasers. He took Poland and France through the weakness of the Allies. He took half of Russia through the weakness of the Russians. It was not until we dropped the illusions of appeasement that the tide was turned.

What makes anyone think the mullahs will be easier marks than the Nazis when it comes to appeasement? What makes anyone think they will respond to peace overtures with the dismantling of their terror network or their nuclear program?

I used to believe the Left was simply stupid. Now, much more fluent in the CPUSA's history with the KGB thanks to the Venona decrypts (pick up one of Harvey Klehr's books), I think the real explanation is they want us to lose. Like Occam's razor, it cuts most cleanly because it cuts in a straight line. When your countrymen side time and again with the people who want to destroy your country, one must inevitably question their allegiance.