Israel's Weak Prime Ministers
Prof. Paul Eidelberg
Part I
Sun Tzu's The Art of War, written about 500 B.C.E., is the oldest military treatise in the world. Even now, after twenty-five centuries, the basic principles of that treatise remain a valuable guide for the conduct of war.
Sun Tzu should be of interest to the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, in view of the Arab Terrorist War that erupted in September 2000 and continues today with Hamas in Gaza. Since Oslo 1993, and thanks to its flawed leaders, Israel has suffered more than 15,000 casualties. More than 1,600 Jews have been murdered by Arab terrorists who live in accordance with the Quran's "religion of peace."
Referring to the IDF's limited response to Muslim murderers, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon once said, "self-restraint is strength"! Was Mr. Sharon dictum inspired by the Sermon on the Mount? Or was it derived from a misreading of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War? For it so happens that Sun Tzu would have a general exhibit, at first, "the coyness of a maiden"—to draw out the enemy—but thereafter he would have him emulate the fierceness of a lion.
In contrast, Israeli prime minsters usually emulate a [censored] cat. Instead of destroying the enemy—Hamas or the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority—they follow the policy of self-restraint. They live in existential denial of the genocidal objectives of Muslims toward the Jewish people. Otherwise, given a stitch of courage, they would have ordered the IDF long ago to demolish the enemy to an extent that seared into Muslim consciousness the lesson: Don't mess with Israel.
Of course, when the forces of the enemy exceed your own or occupy superior ground, then self-restraint is prudence. But when this situation is reversed, self-restraint is transparent weakness. In fact, Sun Tzu goes so far as to say, "If fighting is reasonably sure to result in victory, then you must fight, even though the ruler forbids it."
This would obviously violate the principle of military subordination to civilian authority—a principle Israel's political elites would proclaim to preserve their democratic reputation, especially in the United States, where democratic hypocrisy counts most. Never mind Jewish casualties or sacrificing Jewish soldiers on the alter of "Political Correctness."
Sun Tzu did not have to worry about journalists and humanists who make the rational conduct of war impossible, and who therefore prolong the killing. When U.S. Admiral Bull Halsey said, "Hit hard, hit fast, hit often," he was merely echoing Sun Tzu's advice.
We read in the Torah, "When you go forth to battle against your enemies" (Deut. 20:1). The Sages ask: "What is meant by 'against your enemies'"? They answer: "God said, 'Confront them as enemies. Just as they show you no mercy, so should you not show them any mercy.'"
Sun Tzu would therefore be appalled by the readiness with Israeli governments engage in cease fires or "hudnas," which allow Arab terrorists to regroup and accumulate more and deadlier weapons. Sun Tzu calls for the uninterrupted attack. He unequivocally opposes a protracted war: "There is no instance," he says, "of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare." But protracted war is the inevitable result of the supposedly humanitarian policy of self-restraint pursued by Israel's [censored] cat prime ministers.
Notice how Israeli prime ministers yearn for the approval of the nations (including those complicit in the Holocaust). Compare their obsequiesceness with America's anti-American president Barack Obama, whose apologetic foreign policy has aroused the contempt of the Arab-Islamic world, a world that respects only the strong horse—POWER. Notice, too, how Washington is always preaching self-retraint—Hiroshima and Dresden notwithstanding.
Part II
Some years ago, while teaching officers at Bar-Ilan University, I was informed, much to my dismay that Israel's Command and Staff College did not teach Clausewitz's classic On War. It shows in the IDF's benevolent behavior toward Israel's enemy even in the midst of armed conflict. Clausewitz warns that "in such dangerous things as war, the errors which proceed from a spirit of benevolence are the worst.”
Recall the Yom Kippur War, in which 3,000 Jewish soldiers perished. Certain general officers of the IDF obeyed the commands of the Golda Meir Government by not launching a pre-emptive attack. Later, the Agranat Commission of Inquiry blamed them for the disaster. Sun Tsu would have agreed with that conclusion—but of course for different reasons. He would have faulted the generals for "self-restraint," that is, for heeding the commands of their Government.
Israeli prime ministers have lacked the the will to win the Terrorist War that Yasser Arafat initiated in September 2000—the will to vanquish the enemy in the shortest possible time. By failing to practice the basic principles of war, they multiply the number of Jewish (as well as non-Jewish) casualties. Let's elaborate on Clausewitz.
Clausewitz defines war as "an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will. Violence is the means; submission of the enemy to our will the ultimate object." For as long as the enemy remains armed, he will wait for a more favorable moment for action.
The ultimate object of war is political. To attain this object fully, the enemy must be disarmed. Disarming the enemy "becomes therefore the immediate object of hostilities. It takes the place of the final object and puts it aside as something we can eliminate from our calculations." In other words, first disarm the enemy, subject him to your will. The political comes later. But Israeli prime ministers put the cart before the horse. Instead of killing terrorist he wants to negotiate with them. In fact, he waxes ad nauseum on "reciprocity."
War is the art of killing. Hence the statesman must take into account not only the forces of the enemy, he must also arouse the pugnacity and strengthen the will and determination of his people. They must ardently believe in the justice of their country's cause and understand the importance of victory as well as the consequences of defeat. The statesman must display political wisdom, moral clarity, and decisiveness.
Above all, the statesman must have, in his own mind, a clear view of his post-war goal or political object. The political object will determine the aim of military force as well as the amount of force or effort to be used. Here is where Benjamin Netanyahu, following his two predecesors, Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, spells disaster. His political object is a Palestinian state, for which he needs a "negotiating partner"—today, Mahmoud Abbas.
It was because he advocated a Palestinian state that Ariel Sharon did not destroy the entire Arab terrorist nework in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. This is why he employed limited means—targeted killings and destruction of some Arab bomb factories—but never a full-scale attack to win the war and so devastate the enemy as to eradicate the enemy’s desire to wage war for a hundred years—as the Allied powers did in Germany and the United States in Japan.
Had Sharon destroyed the enemy, as could have been done in two weeks after 9/11, the international howl that would erupt would have subsided with the fall and fall out of the Twin Towers, and the people of Israel would once again walk upright, proud and confident in Israel’s future.
Alas, not only the Arabs go with the strong horse, as Lee Smith has shown. So do the weak-kneed or morally flawed leaders of democracies.
Israel's Prime Minister wrote a book entitled A Place Among the Nations. Ahmadinejad may not bother to erase Israel from the map. He may leave this task for Israel's Government.
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