Richard Cohen, in a column for which he has been roundly and justly criticized, writes:
There is no point in condemning Hezbollah. Zealots are not amenable to reason. And there's not much point, either, in condemning Hamas. It is a fetid, anti-Semitic outfit whose organizing principle is hatred of Israel. There is, though, a point in cautioning Israel to exercise restraint -- not for the sake of its enemies but for itself. Whatever happens, Israel must not use its military might to win back what it has already chosen to lose: the buffer zone in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip itself.
Why on earth, we ask, shouldn't Israel take this land back? The Arabs have shown that they can't govern it, they can't control the extremists, and in Gaza they even voted the extremists into power. Israel gave up this land with the understanding that giving the Palestinians and the Lebanese land that they claim would conduce to peace. It hasn't because the Arabs don't just want a sliver of soil here and a plot there. They want it all. Israel, having been betrayed by the Palestinians, the Lebanese, and the U.N. should rescind their decision to leave and should reoccupy whatever land they need to make their people secure.
Hard-line critics of Ariel Sharon, the now-comatose Israeli leader who initiated the pullout from Gaza, always said this would happen: Gaza would become a terrorist haven. They said that the moderate Palestinian Authority would not be able to control the militants and that Gaza would be used to fire rockets into Israel and to launch terrorist raids. This is precisely what has happened.
It is also true, as some critics warned, that Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon was seen by its enemies -- and claimed by Hezbollah -- as a defeat for the mighty Jewish state. Hezbollah took credit for this, as well it should. Its persistent attacks bled Israel. In the end, Israel got out and the United Nations promised it a secure border. The Lebanese army would see to that. (And the check is in the mail.)
All that the critics warned has come true. But worse than what is happening now would be a retaking of those territories. That would put Israel smack back to where it was, subjugating a restless, angry population and having the world look on as it committed the inevitable sins of an occupying power.
Cohen apparently believes that it's better to watch your children be blown to smithereens by suicide bombers and rockets than to have to control the people who would be their murderers.
The smart choice is to pull back to defensible -- but hardly impervious -- borders. That includes getting out of most of the West Bank -- and waiting (and hoping) that history will get distracted and move on to something else. This will take some time, and in the meantime terrorism and rocket attacks will continue.
This is a "smart choice"? The reason Israel is in the predicament it's in is because it conceded to its enemies what they demanded. That made Israel vulnerable to the kinds of missile barrages that we've seeing launched at them on a daily basis and Cohen thinks that the smart play is to do more of the same? He advises the Israelis to withdraw now from the West Bank as well? He urges the Israelis to wait for the Arabs to grow weary of killing them? He counsels them to maintain the staus quo for generations more? This is what passes for sound judgment and analysis in the editorial offices of the Washington Post?
...gifted British historian, Tony Judt, wraps up his recent book "Postwar" with an epilogue on how the sine qua non of the modern civilized state is recognition of the Holocaust. Much of the Islamic world, notably Iran under its Holocaust-denying president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stands outside that circle, refusing to make even a little space for the Jews of Europe and, later, those from the Islamic world. They see Israel not as a mistake but as a crime. Until they change their view, the longest war of the 20th century will persist deep into the 21st. It is best for Israel to hunker down.
This has to be about the worst possible advice anyone could offer Israel. When one's family is under assault one doesn't hunker down, not if it is within one's power to stop the attackers. Cohen is so afraid that the Israelis might actually defend themselves and incur the condemnation of the Euro-appeasers that he urges upon them the path of cowardice and capitulation. Give the Arabs what they want, he argues, because, who knows, they might someday get fatigued from the slaughter. "Hunkering down" until the Arabs grow tired of killing them is a prescription for national suicide. Moreover, it's sheer impertinence for Mr. Cohen, who sits in a safe office in Washington, D.C,. to pontificate on how others should be willing to suffer the daily terrors of life among the orcs.
