What Is Israel to Do?

Israel’s recent military operations, the largest since the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, have come under intense international scrutiny and scorn. Even Israel’s near-unswerving ally, the United States, has reprimanded Israel for its invasion of Palestinian refugee camps. The chief concerns are that Israel’s operations will result in the deaths of innocent civilians, no different from the actions that Palestinian militants have taken against Israeli civilians, and that the violence will escalate even further.

There is, however, a key difference to which the international community at times seems oblivious; Israel, unlike the Palestinian leadership, does not wish to inflict indiscriminate casualties. In the past few weeks there have been countless examples of this basic difference in policy.

On Jan. 27, Palestinian Authority (PA) president Yasser Arafat appeared on Israeli television to proclaim “my hand is outstretched in peace.” Yet just a few hours earlier, in a speech to a Palestinian woman’s group, he called for a “jihad” against Israel. Arafat’s message worked: the first female suicide bomber struck Israel that same day. A week later, in a Feb. 3 op-ed piece to the New York Times, Arafat wrote, “I condemn the attacks carried out by terrorist groups against Israeli civilians.” This was his message to America and, ostensibly, to Israel. But Arafat, to his own followers, proclaimed “into Jerusalem we shall go as millions of martyrs as need be.” On Feb. 6, a Hamas gunman shot and killed three Israelis at Moshav Hamra. Palestinian radio (controlled by Arafat’s government) proclaimed the shooter a “hero.” And Arafat himself told his followers, “we will make the lives of the infidels hell,” a clear reference to Israelis. One of Arafat’s top lieutenants, Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan, was recently quoted as saying that Palestinian suicide bombings against Israeli civilians are a “legitimate form of self-defense.” Most recently, when a Hamas suicide bomber killed 22 Israelis during a Passover meal on March 27, Arafat, in a phone interview with Al Jazeera television, praised the bomber, exclaiming “Oh God, give me martyrdom like this.”

The PA and Arafat have not just limited their support of terrorism to words of incitement and encouragement. During U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni’s last peace mission, Israel captured an Iranian ship, replete with weapons, that was destined for the Palestinians. Despite their steadfast claims of ignorance, Arafat and his government knew about the ship and its contents. President George Bush acknowledged Palestinian culpability Jan. 25, stating “Ordering up weapons that were intercepted on a boat headed for that part of the world is not part of fighting terror...that’s enhancing terror.”

The question, then, is this: should Israel hold a largely innocent citizenry responsible for the crimes (and terrorist complicity) of its government? In other words, does Israel have the right to launch military incursions into Palestinian territory in order to defend itself? Israel does not have a choice; it is dealing with a government that publicly denounces terror but privately encourages and praises it, a government that publicly arrests militants but clandestinely releases them, a government that claims to want peace and yet organizes violent uprisings to upset the peace process, a government which uses every means at its disposal to enhance terrorism while publicly disavowing terror as a tool for its cause. History has shown time and time again that the PA cannot be relied upon to stop terror; instead, many of the terrorist groups targeting Israel, notably the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, come from Arafat’s legions and admit to being under his control. But most important is this: Arafat is an elected representative of the Palestinian people. Arafat may rule with an iron fist, but he was elected by a landslide in a popular election.

Most Palestinians are neither terrorists nor involved in terror-related activities. When Israel invades Palestinian refugee camps, blockades Palestinian towns, and demolishes Palestinian homes, innocent people suffer for acts that they did not commit. This is one of many insufferable tragedies of war. The only effective means that Israel has to stop terrorists is to find them and kill them before they strike, and this necessitates the invasion of Palestinian territory; Israel certainly cannot rely on the PA or Arafat, and it cannot rely upon terrorists to heed the words of Bush or U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. Israel has not entered Palestinian towns in order to plant bombs in supermarkets, to kill infants, or blow up customers at cafes. Israel’s military operations, which have unfortunately (yet not purposefully) killed some innocent civilians, operate out of the need to protect the state and citizens of Israel. They operate out of the sheer necessity of ending terrorism. Talk of eliminating the “causes” of terrorism is perhaps noble and perspicacious, but it does nothing to address the present problem. There are thousands of militants whose only “cause” is to inflict terror upon Israel. Such militants cannot be swayed by reason or logic, but they can be stopped by force.

There are roughly six million people in Israel, and 418 Israelis have been killed in terrorist attacks since the PA-backed Palestinian uprising began in September 2000. To put this death toll in perspective, in proportion to Israel’s size, this is the rough equivalent of seven attacks of the magnitude of the World Trade Center (in which about 3000 people died). The U.N. can condemn Israel’s military operations and targeted killings, but it is too easy to condemn from afar. If Israel wishes to protect its citizens, it must act with lethal force to stop those planning to use lethal force against it. I would like to ask those critical of Israel to think how they would feel upon having their son or daughter killed by a suicide bomber, all while more suicide bombers are trained with impunity and encouragement on Palestinian soil. Should Israel respond with violence? Israel has no choice.

Alastair M. Rampell ’03 is an applied mathematics concentrator in Leverett House.