Crazy after all these years
By Ze'ev Schiff
Haaretz, March 26, 2004
Following the liquidation of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the Arabs might think that Israel is behaving like a "crazy state" that no longer takes into account world opinion. The remark by the Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'lon - as the Arab world was in a turmoil over the Yassin killing - that a similar fate awaits Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah - only strengthens this feeling.
The notion of the "crazy state" is not new. It was coined some 30 years ago by the Israeli strategist Prof. Yehezkel Dror, in his book "Crazy States: A Counterconventional Strategic Problem." The historical examples Dror cites include not only states, but also extreme ideological movements and organizations. In this context, the terrorism of the suicide bombers, which enjoys broad support in the Arab states, can of course be described as a strategy of craziness. However, the question that looms is whether Israel has been attacked by the virus of a crazy state.
Even states that behave rationally in many spheres can slide into "madness" in another area. There are also cases in which a state seeks to pretend to be crazy. Henry Kissinger is said to have remarked that it's obvious that the United States will not initiate a nuclear attack, but it's desirable for the Soviet Union to think that Washington is liable to suddenly have a fit of nuclear madness. In other words, to reinforce American deterrence he was ready to have the United States be perceived as a country that could behave insanely.
In Israel, too, the feeling is growing that it's not enough to be strong, and that the time has come to express this feeling. The first sign of this appeared two years ago, after the suicide bombing at the Park Hotel in Netanya on Seder night. Israel then reoccupied the cities in Judea and Samaria. In the case of Yassin, Israel embarked on a highly extreme track in its reactions. The irony is that hovering in the background is the political decision to disengage from Gaza without an agreement. The feeling in the IDF is that if there was any sort of military accomplishment in this war, it is disappearing.
Israel is aware of the debate within the Palestinian public between the thesis propounded by Mahmoud Abbas, the former prime minister, that the present Palestinian generation has sacrificed enough and that now an effort should be made to reach a true agreement, and the thesis of Hamas that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement decision is proof that by stepping up activity against Israel, it will be possible to bring about another major withdrawal.
It's a mistake to think that the decision to radicalize the military responses is only the result of anger at the top military and political levels in the country. The watershed was the attack at the port of Ashdod. All the participants, and not only the Shin Bet security service chief, Avi Dichter, agreed that the Arab reaction to the assassination of Yassin would be harsh and that Europe would be highly critical. Dichter wasn't against the operation, but proposed a different "opportunity" that had been decided on before the Ashdod attack. Moral justification for the operation was found in the saying that "if anyone comes to kill you, kill him first," and in the large number of Israeli victims. In contrast, the opposite tendency came up in the discussion when it was said that the test after Yassin's liquidation would be whether it will be possible to reduce to a minimum the number of Palestinian victims, especially with the schools closed and the children running free.
However, even though serious advance discussions were held, Israel appears to have been attacked by a crazy virus in its responses. Evidence of this can be found in the revolution that has taken place in the notion of the human "ticking bomb" that has to be dismantled at any cost. The next stage was the "ticking infrastructure." After that we reached the idea of a "ticking leadership" of terror that justifies assassinations. As we peer into the gloomy future of this war, we should not make light of the chief of staff's comment that in the next stage the gunsights will be trained on Arafat and Nasrallah.
