Lessons from the war

Michael Oren, author of what many consider to be the definitive history of the Six-Days’ War, has an article in last Wednesday’s National Post about the latest ongoing war between the Israelis and the Palestinians that’s absolutely required reading (link requires subscription):

Looking back at the last four years, the world can learn some invaluable lessons from Israel’s war on terror.

The first is, quite simply, recognizing that this is a war — a total war, an existential war, a war of survival. A national leader, accordingly, must put virtually all other considerations aside. He or she must seek to create a national consensus and to maintain vital alliances — to emulate Churchill in 1940 and Roosevelt after Pearl Harbor. Even then, the state and its leaders must be prepared to endure significant stress internally and bitter condemnations in the international arena.

Secondly, victories can be won against terror without totally devastating the host society. Victory is possible while maintaining basic moral and democratic values. This, arguably, is Israel’s greatest achievement in this war, for though the Palestinian people declared war against not just the state but also the people of Israel, we did not retaliate with war against the Palestinians. Throughout, Israel used only a fraction of its military force, and never fired a single artillery shell at a Palestinian target. And though some Palestinian neighbourhoods, particularly in Gaza, have suffered extensive damage, Palestinian society has not been reduced to rubble — no place in the territories even remotely resembles Dresden in 1945 or Hanoi in 1972 or Chechnya today. No place evokes a sense of what a country would look like after it had sent successive waves of suicide bombers against the civilian populations of France or Russia or the United States.

From a state of near-paralysis at the end of 2000, Israel has rebounded. The hotels are filled and the restaurants, though now gated and guarded, are packed. In this year alone, Israelis garnered the country’s first Nobel Prizes in chemistry, its first Olympic gold medal and the championships of both European basketball leagues — heady achievements for a nation at war.

I would urge other Western nations to take a close look. Israel has been your litmus, your laboratory. We have shown the world that you can prevail against terror.

Powerful words and food for thought, especially in the wake of this morning’s suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that has claimed three more innocent lives.