What's "Israeli Deterrence"?

"With Strikes, Israel Reminds Foes It Has Teeth"
A1, Monday 12/29/08
By Ethan Bronner

Bronner starts the article pointing out that Israel's current military operation is aimed not only at ending Hamas' rocket barrages, but at its military buildup – a story too seldom covered. Another solid point follows: the operation is also to re-establish Israeli deterrence.

Bronner opts for a kinder, gentler verb in reference to rockets shot or launched into Israel. In 2006, "Hezbollah was lobbing deadly rockets into Israel," Bronner informs us. The next paragraph, Bronner aptly notes by "successfully shooting rockets into Israel and sounding defiant to the end," Hezbollah, which is blunt about its goal of destroying Israel, "won a great deal of credit among Arabs across the region."

Of course, these Arabs must be different, more radical, from the ones the Times consistently [and in the same day's paper] states are eager to see the US "make an effort at dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict," and forging a solution that leaves in tact a militarily dominant Jewish state, in control of the majority of land between the Jordan river and Mediterranean Sea.

This same theme reappears in the next paragraph as Bronner states that Hamas, "in the position of scrappy survivor or even somehow perceived as victor, it could then dominate Palestinian politics over the more conciliatory and pro-Western Fatah. Since Hamas, like Hezbollah, is committed to Israel's destruction, that could pose a formidable strategic challenge."

First, Fatah is not "more conciliatory," but less openly hostile – rhetorically and militarily – to Israel and thus more pragmatic. It knows how to pick its battles and how to stay in power in the face an overwhelmingly stronger opponent.

Second, is it that Palestinian society values a scrappy underdog or values a movement more openly and defiantly [than Fatah] committed to Israel's destruction? Again, the Times fails to make a crucial, and what should be an obvious, connection: if Palestinian society ("Palestinian politics," as coded by Bronner) embraces those committed to Israel's destruction, it's not just Hamas [or Fatah] that poses a "formidable challenge," but Palestinian society in general. This doesn't mean Israel should be at war with Palestinian society, but it does mean Palestinian attitudes need to change. At the very least, it means Israel shouldn't be pressured to negotiate with any Palestinian entity even rhetorically committed to Israel's demise [i.e. Fatah].

There are three problems with language:

Israel is gambling it won't alienate an Obama administration with "its aggressive military posture". How is waiting 8 years to respond resolutely to rocket attacks on its civilians "aggressive"? How is the current operation distinctly more aggressive than Israel's previous operations?

This Israeli operation, according to many news outlets, has now been dubbed "an Israeli version of 'shock and awe'". There are similarities to some of the initial war tactics of the 2003 US campaign, but does the comparison really add clarity to what Israel is trying to do, which as the Times stated, is to force Hamas into a more favorable truce? I also never heard about the US military leaving phone messages at civilians living close to Iraqi government offices, warning them to evacuate. Of course, Israel doing this to spare civilian casualties has not been reported by the Times.

Bronner writes "another peace treaty with Hamas," when he really means "truce". There's a profound difference and some readers are unfortunately left to conclude that Hamas has once signed a peace treaty with Israel.

For the second half of the analysis, Bronner veers from the issue of Israeli deterrence and focuses on Israeli "internal complications," and comparisons to the 2006 war against Hezbollah. Bronner, by discussing the 2006 campaign and how Hezbollah won prestige from it, and the prospect of Hamas doing the same now, seems to not give a ringing endorsement of Israel's policy of deterrence.

Yet what's absent is a serious discussion of the policy's pros and cons. Has deterrence worked in the past? What led to the 1978 Camp David Accords? What about the peace process? As Shimon Peres famously said regarding his nation's nuclear program, Israel "built a nuclear option, not in order to have a Hiroshima but an Oslo." Is there any value to the notion that Israel's adversaries will think twice before striking?

What is Israeli deterrence, if not, ultimately, to save lives?