Apollo

Submitted by Harrak (Canada), Jul 1, 2006 at 23:06

In the Jew-Muslim conlict over Palestine- Israel, Inflicting a sense of defeat requires great intelligence, in both senses of the word, not brutality, according to Dr Pipes. In this very expression where one favours moral treatment of physical problem, I can see a shift towards idealism. Dr Pipes I believe was realist (not from French realist school but from an expert realist school of thought ) but not any more. The reason Dr Pipes is suggesting what can be classified in general lines as idealistic, is the fact that realist solutions can not solve an issue already treated idealy. For example, the Oslo event was in its self a shift towards idealism from the Israeli side at least. That is where Israel opened for diplomacy rather than coersion. If -like I said before- there was no Oslo in this conflict, coersion could have ended it in something like Chechnia. Russia used expert realism and solved the problem. If Russia opened an Olso like door, the chechens could have ended with their independent authority at least and more world support, and therefore Russia could have ended like Israel nowadays.

Now Israel started expert realist, than opened for idealim, than shrinking like a dried fig in an area where you can not step backwards.

The Palestinians on the other hand are playying smarter so far. They used two parralel channels. One idealist (PLO mainly Fatah) with the goal of legitimizing the authority, generate world support and administer what ever can be regained from their enemy. The other channel was the realist one or what is known to the west as the terrorist one. I said realist because this channel or movement (Jihad and Hamas mainly) understood like Dr Pipes the existential nature of the conflict. They know something called either me or you here, and they prefered the "me" at all costs.

The conclusion I am aiming at is that Israel`s idealist politics does not only have to face Palestinian idealist wing. Israel is facing all kinds of schools of thoughts from the Palestinian side. Palestinians have more cards to play with and more chances to win.

A palestinian may laugh at me when I say Israel`s idealist politics..I just want to stress here that the idealism and realism I am talking about here are expert notions or if I may say clinical notions and not like the ones you study in Political Science 101 (6 credits course).

An Israeli amy ask me why Israel used realism and failed and followed it by idealism and failed!! My answer would be the fact that Israel in stead of striking a deal on the 1967 borders and focus on its Palestinian popullation, great deal of radical Jewish influence prevented this from happening and played several adventures in Syria and Lebanon. Given that the Golan was given to Syria and a deal was stricken with Lebanon in an Egypt-Jordan fashion, Israel could have employed UN soldiers to do the job in the borders with Arabs and could have ended better. Now Israel created many enemies since 1967 and in their plans, Israelis never tought that Little America will become an Islamic Republic one day..bad calculus..hopefully they learnt, if not, than there is going to be a lot to learn..

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