Curbing Israel’s military power

The ruthless attack on Gaza by Israel revealed, among other things, Israel’s military might and Hamas’ military insignificance — even irrelevance.

For the first time, analysts have been able to highlight what should have been highlighted decades ago: the huge imbalance between Israel’s military capability and that of Palestinians and Arabs combined.

Since its inception, Israel has actively sought to build a mighty arsenal of conventional and unconventional weapons on the basis of a lie and a false pretext.

The lie is that Palestinians and the Arabs are militarily strong and that they are bent on destroying Israel.

Decades of Israeli attacks and wars on Arabs revealed this claim to be utterly false.

In the two major wars launched by Israel against several Arab countries in 1948 and in 1947, which caused the Palestinian tragedy and spread chaos and violence in the region, Israel defeated the forces of all Arab countries in hours, not even days.

The reason is its military superiority, made possible by aid lavished on Israel by the US and some European countries.

There is no comparison between the weapons Arabs possess and those Israel has had and continues to amass, including — of course — weapons of mass destruction, which are not subject to international inspection.

Israel’s lie with respect to the supposed weapons Arabs are said to have is very much like the lie that the Bush Sr. administration and its allies used to wage a war of destruction on Iraq in 2003: saying that the Saddam regime had a huge cache of weapons of mass destruction — a claim history proved to be utterly false.

The pretext is that Israel needs to be militarily superior in order to guarantee its security. Past and present events proved this to be also false. Ironically, the humble, trivial, weapons the militants in Gaza use to defend themselves against Israel’s might reveals that power alone can never guarantee Israel’s security.

Israel’s military power, erroneously seen by the Israelis as their main source of protection and pride, is proving to be counterproductive.

Whenever Israel uses such military power, and it is using it too often and too irresponsibly, it ends up killing more civilians (much more so, in fact) than militants, and prolonging the conflict with the Palestinians and Arab neighbours, rather than solving it.

Furthermore, Israel’s military might prevents it from pursuing a peaceful path in solving the Arab-Israeli conflict. In other words, had Israel been less powerful militarily, it would have taken the peace option more seriously.

Military might does not guarantee Israel’s security, and does not bring about peace. On the contrary, it promotes the conflict and subverts peace. This is a basic lesson learned by all careful readers of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

What guarantees Israel’s security and can bring about peace is a non-violent approach.

If Israel is desirous to have security and peace, it needs — unconditionally and without procrastination — to return the Palestinian and Arab land it occupied in 1948 and 1967 by force to their rightful owners, the Palestinians and Arabs.

Israeli occupation is the source of the problem, and not any other thing. If Israel truly wants security and peace, it should end its occupation of Palestinian and Arab land and stop its flagrant, bloody aggression against the Palestinians and all other neighbours in the region who want nothing more than justice and more than welcome Israel as an equal, peaceful neighbour.

Before this happens, and in order for this to happen, Israel’s military might needs to be curbed.

It is time for those who lavish military support on Israel — the US and some European countries — to ponder the disastrous consequences of a militarily superior Israel.