Ya'alon's 72 Virgins

What has happened to the Chief-of-Staff, Lieutenant-General Moshe ("Bogie") Ya'alon?

Until recently, he was the most aggressive hawk in the army, perhaps in the whole country.Suddenly he is almost turning into a dove.

Has he had a divine revelation like Rabbi Saul of Tarsus, who went to Damascus to persecutethe Christians and arrived there as an apostle of Jesus?

Up to now, Ya'alon's gospel was far from the teachings of the gentle Jewish preacher fromNazareth. His doctrine was: Hit the Arabs on the head and they will give in. If that isn't enough, hit themharder. Make the life of every single Palestinian unbearable, prevent him from leaving his village or town,destroy the livelihood of his family, take his land away.

This was an almost mathematical formula: when one blow follows the other, the lives of thePalestinians will reach breaking point. They will not be able to resist. They will raise their hands, lowertheir heads and accept everything the government of Israel is good enough to offer them. They will turn overtheir fighters ("terrorists" in the parlance of the occupation, "national heroes" in theparlance of the occupied.) They will live in the enclaves Israel allows them, or look for a better life inanother country.

Now, suddenly, the C-o-S distances himself from this strategy. He tells the public that thegovernment's policy - whose staunchest supporter he has been - is "destructive". Instead ofliquidating terrorism, he says, it produces terrorism. The lives of the Palestinians must be eased, they mustbe given hope.

So what has happened?

The first part of the plan has worked beyond expectation. The life of the Palestinians hasindeed become hell. Most of them live below the poverty line, many on the threshold of hunger, some in anactual state of hunger. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children suffer from malnutrition. Every villagehas become a prison camp, completely surrounded by roadblocks. Traffic is well-nigh impossible. ManyPalestinians cannot reach their place of work, hospital, university or school or bring their produce tomarket. Israeli troops prowl in the towns and villages, demolishing homes, arresting or killing activists and,at the same time, women and children, too. The distant sound of an airplane engine is enough for the wholepopulation to hold their breath.

In this sense, all of Ya'alon's aims have been achieved. It would be difficult to imagine amore terrible situation, barring actual massacres. According to plan, the Palestinians should have broken along time ago.

But, wonder of wonders, this has not happened. The Palestinians have not given in. They havemanaged to exist even in these appalling circumstances. The mutual assistance of all the members of theextended Arab family has helped. Moreover, the great majority of the Palestinians continue to support theviolent attacks ("terrorism" in the parlance of the occupation, "armed resistance" in theparlance of the occupied.) The suicide bombers are viewed with pride and admiration. For every"martyr" who blows himself up, a hundred are pressing to follow in his footsteps.

The only discussion among the Palestinians is whether they should go on with suicide attacksinside Israel or limit themselves to attacking settlers and soldiers in the occupied territories.

It seems that Ya'alon and his generals have reached the conclusion that their campaign hasfailed. Any further pressure on the Palestinians will be counter-productive: producing more hatred, morehostility. So there will be more attacks, compelling the army to mobilize more troops and invest moreresources, without achieving anything.

Ya'alon the Hawk turns into Ya'alon the Pseudo-Dove. But his new remedy, too, is based onfalse assumptions: Instead of "hit them on the head" it is now "ease their situation".How? Allow some thousands to work in Israel? Let some hundreds of merchants into Israel to buy Israeli goods?(The Israeli economy could certainly use that.) Remove some roadblocks here and there? Use the stick less andthe carrot more?

That, too, is a recipe for a predictable failure. Because, like the old recipe and all thefalse forecasts along the way (Remember Yom Kippur!) it is based on a bottomless contempt for the Arabs ingeneral and the Palestinians in particular. But, as the extreme right-wing Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinskyalready understood some 80 years ago: you can't buy the Arabs off. Changing total hell into a less than totalhell will not induce them to give up their national goals.

Even if the occupied territories turn into a paradise on earth and the military governmentprovides every male inhabitant with 72 virgins (as promised for the Islamic paradise), the Palestinians wouldstill want an end to the occupation. They want a state of their own in the whole of the West Bank and the GazaStrip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

But the "easing" promised by Ya'alon will be far from creating paradise. It will belike a drop of water on a hot stone. And in the meantime, the monstrous "security wall" is dailydestroying the livelihood of thousands more people, robbing them of their land and cutting them off from theworld.

Ya'alon is not suffering from a sudden attack of humanity. He senses that the Israeli publicis gradually turning away from his strategy. Even laymen are starting to realize that he has failed. Ya'alonis changing course because the public is starting to change course.

A man of principle would go to the Prime Minister, put his general's insignia on the table anddeclare: "Sir, I have failed. I resign. And, by the way, Sir, I would advise you to do the same."