An End Foreseen

A WISE person once said: "A fool learns from his experience. Anintelligent person learns from the experience of others." To which onecould add: "And an idiot does not even learn from his own experience."

So what can we learn from a book which shows that we do not learn fromexperience?

All this is building up to a recommendation for such a book. I don't recommendbooks as a rule, not even my own. But this time I feel the need to make anexception.

This is William Polk's book, "Violent Politics", which has recentlyappeared in the United States.

Polk was in Palestine in 1946, at the height of the struggle against the Britishoccupation, and since then he has studied the history of liberation wars. Inless than 300 pages he compares insurgencies, from the American Revolution tothe wars in Afghanistan. His years on the planning staff of the State Departmentinvolved him with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His conclusions are highlyilluminating.

I HAVE a special interest in this subject. When I joined the Irgun at age 15, Iwas told to read books about previous liberation wars, especially the Polish andIrish ones. I diligently read every book I could lay my hands on, and have sincefollowed the insurgencies and guerrilla wars throughout the world, such as thosein Malaya, Kenya, South Yemen, South Africa, Afghanistan, Kurdistan, Vietnam andmore. In one of them, the Algerian war of liberation, I had some personalinvolvement.

When I belonged to the Irgun, I worked at the office of an Oxford-educatedlawyer. One of our clients was a high British official of the Mandategovernment. He was an intelligent, pleasant and humorous person. I rememberonce, when he passed by, a thought crossing my mind: How can such intelligentpeople conduct such a foolish policy?

Since then, the more I have become became engrossed in other insurgencies, thestronger this wonderment has become. Is it possible that the very situation ofoccupation and resistance condemns the occupiers to stupid behavior, turningeven the most intelligent into idiots?

Some years ago the BBC screened a long series about the process of liberation inthe former British colonies, from India to the Caribbean islands. It devoted oneepisode to each colony. Former colonial administrators, officers of theoccupation armies, liberation fighters and other eye-witnesses were interviewedat length. Very interesting and very depressing.

Depressing - because the episodes repeated each other almost exactly. The rulersof every colony repeated the mistakes made by their predecessors in the previousepisode. They harbored the same illusions and suffered the same defeats. Nobodylearned any lesson from his predecessor, even when the predecessor was himself -as in the case of the British police officers who were transferred fromPalestine to Kenya.

In his compact book, Polk describes the main insurgencies of the last 200 years,compares them with each other and draws the obvious conclusions.

EVERY INSURGENCY is, of course, unique and different from all others, becausethe backgrounds are different, as are the cultures of the occupied peoples andthe occupiers. The British differ from the Dutch, and both from the French.George Washington was different from Tito, and Ho Chi Minh from Yasser Arafat.Yet in spite of this, there is an amazing similarity between all the liberationstruggles.

For me, the main lesson is this: from the time the general public embraces therebels, the victory of the rebellion is assured.

That is an iron rule: an insurgency supported by the public is bound to win,irrespective of the tactics adopted by the occupation regime. The occupier cankill indiscriminately or adopt more humane methods, torture captured freedomfighters to death or treat them as prisoners of war - nothing makes a differencein the long run. The last of the occupiers can board a ship in a solemnceremony, like the British High Commissioner in Haifa, or fight for a place inthe last helicopter, like the last American soldiers on the roof of the Americanembassy in Saigon - defeat was certain from the moment the insurgency hadreached a certain point.

The real war against the occupation takes place in the minds of the occupiedpopulation. Therefore, the main task of the freedom fighter is not to fightagainst the occupation, as it may seem, but to win the hearts of his people. Andon the other side, the main task of the occupier is not to kill the freedomfighters, but to prevent the population from embracing them. The battle is forthe hearts and minds of the people, their thoughts and emotions.

That is one of the reasons why generals almost always fail in their struggleagainst liberation fighters. A military officer is the least suitable person forthis task. All his upbringing, his whole way of thinking, all that he haslearned is opposed to this central task. Napoleon, the military genius, failedin his effort to vanquish the freedom fighters in Spain (where the wordguerrilla, little war, was originally coined), no less than the most stupidAmerican general in Vietnam.

An army officer is a technician, trained to fulfill a particular job. That jobis irrelevant to the struggle against a liberation movement, in spite of itssuperficial appropriateness. The fact that a house-painter deals with colorsdoes not make him into a portrait painter. An outstanding hydraulic engineerdoes not become a skilled plumber. A general does not understand the essence ofa national insurgency, and therefore does not come to grips with its rules.

For example, a general measures his success by the number of enemies killed. Butthe fighting underground organization becomes stronger the more dead fighters itcan present to the public, which identifies with the martyrs. A general learnsto prepare for battle and win it, but his opponents, the guerrilla fighters,avoid battle altogether.

THE ICONIC Che Guevara well defined the stages which a classic war of liberationgoes through: "At first, there is a partially armed band that takes refugein some remote, hard-to-reach spot [or in an urban population, I would add]. Itstrikes a lucky blow against the authorities and is joined by a few morediscontented farmers, young idealists, etc. It…contacts residents and conductslight hit-and-run attacks. As new recruits swell the ranks it takes on an enemycolumn and destroys its leading elements…Next the band sets up semi-permanentencampments…and adopts the characteristics of a government inminiature…" and so on.

In order to succeed all along the way, the insurgents need an idea that firesthe enthusiasm of the population. The public unifies around them and providesaid, shelter and intelligence. From this stage on, everything that theoccupation authorities do helps the insurgents. When the freedom fighters arekilled, many others come forward and swell their ranks (as I did in my youth).When the occupiers impose collective punishment on the population, they justreinforce their hatred and their mutual assistance. When they succeed incapturing or killing the leaders of the liberation struggle, other leaders taketheir place - as the Hydra in Greek legend grew new heads for every one thatHercules chopped off.

Frequently the occupation authorities succeed in causing a split among thefreedom fighters and consider this a major victory. But all the factions go onfighting the occupier separately, competing with each other, as Fatah and Hamasare doing now.

IT IS a pity that Polk did not devote a special chapter to theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict, but that is not really necessary. We can write itourselves according to our understanding.

All along the 40 years of occupation, our political and military leaders havefailed in the struggle against the Palestinian guerrilla war. They are neithermore stupid nor more cruel than their predecessors - the Dutch in Indonesia, theBritish in Palestine, the French in Algeria, the Americans in Vietnam, theSoviets in Afghanistan. Our generals may top them all only in their arrogance -their belief that they are the smartest and that the "Jewish head"will invent new patents that all those Goyim could never think of.

From the time Yasser Arafat succeeded in winning the hearts of the Palestinianpopulation and uniting them around the burning desire to rid themselves of theoccupation, the struggle was already decided. If we had been wise, we would havecome to a political settlement with him at the time. But our politicians andgenerals are not wiser than all the others. And so we shall go on killing,bombarding, destroying and exiling, in the foolish belief that if only we hitonce again, the longed-for victory will appear at the end of the tunnel - onlyto perceive that the dark tunnel has led us into an even darker tunnel.

As always happens, when a liberation organization does not attain itsobjectives, another more extreme one springs up beside it or instead of it andwins the hearts of the people. Hamas-like organizations take over from Fatah-likeones. The colonial regime, which has not reached an agreement in time with themore moderate organization, is in the end compelled to come to terms with themore extreme one.

General Charles de Gaulle succeeded in making peace with the Algerian rebelsbefore reaching that stage. One and a quarter million settlers heard one morningthat the French army was going to pack up on a certain date and go home. Thesettlers, many of them of the fourth generation, ran for their lives withoutgetting any compensation (unlike the Israeli settlers who left the Gaza Strip in2005). But we have no de Gaulle. We are condemned to go on ad infinitum.

If not for the terrible tragedies we witness every day, we could smile at thepathetic helplessness of our politicians and generals, who are rushing aroundwithout knowing where their salvation should come from. What to do? To starveall of them? That has led to the collapse of the wall on the Gaza-Egypt border.Kill their leaders? We have already killed Sheik Ahmed Yassin and countlessothers. To execute the "Grand Operation" and re-occupy the entire Gazastrip? We have already conquered the Strip twice. This time we shall encountermuch more capable guerrillas, who are even more rooted in the population. Everytank, every soldier will become a target. The hunter may well become the prey.

SO WHAT can we do that we have not already done?

First of all, to get every soldier and politician to read William Polk's book,together with one of the good books about the Algerian struggle.

Second, to do what all occupation regimes have done in the end in all thecountries where the population has risen up: to reach a political settlementthat both sides can live with and profit from. And get out.

After all, the end is not in doubt. The only question is how much more killing,how much more destruction, how much more suffering must be caused before theoccupiers arrive at the inescapable conclusion.

Every drop of blood spilt is a drop of blood wasted.