Another Hundred Years' War
ANOTHER HUNDRED YEARS' WAR
Sally F. Zerker
Jewish Tribune, April 23, 2009
You may not have heard about it, but once upon a time there was a war that lasted so long that it is known as The Hundred Years' War. It actually was a war with intermittent battles between England and France that lasted a lot more than 100 years. It started in 1328 and ended in 1453, although the official settlement took place in 1475 when a treaty was finally signed between England and France.
The question that interests me is this: why did that war last more than a century? The reason for my interest is that we now have a war that has lasted almost a century, with no end in sight. I'm talking, of course, of the Arab-Jewish war.
As I studied the Hundred Years' War for an explanation for its endurance, I concluded that the main reason for its longevity was that neither side was willing to grant that it had lost the war. It ended when Britain acceded that it no longer could claim ownership over territories on the continent in the French regions. In other words, it finally ended when Britain conceded its loss to France.
How does this analysis apply to the Arab-Jewish war? Let me first assure you that I knowingly use the term Arab-Jewish war. Long before there was a Jewish state in the Middle East, Arabs made war on Jews. Arabs attacked Jews in their ancient Jewish communities, like Hebron, where Jews had lived for millennia. Also, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a friend of Hitler and Himmler, had coordinated plans with the Nazis to massacre the Palestinian Jews, which was only prevented by the fortunate Allied defeat of Rommel at el-Alamein in 1942. There were also violent incidents by Arabs against Jewish communes, those known as kibbutzim, which had legal private property conditions and rights and in no way infringed on the Arab communities. On the contrary, their existence enhanced Arab values and provided opportunities for neighbouring Arabs. Nevertheless, kibbutzim had to set up defences against Arab marauders, which were an ongoing and continuous threat.
At the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, five neighbouring Arab countries attacked the fledgling state. There is, therefore, no doubt that the war was one of Arabs against Jews. The Arab combatant composition changed, first, with the Six Day War of 1967 when Israel clearly demolished the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, and second, when King Hussein expelled the PLO from Jordan in 1970. The active belligerents subsequently narrowed to Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, even as the Arab nations afforded peripheral support. The war against the Jews now includes non-Arab Muslims, expressed in Iranian support for Arab terrorist organizations, Hezballah and Hamas, currently waging the war against Israel. This then is the new format for the Arab contingent.
Well then, now to apply the lesson of the Hundred Years' War. We all know that Israel cannot lose any battle where its survival is at stake because the enemy has made it clear that should that occur there would no longer be an Israel nor would Jews be left alive. On the Arab side, no matter how badly they fare, no matter what kind of destruction occurs to property, no matter how costly in human lives, the Arabs declare victory. And for the Arabs it is indeed a victory if they can continue to do what has been at the root of this war from the beginning, that is, carry on its objective of judenreinheit (clean of Jews) in the Middle East. That is why every concession that Israel has made in the hope, or rather daydream, that it will bring peace, has had a contrary result. This is reasonable from the Arab point of view, because those concessions are seen as an admission of Israeli weakness, while at the same time they enhance the Arabs' military position and ambitions.
So agreements with Arafat and handing over of territory only encouraged new approaches made accessible by the availability of Palestinian military prowess that Israel helped develop, and at the same time giving Arab terrorists better access to areas of Jewish concentrations. Hence, the emergence of suicide bombers. Not only did unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon and Gaza not lead to peace; it merely made the warriors against the Jews more secure. Hence, the emergence of Hezbollah's and Hamas' missiles.
Israel's response to these attacks brings on another phase of the Arab war against Israel, as the women and children are used as shields for the missile launchers. Hence, the media onslaught and university activists' criticism of Israel for "civilian casualties," which no amount of evidence that proves these were part of Arab strategy manages to persuade these hostile elements to the contrary. Hence, this tactic brings together world leaders to pay huge sums of money to repair the damage done by Israeli fire in response to Arab missiles, although no such reparation is forthcoming to Israel in a comparable need to repair Arab missile damage to Israelis.
What a successful Arab tactic! Arabs discovered that their attacking Israel pays off in money and media support. Meanwhile, Israel gets neither sympathy nor money while it necessarily defends itself from the never-ending war of Arabs against Jews.
(Dr. Sally Zerker, an economist and Senior Scholar at York University, is a CIJR Academic Fellow.)
Sally F. Zerker
Jewish Tribune, April 23, 2009
You may not have heard about it, but once upon a time there was a war that lasted so long that it is known as The Hundred Years' War. It actually was a war with intermittent battles between England and France that lasted a lot more than 100 years. It started in 1328 and ended in 1453, although the official settlement took place in 1475 when a treaty was finally signed between England and France.
The question that interests me is this: why did that war last more than a century? The reason for my interest is that we now have a war that has lasted almost a century, with no end in sight. I'm talking, of course, of the Arab-Jewish war.
As I studied the Hundred Years' War for an explanation for its endurance, I concluded that the main reason for its longevity was that neither side was willing to grant that it had lost the war. It ended when Britain acceded that it no longer could claim ownership over territories on the continent in the French regions. In other words, it finally ended when Britain conceded its loss to France.
How does this analysis apply to the Arab-Jewish war? Let me first assure you that I knowingly use the term Arab-Jewish war. Long before there was a Jewish state in the Middle East, Arabs made war on Jews. Arabs attacked Jews in their ancient Jewish communities, like Hebron, where Jews had lived for millennia. Also, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a friend of Hitler and Himmler, had coordinated plans with the Nazis to massacre the Palestinian Jews, which was only prevented by the fortunate Allied defeat of Rommel at el-Alamein in 1942. There were also violent incidents by Arabs against Jewish communes, those known as kibbutzim, which had legal private property conditions and rights and in no way infringed on the Arab communities. On the contrary, their existence enhanced Arab values and provided opportunities for neighbouring Arabs. Nevertheless, kibbutzim had to set up defences against Arab marauders, which were an ongoing and continuous threat.
At the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, five neighbouring Arab countries attacked the fledgling state. There is, therefore, no doubt that the war was one of Arabs against Jews. The Arab combatant composition changed, first, with the Six Day War of 1967 when Israel clearly demolished the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, and second, when King Hussein expelled the PLO from Jordan in 1970. The active belligerents subsequently narrowed to Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, even as the Arab nations afforded peripheral support. The war against the Jews now includes non-Arab Muslims, expressed in Iranian support for Arab terrorist organizations, Hezballah and Hamas, currently waging the war against Israel. This then is the new format for the Arab contingent.
Well then, now to apply the lesson of the Hundred Years' War. We all know that Israel cannot lose any battle where its survival is at stake because the enemy has made it clear that should that occur there would no longer be an Israel nor would Jews be left alive. On the Arab side, no matter how badly they fare, no matter what kind of destruction occurs to property, no matter how costly in human lives, the Arabs declare victory. And for the Arabs it is indeed a victory if they can continue to do what has been at the root of this war from the beginning, that is, carry on its objective of judenreinheit (clean of Jews) in the Middle East. That is why every concession that Israel has made in the hope, or rather daydream, that it will bring peace, has had a contrary result. This is reasonable from the Arab point of view, because those concessions are seen as an admission of Israeli weakness, while at the same time they enhance the Arabs' military position and ambitions.
So agreements with Arafat and handing over of territory only encouraged new approaches made accessible by the availability of Palestinian military prowess that Israel helped develop, and at the same time giving Arab terrorists better access to areas of Jewish concentrations. Hence, the emergence of suicide bombers. Not only did unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon and Gaza not lead to peace; it merely made the warriors against the Jews more secure. Hence, the emergence of Hezbollah's and Hamas' missiles.
Israel's response to these attacks brings on another phase of the Arab war against Israel, as the women and children are used as shields for the missile launchers. Hence, the media onslaught and university activists' criticism of Israel for "civilian casualties," which no amount of evidence that proves these were part of Arab strategy manages to persuade these hostile elements to the contrary. Hence, this tactic brings together world leaders to pay huge sums of money to repair the damage done by Israeli fire in response to Arab missiles, although no such reparation is forthcoming to Israel in a comparable need to repair Arab missile damage to Israelis.
What a successful Arab tactic! Arabs discovered that their attacking Israel pays off in money and media support. Meanwhile, Israel gets neither sympathy nor money while it necessarily defends itself from the never-ending war of Arabs against Jews.
(Dr. Sally Zerker, an economist and Senior Scholar at York University, is a CIJR Academic Fellow.)
posted by Professor Sal at 7:47 AM
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