{"id":855,"date":"2005-06-02T00:15:22","date_gmt":"2005-06-02T05:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=855"},"modified":"2005-06-02T00:17:28","modified_gmt":"2005-06-02T05:17:28","slug":"israeli-general-more-attacks-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=855","title":{"rendered":"Israeli General: More Attacks Ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Israeli general finds it is his turn to fade away, but he does not go with any sense of optimism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The outgoing head of the Israeli military, General Moshe Yaalon, has warned that a new wave of bloodshed – whether through “terrorism” or war – is inevitable even if a Palestinian state is established.<\/p>\n

Gen Yaalon, who reluctantly retired yesterday after falling out with Israel’s defence minister, told Haaretz newspaper that Palestinian attacks were likely to resume after Israel completed its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip this year unless the government followed up by pulling out of parts of the West Bank.<\/p>\n

“If there is an Israeli commitment to another move, we will gain another period of quiet,” he said. “If not, there will be an eruption … Terrorist attacks of all types: shooting, bombs, suicide bombers, mortars.”<\/p>\n

Even the creation of a Palestinian state would lead to war “at some stage”. He said that the new Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, had not abandoned the right of Palestinian refugees to return to what is now Israel.<\/p>\n

“And this is not a symbolic right of return, but the right of return as a claim to be realised. To return to the houses, to return to the villages. The implication of this is that there will not be a Jewish state here.”<\/p>\n

The idea that a Palestinian state can be created by 2009, as President George Bush has said he wants, was “divorced from reality” and “dangerous”. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The idea that a separate Palestinian state could be created in the next four years is not ridiculous, but the idea that such a state would contribute towards a long-term peace in the region is fairly far-fetched. Abbas’ commitment to the Palestinian right-of-return cause is a deal-breaker as currently couched. Add that to a Palestinian people, poisoned for generations by the likes of Yasser Arafat, that is probably several decades of unforeseen progress away from cohabitation with their neighbors and the general is right — take off your shades, the future ain’t so bright.<\/p>\n

Adding to the general’s bleak outlook is his take on the Israeli military.<\/p>\n

“A combination of terrorism and demography, with question marks among us about the rightness of our way, are a recipe for a situation in which there will not be a Jewish state here in the end,” he said.<\/p>\n

Gen Yaalon also warned of deteriorating standards in the army, including what he described as a “criminal subculture” that had reached senior officers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the course of my professional life over the last decade, I have known literally hundreds of Israelis. I’ve know men who saw action in Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. I’ve known some who spent time as settlers. The Israelis are a very western people, an oasis in a cultural desert, and the Israeli youth are as much an Mtv generation as their American counterparts.<\/p>\n

Why the deteriorating standards in the Israeli military? The answer is quite simple. In the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, the nation of Israel fought desperately for its survival. The last two generations have only seen conflicts for peace, pacification and retaliation.<\/p>\n

Nobody believes that Israel will lose its military edge over its neighbors any time soon, but it is certainly a low-key campaign of attrition, a test of wills. Can Israel keep its edge long enough for the surrounding Arab states to be brought, cheerfully or dragged kicking and screaming, into the modern era, into an age of some degree of acceptance? The current effort in Iraq may have a large part to say in this matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Israeli general finds it is his turn to fade away, but he does not go with any sense of optimism. The outgoing head of the Israeli military, General Moshe Yaalon, has warned that a new wave of bloodshed – whether through “terrorism” or war – is inevitable even if a Palestinian state is established. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle-east","category-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}