The Arabs formed a clear strategy in 1948: destroy Israel. Only it could not be achieved with the original tactics, so they were changed to include not only the islamists, but also the good-hearted type of people that care about minorities, liberty and rights.
edited in upon popular request [of one particularly intolerant person]
<sarcasm>The problem is that the author of this diary reads and posts to other internet sites that many of you strongly disagree with. This surely discredits the ideas, and the fact that the author agrees with you on 80% of issues and considers themselves a liberal. If you want proof that the views expressed here are bigoted, hate-filled and without any ethical foundation, the author even has a link to LGF on his blog!</sarcasm>
The Arabs formed a clear strategy in 1948: destroy Israel.
Early on, their thought was "push the jews into the sea" by brute force - leading to the 1948, 1967 and 1973 wars. When that tactic was shown to be a non-starter in all its permutations (against a barely organized country, against a country without significant strategic depth and in a surprise attack), some states such as Jordan (after the 1967 war) and Egypt (after the 1973 war) decided to shift their strategy from destroying Israel to co-existing.
However, other Arab actors, such as the Syrians, Iranians (lumped in with the Arabs for purposes of simplification) and Palestinians, decided simply to change the tactics they were using. A PR war to deligitimize Israel, a terror war to weaken the resolve of Israelis, a phased plan calling for acquisition of territory from which to wage future war from by signing on to what would be meaningless agreements and the development of military capability to at first ward off invasion [or make it costly] (see roadside bombs, booby-trapped civilian infrastructure, anti-tank missiles), then strike with more advanced conventional weapons at Israel (see rockets, missiles) , and then presumably defeat Israel (see current and future development of unconventional weapons).
The brilliance of the Arab strategy was the various crowds it was able to recruit to its side by using this multi-pronged strategy:
1. The hardliners in the Arab world who believe in the dominance of Islam over all its former territories: These are the guys who have been sold and have in turn sold to their friends and families the idea that not only is Israel a temporary phenomenon, but that Western-influenced Arab regimes in Saudi Arabia are soon to fall, as well as governments in Northern Africa through Spain.
By keeping the 'base' of activists and fighters energized with the hateful underlying message, there was an ability to seemingly compromise on the international scene, when speaking in European capitals and Washington. The mosques never changed their message, nor did most Arab leaders in messages directed towards their people.
2. The Mel Gibson's: These are the traditional anti-semites who felt at the very least shamed from public speech of their internally held beliefs by the holocaust. Giving them a cover for expressing these beliefs without violating the now disallowed open anti-semitism was a key step in getting a very loud and influential majority in the world to support the cause openly and without shame.
3. The liberal left: The conservative right sometimes equates the second group with this group. Sure, there's overlap - but there's also overlap with many conservatives, being that traditionally, group 2 comprises at the very least a sizable portion of the world's population.
The strategy of targetting the liberal left was born out of a realization that progressives are generally intolerant of any perceived injustice, and tend to be effective in acting on it. For that reason, keeping the Palestinians as refugees, exploiting displays of dead babies for maximal media exposure, and pushing pieces about daily suffering from road closures was the vital strategy. Words like 'occupation' were seized upon, betraying their previous usage in Arab propaganda alluding to Jewish occupation of tel-aviv and focusing on the West Bank and Gaza for Western consumption.
The idea was changing the focus of the conflict. I once participated in a workshop that showed a video from one angle. In this video you saw two apparent thugs tackling a woman carrying a purse. You left feeling great anger at these scoundrels for attacking a helpless woman. Then a broader video was shown, allowing the viewer to see a man standing on the roof of the building they were walking next to, about to drop a brick down towards the street where the woman was walking. Rather than being thugs, the two youths were saving the woman. Similarly, you get one viewpoint when the map shown is mighty Israel against the Palestinians, and another viewpoint when you see the massive Middle East [and broader Muslim world beyond] standing against small Israel.
VS.
Making the Palestinian suffering into David against the Israeli Goliath for presentation to a faction responsible for women's rights, worker's rights and the civil rights movement was the crown jewel in diverting the attention of the civilized world from the end-goal of those who do not accept Israel's right to exist.
Not only could the above-stated military advancements be pursued under slogans of resistance and occupation without protest from the world's progressives, but many of the third group began to join the first two groups in questioning Israel's right to exist in the Middle East, or at all (what I believe was an unexpected bonus). I believe that is due to the successful campaign to attach terms like "peace in the Middle East" solely to Israeli-Arab ventures, making it seem to the world's left that anything creating conflict in the Middle East necessarily stemmed from Israel.
By combining the sympathies of the virulent anti-Israeli arabs, the quiet anti-semites and the respectable albeit naive progressives along with a terror war to weaken the resolve of Israelis into accepting lies, the Arabs achieved the only possible coalition capable of one day destroying Israel.
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Israel, meanwhile, has not developed a counter-strategy for how it intends to survive long-term in the Middle East. Every war and peace treaty has been a matter of tactics responding to the situation dictated by the Arab strategy; The 1982 war in Lebanon was a response to the PLO, Oslo a response to the intifadah, Lebanon withdrawal and re-entry a response to Hezbollah. Although Israel achieved several military successes in these conflicts, they have ultimately lost all of them. Arab strategy for destroying Israel does not only factor in Israeli military power, but it was born out of it. As long as Israel continues responding to Arab initiatives to destroy it rather than creating an initiative of survival, readers of sites like this one will continue to turn more and more against her - because that is the ultimate goal of the game they have chosen to be pawns in.
As to the matter of suggesting Israeli strategy, I'll leave that for another day.
This diary is an adaptation of a post of mine at http://loudnoises.info/... .
