Det som skjer i Gaza og Libanon er ikke en fortsettelse av noe vi kjenner fra før. Det er et nytt kapittel, åpningen av islamistenes krig mot Israel. Tidligere var det nasjonalistiske Fatah og PLO. Nå er det jihad-fronten som beveger seg.

Det er samme tanker Yossi Klein er inne på i The New Republic:

The next Middle East war–Israel against genocidal Islamism–has begun. The first stage of the war started two weeks ago, with the Israeli incursion into Gaza in response to the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier and the ongoing shelling of Israeli towns and kibbutzim; now, with Hezbollah’s latest attack, the war has spread to southern Lebanon. Ultimately, though, Israel’s antagonists won’t be Hamas and Hezbollah but their patrons, Iran and Syria. The war will go on for months, perhaps several years. There may be lulls in the fighting, perhaps even temporary agreements and prisoner exchanges. But those periods of calm will be mere respites.

The goals of the war should be the destruction of the Hamas regime and the dismantling of the Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon. Israel cannot coexist with Iranian proxies pressing in on its borders. In particular, allowing Hamas to remain in power–and to run the Palestinian educational system–will mean the end of hopes for Arab-Israeli reconciliation not only in this generation but in the next one too.

Å høre Jens Stoltenberg snakke om at Israel overreagerer er nesten pinlig. Så liten innsikt. I politikken er det noe som heter avskrekking. Et kjent begrep under den kalde krigen. Man må oppføre seg slik at fienden tror man mener hva man sier. For Israel er dette livsviktig.

Ze’ev Schiff i Haaretz:

Israel has no choice but to hold Lebanon responsible for what happens in its borders and for what comes out of it. Lebanon will likely wail as Israel strikes inside its territory and hits its infrastructure, but the Lebanese government must see itself as responsible for what Hezbollah does out of Lebanon. Particularly since Lebanon essentially rejected UN resolution 1559, which called for disarming the militia. Hamas and Hezbollah made the rules of the game with the ongoing rocket fire into Israel and the abduction of Israeli soldiers. If Israel loses in handling this, its strategic and military standing in the region will change and its deterrence of guerrilla warfare and high-trajectory weapons will be undermined.

Stoltenberg er ute av stand til å tenke dialektisk. Olmerts plan for tilbaketrekking forutsetter at internasjonale grenser blir respektert. Den som trekker seg tlbake, må kunne stole på at han ikke blir angrepet. Qassam-rakettene var forspillet. Kidnappingen av Gilad Shalit er den virkelige testen, og Israel må svare.

For the Israeli right, this is the moment of «We told you so.» The fact that the kidnappings and missile attacks have come from southern Lebanon and Gaza–precisely the areas from which Israel has unilaterally withdrawn–is proof, for right-wingers, of the bankruptcy of unilateralism. Yet the right has always misunderstood the meaning of unilateral withdrawal. Those of us who have supported unilateralism didn’t expect a quiet border in return for our withdrawal but simply the creation of a border from which we could more vigorously defend ourselves, with greater domestic consensus and international understanding. The anticipated outcome, then, wasn’t an illusory peace but a more effective way to fight the war. The question wasn’t whether Hamas or Hezbollah would forswear aggression but whether Israel would act with appropriate vigor to their continued aggression.

Paradoksalt, men logisk: Skal Israel kunne trekke seg ut av nye områder, må det være sikker på at fienden ikke misforstår og tror det er svakhet. Derfor må Israel slå tilbake.

Men det hjelper likevel ikke: Genocidal islamisme tenker ikke i de kategoriene i det hele tatt. Det definerer verden ut fra det kreftenes parallellogram som sovjeterne i sin tid trodde på. Hele verden er et slagfelt, og alt inngår i et null-sum-spill. Derfor oppstår de mest fantastiske forestillinger om at sionistene og USA står bak.

Dessverre finnes det politikere i Vesten som spiller i hendene på den globale jihad ved å gå inn for at det skal vises hensyn til muslimer i utenrikspolitikken.

Labor MP John Denhan, chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee said in September 2005, ‘We need to recognize that some foreign policy has now a very direct impact on domestic policy. We may well need to …be prepared to change the emphasis of our foreign policy in order to safeguard our security…It is no exaggeration to say that Israeli policy in the occupied territories is not simply a matter of foreign policy – it is a matter of British domestic security as well.'»

Stoltenbergs ord om at Israels respons er ute av proporsjon, men at regjeringen også fordømmer kidnappingen av israelske soldater, er ikke bare uttrykk for en distansering og fjernhet til begivenhetene. De er først og fremst uttrykk for en selvpåført avmakt, en rådvillhet med hensyn til hvor man står i verden. Israel vet, vi vet det ikke.

ISRAEL’S NEXT WAR HAS BEGUN
Battle Plans
by Yossi Klein Halevi