Author Archives: Martin van Creveld

Old Man, What Next?

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Maath, the Egyptian goddess of Justice

As those who read my autobiography, History and Me, know, I first discovered history in 1956 when I was ten years old. Rummaging in a sack full of books that my parents had put away in a storeroom that served all the neighbors in our building, I came across a volume entitled, Wereld Geschiedenis in een Notedop (Dutch: World History in a Nutshell). Probably published around 1932, it was meant for children about my age and was full of interesting stories as well as illustrations. To provide just two examples, there was the story of France’s Louis XIV. So conceited was he that he maintained a special claque to laugh at his jokes as he told them. And there was a black and white drawing of a monk, Berthold Schwarz, who had invented gunpowder and had his cap blown off for his pains. Almost there and then I decided I wanted to know more. In other words, become a historian; even though I had no idea of what historians actually did.

Ten or so years later I was a student at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem with history as my most important subject (the other was English, but that is a different story). Working under the supervision of teachers like Prof. Shlomo Avineri, a famous political scientist who, aged 100, left us just a few days ago. An expert on Hegel and Marx, Avineri drew our attention to the fact that there is more—much more—to history than simple stories, good or bad, entertaining or otherwise. The shift was gradual and never quite complete. Going on 78 as I do I still like stories: whether by way of illustrating an argument or simply because they are entertaining.

As time went on I came to look at the matter in a different way. History, Hegel and Marx taught, was not just a question of joining stories like beads on a string—once upon a time there was such and such a person or persons who did such and such things. It was, rather, a vast tapestry which, as it was being unrolled, brought to light, in the form of the patterns woven into it, not just events but the laws that governed them. To be sure, the laws in question were not as rigid as those governing the natural sciences. Still they were real enough. Going along with them brought success; trying to resist them, the opposite. Given hard work, lots of patience, and, on occasion, a touch of genius, they could be discovered, observed in action, understood, and, to some extent, used to look into the future. As it happened, rerum cognorscere causas—to know the causes of things—was the motto of the London School of Economics where I later wrote my dissertation.

The cardinal pillar in all this was truth. Absolute or fuzzy, to be of any use the laws that governed the course of history had to be based on truth. Veritas liberabit vos, truth will set you free (St. John). Sine ira et studio, without anger and without flattery (Tacitus) Wie es eigentlich gewesen [ist], as things really happened (Leopold von Ranke). Truthfulness was the cardinal quality by which history, here understood not as the past itself but as the record of the past, was judged. Much more important than style, or poignancy, or entertainment value, and serving as the granite foundation on which everything else was, or ought to be, built.

The theory, or perhaps it was merely an approach, served me well. Partly because I firmly believed it was the only correct one. And partly because it fitted marvelously well into my chosen field of study, i.e military history. In my experience soldiers, kept busy by their superiors, rarely have much use for military history. If they study it, then that is mainly because they are made to—at military academy, at a staff college, and at a war college. However, ignoring the warnings of commanders such as Napoleon and Moltke, and except when it comes to all kinds of odd traditions, few of them really take it to heart. To the extent that they do so they tend to focus on recent history, often the more recent the better. In a fast-changing world where new technologies and techniques succeed each other at breakneck speed, why waste time on a Caesar, or a Napoleon, or even a Pershing? By following the path I did, I made military history relevant for my students and my readers. As one of the former, an American major, wrote, my course just grew on him. The fact that I often used anecdotes to illustrate what I was saying helped.

So things remained for about four decades. Hard-working decades, decades during which I was able to learn a great deal and visit a great many people, universities, militaries and countries, opportunities for which I have always remained grateful. Still the point came when I began to have my doubts. The key development that triggered off everything else, albeit that I got to it much later than many others, was my encounter with the work of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. To put it in a nutshell, he taught that texts—old texts, new texts, and future texts as far as the eye can see—say not just what they say but whatever the reader, on the basis of his/her interests and his/her personality and will, chooses to put into them. Truth, the one thing I had been looking for throughout my professional life, did not exist. Instead there were as many truths as there were readers. Some interesting, others not. Some well written, others not. But none superior to any of the rest.

This was the opposite of what I had always believed. To make things even worse, Derrida and his countless followers effectively obliterated the distinction between history and literature/fiction. Do not misunderstand me: I have always liked reading fiction, as I still do. It can inspire, it can entertain, it can teach. Provided it clearly defines itself and does not deliberately try to mislead and pretend to be something it isn’t, fiction is no less valuable than any other form of intellectual endeavor, including not just history but the hard sciences too. But to present things that did not happen as if they did—no.

Marching hand in hand with deconstructionism, or postmodernism, or whatever people called it, came the revolution in electronic communications. Instead of a handful of TV stations, there were suddenly hundreds if not thousands to choose from. Instead of focusing on relatively nearby events that were most likely to affect the viewer, they connected each of their users with the furthest corners on earth. To say nothing about the social media, which made it possible for anyone to spew his/her own truth, as well as computers which enabled that truth to be stored and transmitted and brought to life on some kind of screen. And altered and manipulated, of course: when Goebbels claimed that “pictures do not lie,” that itself was the greatest lie of all.

Worse still, many of these things themselves are done in the name of truth. Whether or not that was the case, truth was stifled, drowned, and overwhelmed until it expired by a thousand cuts. To the point where, among the young in particular, many simply gave up. This left me hanging between two cliffs. On one side was the kind of history I had admired, studied and done my best to write during most of my life. On the other, my belief in the factor that used to both justify and underpin this kind of history, namely truth. That belief has now been shattered. Not only because, compared to the vast number of questions that remain to be studied and answered, my efforts had been puny—of course they had been. But because truth does not exist in the first place.

Old man, what next?

Not for the IDF Alone

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Ever since the first day of the current Israeli-Palestinian war on 7 October 2023, Israel’s media have been bristling with stories about heroic Israeli (not Palestinian, needless to say) women. How they received their mobilization orders just as men did. How they took their leave of home and hearth (including, in some cases, their children) just as men did. How they donned uniform, took up their weapons, and went out to fight just as men did. How some of them were killed just as men were. Here I want to say, loud and clear: almost all of it is nonsense. Nonsense in tomato juice, as we Israelis like to say. Nonsense of the kind that, in the long run, will do the IDF incalculable harm.

First, the nonsense. As of the time I am writing this at the end of November 2023, Israel’s mobilized armed forces number about 550,000 uniformed personnel, up from 180,000 in “ordinary” times. Of the latter figure between 25 and 30 percent are women. How many women have been called up and are currently on active service the IDF does not say. However, its official casualty list (in Hebrew) is available here. It shows that, as of 21 November, 392 IDF soldiers had lost their lives. Of those 40, or one in eight, were female.

At first sight one in eight does not appear totally unreasonable, given that most of the troops on active service are reservists and that far fewer female reservists than male ones were called up. However, pay attention to the following. The male casualties on the list are distributed over a period of 35 days. Not so the female ones, all but one of whom lost their lives during the first day of the war. Poor girls; serving as outlooks, insufficiently trained in the use of the infantry weapons with which they had been issued, unsupported either on the ground or from the air, they were in no position either to escape or to fight off Hamas’ surprise attack. Expiring as Odysseus’ maids did (Odyssey XXII 468-73):

[Like birds], with nooses around their necks

that they might die most piteously.

And they writhed a little while with their feet

but not for long.

Shame on you, IDF, for allowing such things to happen. And shame on you, penis-envy driven feminist fiends, for misleading your credulous women followers and pushing them in that direction! The much lower number killed since then suggests that, whatever female soldiers may have been doing from 8 October on, they hardly took part in any serious fighting. Case closed.

Second, the long term harm. It is a truism, observable throughout history and in practically every human field, institution or organization, that wherever women make their entry men leave. So in the case of cashiers, so in that of pharmacists, and so in that of psychologists among many others. In part they do so by default: no two persons can occupy a chair designed for one. But there is more to it than that. To quote Frederick the Great, a commander who knew a thing or two about fighting spirit, the one thing that can make men march into the muzzles of the cannons trained at them is honor. Specifically, I add, male honor, the kind more or less reserved for men that makes them attractive for women. Conversely, for a man to do a woman’s work is not an honor. It is humiliation. Think of Heracles who, at one point in his career, was punished by being made to dress as a woman and acting as a handmaid to the mythical Queen Omphale. Omphale, incidentally, reads like the female form of “navel,” but I’ll let that pass.

A man who competes with (or fights against) a woman and loses, loses. A man who competes with (or fights against) a woman and wins also loses; killing a woman may be profitable, but it is rarely considered honorable. Finding themselves in a lose/lose situation, no wonder many men prefer to withdraw. Supposing only the process goes on long enough, the military will end up by being left with hardly any men worthy of the name at all.

Nor does this warning refer to the IDF alone.

Lest the Pattern be Repeated

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To anyone who has been following the conflict in Gaza so far, the gap between the opposing forces is astonishing. So much so, indeed, that almost the only way to describe it is by using superlatives. On one hand we see what can only be described as a juggernaut. One armed with the most modern, most powerful weapons and weapon systems in the world today; including artillery barrels, armored personnel carriers, and tanks (the latest Israeli tank, known as Merkava IV, is literally the heaviest, best-protected, in the world today); and covered from the air by what is widely believed to be the best air force in the world today. All defended from above by the most advanced anti-missile systems in the world today; all preceded by huge bulldozers fully capable of reducing anything in front of them to rubble; and all linked by inconceivably complicated, if largely hidden, networks of computers and communications produced by one of the digitally most advanced societies in the world today.

Now look at the other side. Men (not women, incidentally), many of them dressed not in uniform but in ordinary civilian clothes. Some wear steel helmets, but most do not. Some drive vehicles such as the famed Toyota Highlanders, but most must go on foot; given the extent of Israel’s technological and numerical superiority, as well as its command of the air, catching a ride in Gaza is bad for one’s health and can easily become deadly. Small crews of missile-launchers apart, very few Hamasniks—that is what Israelis call them—possess heavy weapons of any kind. The weapons they do possess consist mainly of assault rifles, hand grenades, anti-tank rockets and missiles, mines, and booby traps.

Nor is it a question of technological superiority alone. On one hand there stands a regular, well organized and well trained army counting almost 600,000 mobilized men and women; on the other, a semi-clandestine organization numbering, as far as anyone can make out, a few tens of thousands fighters. On one hand a state which, though small in size, surrounds its enemy on three sides. On the other, a heavily populated piece of land just 41 kilometers long and nowhere more than 12 kilometers wide—a distance that, given a little determination and a little drive, can easily be covered in half an hour.

To repeat, the gap between the opposing forces, the result of years of work during which each side prepared as best he could, can only be called astonishing. Such being the case, how to explain the fact that, after more than a month of ferocious fighting, the side with all the advantages had still not managed to decisively defeat the other?

Follows a very short review of some of the factors involved:

Surprise. Surprise, by confusing the opponent and degrading his ability to react, has always played a prominent part in war. Never more so than in this case when even Israel’s vaunted air force taken unawares, needed hours and hours before it finally got its aircraft to the point where they started fighting back. Indeed it could be argued that, by sounding the alarm and alerting all sides to the dangers that the Israeli-Palestinian impasse poses to world peace, Hamas’ offensive had achieved its main objective almost as soon as it got under way.

War on several fronts. Throughout the month-long war, in- and out of Israel, both participants and observers have focused their attention almost exclusively on the Gaza Strip. That is understandable, but it does not change the fact that Israel was fighting on several fronts. Including its border with Lebanon, and including some Houthi missiles coming from as far as Yemen a thousand or so miles to the south. Other IDF forces had to be kept in readiness lest the Palestinians in the West Bank—to the extent that they were able—as well as Syria, Jordan, and Iran join in the battle. Now Israel, owing to its small size, has always been lacking in strategic depth; like Germany (West) during the Cold War, but to a much greater degree, it simply does not have territory it can afford to give up. Willy nilly a cardinal principle of war, namely the concentration of forces, had to be violated.

Urban warfare. The Gaza strip is home to an estimated 2,300,000 people—in truth, no one knows. It is one of the most heavily urbanized regions on earth, second only to places such as Hong Kong and Singapore. As the recent months-long battle for Bakhmut, in Ukraine, has shown once again, urban terrain presents the defender with many advantages. Including the ability to fight not in two dimensions but in three—witness the 300-mile long network of underground corridors Hamas has constructed. And including also the practically unlimited opportunity to find cover. Conversely, the maze of streets and alleys limits the attacker’s ability to maneuver as well as bring up supplies and reinforcements on one hand and evacuate his wounded on the other. Fought at extremely close range among every kind of obstacle, such warfare can also rob an attacker of at least some of any technological advantages he may possess.

The war’s asymmetric character. Here is a story told of American Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara early in the Vietnam War. Asked why the US Air Force did not knock out North Vietnam’s electricity network, he explained that the entire network in question was smaller than that of Alexandria, VA, a suburb of Washington, DC. As such it had been knocked out several times already, to no visible effect either on urban terrorism or on guerrilla operations in the countryside. Ere the current war got under way Gaza’s per capita GDP only amounted to just 7 percent of that of Israel.  Calculated in terms of per capita consumption of electricity, the difference is larger still. In other words, the reason why the Palestinians, like so many others before them since at least 1945, are able to hold out and even emerge victorious is because they have nothing to lose.

The need to minimize casualties. Taking 1948 as the starting point Israel’s Jewish population has grown tenfold, far more than that of any other developed country. Still it is a small and intimate society; as anyone who visits these days will soon notice, people are extremely reluctant to suffering casualties.

Finally, international pressure. Strangely enough, Israel is the world’s only country that is not permitted to win its wars. Time upon time—in 1948 (the war of independence), in 1956 (the Suez campaign), in 1967 (when the US prohibited it from crossing the Jordan River to the east) and in 1973 (when it had to ab abandon its hold on the encircled Egyptian Third Army as well as some of the land it had conquered) international pressure forced it to relinquish some of the fruits of its victories. With the exception of the 1973 War, which later led to peace with Egypt, in each case the outcome was to enable Israel’s enemies to rearm and steer their way to another war.

In seeking a way to finally put an end to the conflict, let the world take care lest the pattern be repeated.

He Knew What He Was Talking About

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From the media:

“The European continent is in danger if Israel fails in its war against Iran and its proxies, including Hamas,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Monday, as he attempted to place the Gaza war within the global context of the battle for Western civilization. “What we see is a broader battle between civilization and barbarism,” Netanyahu told a group of 80 foreign envoys as he continued his stiff diplomatic battle for international backing for the IDF’s military campaign in Gaza to oust Hamas. Netanyahu has been under international pressure to allow for some form of a humanitarian pause in the fighting to allow for increased aid to reach Gaza through the Egyptian crossing at Rafah.”

Whether or not he was aware of the fact, Netanyahu, in taking this line, has at least one predecessor who was much more illustrious than he. Guess who wrote the following lines, when, and against what background: 

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”

As recent events seem to show, science may no longer be enough. To save the West, more may be required. At the time he wrote the above in 1899 the author, a British subaltern, was 25 years old. He also worked as a journalist in the hope of making a name for himself. Assisted by his socialite mother who was said to have used her charms to help him along, he hopped from one colonial campaign to the next, greatly enjoying himself all the while. Twice he fought against Islam. First in the border area between what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan, then in the Sudan where he witnessed the tribesmen’s fanatical courage in front of the newly introduced Maxim guns. Each time the outcome was a book as well as a series of lectures illustrated by magic lantern and delivered throughout Britain.

His name was Winston Churchill, and he knew what he was talking about.

You Are Right, He Said

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As a fairly well known Israeli historian, I’ve visited some thirty-five different countries around the world and spent a not inconsiderable part of my life abroad. It may have been luck, it may have been naiveté; it may have been the fact that my last visit (to Germany) took place as long as three months ago. But never in all those years did I encounter antisemitism. At any rate not of the overt kind that is deliberately and unapologetically thrown into your face. Wherever we went my wife and I made gentile friends. Good friends.

More than once in Western Europe in particular we got into a conversation with people of Arabic nationality. Without exception, they asked my wife and me where we were from. Without exception, they were polite and welcoming. One, a kiosk owner in Metz, eastern France, told us how wonderful it was to meet Israelis in his nice, but remote and oh-so boring, town. Another, a young man from East Jerusalem who was studying medical technology in Berlin and working for Ikea to earn some money, went out of his way to get us a free meal ticket at the shop restaurant. The least pleasant encounter was one I had with a Palestinian taxi driver in Copenhagen. He gave me to understand, repeatedly, that he and his people would never-ever give up “their” right to “their” country. Yet even so we found common ground in denouncing those holier-than-thou Danes.

Still I want to tell you a story. Just one trivial story with no consequences and presumably long forgotten by everyone except myself. Yet one that, in view of recent events here in Israel, seems more relevant than ever. It took place back in the summer of 1981 when I was on sabbatical and living near Freiburg in southwestern Germany. One day my daughter, nine years old, needed her ear to be operated on. I fell into a conversation with the surgeon, Dr. Kuhn of the local university clinic.

These were the days immediately following the attack in which the Israeli Air Force demolished Iraq’s nuclear reactor, then under construction. The good doctor asked me why I was staying in Israel. So much trouble, he said; so many wars. Strange question, that, coming from a German! But that was not what I said. Instead I told him the story of the Jewish swine. Suppose, I said, I had the same operation done in Israel and then refused to pay my bill. In that case people would have called me a swine. However, had I done the same anywhere else, they would have called me a Jewish swine.

“You are right” he said.

Pilar Rahola Speaks: Jews with Six Arms

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by Pilar Rahola

Why do so many intelligent people, when talking about Israel, suddenly become idiots?

This speech was given December 16, 2009 at the Conference in the Global forum for Combating Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem. Pilar Rahola is a Spanish Catalan journalist, writer, and former politician and Member of Parliament, and member of the far left.

A meeting in Barcelona with a hundred lawyers and judges a month ago.

They have come together to hear my opinions on the Middle-Eastern conflict. They know that I am a heterodoxal vessel, in the shipwreck of “single thinking” regarding Israel, which rules in my country. They want to listen to me, because they ask themselves why, if Pilar is a serious journalist, does she risk losing her credibility by defending the bad guys, the guilty? I answer provocatively – You all believe that you are experts in international politics when you talk about Israel, but you really know nothing. Would you dare talk about the conflict in Rwanda, in Kashmir? In Chechnya? – No.

Cultured people, when they read about Israel, are ready to believe that Jews have six arms.

They are jurists, their turf is not geopolitics. But against Israel they dare, as does everybody else. Why? Because Israel is permanently under the media magnifying glass and the distorted image pollutes the world’s brains. And because it is part of what is politically correct, it seems part of solidarity, because talking against Israel is free. So cultured people, when they read about Israel, are ready to believe that Jews have six arms, in the same way that during the Middle Ages people believed all sorts of outrageous things.

Bottom of Form

The first question, then, is why so many intelligent people, when talking about Israel, suddenly become idiots. The problem that those of us who do not demonize Israel have, is that there exists no debate on the conflict. All that exists is the banner; there’s no exchange of ideas. We throw slogans at each other; we don’t have serious information, we suffer from the “burger journalism” syndrome, full of prejudices, propaganda and simplification. Intellectual thinkers and international journalists have given up on Israel. It doesn’t exist. That is why, when someone tries to go beyond the “single thought” of criticizing Israel, he becomes suspect and unfaithful, and is immediately segregated. Why?

I’ve been trying to answer this question for years: why?

Why, of all the conflicts in the world, only this one interests them?

Why is a tiny country which struggles to survive criminalized?

Why does manipulated information triumph so easily?

Why are all the people of Israel, reduced to a simple mass of murderous imperialists?

Why is there no Palestinian guilt?

Why is Arafat a hero and Sharon a monster?

Finally, why when Israel is the only country in the World which is threatened with extinction, it is also the only one that nobody considers a victim?

I don’t believe that there is a single answer to these questions. Just as it is impossible to completely explain the historical evil of anti-Semitism, it is also not possible to totally explain the present-day imbecility of anti-Israelism. Both drink from the fountain of intolerance and lies. Also, if we accept that anti-Israelism is the new form of anti-Semitism, we conclude that circumstances may have changed, but the deepest myths, both of the Medieval Christian anti-Semitism and of the modern political anti-Semitism, are still intact. Those myths are part of the chronicle of Israel.

For example, the Medieval Jew accused of killing Christian children to drink their blood connects directly with the Israeli Jew who kills Palestinian children to steal their land. Always they are innocent children and dark Jews. Similarly, the Jewish bankers who wanted to dominate the world through the European banks, according to the myth of the Protocols, connect directly with the idea that the Wall Street Jews want to dominate the World through the White House. Control of the Press, control of Finances, the Universal Conspiracy, all that which has created the historical hatred against the Jews, is found today in hatred of the Israelis. In the subconscious, then, beats the DNA of the Western anti-Semite, which produces an efficient cultural medium.

But what beats in the conscious? Why does a renewed intolerance surge with such virulence, centered now, not against the Jewish people, but against the Jewish state? From my point of view, this has historical and geopolitical motives, among others, the decades long bloody Soviet role, the European Anti-Americanism, the West’s energy dependency and the growing Islamist phenomenon.

But it also emerges from a set of defeats which we suffer as free societies, leading to a strong ethical relativism.

The moral defeat of the left. For decades, the left raised the flag of freedom wherever there was injustice. It was the depositary of the utopian hopes of society. It was the great builder of the future. Despite the murderous evil of Stalinism’s sinking these utopias, the left has preserved intact its aura of struggle, and still pretends to point out good and evil in the world. Even those who would never vote for leftist options, grant great prestige to leftist intellectuals, and allow them to be the ones who monopolize the concept of solidarity. As they have always done. Thus, those who struggled against Pinochet were freedom-fighters, but Castro’s victims, are expelled from the heroes’ paradise, and converted into undercover fascists.

This historic treason to freedom is reproduced nowadays, with mathematical precision. For example, the leaders of Hezbollah are considered resistance heroes, while pacifists like the Israeli singer Noa, are insulted in the streets of Barcelona. Today too, as yesterday, the left is hawking totalitarian ideologies, falls in love with dictators and, in its offensive against Israel, ignores the destruction of fundamental rights. It hates rabbis, but falls in love with imams; shouts against the Israeli Defense Forces, but applauds Hamas’s terrorists; weeps for the Palestinian victims, but scorns the Jewish victims, and when it is touched by Palestinian children, it does it only if it can blame the Israelis.

It will never denounce the culture of hatred, or its preparation for murder. A year ago, at the AIPAC conference in Washington I asked the following questions:

Why don’t we see demonstrations in Europe against the Islamic dictatorships?

Why are there no demonstrations against the enslavement of millions of Muslim women?

Why are there no declarations against the use of bomb-carrying children in the conflicts in which Islam is involved?

Why is the left only obsessed with fighting against two of the most solid democracies of the planet, those which have suffered the bloodiest terrorist attacks, the United States and Israel?

Because the left no longer has any ideas, only slogans. It no longer defends rights, but prejudices. And the greatest prejudice of all is the one aimed against Israel. I accuse, then, in a formal manner that the main responsibility for the new anti-Semitic hatred disguised as anti-Zionism, comes from those who should have been there to defend freedom, solidarity and progress. Far from it, they defend despots, forget their victims and remain silent before medieval ideologies which aim at the destruction of free societies. The treason of the left is an authentic treason against modernity.

Israel is the world’s most watched place, but despite that, it is the world’s least understood place.

Defeat of Journalism. We have more information in the world than ever before, but we do not have a better informed world. Quite the contrary, the information superhighway connects us anywhere in the planet, but it does not connect us with the truth. Today’s journalists do not need maps, since they have Google Earth, they do not need to know History, since they have Wikipedia. The historical journalists, who knew the roots of a conflict, still exist, but they are an endangered species, devoured by that “fast food” journalism which offers hamburger news, to readers who want fast-food information. Israel is the world’s most watched place, but despite that, it is the world’s least understood place. Of course one must keep in mind the pressure of the great petrodollar lobbies, whose influence upon journalism is subtle but deep. Mass media knows that if it speaks against Israel, it will have no problems. But what would happen if it criticized an Islamic country? Without doubt, it would complicate its existence. Certainly part of the press that writes against Israel, would see themselves mirrored in Mark Twain’s ironical sentence: “Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”

Defeat of critical thinking. To all this one must add the ethical relativism which defines the present times: it is based not on denying the values of civilization, but rather in their most extreme banality. What is modernity?

I explain it with this little tale: If I were lost in an uncharted island, and would want to found a democratic society, I would only need three written documents: The Ten Commandments (which established the first code of modernity. “Thou shalt not murder” founded modern civilization.); The Roman Penal Code; and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And with these three texts we would start again. These principles are relativized daily, even by those who claim to be defending them.

“Thou shalt not murder” … depending on who is the target, must think those who, like the demonstrators in Europe, shouted in support of Hamas.

“Hurray for Freedom of Speech!”…, or not. For example, several Spanish left-wing organizations tried to take me to court, accusing me of being a negationist, like the Nazis, because I deny the “Palestinian Holocaust”. They were attempting to prohibit me from writing articles and to send me to prison. And so on… The social critical mass has lost weight and, at the same time ideological dogmatism has gained weight. In this double turn of events, the strong values of modernity have been substituted by a “weak thinking,” vulnerable to manipulation and Manichaeism.

Defeat of the United Nations. And with it, a sound defeat of the international organizations which should protect Human Rights. Instead they have become broken puppets in the hands of despots. The United Nations is only useful to Islamofascists like Ahmadinejad, or dangerous demagogues like Hugo Chavez which offers them a planetary loudspeaker where they can spit their hatred. And, of course, to systematically attack Israel. The UN, too exists to fight Israel.

Finally, defeat of Islam. Tolerant and cultural Islam suffers today the violent attack of a totalitarian virus which tries to stop its ethical development. This virus uses the name of God to perpetrate the most terrible horrors: lapidate women, enslave them, use youths as human bombs. Let’s not forget: They kill us with cellular phones connected to the Middle Ages. If Stalinism destroyed the left, and Nazism destroyed Europe, Islamic fundamentalism is destroying Islam. And it also has an anti-Semitic DNA. Perhaps Islamic anti-Semitism is the most serious intolerant phenomenon of our times; indeed, it contaminates more than 1,400 million people, who are educated, massively, in hatred towards the Jew.

The Jews are the thermometer of the world’s health. Whenever the world has had totalitarian fever, they have suffered.

In the crossroads of these defeats, is Israel. Orphan and forgotten by a reasonable left, orphan and abandoned by serious journalism, orphan and rejected by a decent UN, and rejected by a tolerant Islam, Israel suffers the paradigm of the 21st Century: the lack of a solid commitment with the values of liberty. Nothing seems strange. Jewish culture represents, as no other does, the metaphor of a concept of civilization which suffers today attacks on all flanks. The Jews are the thermometer of the world’s health. Whenever the world has had totalitarian fever, they have suffered. In the Spanish Middle Ages, in Christian persecutions, in Russian pogroms, in European Fascism, in Islamic fundamentalism. Always, the first enemy of totalitarianism has been the Jew. And, in these times of energy dependency and social uncertainty, Israel embodies, in its own flesh, the eternal Jew.

A pariah nation among nations, for a pariah people among peoples. That is why the anti-Semitism of the 21st Century has dressed itself with the efficient disguise of anti-Israelism, or its synonym, anti-Zionism. Is all criticism of Israel anti-Semitism? NO. But all present-day anti-Semitism has turned into prejudice and the demonization of the Jewish State. New clothes for an old hatred.

Benjamin Franklin said: “Where liberty is, there is my country.” And Albert Einstein added: “The World is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” This is the double commitment, here and now; never remain inactive in front of evil in action and defend the countries of liberty.

Thank you.

May It Do the Same for You

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As you may well imagine, over the last couple of weeks writing my posts has become more and more difficult. I spend hours in front of the computer, trying to find topics fit to be explored or elaborated. Such as, amidst the cannons’ roar (or rather, since I live about 60 miles from the Gaza Strip, the sirens’ occasional wail or the near-constant noise of Israeli fighters flying overhead), still seem worth of being bothered with. Such as will not be too repetitive. And such as, in these difficult times, will not make “the daughters of the Philistines rejoice,” as the Old Testament puts it. So far, without success. So, I’ve decided to throw in the towel, at least for this week. I am going to upload one image. Downloaded from the Net, of course. One that, amidst all the misery and anxiety, caught my attention and made me smile. May it do the same for you.

Note: Just why the image caught my attention and made me smile at this time I do not know. I have only visited Death Valley once and did not stay long enough to really appreciate its marvels. Still I saw more of it than most people or even, I daresay, most Americans. This was in late 1998 and there was not a drop of water for miles and miles around. My strongest impression in fact, was the taste of salt and borax that refused to leave my mouth for hours after leaving the district. The image, like so many other good things, came to me by accident. It shows the lake after a recent storm, said to have brought down more rain in a day than is usually the case in an entire year.

 

This is WAR!

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As anyone who has gone through it knows, war is the domain of confusion. Some people don’t see the enemy when and where he is there (this is what happened to us in Israel). Others “see” him when and where he is not. Everyone’s nerves are on edge, causing them to behave somewhat strangely and often making measured, coherent communication all but impossible. Rumors, censorship, disinformation and plain deception abound. Obstructed by censorship, clearing up the confusion so as to get a proper picture of what is happening can take weeks, months, years, or even decades. Indeed the more evidence emerges, the greater often the difficulty of shifting through it all and making sense of it all. 

Yet man is the explaining animal. His huge forebrain means that he cannot exist without some kind of scaffolding to explain what has happened, why it happened, and what is likely to happen next. Absent a real explanation, he will first invent an unreal one and then, by repeating it, convince himself that it is true. Still, at the risk that everything I say will quickly be disproved, I shall try to pose some questions I have been asked and my answers to them.

Hamas took Israeli military intelligence, supposedly the world’s best, totally by surprise. How could this have happened?

It is as Nietzsche says: A great victory makes the winner stupid and the loser, malicious.

Can you explain?

Yes. It seems to have been a question of mirror-imaging. The confrontation with Hamas has now lasted for about twenty years. The IDF being greatly superior to Hamas, every clash ended in some sort of victory for Israel (or so at least the government and general staff, mindful of public relations, said). As “victories” piled up on top of each other, Israel’s confidence that it could handle this kind of attack grew. Just days before the sky came down on 7 October military intelligence was telling “the political echelon” (as we say here) that Hamas was being “deterred” and wanted nothing other than quiet. Punctuated, perhaps, by a few pinpricks to show it still existed and had something to say.

Today is Wednesday, the 17th of October and the twelfth day of the war. What is the situation now?

As far as I can see, the worst for Israel is over. The country has been put on a war footing, complete with the evacuation of many settlements bordering on the Gaza Strip. The reserves, 300,000 of them, have been called up and are deploying for action. Above all, the element of surprise is gone.

Obviously the first task is to make sure that no more terrorists remain at large inside Israel, a slow and, in terms of the necessary manpower needed to search every stone, expensive process. In the meantime, no doubt Israel’s airpower will continue bombing the hell out of Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip. In fact I can hear the jets flying in the skies above.

How did the destruction of al-Ahli hospital in Gaza affect the course of the war?

We—meaning, man (and woman)—have a strong tendency to always pounce on the latest events as the most important ones of all. After the attack on the hospital took place Hamas was quick to blame Israel, making the latter’s enemies leap for joy and causing Israelis to fear for the international support their country so urgently needs. Once it turned out that it was a rocket fired by the Islamic Jihad which did the damage and killed people things returned more or less to “normal.” Meaning, both sides stick to their strategy. Hamas in sending rockets into Israel in the hope of killing and injuring as many people as possible. And the Israeli military, in trying to “get” as many terrorists as possible so as make them stop doing so.

President Biden visited Israel and stayed for about five hours. What has he achieved?

The original objective of the visit was to a. Demonstrate American support for Israel; b. Help enlist humanitarian assistance the residents of Gaza; c. Bring together Palestinian, Jordanian, and Egyptian leaders in the hope of finding some kind of solution to the crisis. The first and second of these objective may have been achieved, at least to some extent. As to the third, no progress at all.   

Will there be a full-scale Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip?

I hope not. The Strip is one of the most heavily populated and urbanized pieces of land in the world. If that were not enough, the population is among the youngest—fully half of it is under nineteen years old. In countless cases, a combination of unemployment and chronic shortages mean that these people have nothing to lose, increasing their hatred for Israel and turning them into easy targets for Hamas recruiters.

As the World War II sieges of Leningrad and Stalingrad e.g showed, urban terrain, provided it is properly defended, can present an attacker with formidable problems. The deeper into it he wades, the greater his problems. Such as getting in supplies and reinforcements, ambushes, evacuating the wounded, etc.

How about Hezbollah in Lebanon? Will it join the fray, or will it stay out?

Very difficult to say. Hezbollah is a secretive organization and notoriously hard to penetrate. So far its leaders have been almost rabid in their declarations of support for Hamas; over the last few daysת their attacks on Israel have been increasing. They seem to be testing the waters—a dangerous game that may escalate שא any moment.

Syria and Iran?

Following twelve years of more or less intensive civil war, Syria hardly has any armed forces worth mentioning. Those it does have are busy fighting their domestic enemies. The Iranians provided political and logistic support and may have helped Hamas in planning the attack. Currently they are making all kinds threatening noises. However, and perhaps because they worry about a possible American threat and/or nuclear escalation, they seem to have done little to turn them into reality.

The rest of the Arab world?

The war presents the Arab governments with a dilemma. On one hand, ere hostilities started more and more of them were either signing peace with Israel or inching towards doing so. On the other hand, many have been feeling the pressure of their peoples which are less inclined to peace than their governments are. Should hostilities in and around Gaza continue, one may certainly expect negative political repercussions including, in cases where this is relevant, the breaking off of diplomatic relations. But war? Only in case Israel aces imminent collapse.

The international “system”?

Many countries are involved. Including, besides Lebanon, Syria and Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Russia, China, and the EU. The United States has promised to stand by Israel. However, the record—Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan (twice)—makes this promise look somewhat dubious. Russia/China are in league with Iran, but fortunately there are limits to what they can do. And the EU? Being Dutch, I shall use a Dutch expression to describe them: klootzakken (scrotums).  Hopeless cowards who can only talk.

Do you think this may be the beginning of a third world war?

I consider that a remote possibility. But yes, it could be. 

Returning to Israel and Hamas, who is going to win?

Victory means breaking the enemy’s will so that he ceases to resist. At the moment I cannot see this happening on either side; either they are too eager trying to exploit success (Hamas) or too busy licking their wounds and restoring the balance (Israel). Such being the case, Voltaire’s saying about the imaginary battle between Avars and Bulgars will apply. Both will sing mass, each in his own camp.

What can this struggle teach us about the future of war?

In my best-known book, The Transformation of War (1991) I argued that the future of war was guerrilla and terrorism. This prediction seems to be coming true, isn’t it?

In a rapidly changing world, each time s war breaks out the media are flooded with accounts of the technological marvels it has spawned. That is understandable; taking a longer point of view, though, one could argue that the most important lesson is that war still remains war. Includes its nature as a violent encounter between two (or more) belligerents, each of whom is at least partly free to do as he pleases; the enormous challenges, physical and mental, it poses to those who direct it and fight it; its roots in interest on one hand and sheer hatred on the other; its tendency to call out the most brutal  qualities of man and make them spread; its tendency to escalate and, doing so, escape not just political control but any kind of rational calculation; the role played by stealth, deception and surprise; its dependence on the social makeup of the societies that wage it; and many other things which, together, do as much as in shaping it as any number of computers, missiles and drones.

Day in Autumn

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To my readers: as you may imagine, Israel’s current war with Hamas has resulted in my receiving any number of requests for articles and interviews, many of which I had to reject or leave unanswered. Feeling overwhelmed and needing a break, I decided to focus on the following poem, the most beautiful on the topic I could find. The picture shows the Judean Hills, not far from where I live and where I went running hundreds of times.

 

Enjoy.

 

 

Day in Autumn

By

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

Translated by

Mary Kinzie

 

After the summer’s yield, Lord, it is time

to let your shadow lengthen on the sundials

and in the pastures let the rough winds fly.

As for the final fruits, coax them to roundness.

Direct on them two days of warmer light

to hale them golden toward their term, and harry

the last few drops of sweetness through the wine.

Whoever’s homeless now, will build no shelter;

who lives alone will live indefinitely so,

waking up to read a little, draft long letters,   

and, along the city’s avenues,

fitfully wander, when the wild leaves loosen.

Friction

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Imagine a number of families—say, ten of them. Some with children and the elderly, some without. Living in the same town, they decide to spend a day together. Fun for the kids, relief for the adults who will not have to ensure that their offspring get bored. Meeting point is at 1100 hours, at place X where there is good parking. From there they plan to drive fifty miles to the beach, arriving at 1200. What could be simpler? But no. Family A finds that the GPS of their car (old and somewhat battered) refuses to work and so informs the rest (some get the message, some don’t). Family B cannot leave their home before grandfather, who is a widower and had lost his false teeth, finds the other set he owns.

Everyone does/do their best to be on time, but not all succeed. All around, children quarrel or must faire pipi, causing a delay. Either they are looked after, or there is going to be an even longer one. Messages—this, after all, is the age of WhatsApp—are passed from one group member to another, causing confusion all around. Exactly where is that left turn you have been talking about? Some arrive, but some do not. Some messages are correctly understood, some not. Assuming every family contacts every other just once, there are going to be 90 of them in all. In practice the number is likely to be considerably larger.

This is friction. Few of us have not experienced it more or less often; the larger the number of those involved, the worse thing are likely to be. Friction in ordinary life can be bad enough, causing the best-laid plans to go awry. Friction in war is two, ten or twenty times worse, at times to the point where it decides the fate (as Napoleon said) of crowns dynasties, and empires. In mid-June 1815 his communications with Field Marshal Grouchy failed. As a result, Grouchy’s corps spent the 18th marching to and fro and, doing so, missed the battle of Waterloo much in the same way as General Stuart’s cavalry did at Gettysburg forty-eight years later. In both cases, and in spite of historians’ attempts to unravel it, the exact chain of cause and effect remains obscure. But certainly friction had everything to do with it.

Two main reasons explain why friction is so much greater in war than in peace. The first is the extraordinary demands war makes both on the spirit and, often enough, the physique of those who engage on it. In these respects, the only equivalent is some natural disaster such as an earthquake or a flood. But even such events tend to be over in minutes or hours. Either you die at once, as the citizens of Pompeii did, or the danger recedes. Seldom does it last for weeks or months, let alone, years; people either adjust or move.

To repeat, war decides the fate of crowns, dynasties and empires. The burden of responsibility is crushing and can easily cause those who bear it to go off the rails. As happened, for example, during the last days of World War I when the de facto chief of the German general staff, General Erich Ludendorff, told the Kaiser that defeat was staring the country in the face and that the army could not wait “even 48 hours” for a ceasefire to be arranged. Yet Ludendorff at the time was comfortably ensconced in his headquarters way out of reach form the front. Those further down the hierarchy were often not so lucky.

The second reason why friction tends to be so much greater in war than in peace is that we are fighting an enemy who is deliberately doing whatever he can to increase it. Too often, with success.  The first step is to try to divine what the enemy is expecting and then do the opposite. When you are strong, confuse the enemy by pretending to be weak. When you are weak, confuse him by pretending to be strong. But take care; such measures always come at a price. Troops sent on a diversion will not be available for your main thrust. The least- defended approach is often the most difficult one to take, and vice versa. Worse still, he who tries to confuse the opponent may very well end up by becoming confused himself. As, it is said, not seldom happens in espionage etc.

The measures needed to guard against friction are often well understood. Good intelligence, especially of the kind that succeeds in putting you in the enemy’s shoes and, by doing so, anticipate his moves. Good organization, good discipline, good training, good security. Good communications, including redundant ones in case some are lost. Superior communications-technology with an emphasis on reliability, ease of use, and secrecy. Such measures can and often do mitigate friction. They cannot, however, eliminate it. Nor is there any reason to think that there was less of it in the highly disciplined Roman legions than in today’s most advanced armies.

So it has been in the past. And so, regardless of the tsunami of wonderful new weapons about which are told almost day by day, it will remain in the future too.