Palestine: Sir, it's the wrong war!

by Uri Avnery

After the invasion of the Balata refugee camp by a regular brigade of the 
Israeli Defence Force (IDF), the brigade commander appeared on television 
and said that he had expected the Palestinians to fight like tigers, but 
that they behaved like pussycats.

This is a frightening sentence, because it discloses a startling fact: the 
Brigade commander does not understand in what kind of campaign he is 
engaged. He has to be told, with all due respect: "Sir, you are fighting 
the wrong war!"

Clearly, he believes that he is engaged in a conventional war between 
armies. The enemy is supposed to stand up and fight like men, assault 
rifles against tanks and fighter planes.

The commander and all his colleagues, including the Chief-of-Staff and his 
deputy, would be well advised to read a good book about guerilla warfare, 
such as Mao Tse-Tung's treatise, which tells the guerilla fighter: Never 
confront the regular army. When the army attacks, you disappear. When the 
army is not ready, you attack.

For example: The army surrounds Arafat in Ramallah, destroy a Merkava tank 
in Gush Katif. A whole brigade invades Balata; Get out and send a single 
fighter to kill the team of a check-point near Ofrah. A brigade attacks 
Jenin; Get out of their sight and infiltrate Atzmona settlement.

The statement by the brigade commander indicates that the IDF is fighting 
on a front that does not exist, and is not prepared for fighting on the 
front that is there.

Since Chief-of-Staff Mofaz and his senior officers don't even understand 
the nature of this struggle, they are failing. Out of frustration and anger 
they shoot in all directions and commit a small massacre every day, without 
any purpose or chance of success.

Since they were not trained for this kind of struggle and do not understand 
it, they are condemned to commit every possible mistake. One after another, 
they use all the methods that have already failed in Algeria, Kenya, South 
Africa, Vietnam and a dozen of other countries.

They try to starve the inhabitants into submission ("closure"), and 
inadvertently turn them into potential suicide-bombers with nothing to 
lose. They assassinate the chiefs of the fighting groups ("targeted 
prevention"), and clear the way for younger, more efficient and more 
energetic commanders. They kill massively ("you have to strike them") and 
turn the relatives of the victims into avengers.

If this is the way of the generals, the "political echelon", composed of 
pensioned generals, is worse. They imprison Arafat in Ramallah in order to 
prove that he is "irrelevant", and turn him into the most relevant person 
in the entire Middle East.

As a result, all internal criticism of Arafat has ceased. Practically all 
Palestinians admire their President, who is taking part in their lot, 
suffers like them and is risking his life like them.

And beyond that: tens of millions of Arabs, who see rousing reports from 
beleaguered Palestine every hour on al-Jazira TV, compare the courageous 
Palestinian leader to their own rulers, who are now very worried indeed. In 
response they sounded the alarm in Washington and have compelled President 
Bush to do something.

Sharon and Ben-Eliezer declare that if the Palestinians are made to suffer 
more and more, they will eventually surrender and agree to live in several 
Ghettos, as proposed by Sharon.

In practice, the opposite is happening. The more the pressure on them 
mounts, the more their unity grows, their methods of resistance improve and 
their readiness to suffer and not to surrender increases.

Thousands of Palestinians are ready to undertake actions leading to certain 
death, and their number is growing. How many Israelis are ready to go into 
action if there is no chance at all of coming out alive? Palestinians know 
full well that they are fighting for their very existence. Israelis know 
that they are fighting for the settlements and bankrupt politicians.

The Israeli Government cannot win this struggle. After paying a terrible 
price-slaughter and destruction-this will become clear to the public, the 
Government will fall and we shall make peace according to the Saudi Crown 
Prince's excellent proposal.