By Amin Hewedy * Since Israel's establishment, security has been its perennial concern. It is no wonder, therefore, that every Israeli high official, from Ben Gurion to Moshe Dayan and Yigal Allon, has had his own theory on how to guarantee this security. Israel has successfully placed itself in an absurd position. Having imposed itself in an antagonistic environment, Israel, which enjoys relative security as a state, harbours a collection of individuals who are a scared and insecure lot. Their crimes haunt them night and day. Netanyahu is as scared and insecure as any other Israeli. He is primarily an Ashkenazi, terrified of the present and the future alike. His fears have prevented him from making new commitments, let alone honouring agreements signed by a previous government, a situation quite unprecedented in international relations. His hesitation, ambivalence and inability to take a single step forward have lost him the confidence of the world community. But his intransigence, arrogance and extremism are only a cover for his own personal insecurity and fear -- feelings he shares with his people. Seeking to secure the state against external threats and internal contradictions is itself a commendable approach for any head of government to adopt; but is the objective to attain security for one country at the expense of the others, or mutual security for all? Can turbulent, unstable security be sustainable for the region? Do we seek a peace established on the obfuscation of contradictions and differences, or a workable peace in which countries settle their differences peacefully, through a recognised, accepted mechanism for conflict resolution? Do we want a genuine peace based on a balance of interests, or an ostensible peace which depends on a balance of power? The Israeli prime minister is confused because he cannot find answers to these questions. Failing to heed the strategic, technological, social and economic changes which have taken place at the global, regional and national levels, he has strayed onto the wrong path, and can no longer find his way. Since its creation, Israel's major strategy has been the militarisation of the state. All resources are mobilised to serve the army: its defence strategy is designed as one long offensive, intended to carry the battlefield beyond its long and vulnerable borders. Its deterrence operations must be fast and decisive; wars must be short to achieve limited, specific objectives and to deter the political intervention of the superpowers. Supremacy in the air and on the ground is necessary if its military technology is to serve its purpose: ultimate victory over its numerically superior Arab enemies. Decisive deterrence of minor threats is perceived as a means of eliminating possible major threats in the future. Israel draws red lines to put others out of bounds, seeks the protection of a superpower but refuses to trust the guarantees it offers, and, on the battlefield as at the negotiating table, will address only one front and one state at a time. Israel's strategy has failed. At 50, it has neither stability or security. A strategy that is effective at the time when a state is established is not necessarily effective in fostering its development and stability. It is unable to accommodate the internal changes which have taken place within Israel itself, let alone those which have occurred at the regional and global levels. Israel's strategy is therefore an anachronism. Netanyahu is heedless of new political trends which are gaining ground throughout the region, the tremendous economic changes inside and outside Israel, and the outburst of anger which threatens Israeli society from within. Netanyahu has chosen to ignore change. At a time when monolithic ideologies have been discarded, he addresses political issues from a fixed ideological standpoint. In a world which is increasingly liable to punish the use of force, he responds to demands for legitimate rights with military violence. At the first Knesset meeting after the Likud's victory, Peres warned Netanyahu that, under intense pressures, he would be forced to take decisions against his will, but Netanyahu only shrugged arrogantly. The technological changes which have taken place in the region are enormous. Immense stockpiles of conventional weapons are amassed for land, sea and air warfare. The transfer of technology and weapons is perceived more in terms of trade exchanges than of political considerations. The states developing military technology and producing sophisticated weaponry are basically concerned with balancing their trade deficits and improving their unemployment situation, by securing a larger share of the arms market. Israel is vulnerable to the extremely destructive hi-tech weapons now available, as well as the long-, medium- and short-range missiles stocked in the arsenals of many states in the region. Israel is no longer the fortress it once believed it was. During Operation Desert Storm, Iraqi missiles reached targets inside Israel, which prompted Israel to move its US-made Patriot missile systems into defence positions. Amazingly, many Arab writers did not consider the Iraqi missile system to be of any importance. They believed the claims of Western and Israeli sources denigrating the effectiveness of these weapons, which, in fact, had precipitated a revolution in conventional warfare strategy. Israel's military strategy has failed to produce a solution which accommodates geographical reality and technological threats. The strategic importance of natural barriers in fostering Israeli security, an idea emphasised by Yigal Allon after the 1967 War, and later by both Labour and Likud, is being challenged today. The missiles Israel produces with US technical support are useless and costly, unable to counter Iraq's arsenal of long-range weapons. Israel stood staunchly by US endeavours, spearheaded by the heads of several UN missions, Ekeus and, later, Butler, to destroy the Iraqi arsenal. There were similar attempts to destroy the arsenals of neighbouring countries such as Iran. The measures taken under the dual containment strategy, ostensibly designed to uphold international legality, serve the ends of Israeli hegemony. All these endeavours, however, will not help in the face of new missile threats. Such weapons do not differentiate between the front lines and the hinterland, high-ranking military personnel and civilians. The entire state is open to attack. If Netanyahu says he can compensate the depletion of "depth" by maintaining strategic "height" in the Golan and the West Bank, he is only playing with words, biding time to escape Peres's prediction. By advocating geographical security, Netanyahu is reverting to theories of fixed defences, which have been obsolete since World War II, when the Maginot and Siegfried lines proved surprisingly permeable. The absurdity of the idea was reconfirmed in 1973, when Egyptian forces destroyed the Bar Lev line in a war which engaged air and ground forces. Israel possesses a huge state-of-the-art arsenal consisting of 4,000 tanks, 6,000 armoured vehicles, 6,000 fighter planes, 1,000 artillery units, and probably a number of nuclear warheads. Yet Israelis remain insecure. They are not threatened at the southern borders, with Egypt, nor at their eastern border, with Jordan: peace agreements have already been signed. General Matan Viltai, the deputy commander-in-chief of the Israeli Defence Forces, believes that Israel's daily "confrontation with terrorism", as well as preparations for a conventional war against Arab states who have signed no peace agreements, compel the Israelis to update weaponry continuously. Threats from Iran and Libya, for instance, also come into play. Viltai, however, forgot to mention, among the threats to Israel, Israeli policy and policy makers. The outdated, extremist ideologies which hold sway politically and militarily seek to impose a fait accompli by force. Security, for Israelis, is a unilateral privilege, rather than a multilateral arrangement including all states in the region. This understanding of security accounts for Israel's soaring defence costs, which are correlated with political fluctuations. In 1960, Israel's defence budget was 7.9 per cent of its GNP, rising to 25.1 per cent in 1970, 32.1 per cent in 1975, and 22.4 per cent in 1980. This rate dropped to 13.4 per cent in 1990, and again to 9.9 per cent in 1995. When Netanyahu came to power in 1996, he reduced defence costs by three per cent, bringing the rate down to 10 per cent of GNP. While the Israeli economy is growing at a fairly rapid pace, the increase in total defence costs, from $6.9 million in 1985 to nearly $9.3 million dollars in 1995, shows a long-term trend which threatens to drain the economy as long as government officials continue to cling to their archaic ideas. Israel should heed the example of the Soviet Union, which, despite its enormous resources, suddenly collapsed from within. The desperate arms race of the Cold War years had eaten away at the economy's foundations. Netanyahu has tried to address the problem of security by adopting an "indirect strategy". He told Congress that he would reduce US aid by forsaking half the economic assistance package, then channeling that money into military support, thus bringing it up from $1.8 to $2.4 billion. The remaining portion of economic aid would be reduced by five per cent a year over a ten-year period, starting in 2000. Israel's intransigence is a problem that Israel must address. Its quest for true security is complicated by its policies, which litter the road to peace with huge, superannuated obstacles. Israel is rushing headlong into a long, dark tunnel. Can anyone save Israel from itself? Perhaps it is necessary to shake the pillars of this antediluvian temple of war -- to bring it crumbling down. * The writer is a former minister of defence and chief of general intelligence.
