The debate between the proponents of restraint and the proponents of massive retaliation is essentially a debate about tactics. Israel never had clear strategic goals and usually shaped its foreign and defense policies on a day-to-day basis. They were affected chiefly by Arab behavior and by evaluations how the powers - and especially the United States - would react to this or that Israeli move.

Ben Gurion, while Prime Minister, had some strategic moments, as had Shimon Peres when serving under him. They made Israel a nuclear power. Ben Gurion's decision to cooperate with France and Britain during the 1956 Suez War was motivated by the strategic considerations of permanently weakening Egypt and ending Britain's irrational hostility to Israel. It should be recalled that at the time United States policy was determined by pro-Nazis like John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles and Nelson Rockefeller from whom the Jewish state could expect nothing good. Ben Gurion was thwarted by the US decision to bring the Soviet Union into the Middle East rather than share influence there with its World War II allies, a decision reflecting the blind cupidity of the politicians who made it.

The only other Israeli statesmen capable of strategic thinking were Menahem Begin and Ariel Sharon. Not when they made peace with Anwar Sadat, as this peace weakened Israel strategically and economically while enormously strengthening Egypt, but when they bombed the nuclear reactor at Ossirac in Iraq and when they invaded Lebanon. For the bombing of the Ossirac reactor the Western world owes Sharon a big debt. Saddam Hussein might or might not have attacked Israel with nuclear bombs, but would certainly have been very difficult to dislodge from Kuwait and far more dangerous later. Yet all the powers criticized Begin and Sharon for bombing the Iraqi reactor, and Shimon Peres, then leader of Israel's Labor Party, joined in the choir.

The insensate hatred of the Labor Party for the Likud, which deprived it of the political power it considered its birthright in the elections of 1977, was an important (though not the decisive) factor in the outcome of the 1982-1984 Lebanese War - another rare instance of Israeli strategic thinking. In 1982, the Likud Government had a narrow Knesset majority, while Labor controlled a high percentage of posts in the top echelons of the armed services and the police as well as television, the radio and much of the legal establishment. It condemned the Lebanese War as a war of choice - i.e. a war not forced on Israel by an Arab attack - and did everything it could to discredit the Government fighting it both at home and abroad.

It was indeed a war of choice - as almost all wars for strategic objectives are. This applies to the September 1939 declaration of war by Britain and France on Hitler's Germany too. Neville Chamberlain, the symbol of appeasement, had tried vainly to buy off Hitler with other countries' territory until he realized Hitler was deceiving him, could not be bought and was an existential threat to Britain. Then he declared war. The Israel Labor Party politicians of the past 30 years compare very poorly with him. Their hatred of their political opponents blinds them to the existential threats to Israel. Their defeatist policies and behavior undermine the national morale and help the Arab strategy of dismembering Israel stage by stage.

The Begin-Sharon goals in the Lebanese War were to expel Syria and the PLO from Lebanon and strengthen the Christian hold on that country. They hoped that a strategy of forging alliances with non-Moslems in the Middle East might alter the overall strategic balance in Israel's favor. Had the US reacted to the bombing of its Beirut embassy and the killing of 241 of its marines by massive air and missile attacks on Syria and Syrian forces in Lebanon, the Middle East would have been served notice that the US would not countenance terrorism against its citizens or embassies, the power of Lebanon's Christian population would have been preserved and a Lebanon-Israel peace treaty might have followed. But Caspar Weinberger had business interests in Saudi Arabia and preferred Moslems. Less than two weeks after the marines were killed, the Special US Representative at the Lebanese reconciliation talks in Geneva persuaded President Amin Gemayel to delay the implementation of the May 17th agreement with Israel until the negotiation of amendments which would "satisfy the legitimate interests of the Syrians." On the same day, Syria mobilized 100,000 reservists "to meet the US and Israel threat" and six days later its forces opened fire on US aircraft over Behamdoun. Assad's calculations were correct. He could kill Americans with impunity. Iran would be blamed, while Saudi Arabia with its US friends would reward him for his pains.

On January 31st 1984, Amin Gemayel blamed Syria for blocking reconciliation talks and said that withdrawing the marines would lead to chaos. But the next day Syrian Vice-President Abdul Halim Haddam opined: "The US is short of breath. We can wait them out." On February 7th, President Reagan ordered the marines, who had suffered 264 killed and 137 wounded to withdraw to ships offshore. France and Italy followed suit. A Syrian-backed Government under Rashid Karameh was formed in Lebanon at the end of April. Assad had won.

In 1956-57, the US brought the Soviet Union into the Middle East and prevented a weakening of Egypt, enthroning a dictator who proceeded to foment anti-Western and anti-Israeli unrest in Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq, bloodily obliterating a pro-Western regime in Baghdad. In 1982-84, it turned an Israeli victory that could have safeguarded Lebanon for its Christians and altered the balance of power in the Middle East into a triumph for Syrian and Islamic terrorism. Since then, Washington successively supported an Islamic fundamentalist regime in Bosnia, Albanian terrorist mafias in Kosovo and Macedonia, the PLO, and increasingly anti-Western regimes in Afghanistan. The pattern is clear.

Israel's Main Strategic Problems

Israel faces an Arab world determined to annihilate it. Were it not so, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinians would not be teaching their children to hate and despise the Jews in general and Israel in particular. With the probably temporary exception of Jordan (which needs a strong Israel as a bulwark against its potential Arab enemies, but not a Jewish mini-state unable or unwilling to defend itself,) the Arab states are merely biding their time. Ostensibly peaceful intentions are convenient when they are likely to lose a war. The time for war will come when they have acquired nuclear weapons.

So the question if and when Israel should fight a major war must be carefully studied. The unrelenting enmity of the Arab world, reflected by the education of its youth for war and the vicious anti-Semitic outbursts in the press and media of Egypt, Syria, Iraq and several other states, should not be ignored. The demeaning Israeli practice of trumpeting any real or imagined sign of Arab moderation as proof of peaceful intentions plays into the enemy's hands. The Oslo agreements were a serious strategic mistake, but how to deal with the Palestinian Authority is a tactical issue the Sharon Government is managing quite successfully. On the other hand, the Israeli Arabs, increasingly hostile since Oslo and multiplying at a rate that will make Israel an Arab state within 30-40 years if they cannot be persuaded to leave, are a major strategic problem.

However, the most important of Israel's strategic problems is the hostility of the great powers. The pattern of American behavior over the past five decades makes any policy relying on US diplomatic or military support in the event of war - regardless of who initiates the fighting - an unacceptable risk. President George W. Bush is undoubtedly the friendliest American President Israel has ever had in the White House. But even he may be unable to stand up to the concerted pressures of the oil lobby and the Arabists. The best that can be expected from him is benevolent neutrality without military intervention - perhaps accompanied by efforts to prevent the intervention of other powers on the Arab side. Some use this as an argument to avoid war at any cost. But it can be argued with more cogency that Israel should initiate a war it can win without US support rather than wait for a war the Arabs will start when they can win. The second option offers fewer prospects of national survival.

The central problem faced by Israel (and any other ally of the United States or the EU) is that Western policy is framed by tycoons interested chiefly in maximizing their profits. Allies are expendable and their interests are a very minor factor during decision-making. But even the American, West European and Japanese economies are sacrificed to this Moloch. Moreover, the phony globalism of the 1975-2000 period reflects utter contempt for the ideals embodied in the American Constitution. Its main beneficiaries have been autocratic rulers or oligarchies - chiefly Moslem.

The long-term catch - and Israel's only hope of survival - is that these Moslem states have no use for globalism or Western values. Public opinion there is already very anti-American. Most of them are committed to advancing the spread of Islam, which Western globalists have aided by undermining ethno-religious nationalism in their own states, by ridiculously lax immigration laws and by direct or indirect support of Moslem territorial expansion and Moslem terrorist organizations.

The Moslem states and Moslem terrorists do not promote globalism. They are guided by the tenets of Islam - an aggressive, expansionary religion making rapid headway all over the globe. Their leaders, by and large, prefer bribes to profits. Besides, they are strongly nationalist and the globalist creed of "maximum profits for my shareholders at any cost to the economy of my own country" is anathema to them. When they invest abroad it is usually to further their political - not their economic - objectives. One of these is to exploit the period while the West undermines its power and internal stability by globalist policies to create a springboard for dominating it.

The unholy alliance between the West and Islam has been based on the exploitation of oil and, more recently, natural gas. The biggest reserves of these sources of energy are in Moslem states. They were originally discovered by Western oil companies, which are permitting these Moslem states to nationalize them gradually and acquire a whip hand over Western policies in the process. The IMF and the World Bank advise developing nations to promote free market economies, but the Western globalists who control these venerable institutions have done everything possible to prevent the creation of a free market for oil and natural gas. OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) has been allowed to limit output in order to force up prices - a policy benefiting the Moslem world but gravely detrimental to the economies of Western Europe, Japan, India, Korea, the United States and oil-importing developing countries. The free market price of above-average crude oil, given present levels of demand and available supply, should be around $10 per barrel. The current price range of $24-$28 per barrel thus constitutes a deliberate transfer of wealth of astronomic proportions from the economies listed above to Moslem rulers and a number of Western oil tycoons. And this transfer, in turn, is a major cause of the deflationary depression sweeping the civilized world.

When the politicians of the states suffering from this situation gain the courage to deprive the band of globalist tycoons in cahoots with Moslem oil producers of political influence in their own countries and use every means at their disposal to exert pressure on the oil producers to cut their prices to the bone, the depression will end. Simultaneously, the Moslem threat to non-Moslem civilizations will recede. Explaining this - not vain attempts to alter the attitude to Israel while disregarding its primary cause - should be the main task of Israel's information services during the coming decade. It is a difficult task of immense strategic importance. Luckily, the economic situation of the West, Japan and other major non-Moslem oil consumers makes it feasible.

The entire concept of attaining peace with the Arab states by offering territorial or other concessions was a colossal blunder promoted by oil-inspired Western propaganda. There will be peace with the Arabs, formal or de facto, when they are very weak and likely to remain so. There is no hope of peace with them while they are strong. Instead of vainly seeking Arab understanding, the Jewish state should take off the gloves and be as hostile to Arab interests as they are to Israeli interests. At some point in time, the West, Japan, etc. will realize what they are doing to themselves. Israel's urgent need is to assure that this will happen soon enough to permit its survival.

Israel's second strategic goal should be to retain the territory it controls today and prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. The PLO is terrorist, corrupt and unfit for sovereignty. No other Palestinian body is likely to be better. And all will insist on the "right of return." Begin should have made the signing of a peace treaty with Egypt conditional on Egypt repudiating this Palestinian "right". When Egypt rejected this, he should have offered Sadat "no more war" (i.e. non-belligerency) in return for most of Sinai, but not made "peace" yielding all of it. Today, the Egyptians openly back the "right of return" knowing well it will destroy Israel. The "peace treaty" with them is at best a shaky non-belligerency agreement likely to collapse the moment the United States ceases to subsidize the regime in Cairo. Begin's mistake was compounded by Rabin, Beilin and Peres when they agreed to discuss the "right of return" within the framework of the Oslo agreement. A self-respecting state does not agree to discuss its suicide. Ehud Barak and Israel paid the price.

Finally, Israel's third and most important strategic goal should be to reduce the Arab population of Palestine - on both sides of the green line. Justice in Israel suffers from political bias and the cowardice of Israeli politicians. Far too often, when Israeli Arabs ignore the law and threaten violence, the law is simply not enforced. Illegal building by Arabs has a political significance - it extends the area they can claim and deny to Jews. Arab arson has destroyed many beautiful forests. Stealing and sabotage of agricultural property by Arabs is commonplace. The criminals usually go free. The large majority of Moslem Israeli Arabs are no longer loyal to Israel. They are loyal to Yasser Arafat. So, given their present attitudes, the concept of separation makes security sense only if Israel is separated from them too. They have carried out terrorist acts and participated in terrorism initiated by the Palestinian Authority. At least 70% of them identify with the goal of the PLO and Syria to destroy Israel. Their Knesset Members travel to Syria and Gaza to say so in public to Syrian and PLO leaders.

The Druze of pre-1967 Israel should be allowed to stay because most of them are still loyal. So should the Christian Arabs, whose hostility in the majority of cases is due to their fear of the Moslems and may disappear when most of the Moslems leave. However, the Moslem Arabs of Palestine should be given every incentive to emigrate. Israel cannot afford to die by demography and must do something about this quickly. Therefore, this matter should be seriously discussed with the West, which saw nothing wrong with moving populations en masse in Europe (Germans and Serbs in particular) when this suited its interests.

The US and the Europeans fear the Moslems yet have done everything possible to strengthen them - not only by preventing Israel from reaping political and territorial benefits from victories in wars the Arabs started, but also by putting territory under Albanian and Moslem Bosnian control in the Balkans and (with the sole exception of East Timor) doing nothing to help Christian or other non-Moslem minorities to secede from Moslem rule. Moreover, their irresponsible immigration policies created centers of ethno-religious tensions in their own countries and their refusal to shift to energy sources other than oil and natural gas allows obnoxious autocracies like Saudi Arabia to influence their policies. Islam is a religion bent on expansion and has been gaining adherents rapidly because it thrives on terrorism and violence. Israel should unashamedly promote cooperation among non-Moslem states to check its growth.