Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Lustick, Ian S.

Titel

Abandoning the Iron Wall: Israel and"The Middle Eastern Muck"

Ist Teil von

• Middle East policy, 2008-09, Vol.15 (3), p.30-56

Ort / Verlag

Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2008

Quelle

PAIS Index

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Discussion begins by tracing the origin & development of the Zionist "Iron Wall" policy, which was formulated to address the persistence of Arab intransigent opposition to Zionism's objectives. Noting that Arab-Zionist relations seem to have entered a new stage, focus is on the logical implications of Israel's abandonment of the Iron Wall strategy as well as indications that these implications are manifesting in Israeli thought & action. A shift in Israeli leadership discourse includes an insistence on explicit recognition of Israel's right to exist, something Zionists had long dismissed as unnecessary to legitimate Israel's right to exist. It is contended that Israelis view the Middle East as an unforgiving quagmire & the Arab/Muslim world as irrational, violent, & anti-Semitic & anti-Western. Further, the inability for the Israeli right to envision a positive future for Israel is seen to be diffusing across the center & into the left; that some see the end of the Zionist project is acknowledged. The inability to confront future Israeli relations with the rest of the Middle East is seen to spring from a deep alienation from the region that manifests in an urge to escape it, eg, via the construction of the "security barrier." Zionism's strategic use of violence against Arabs is addressed, highlighting shifts in the value of Israeli military deterrence. Attention is then given to Israel's response to Iran, which is characterized by the specter of the Holocaust & have Israelis viewing war as an existential necessity. It is concluded that Israel has abandoned the Iron Wall policy without an alternative & carries on as one in a category of European fragments that colonized an area without annihilating the aboriginal population, a circumstance that calls into question its survival; thus the real question is not whether Israel can escape the Middle East, but whether it can escape this category. In closing, the (im)possibility of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is considered. Adapted from the source document.