Soros: Negotiate with Evil

I generally oppose the idea of taking moral advice from a convicted felon, and so it was with quite a bit of skepticism that I clicked on the link to today's Boston Globeeditorial by George Soros.

My skepticism was well-founded:

The failure of Israel to subdue Hezbollah demonstrates the many weaknesses of the war-on-terror concept. One of those weaknesses is that even if the targets are terrorists, the victims are often innocent civilians, and their suffering reinforces the terrorist cause.

In response to Hezbollah's attacks, Israel was justified in attacking Hezbollah to protect itself against the threat of missiles on its border. However, Israel should have taken greater care to minimize collateral damage. The civilian casualties and material damage inflicted on Lebanon inflamed Muslims and world opinion against Israel and converted Hezbollah from aggressors to heroes of resistance for many. Weakening Lebanon has also made it more difficult to rein in Hezbollah.

Precisely what further steps should Israel have taken to minimize civilian casualties, Mr. Soros? Israel warned all Lebanese civilians to leave areas where they might launch airstrikes, often days in advance. Israel primarily used precision-guided munitions from strike aircraft to strike specific targeted locations. Israel took the responsible steps any nation should by using precision weaponry instead of area weapons whenever possible, and gave up some of its combat effectiveness by announcing where strikes may occur well before an attack, so that Lebanese civilian and terrorist alike had the opportunity to leave well in advance. Apparently an advance warning wasn't enough, and Soros would have Israel provide transportation as well.

Further, Soros blames Israel for their response, but does not even attempt to address the fact that Hezbollah purposefully thrust Lebanese civilians into the conflict. Hezbollah fired rockets from residential areas, hid the rockets themselves, their launchers, and their fighters in buildings occupied by civilians. The fact that the Lebanese government was weak, ineffectual, and heavily influenced by Hezbollah's paymasters in Damascus is a fact Soros would rather skip past than address.

Another weakness of the war-on-terror concept is that it relies on military action and rules out political approaches. Israel previously withdrew from Lebanon and then from Gaza unilaterally, rather than negotiating political settlements with the Lebanese government and the Palestinian authority. The strengthening of Hezbollah and Hamas was a direct consequence of that approach. The war-on-terror concept stands in the way of recognizing this fact because it separates "us" from "them" and denies that our actions help shape their behavior.

Starting with Presidents Nixon and Ford, the United states, with the rest of the world in tow, started a pattern of appeasing terrorists by providing little or no deterrence to increasingly violent attacks. The lack of a cohesive and forceful military response to these attacks only encouraged the spread of terrorist groups, allowing them to grow virtually unchecked as they killed and injured thousands. It was this long-running pattern of relying on politics, policing, and negotiating that placed us in the situation we have today. Soros repeat a pattern that 35 years of failures has proven is impotent and ineffectual.

Hezbollah, Hamas and the governments that support them have repeatedly stated that their reason to exist is to wipe Israel off the face of the map and to force the rest of the world to accept their radical version of Islam at the point of a sword. Historically, Soros' recommended course of action has proven to be one of failure time and again. He, like the components of the Far Left that lap up his funding, are philosophically unable to face that reality, and continued a dogged pursuit of polices that encourage terrorism to continue to blossom.

A third weakness is that the war-on-terror concept lumps together different political movements that use terrorist tactics. It fails to distinguish among Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, or the Sunni insurrection and the Mahdi militia in Iraq. Yet all these terrorist manifestations, being different, require different responses. Neither Hamas nor Hezbollah can be treated merely as targets in the war on terror because both have deep roots in their societies; yet there are profound differences between them.

Again, Soros shows that he misunderstands the problem of confronting Islamic terrorism on a fundamental level. Theirs is not a "political” movement, and while these groups interpret Islam differently, they do not recognize a separation of theology from governance. The tenants of Sharia itself disprove his views categorically. While the specifics differ, all share a common goal of the destruction of Israel, the subjugation of the West under Islam, and death to any that hold an opposing view. You cannot negotiate with those who see their views and their views alone as Absolute Truth. You can choose to bend their will and give up your views, your freedoms, and your rights, or you must fight them to the death. This is the lesson that Islam has spread to every border as it has expanded and been forcefully repulsed over nearly 1,400 years of human history, whether to invading Muslim Army has been Sunni or Shiite in makeup. Soros and those who acquiesce to his viewpoint are woefully unprepared to take the only course of action that over a millennia of experience shows us is the only thing that works to stop or slow the spread of the violence inherent to the various fundamentalist sects of Islam.

Looking back, it is easy to see where Israeli policy went wrong. When Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority, Israel should have gone out of its way to strengthen him and his reformist team. When Israel withdrew from Gaza, the former head of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, negotiated a six-point plan on behalf of the Quartet for the Middle East (Russia, the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations). It included opening crossings between Gaza and the West Bank, allowing an airport and seaport in Gaza, opening the border with Egypt; and transferring the greenhouses abandoned by Israeli settlers into Arab hands. None of the six points was implemented. This contributed to Hamas's electoral victory. The Bush administration, having pushed Israel to allow the Palestinians to hold elections, then backed Israel's refusal to deal with a Hamas government. The effect was to impose further hardship on the Palestinians.

Soros forgets to mention the constant failure of these groups to keep their end of a bargain. Once more, Soros places all the blame on Western states, while treating Arab states as children unable to take any initiative towards peace or betterment on their own. It betrays an inherent racism, the absolving of a proclivity towards violence as an accepted consequence of who they are. Soros belittles both the mental acuity of these actors and absolves them or wrongdoing. Though a sidenote, Soros forgets to mention what happened when those prosperous greenhouses were transferred from Israeli to Palestinian hands.

The Palestinians destroyed them. The hardships they suffer are self-imposed.

Nevertheless, Abbas was able to forge an agreement with the political arm of Hamas for the formation of a unity government. It was to foil this agreement that the military branch of Hamas, run from Damascus, engaged in the provocation that brought a heavy-handed response from Israel -- which in turn incited Hezbollah to further provocation, opening a second front.

That is how extremists play off against each other to destroy any chance of political progress.

Once more, Soros shows he cannot wrap his mind about the simplest concept; as long as terrorist groups are alive, there can be no peace.

Israel has been a participant in this game, and President Bush bought into this flawed policy, uncritically supporting Israel. Events have shown that this policy leads to the escalation of violence. The process has advanced to the point where Israel's unquestioned military superiority is no longer sufficient to overcome the negative consequences of its policy. Israel is now more endangered in its existence than it was at the time of the Oslo Agreement on peace.

Similarly, the United States has become less safe since Bush declared war on terror.

Israel's "flawed policy"--its determined will to survive-- seems to trouble Soros greatly. A tiny sliver of land in a vast Middle East, Israel only exists because its military has successfully repulsed attempts made by every single Arab neighboring state to destroy them. Israel escalates conflicts until they become unbearable for those attacking them, or it dies. Soros does not seem overly concerned about the possibility of the latter.

Soros says we are less safe now than in the past. Wars are never safe by definition, but the appeasement he preaches is far more deadly.

The time has come to realize that the present policies are counterproductive. There will be no end to the vicious circle of escalating violence without a political settlement of the Palestine question. In fact, the prospects for engaging in negotiations are better now than they were a few months ago. The Israelis must realize that a military deterrent is not sufficient on its own. And Arabs, having redeemed themselves on the battlefield, may be more willing to entertain a compromise.

There are strong voices arguing that Israel must never negotiate from a position of weakness. They are wrong. Israel's position is liable to become weaker the longer it persists on its present course. Similarly Hezbollah, having tasted the sense but not the reality of victory (and egged on by Syria and Iran) may prove recalcitrant. But that is where the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas comes into play. The Palestinian people yearn for peace and relief from suffering. The political -- as distinct from the military -- wing of Hamas must be responsive to their desires. It is not too late for Israel to encourage and deal with an Abbas-led Palestinian unity government as the first step toward a better-balanced approach.

Given how strong the US-Israeli relationship is, it would help Israel to achieve its own legitimate aims if the US government were not blinded by the war-on-terror concept.

Once more, Soros seems to be under the illusion that the Palestinians want peace. Hezbollah, Hamas, and their sponsors patently refuse to recognize Israel's right to even exist. They state in their charters that they fight for the total destruction of Israel.

George Soros seems to think that is negotiable.