Impacts of terrorism

PAT JOHNSON

The topic was terror and, while most Vancouverites may have arrived to hear a lecture by a leading Israeli commentator on a topic that is largely academic in peaceful Canada, the issue was given immediate resonance when a local man recounted being under machine gun fire near Sderot just days earlier.

Dr. Michael Elterman, chair of the Canada-Israel Committee, Western Region, had returned from Israel earlier in the day and spoke to the crowd in the King David High School atrium of his close encounter with terror while participating in the annual board trip of CIC officials to Israel (as reported in the Jewish Independent, April 11).

"There was a general resolve that if we left Sderot at his point, we would be victims of terror," Elterman told the Vancouver audience April 8. "So we went into the town of Sderot and we had lunch according to our program." The Canadian representatives preferred to be "victims of assault," instead of "victims of terror," he said.

Elterman's presentation was a sobering beginning to the evening's presentation, which was titled Terrorized: How Terror has Changed Israel, its Politics, the Zionist Dream and the Path to Peace. The guest speaker at the event co-sponsored by CIC, the Jewish National Fund and King David, was Herb Keinon, diplomatic correspondent for the Jerusalem Post.

"We're not going to solve the problem called the Middle East conflict any time soon," Keinon warned. The incessant conflict, particularly in frontline locations like Sderot, has created a reality that is having an impact on life and politics, and the continued conflict with Gaza is a festering issue that Israel does not know how to resolve.

"Israel is struggling over what to do with Gaza," Keinon said. There are military and political reasons for not reoccupying Gaza, he said. First, putting Israeli soldiers in vulnerable situations is not desirable and, second, to return to the occupation of Gaza would acknowledge that the disengagement has been a failure, he explained.

Complicating the political reality is the massive unpopularity of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has a 10 per cent approval rating.

"By comparison," said Keinon, "George Bush looks like Franklin Delano Roosevelt."

Raising children free of hatred and fear is difficult in this environment, said Keinon, who has one child in the Israel Defence Forces and two more approaching enlistment. The sense of vulnerability impacts national politics, he said.

"In a small country like Israel, what people feel in their guts, in their kishkes, has a lot of influence," Keinon said.

The threat posed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is one that must be seen as a global problem, not an Israeli one, he continued. Ahmadinejad wants a polarized Muslims-against-the-Jews conflict, Keinon said, but Israel must insist that the world see the threat against it as a threat against the West more broadly.

Keinon spoke of last year's mysterious Israeli attack on a mysterious Syrian location as a warning to Iran. Though neither Israel nor Syria openly acknowledged the incident, it is believed Israel attacked a part of Syria's developing nuclear program.

"When Israel feels vulnerable, it acts," said Keinon. The attack on Syria was a message to Iran that it will not permit the development of nuclear weaponry by its enemies, reflecting what Keinon said was the Chinese maxim of killing the chicken to scare the monkey.

"Will Israel attack Iran?" Keinon said. "I wouldn't rule it out entirely." But, he added, Israel is in the process of creating an anti-missile umbrella and Keinon believes any attack on Iran's nuclear capability will wait until Israel feels more protected by its defensive umbrella.

At the same time, the attack on the Syrian target ended the funk Israel had been in since the Lebanon War, reasserting Israel's traditional preemptive policy, according to Keinon.

On the likelihood of the Annapolis talks leading to peace, Keinon said few Israelis have high expectations.

"The country was mugged by reality," Keinon said of the Oslo process. Israelis believed that, if they offered what the Palestinians demanded, they would get peace. "That idea has largely gone by the wayside because of terrorism."

The lesson Israelis learned from Oslo, he said, is that "if you dangle out the offer they can't refuse, they'll refuse it."

Keinon suggested that the most reasonable expectation now is that the two parties ink an agreement, but delay implementation until the Palestinians get control over the extremists operating under their jurisdiction.

Despite all, Keinon insisted, Israel remains a vibrant, healthy society where life goes on despite the conflict.

"The country is very much alive and you feel it when you walk the streets," he said. "The sky is not falling."

Pat Johnson is, among other things, director of development and communications for Vancouver Hillel Foundation.

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