The bloodless war on Israel

Op-ed: After failing on battlefield, Arabs resorting to other means in bid to destroy Israel

Eitan Haber
YNET

High up in the sky, somewhere above us, sits the angel assigned by God to look over the State of Israel and scratches his head. Until now, for almost 63 years, he came up with solutions – some better than others – for every problem. Yet now he is sitting there and thinking, but cannot come up with a solution.


The angel in charge of Israel must be saying the following to himself: Thus far, Arab states attempted to eliminate the Israeli entity using military force. They tried once, twice, even three times – yet failed. They sought to turn Israel into a theater of terror and horror – yet failed. They tried several wars, and in between them even tried peace here and there – yet failed. The Zionist entity on the shores of the Mediterranean is alive and kicking. Arab sages got together to come up with a solution, and decided: From now on, we shall fight the cursed Zionists using means they have no answer for. And even if they did not gather and come up with the possibilities below, history smiled at them:



The Arab Spring – Although there is no link whatsoever between Israel and the revolutionary developments in Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Tunisia, Libya and other Arab countries, there is no doubt that their outcome will resonate on Israel’s borders and gravely affect each and every one of us in the future. The states around us will be enveloped by headscarves and a radical Islamic atmosphere, courtesy of the Muslim Brotherhood. An atmosphere that does not recognize Israel’s right to exist will take over the Arab street.



Such grave atmosphere may prompt the almost immediate annulment of our peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan and an almost complete halt to any Israeli-Palestinian cooperation – in terms of security, economics and so on. The Islam that shall be draping Israel on all sides will also require us to undertake extreme defense expenditures, which will affect every citizen. In fact, we shall be a state under radical Islamic siege, which will keep on pushing us and require the highest state of alert and never-ending watchfulness.



These processes won’t happen overnight, yet this is precisely the advantage possessed by the Arabs around us. They have all the time in the world. “For how many years did the Crusaders rule the Land of Israel?” they ask with disparagement.



De-legitimization – The latest developments on the Arab side are manifested through an immense effort to de-legitimize Israel among the nations of the world. This is a war without boundaries and it spreads across continents.



At this time, dozens of Arab states are taking part in the de-legitimization campaign, including ones considered Israel’s friends in the past. This new situation, a war without shots or blood, is already producing significant difficulties for our economy, our academia, and other areas of life. The Arabs, who see their achievements on this front, are not letting up, and we (still) have no proper Zionist answer.



Demographic developments – it appears that everything had already been written and said about this matter, which we would never be able to resolve: Not in our contest with Israel’s Arabs, not in the battle against the Palestinian womb, and certainly not in the balance between us and Arab states. The clichéd example of 32 million Egyptians the day we signed our peace treaty compared to 84 million today serves as a warning signal for many in Israel. Any commentary here is needless.


In order to overcome these obstacles, we do not need an IDF General Staff with the finest generals. We need a “White General Staff,” as proposed by Uri Avnery years ago; a civilian General Staff that would think in a different, creative fashion. And thank you to another Uri, retired General Uri Saguy, who turned my attention to the new war against us; a bloodless war.