For your perusal, my latest INTO THE FRAY column:
The ruinous results of “conflict management”
(Kindly consider “liking”, sharing, tweeting – please use hash-tag #IntoFray)
“Conflict management has not countered successful Palestinian efforts…to change crucial strategic facts on the ground with deleterious long-term implications on Israel’s security”.
It appears this week on the following sites (in alphabetical order):
ALGEMEINER: https://www.algemeiner.com/2017/11/10/the-ruinous-results-of-conflict-management/
ISRAELI FRONTLINE: http://www.israelifrontline.com/2017/11/fray-ruinous-results-conflict-management.html
ISRAEL NATIONAL: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/21244
ISRAEL RISING: https://www.israelrising.com/ruinous-results-conflict-management/
ISRAPUNDIT: https://www.israpundit.org/into-the-fray-the-ruinous-results-of-conflict-management/
JERUSALEM HERALD: https://www.jerusalem-herald.com/single-post/2017/11/09/INTO-THE-FRAY-The-Ruinous-Results-of-Conflict-Management
JEWS DOWN UNDER: https://jewsdownunder.com/2017/11/12/fray-ruinous-results-conflict-management/
MEDIUM: https://medium.com/@martinsherman/into-the-fray-the-ruinous-results-of-conflict-management-a3ff71142c9
JEWISH PRESS: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/columns/into-the-fray-martin-sherman/into-the-fray-the-ruinous-results-of-conflict-management/2017/11/12/
Three short excerpts:
(a) Conflict management as (allegedly) the “least worst option”
(b) Conflict management as a failed policy prescription
(c) “Strategic building”: Far too little far too late
(a) Conflict management as (allegedly) the “least worst option”
Israel’s present conflict management approach, which has succeeded in reducing Palestinian terrorism to manageable proportions, is an insufficient response to the dangers of Palestinian territorial expansionism…[M]anaging the conflict alone has also resulted in considerable costs not directly linked to acts of terrorism… Prof Hillel Frisch – of the newly established Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies, October 31, 2017
For many the notion of “managing the conflict” has long been a seductive illusion and one I have warned repeatedly against submitting to – see for example: here; here; here; here & here…Thus, in “‘Conflict management’: The collapse of a concept” I wrote: For several years now I have been warning against clear and present dangers inherent in conflict management—cautioning that it is little more than ‘kicking the can down the road’ into a even more risk-fraught future. I expressed growing concern that by adopting a policy of avoiding confrontations, which Israel could win, the government may well back the nation into a confrontation so severe that it may not—or only do so at devastating cost.” …For several years, the staunchest support for the conflict management paradigm came from Bar Ilan Universty’s BESA Center for Strategic Studies. Indeed, just over a year ago, David Weinstein, the BESA director of public affairs published a synopsis of months of discussions that took place in the center’s seminar rooms and on its website regarding what Israel’s “West Bank” policy should be…. The essence of the consensus that emerged from these deliberations was succinctly conveyed in the sub-heading of Weinstein’s piece: “Conflict management is currently the least-worst option”. Weinstein sums up the rationale of the conflict management school of thought as: “It is wiser for Israel to defer action than to take steps that threaten to make a bad situation worse”.
(b) Conflict management as a failed policy prescription
However, deferring action can, in itself, be a formula for making a bad situation worse—and indeed it has, on virtually every front…Clearly, this prescription has failed dismally both with regard to Gaza and the northern border. After all, neither Hamas nor Hezbollah, have had their capabilities “debilitated”, nor have they forgone their “radical goals”. Indeed, if anything, quite the opposite is true…Now, a recently published paper, significantly from a declared supporter of the conflict management approach, Prof. Hillel Frisch, casts doubt on the efficacy of conflict management regarding the “West Bank” as well…Accordingly, there can be little doubt as to the validity—and gravity—of Frisch’s critical assessment of the “conflict management” endeavor, which he asserts “has not countered successful Palestinian efforts…to change crucial strategic facts on the ground with deleterious long-term implications on Israel’s security”.
(c) “Strategic building”: Far too little far too late
Indeed, it is difficult to know what yet has to happen until the nation’s political and intellectual leadership rallies the courage and integrity to acknowledge that in order to endure as the nation-state of the Jewish people Israel must address two imperatives simultaneously: The Geographic and Demographic Imperatives. The former mandates Israeli sovereign control over all the territory from the River to the Sea; the latter mandates the drastic reduction of the Arab presence within the Jewish state’s sovereign territory…The only manner in which this can be achieved without resort to large-scale violence is via a comprehensive system of material inducements comprising highly attractive incentives for leaving and equally daunting disincentives for staying – accompanied by a well-funded strategic public diplomacy offensive to convey why this is the most humane policy if it succeeds – and least inhumane if it does not.
Anything else is both pointless and perilous…
