The crocodile and the scorpion

There’s an old joke. It’s not very funny, but it is hoary with age, and so has become a cliché. A scorpion asks a crocodile to let him ride on his back across the Nile. “But if I carry you, mid-way across you’ll bite me and I’ll die,” responded the worried Crocodylus niloticus. “Not to fear, if I bite you mid-way across, we both die, so I won’t.” This appears to be a convincing argument. But mid-way across the scorpion stings the crock in the back. The dying lizard turns to the venomous betrayer and says, “Why did you do that? Now we’ll both die,” to which the scorpion replies just before it drowns, “well, that’s Africa.”

Because of an early deadline I don’t know how the current Israeli offensive against Hamas will turn out. But this I do know—its hatred for Jews is a cancer that can neither be contained nor eliminated, which in fact metastasizes proportionately to the efforts of Israel to excise it (or, to switch my metaphor yet again, it’s hydra-like—whenever Israel cuts off one head, two grow in its place). But what else can Israel do? It pulled out of Gaza and instead of peace it got Hamas.

Some pro-Israeli doves argue that Israel ought to moderate its counter-attack. For example: Diane Balser, executive director of Brit Tzedek intones, “We can already anticipate that this incursion will be yet another failed attempt to resolve this fundamentally political conflict by military means. It is high time to break with this cycle; only through serious and sustained international diplomacy can the problems with Hamas and Gaza be resolved.”

Such organizations are to be commended for their consistency, but none recognize the nature of the beast with which it is trying to reconcile. Hamas does not recognize the despised State of Israel and sees no option other than to continue its struggle to the death by any means possible. If that requires putting its headquarters in the middle of a civilian population of innocent Arabs so be it. The more televised martyrs the better. If it means attacking Israel indiscriminately and waiting for the inevitable retaliation so that it can cry “foul!” and have its world-wide community of sycophants take to the streets, hurling stones and vituperation, urging vendetta, bring it on! The pictures we see on television of civilian suffering are perfect for Hamas. “Look what the Jews do to us, we must get revenge,” is the war-cry taken up around the world. An intifada is to be expected; indeed, it’s been prophesized by Hamas.

Israel’s foreign minister Tzipi Livni also misses the point when in an interview with al-Jazeera she urges Arab governments to stop Hamas’ attacks because they are injurious to the Palestinians of Gaza; she ignores the volatility of the Arab Street.

Negotiation with Hamas is like the crocodile’s discussion with the scorpion. The scorpion knows only one thing and it does it even if it loses its own life. Negotiations with Egypt were possible because Anwar Sadat had achieved a victory of sorts in the Sinai in October 1973. Hamas achieved a victory of sorts when Israel pulled out of Gaza in August 2005. The one came to pray in Jerusalem and made peace, the other fires rockets onto Sderot.

But, I fear, the air assault (followed by a ground incursion?) will fail as well. Like Lebanon two summers ago, Hamas may be lulling Israel into its rope-a-dope strategy. We hit and hit and hit harder, exhausting ourselves; and they claim victory by not surrendering. Their intifada, when it comes, will provoke greater responses in an escalating progression of civilian deaths.

Israel has other choices beyond shock and awe. It might take the French suggestion of a two-day cease fire to see if Hamas will stop its assaults or it should return to targeted assassinations of Hamas leadership (and Hezbollah’s for that matter). We should abandon precision bombing because the bombing is never precise enough and because its collateral damage—both human and structural—is a provocative outrage.

An army uses the weapons it has, so Hamas uses rockets and will be using human bombs in Jerusalem and elsewhere, and it doesn’t care about the blow-back. We have planes, but we do care. We also have courage and intelligence. We have Mossad. (Gabriel Allon, where are you when we need you most?) Just as in that other old story, sometimes slow and steady wins the race. But trust the scorpion? Only if we have a death-wish.