by Dan Margalit
American sources told
CNN that Israel was behind the recent strike on a Syrian missile depot
near the Port of Latakia, where sophisticated Russian-made missiles were
stored. If this information is true -- and there is no proof that it
is, so this is a theoretical debate -- then Israel is living up to Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's pledge that the Israel Defense Forces
will not allow Syrian President Bashar Assad's weapon stockpiles to fall
into Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah's hands.
Assad, for his part,
issued a threat of his own, saying that if Israel struck Syria again he
would launch missiles at Israel. One good threat deserves another.
Under these precarious
circumstances, the wise thing for both Netanyahu and Assad to do is to
hold their ground. The IDF will not allow the missiles to be moved but
will deny striking them, thus affording Assad a way to circumvent his
pledge to attack Israel. This could be a win-win situation that serves
both parties' interests.
Assuming -- again, for
the sake of the game theory -- that sources in the Pentagon leaked the
information to the U.S. media, as they did over the two previous
attacks, then they obviously wish to see Israel embroiled in a military
conflict with Syria, to hasten Assad's fall and spare the U.S. the need
to intervene. That could lead to a myriad of complications and that is
not how allies and partners should treat each other. It also
constitutes, to some extent, a breach of trust.
The diplomatic-military
situation mandates a vehement denial on Israel's part even if it was
behind the attack, for Israel's sake as well as for Assad's convenience.
This is the classic example of a case where former Prime Minister
Yitzhak Shamir's famous saying, "It's okay to lie for the Land of
Israel," comes into play.
The violent
international arena has no places for lies, only for tricks and ploys,
baits, schemes and deceptions. Those are the rules of the game. Anyone
who employs them, however, must do so in measure and realize that
embarrassing scandals may ensue. He who falsifies a friendly nation's
passports may end up losing its support. It is a matter of profits
versus losses.
This does not mean the
government can employ internal deception. This pattern of behavior is
reminiscent of the Shin Bet's behavior in the aftermath of the 1984 Bus
300 affair. Then-deputy Shin Bet chief Reuven Hazak never claimed that
the organization should not find ways to hide or circumvent the truth,
only that its head, Avraham Shalom, could not direct such tactics inward
and compromise the Shin Bet's ranks, since one bad apple does spoil the
barrel.
The government should
share the truth with a small parliamentary body, the kind that operates
clandestinely as part of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense
Committee, as well as with the head of the opposition. The government
must also carefully consider what version it decides to share with
everyone else in Israel and worldwide, and be willing to face the
consequences should it be caught in an unwise lie.
One should take a page from the
book of Israel first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, who, after the
disastrous events of the 1953 Qibya operation, declared in the Knesset
that no IDF unit was unaccounted for during the time of the incident. It
was the unfortunate truth -- save us from such truths -- and an
acceptable answer.
Dan Margalit
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=4971
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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