The Dean of the Credulosphere is upset that I have not expressed sufficient reverence at the unveiling of J Street, and cannot understand why we Israel “hawks” (his label) haven’t learned anything from the obvious failure of everything we believe in. His evidence? The difficulties of the Iraq war. Well, let me break out the sock puppets and flash cards for the Dean: Israel and Iraq are two different countries.
But never mind that rather large quibble. Yglesias is exasperated and he’s just not going to take it any longer:
the attitude of thoughtless, unreflective scorn that you see from the Pollacks [sic!] and Kirchicks and Goldfarbs of the world is like it comes from some weird alternative reality where their ideas have generally been deemed vindicated, rather than one where 178% of the public says we’re on the wrong track.
What is the counterproposal to an effort at diplomatic engagement with the existing non-AQ powers in the Middle East? More of the same? Because the last five years have worked out so great?
The counterproposal to diplomatic engagement with Hamas is defeating the group in the only arena that it is willing to be engaged — the battlefield. As I always say, you don’t make peace with your enemies, you defeat them.
And as far as Israel is concerned, yes, hawkishness over the last five years has indeed worked out “so great.” The Dean of the Credulosphere doesn’t appear to have a historic memory longer than three or four blog posts, but if he did he would remember that five years ago buses and restaurants were being detonated by suicide bombers on a weekly basis in Israel. In March of 2002 alone, 134 Israelis were murdered in such attacks.
Did diplomatic engagement with Hamas and Islamic Jihad and Yasser Arafat stop this relentless murder? Of course not — Operation Defensive Shield did. The IDF killed or captured the people responsible for the terror war, sent the rest underground in fear for their lives, encircled the hotbeds of Palestinian terrorism with military checkpoints and roadblocks, and flooded terror networks with informants. By 2004 the intifada was over; Israel won, Yasser Arafat lost, and after four horrible years of death and murder, Israelis were able to resume something resembling a normal life.
If you’re the Dean of the Credulosphere, you don’t know any of this, or you choose to ignore it, perhaps assuming that the intifada ended because some kind of vague deal was struck, or because Kofi Annan asked everyone to cut it out, or because terrorists just got tired of fighting, or, you know, whatever; you can always blog about basketball, right? Well, Dean, no deals were struck, and there was no diplomatic solution. So yes, the past five years in Israel have actually been quite nice as far as Palestinian terrorism is concerned. I heartily endorse more of the same. It’s called winning.
