Much has been written about the lessons that our government has learned from 9/11, and not much has been written about whom the government is learning them from.  Since 1973, the United States has supplied Israel with enough fighter planes, attack helicopters, tanks, missile systems, and assorted other military equipment to enable it to become the fourth largest army in the world.  If you add in the estimated 200 nukes, the battle-tested troops and the veteran leadership that a never-ending state of war brings to the table, then one would have to rank them higher. Little David's Army is all grown up.  Having said that, the Israelis are teaching the Americans precisely the wrong lessons in how to bring an asymmetric insurgency to an end.
          Proving decisively that it could defeat all Arab comers in the wars of 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973, the Israelis now became the dominant power in the region.  This came at a price, of course, for not even victory tastes sweet in the Middle East.  The Israeli leadership became increasingly intransigent and more hard-line.  In 1973, the conservative Likud Party came to fruition and the first Likud Prime Minister was Menachim Begin, elected in 1977.  A former leader of the hard-line paramilitary (some say terrorist) Irgun, he helped initiate the bilateral peace process with Egypt, which resulted in the Camp David Accords and the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty.  It was in 1977 that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat visited Jerusalem and addressed the Israeli Knesset, an act that probably cost him his life, in 1981, at the hands of Islamist extremists in his own Army.
          In the absence of a final peace settlement with all of the Arab combatant nations, the continued Israeli administration of areas captured in 1967 is subject to constant international concern and criticism.  However, it is the establishment of Israeli homes and communities in those areas that has often generated condemnation.  Over 500,000 Jewish settlers now live in areas captured during the 1967 war.  These settlements have been declared illegal in no less than four United Nations Security Council resolutions and by the International Court of Justice.  The settlements have also been a source of tension between Israel and the U.S., who have always tried to balance their "special relationship" with Israel and their "special relationships" with Saudi Arabia and Egypt.  Despite these tensions, the United States during this period has increasingly looked at Israel as the bulwark of democracy and capitalism in the Middle East and the first line of defense of the oil fields in the region.  To that end, the U.S. has given Israel billions upon billions of dollars in aid, the biggest increases coming after 1973.  While our successive governments have talked publicly about fairness and balance and a "two-state solution" to the Israeli- Palestinian problem, it is obvious to anyone with a calculator whose side we favor.
          One of the misconceptions that Westerners, especially Americans, have of the Arab Middle East is that they are some sort of monolithic entity.  We had the same misconception about communists.  The truth is, many of the loyalties in that region are still tribal, or clannish.  It makes sense that since Jordan has only been "Jordan" for about 60 years (before that being part of Greater Palestine), this country would be the natural refuge for displaced Palestinians, and sure enough, it was.  Along with the refugees came the PLO, though, and the PLO wanted virtual autonomy in the refugee areas.  This led to a bloody clash with the Jordanian government and their army in 1970, called "Black September" by the Palestinians, and the PLO was expelled.  Seeking a new place to call home, the PLO took up residence in Lebanon.
          In 1982, fed up with cross-border attacks on civilians by PLO fighters from bases in Southern Lebanon, the Israeli Army launched a massive invasion of Lebanon to root out and destroy the PLO fighters and their sanctuaries.  The Israeli government had authorized the army to only go forty kilometers inside of Lebanon, but, led by General Ariel Sharon, the Israelis chased the PLO fighters all the way into Beirut.  Two months later, the Palestine Liberation Organization, including Yassir Arafat and 14,000 fighters and members, were evacuated from Beirut and relocated to Tunis, Tunisia, not to return to Palestine for twelve years.  The removal of the PLO did not stop the violence however, especially in Lebanon.  In one of the biggest massacres in the modern history of the Middle East, Lebanese Christian Phalange units, allowed by Israeli forces to enter the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla just outside of Beirut, murdered between 400 and 800 Palestinian civilians.  No action was taken by Israel to stop the massacre.
          In Lebanon, where there were 400,000 Palestinian refugees, the situation was complicated by a Civil War.  Into this mess the Americans came in 1983, trying to bring some order to a very complicated situation.  There were the Christian Phalange fighters, the Muslim Druze militia, the Syrian Army, the PLO, the Israelis, and now the Americans and the French.  The Americans under Ronald Reagan were trying to rebuild their post-Vietnam image, and trying to reassert their influence in an area of strategic (read: oil) interest.  Some of these factions did not see the Americans as neutral peacekeepers, but saw them instead as allies of the Christian dominated Lebanese Army, which, in fact, they became.  On October 23, just after dawn, 241 Marines died when a truck packed with explosives blew up a Marine barracks at Beirut International Airport.  At that same moment a similar explosion blew up a French military barracks a few kilometers away, killing 56 French troops.  The October 23 suicide bombers used the identical technique that had been used six months earlier to blow up the American embassy.  The same technique would be used again on December 12 in Kuwait against the American and French embassies.  It would be used again in September 1984, in East Beirut at the American embassy, with 13 deaths.  We did not learn very fast.
          In 1987, the Intifada, or "Awakening," was spontaneously started by young Palestinian men and youths as a reaction to several incidents of Israeli brutality.  At first, this involved the throwing of rocks and stones at Israeli soldiers, but later, under the auspices of the PLO, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, the demonstrators graduated to Molotov cocktails and even hand grenades.  By the time the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, 1,124 Palestinians and 90 Israelis had died.  It was during this time that the Palestinians could have used a real leader; one who could have led the people in non-violent resistance and stated the case of Palestinian people eloquently to the world.  The Intifada was on the right track, it just didn't have that person to lead it.  As it was, the Intifada brought the plight of the Palestinian people to the forefront of world opinion, and was not a good thing for Israeli public relations.  David was turning into Goliath.

          In 1993, Yitzhak Rabin, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Yassir Arafat, the Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization signed an agreement known as the Oslo Accords. In this agreement, among other things, the PLO acknowledged Israel's right to exist, and Israel accepted the PLO, under its newly appointed governing body, the Palestinian Authority, as the sole representative and government of the Palestinian people.
          In the past, the Israelis had refused to negotiate with the PLO, whom they deemed as a terrorist organization.  Yet when they negotiated with anyone else, that Palestinian representative would have to consult the PLO before responding.  When Rabin became Prime Minister in 1992, the Israelis opened secret talks with the PLO through the auspices of Norwegian diplomats, and thus the Oslo Accords were born.  The Oslo Accords took the United States and just about everyone else by surprise.
          While these agreements were a start, and better than nothing, they were carefully constructed as a "Declaration of Principals," and an "Interim Agreement."  The Oslo Accords left the major negotiating for later: an independent Palestinian state, the status of Jerusalem, and the status of refugees and their right-of-return to their former homeland.  The Israelis handed over limited sovereignty in some parts of the West Bank and Gaza in stages to the Palestinian Authority, while retaining control of all borders, much of the security, and all of the foreign policy.  
          Viewed in twelve years of cold daylight, the Oslo Accords have to be seen as a failure.  The Israelis came to the meetings with a huge advantage in organization, technical engineering, detailed maps, and skilled negotiators.  Once again, the lack of a viable alternative to the autocratic improvising of Yassir Arafat was obvious to all who were present.  The upshot of this is that the Israelis have turned the West Bank into an incredible series of small, noncontiguous cantons in the valleys for the Palestinians, surrounded by large, modern Israeli settlements occupying the hills.  This impossible situation is made worse by the fact that wherever you are in the Palestinian areas, you can't get there from here.  Access to anywhere is restricted for Palestinians, with time-consuming waits at innumerable checkpoints and humiliating searches.  As one writer put it, Israel owns this house; in it they've allowed the Palestinians the use of a few bedrooms, but they're not allowed to use the halls or the bathrooms.  The Israelis claim, with justification, that this situation is made necessary by the numerous Palestinian suicide bombings that have plagued Israel for the past twenty years.
          This violent Palestinian response to their plight deserves to be scrutinized.  Many Palestinians claim that given the overwhelming military superiority of the Israeli Defense Force (and overwhelming is really an understatement), all the Palestinian people have to fight with is a few guns, some mortars, and their own bodies, to which explosives are attached and detonated at strategic locations.  This is viewed by many as the ultimate heroic sacrifice, and these young men (and increasingly young women) are seen as martyrs and heroes.
          Imagine, though, how different our history would be if young Negro boys and girls had strapped on explosives and blew themselves up at department store counters, entrances to colleges, on buses, and on crowded urban streets in Birmingham, Atlanta, and Nashville in the early 1960s.  The response to their plight would have been completely different.  While the conditions of Southern blacks would have still been intolerable, sympathy from the outside community would have certainly shifted to the slain white civilians.  Federal troops, far from being used as a buffer against the continued violence of whites aimed at Negroes, would have probably been positioned against the blacks themselves.  The blacks were in a similar, hostile, repressive situation against a much larger and better-equipped foe.  They had what might be viewed by some as a legitimate right to strike back at their oppressors; instead they chose a path of non-violent resistance and because of this, they delineated clearly for all to see their position as victims, and their oppressor's position as the brutal racist thugs they truly were.
          Of course, the blacks had the incomparable Martin Luther King Jr., to state their case; but they also had James Bevel, and Diane Nash, and John Lewis, who led a movement of young African-Americans committed to non-violence and civil disobedience.  These people studied how to do this–it didn't just happen.  They trained their cadres and prepared them as fully as possible for what was going to happen to them–including what to do when they were beaten.  The immense courage that it took to know you were going to probably get your head smashed in, or a bone broken, or worse, and not strike back–this was the essence of the movement.  The thing people forget about using non-violence against repression is that it's only non-violent in one direction.
          The Palestinians have always lacked their version of Martin Luther King Jr., or Nelson Mandela, or even Gandhi.  Instead, they got stuck with Yassir Arafat, with a sidearm on his hip, and not much eloquence coming out of his mouth.  How the course of history can change when one brave, prophetic person can put his own well being aside and lead a people to freedom in the face of impossible odds.
          If only... if only the Palestinians could take this vital lesson to heart, things would necessarily be much different.  Every time a suicide bomber blows him or herself up in a crowded market, or in a club full of young Israelis, or at a wedding, the Israelis have all of the justification they need to lock down villages, throw up roadblocks, build Berlin-style walls, cause endless humiliations to harmless women and children, and worse, to blow up houses and kill civilians in retaliation.  The court of world opinion, already inclined towards the Palestinians, would be so much louder if it weren't for the suicide bombers.  Above all, America would be placed in a much more morally difficult situation if the Palestinians were using only non-violent techniques; as it is, every time a suicide bomb kills Israeli civilians, the American government is quick to condemn the terrorism and it tips the scale back on the moral side of Israel.
          Imagine, though, a Palestine of non-violent resistance, with a Nelson Mandela-type, or a Martin Luther King, or a Gandhi, or even a Vaclev Havel leading the way.  Imagine these young Palestinian men and women, steeped in non-violent training, sitting down on roads, obstructing traffic, marching peacefully, singing songs, and filling the jails faster than they can be arrested.  For starters, you'd have every Bono-style celebrity activist marching with them within days.  There's Harry Belafonte! There's Martin Sheen!  Here comes the legendary Mandela!  The situation would be completely different–American religious leaders and peace-movement activists would be going to jail in solidarity with the Palestinians.  This would all be way too much for the Israelis, who would suddenly look like the purveyors of apartheid that they really are.
          At least one man is really trying.  Dr. Mubarak Awad is a Palestinian who is internationally recognized as an expert in nonviolent strategic action.  As the director of Nonviolence International, he and his group are working tirelessly from village to village in the West Bank and Gaza, teaching nonviolent techniques to all who will listen.  The work is hard and slow, and old ideas diehard.  But Dr. Awad is convinced that his work will eventually be successful, and he has the support and respect of like-minded Israelis just over the border.
          What happened in the meantime was the second, or al-Aqsa Intifada, spurred on by the collapse of yet more peace talks, and Ariel Sharon's ill advised visit in September of 2000 to the Al Aqsa Mosque, the Muslim holy site in Jerusalem that is also the site of the Temple Mount.  Israeli and Palestinian violence associated with the Intifada had claimed 1,782 Palestinian lives, 649 Israeli lives, and the lives of 41 foreign nationals by the end of March 2003.  Israel took full advantage of the 9/11 tragedies by equating al-Qaeda with the Palestinian suicide bombers, knowing that America in its vengeful mood would look the other way. Sharon's tanks, Apache helicopters, huge bulldozers, and F-16 fighters turned the West Bank city of Jenin into rubble, killing hundreds of civilians.
          In the summer of 2005, Ariel Sharon convinced his reluctant Cabinet to allow him to unilaterally withdraw all 8,000 settlers from the Gaza Strip.  On the surface, this seemed to be a grand gesture towards peace, allowing the Palestinians true autonomy over one of the Occupied Territories.  A closer look reveals that, unlike the West Bank with its 500,000 Jewish settlers, the Gaza Strip had never become the destination of choice for any but the most hearty or militant Israelis.  The few settlements in place were isolated and lightly populated.  Sharon sacrificed the Gaza Strip settlements and their 8,000 inhabitants for the "facts on the ground" in the West Bank.  It seems as though for now they've given back all the land they are going to give.
          On January 4th, 2006, Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke that permanently incapacitated him.  Power was transferred to his 2nd in command, Ehud Olmert, whose Kadima Party (a party founded by Sharon) won the majority of seats in the March elections and made Olmert the new Prime Minister.
          Another election in January was more troubling to Israel and its supporters.  Hamas, the Islamic militant organization, won 74 out of 132 seats in the Palestinian legislative election and became the majority party in Palestine.  Among other things, this posed an uneasy dilemma for the United States, who has been pushing hard for democracy in the Middle East. Hamas, who is committed to the destruction of Israel, was elected by the people of Palestine in a relatively free and fair election.

          As for the nation of Israel, a few things are fairly clear to me.  For starters, they have to start acting their age.  They have to realize that they are the elephant in the living room.  Playing the victim isn't cutting it anymore.  As the last living people who were victims of the Holocaust pass into eternity, today's generation of Israeli Jews must come to terms with the fact that it has now been sixty years since the death camps were liberated, and as truly horrible as it was, and understanding that it should never be forgotten, it is time to stop thinking of themselves as victims.  Victims don't possess the 4th or 5th most powerful army in world; victims don't own 200 nukes; victims don't win four wars in a row; and victims don't oppress other minorities.

You must admit–much of the Arab world has made it their life's mission to destroy Israel. Under this constant looming threat, what would you expect?

          In 1948, Israel was like a baby lion surrounded by a pack of hungry hyenas.  With the memory of the Holocaust fresh in the world's consciousness, most nations outside of the Arab world, even the Soviet Union, were partial to a Jewish state.  And like the United States after 9/11, Israel has squandered away its considerable bank of sympathy through its over-zealous militarism and uncompromising and repressive position against the Palestinian people.  The last fifty years have seen David indeed turn into Goliath, except that David doesn't seem to know it.  For nowhere, not even in the United States, are the myths of a country and a people so powerfully and fatally ingrained as in Israel.  They have constructed and learned a version of their young history as a nation in which they have been the victims in every act of their play.  As a result, most Israelis can't conceive of being oppressors; their script has always called for them to be the oppressed.  The few eloquent and lucid voices of sanity in Israel remind me of the Whos in Whoville shouting loudly but vainly from their dust-speck amidst a jungle of self-righteous violence.
          The Israelis fought four wars (some would say five, if you include the 1967-1970 War of Attrition) from 1948 to 1973, or in their first twenty-five years of existence, to deal with the fact that the neighboring Arab world was bent on their destruction.  They won every one of them, and haven't had another one in the last thirty-two years. Egypt, Jordan, and the PLO have all renounced their earlier policies and have declared Israel's right to exist.  Israel no longer needs to act as though it is fighting every day for its own existence.  It is now the Palestinians who are fighting every day for their own existence.
          The Palestinian people are fighting a battle against time, which may be a reason, but not an excuse, for the flailing, violent actions of some.  The Israelis are using a strategy that embraces "the facts on the ground," which is to say that every day, month, and year that goes by adds a permanence to the settlements that have sprouted up all over the Occupied Territories.  They kept building and building, ignoring the spirit, if not the letter of any and all interim agreements negotiated with the Palestinians.  Now, thirty-plus years later, they can say, "You can't possibly expect us to tear all of this down!" They have not only built all of these settlements, but have carefully constructed a network of roads in and out of them that are only to be used by Israeli Jews.  This, along with the Security Fence, or Apartheid Wall, whichever you choose to call it, has effectively trapped the Palestinian people into a matrix or spider web that is virtually impossible to traverse.  This situation has no resemblance to justice.  It is apartheid.
          If the Palestinian people have any hope of getting anything close to their former lives back, they must renounce all acts of violence so that they can gain the upper moral ground and expose the Israeli position for the apartheid that it is.  Until then, the "facts on the ground" will continue to speak louder than any single cry in the West Bank.
          Where should the government of the United States be in this miserable state of affairs? I think that the United States needs to quit treating Israel like the 51st state.  Did you know that we give Israel one quarter of all of our foreign aid each year?  This may have been okay when Israel was a baby lion, but baby's all grown up now, and is starting to eat the neighbors.  Alas, being kind to Israel is one thing all sides of the ideological divide seem to agree on.  Being "soft" on Israel is kind of like being "soft" on Defense–no one wants to be accused of it.  If this is the case, and everybody knows it, we should stop pretending that we're being even-handed about it, and recuse ourselves from the peace process.  After all, we can only really be of any help as a parent showing some tough love to Israel–and it appears as if we don't have the political will to do that.  So, administration after administration plays their role of power broker, with occasional successes, such as the Israeli-Egyptian Peace Agreement (although it didn't work out too well for Mr. Sadat), but mainly overseeing agreements like the Wye River Accords that end up with a Palestinian entity that looks amazingly like a piece of Swiss cheese.  To his credit, George W. Bush is the first U.S. president to officially call for a Palestinian state.  While this is an improvement on his predecessors, it is a long way from coercing the Israelis to change "the facts on the ground." I just don't see this happening any time soon, not with George W., not with Barack Obama, not with anybody on the immediate horizon.
          As for us, the Christians, how should we feel about all of this? Who's side should we be on? Should we even take sides? Conservative evangelical Christendom comes down hard on the side of Israel.  Strike me down with a bolt of lightning right now, but I've never really understood this great love/brotherhood from the Christians to the Israelis.  I mean, an over-the-top, favor-one-side-over-the-other kind of love.  There is a whole sect of conservative Christians who call themselves pre-millennial dispensationalists who believe that everything that is going on in Israel, and happening to Israel, both good and bad, has to happen in just this way for Jesus to return.  They seem to rather perversely pray for as much violence as possible to accelerate the completion of this prophecy.  On the other hand, this is the religion that rejected and still rejects the basic premise of our faith in the person of Jesus Christ.  This is a pretty major divide.  I don't mean that we shouldn't love them, or that we should side against them, I just don't understand why we should come down so strongly for them over the Palestinians.  (I'm gonna be killed crossing the street tomorrow.)  
          My position is, I'm on the side of peace.  I'm on the side of whoever is on the side of non-violence.  If there is an Israeli peace movement, I'm with them.  If the Palestinians start marching for peace, I'm with them, too.  I'm especially for those brave souls on both sides who, against overwhelming odds, come together for a better understanding of the other's position and try and arrive at non-violent solutions.  This is whom I believe the Christian church should support.  This idea that we should support Israel because we have a Biblical... obligation, is contrary to Jesus's teaching.  He said, "Blessed are the peacemakers." He didn't say anything about bulldozing houses, or suicide bombers, for that matter.  But he wouldn't have liked either one.