Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Conversation At The Telephone Store, Tel Aviv

- Bombing buses in Tel Aviv again. This is bad, very bad.
- I know.
- Israel will send tanks into Gaza.
- Maybe.
- This is just not smart.
- What choice is there?
- None, if no one is ever going to begin to think clearly.
- Do you know what to do?
- If Israeli government gave me the job of telling them what to do would I know what to say?
- Yes.
- I'd say, end the war. If fight you must, fight your enemies to defeat, and before that, plan for their reconstruction.
- Our enemies have hard heads. They'll never admit defeat.
- They will when their everyday life is destroyed.
- The world won't let us do it.
- Like the world won't let Syria fight a civil war? What the world allows is changing.
- So you want us to kill thousands of people?
- I want a reasonable strategy. You said the state gave me the job of making one. Remember the Yugoslavian wars of the 90's?
- I'm not sure. There have been so many wars.
- President Clinton bombed most of Serbia's infra-structure: roads, factories, power plants, bridges.
- You want us to do the same?
- No. I want a reasonable strategy. I want this country to be able to say to the world: enough permanent war. This is how we see, right now, a possible way to getting back to peace: we'll get to a point where our enemies give up on the idea that they can win a war with us, and at the same time, we'll present a plan for the reconstruction of the everyday life of our enemies. The world can participate in our plans for reconstruction before any military operation. That would be our move. We'd make detailed plans for the reconstruction, we'd obtain commitments to participate in the reconstruction from other countries. We'd wait to see what move our enemies would make in response, if any.
- What kind of military operation are you thinking of, if you don't want the tanks to go in?
- The kind that has worked in the past.
- Air war. People will die.
- People are dying now.
- I know. It's in god's hands.
- Thank god it's not in mine.