Participación ciudadana en las comunidades

In Israel “the matter o f security is perceived as a fundamental requirement of Israel’s very existence, and it has been the main national consideration ever since the War of Independence.”32 Israeli policy makers have tended to view issues relating to national security as questions o f national survival and thus as a zero-sum game in which the State o f Israel either wins, or it loses. As losing in this sense means the destruction o f the State, Israel must never lose: “The clear knowledge that Israel would not get a ‘second chance,’ that if it is defeated once it will not rise again, has added force, as if o f a divine injunction, to the perceived obligation o f Israeli society to devote itself to the range of security-related issues.”33 The formation o f its relationship with Central Asia was no different. Current thinking at the collapse of the Soviet Union held that developing positive relations with the new republics was paramount to the survival o f the state. Then Army Chief o f Staff General Ehud Barak stated that the “new Muslim republics in Asia don’t seem ... something that will add to our health, at least in the long term.”34

General Israel Tal, former Assistant Minister o f Defense and accomplished armored division commander, asserts in his book National Security: The Israeli Experience that in Israel “the concept of security deals with existence.”35 He wrote, “Israel’s security doctrine is its basic and permanent plan for preparedness, deployment, and war in the defense of the national existence o f the State o f Israel as the state o f the Jewish people.”36 In his July 1973 groundbreaking study of the subject, Israel's Political-Military Doctrine, Harvard’s Michael Handel writes that 32 Tal, National Security, p. 40.

33 Tal, National Security, p. 40.

34 Daniel Pipes, “The Event o f Our Era: Former Soviet Muslim Republics Change the Middle East,” in

Central Asia and the World: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgy>zstan, and

Turkmenistan, ed. M ichael M andelbaum (New York, 1994), p. 48.

35 Tal, National Security, p. 44. 36 Tal, National Security, p. 42.

security o f the state is the primary and overarching concern in Israeli political military doctrine: “The basic assumption underlying the Israeli political military doctrine is the understanding that the central aim o f Arab countries is to destroy the State o f Israel whenever they fe e l able to do so, while doing everything to harass and disturb its

3 7 * *

peaceful life.” While this understanding reflects the time in which it was written, but it is not entirely inappropriate today, it very aptly states the perception o f Israeli planners.

In 1973, Israel faced hostile Arab neighbors which had fought four wars against the nascent state as well as hosting a variety o f militant Palestinian guerrilla and terrorist organizations. As Handel was writing in the summer of 1973, his assertion that the central tenet of Israeli security doctrine that hostile neighbors would strike when they could was validated three months later when Egypt and Syria launched the October War, catching Israel completely by surprise.

What follows below is a discussion o f four components which have had an impact on both the creation and implementation of Israeli national security policy. These four factors are the links with Zionism; the impact of the Holocaust; the role of the Diaspora; and the notion o f Israel as the Jewish sanctuary. In order to understand how and why the concept of national security is so deeply interrelated with the notion o f national survival, it is essential to acknowledge the lasting impression these four factors have had on Israeli decision making.

Th e Li n k s w i t h Zi o n i s m

It is crucial to note that the conceptual notion of Israeli security is inextricably tied to that o f Zionism. Tal links the premise o f national security as national survival 37 Handel, Isra e l’s Political-Military Doctrine, p. 64 [emphasis in original].

with the ideological underpinnings o f Zionism. According to Tal, “The Zionist idea, which engendered the state o f the Jews, posited that this state must be a sovereign shelter and fortress for the entire Jewish people, a center o f moral and physical strength under obligation to protect them, directly and indirectly, wherever they may be.”38 This critical interconnection is crucial for understanding the relationship between Israel and the Central Asian republics, especially those with Jewish Diaspora communities. This facet o f the relationship will be explored in the relevant chapters that follow.

We can understand that national security policy in Israel is conceptualized and perceived not just as national survival for the State of Israel, but rather as the survival of the Jewish people. As a result, through this fundamental principle the notion of national security in Israel does not simply mean the safety and resilience of the territory and state institutions of the State of Israel; national security— in the Israeli understanding o f the term— is the safety and surety of the Israeli state and the Jewish nation. Bard O ’Neill summarized Dan Horovitz aptly when he wrote:

The centrality o f security... was an outgrowth o f an essentially pessimistic view of the international environment held by Israeli personalities o f various ideological and political persuasions. Such pessimism was rooted in the conception that survival involved not just the safeguarding o f the state but the physical existence o f all the Jews in Israel as well. This conception, in turn, derived from the unhappy historical experiences o f the Jews.39

38 Tal, National Security, p. 40.

39 O ’Neill, “Defense Policy o f Israel,” p. 374, summarizing Dan Horovitz, “Is Israel a Garrison Stale?”

The Impact o f the Holocaust

The single greatest o f the ‘unhappy historical experiences o f the Jew s’ referred to in the passage cited above is Nazi Germany’s genocide of Europe’s Jews during the Second World War. The systematic murder o f over six million Jews has made it impossible to consider the origins o f Israeli concepts o f national security without discussion o f the impact o f the Holocaust. The abiding trauma o f the Holocaust on Jewish and Israeli collective memory cannot be emphasized enough. This horrific episode in Jewish history has cast an enduring imprint on the security perceptions of all Israelis and Jews alike. As Martin Sicker crucially notes, “ [I]t is the rare family in Israel that has not suffered from the horrors o f slaughter and persecution within recent memory.”40 Israeli leaders have not been spared this impact and their understandings o f the national security o f the Jewish people have been reflected in their decision­ making processes since the creation o f the state in 1948.41 When compounded with their responsibility for guiding the Israeli nation through the process of the establishment o f a new country as it comes to terms with the trauma o f the industrialized genocide while surrounded by hostile neighbors intent on pushing Israel into the sea, led to a further calcification in the threat perceptions o f Israel’s national security planners. “The fact that the State o f Israel has a significance for the future of the Jewish people, beyond that of the citizens of Israel itself, places an extraordinary burden of historical responsibility on Israel’s leaders, a responsibility for Jewish security that is rarely understood and appreciated by non-Jews.”42

According to Bard O ’Neill, “[T]wo aspects of the Holocaust left a lasting impression on those who would be charged with the responsibility for formulating

40 Sicker, Isra e l’s Quest fo r Security, p. 1. 41 O ’Neill, “Defense Policy o f Israel,” p. 378. 42 Sicker, Israel's Quest fo r Security, p. 1.

national security policy for Israel.” The first o f these aspects O ’Neill cites is the “basic question o f survival.” The experience o f the Holocaust and Nazi Germany’s attempt to exterminate the Jewish people led Israeli leaders to interpret that “security had come to mean the very existence of a people.” No other people in history had been subjected to such systematic and industrialized mass murder such as that which occurred during the Holocaust. In this sense, Jewish and Israeli leaders came to find the security o f the Jewish nation was inseparable from the survival of the Jewish people. Within living memory o f many o f the people who emerged as leaders of Israel and its national security apparatuses, the veiy existence o f the Jewish people had been nearly extinguished. 43

This link with the survival o f the Jewish people naturally leads O ’Neill to his second connection between Israeli national security thinking and the Holocaust, which is the fact that the security and survival of the Jewish people cannot be guaranteed by any outside powers. The Jewish people alone are the only ones who will act every time to defend the state against all outside threats, or as Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion famously said, “What matters is not what the Gentiles say, but what the Jews do.”44

In practice, this means that Israel cannot and will not depend upon any outside nation to come to its defense. The stakes are too high— the very existence of a people who have historically been persecuted and nearly exterminated— for such a serious matter to be handled by anyone other than by the Jewish people themselves. The Holocaust demonstrated in the starkest terms possible that no other nation would act to stop or prevent the annihilation of the Jewish people. As O ’Neill wrote, “[T]he

43 O ’Neill, “Defense Policy of Israel,” p. 373.

Jacob Abadi, Israel's Quest fo r Recognition and Acceptance in A sia: Garrison State Diplomacy (London, 2004), p. xi.

experience o f the Holocaust led to the further conclusion that physical security was too important to be left to others, since, even in moments o f extreme peril, sympathetic friends may be indecisive.”45 This Israeli perception o f how the world would act would be confirmed in the years to come. One example was the failure of friendly states to sell Israel the proper aims it needed to defend itself when the state was first created. The belief that only Israel can and will act as its security guarantor was reinforced when American President Richard Nixon withheld military assistance to Israel during the 1973 war when Israel felt it was most at risk o f failing to counter the combined Arab assault.

There exists debate over what exactly transpired during the 1973 war with respect to “whether or not the United States deliberately held up supplies.” However, that debate notwithstanding, there was most definitely a perception in Israel that correlated to “anxious moments when the first few days of fighting drastically reduced... [Israeli aims] inventories.” European refusal to allow the transshipment of munitions and materiel during the 1973 war and Japan’s endorsement o f “the Arab demand that the occupied territories be returned” further strengthened the firmly held belief among Israeli national security planners that only Israel would act to defend itself. This notion will be further developed later in this chapter. 46

Th e Ro l e o f t h e Dia s p o r a

Prior to the creation o f the State of Israel in 1948, the Jewish people had lived in exile, dispersed throughout the world. This fact deeply affected the underlying concepts of national security in Israel for several reasons. First, it underscored the

45 O ’Neill, “Defense Policy o f Israel,” p. 373. 46 O ’Neill, “Defense Policy o f Israel,” p. 381-382.

urgency with which the Jewish people must act to guarantee their own security. History had demonstrated that no other power would act to protect world Jewry. Second, it reinforced the desire to achieve a lasting settlement and home for the Jewish people. The trauma of exile and the Holocaust calcified the exigency o f the situation. This is reflected in the deep responsibility that Israeli leaders have taken to guarantee the security and safety o f the state. Third, the Diaspora has had an impact on the State o f Israel’s national security policies through the enshrinement o f self- reliance.

Finally, the experiences of the Diaspora47 have solidified the “deep-rooted... feelings o f communal solidarity based on the fundamental distinction between Jews and non-Jews, and the abiding distrust of foreigners and outsiders.” Heller has argued that “Israeli policy makers were influenced by the habits of thought and action instilled by centuries of Jewish communal life in the Diaspora.” In addition, Heller asserts that “Israel’s condition o f isolation was seen as a continuation o f the traditional Jewish condition o f isolation and vulnerability in a hostile environment.” Some have expressed the opinion that this has led to the strong national security tenets which are detailed below. However, “whatever the objective reality o f Israel’s condition,” it can be argued that the experiences of the Diaspora have had an impact on the Israeli perception o f their environment as hostile and unforgiving.48

47 For more on the role o f the Diaspora in bolstering Israeli policy in Central Asia, see Andrey Vasilyevich Fedorchenko, “Kazakhstan-Israel: Ways of Economic Rapprochement,” http://www.transcaspian.ni/cgi-bin/web.exe/eng/7514.html (accessed 22 June 2001; site discontinued) and Avi Machlis, “Azerbaijan courts Jews, Israel to win favor with U.S.,” Jewish

Telegraphic Agency, 1 February 2000.

The Only Permanent Ally

Ultimately, the Jewish Diaspora is the only permanent ally of the State of Israel.49 Israel has been supported unconditionally through continued immigration of Jews from around the world and financial support o f Jews from abroad. Following the substantial Soviet arms deal to Egypt in 1955, Israeli national security and military leaders took dramatic steps to adjust the imbalance o f amis in the region. O ’Neill states that “contributions from Jews outside Israel helped to defray the costs”50 of meeting this new challenge. In seeking to reach parity, Israel also depended on German reparations, American loans, and significant international debt. This assessment of the Diaspora as the only permanent ally o f the Jewish state in part can be understood as a result of that condition o f isolation discussed above and the notion o f self-reliance reinforced during exile that no other power would act to defend the Jewish people.

Is r a e l Ast h e Je w i s h Sa n c t u a r y

The factors discussed previously in this section—the links with Zionism, the impact of the Holocaust, and the role of the Diaspora— have all contributed to the formation o f the concept o f Israel as a sanctuary for the Jewish people. It is the only place in the world dedicated to ensuring the safety and security o f world Jewry. History has proven time and again that no other actor or state will always act in the interests of the Jewish people. It is only Israel, the world’s first and only Jewish state, which will always act to safeguard the Jewish people, anywhere in the world.

As a result o f these unique factors, the sense o f permanence and drive to establish regional integration and lasting peace are paramount. All o f these stem from 49 Tal, National Security, p. 40.

ensuring the security o f the state and the Jewish people. This can only be achieved through eternal vigilance, continued preparedness to fight to defend the state, and an unceasing advancement o f national interests.

As components o f a national ethos, these factors comprise not only a world­ view held by many Israelis, but also double as part o f a sense o f Israeli nationalism. In expressing his opinion on nationalism, former Deputy Minister o f Defense Ephraim Sneh wrote about the importance of

[U]nderstanding of the lessons of Jewish history and of the catastrophes and straggles that led to the founding o f the Jewish state. The Jewish people’s suffering while scattered over the face o f the earth, the terrible culmination o f which was the Holocaust, obliges us to be strong in our own land. A deep knowledge o f the high price we have paid for establishing and maintaining the state... will make clear... just how

^ 1 irreplaceable this land is to us.

Sneh goes on to emphasize the importance of “national tradition”52 and belonging, and it very succinctly describes the ineffable tie Israelis feel to their country.