Mitzna's The Man
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By: Marc Sirois - 12/16/02
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Amram Mitzna gets all sorts of bad press -- even the unintentional kind. As if the Labor Party candidate for prime minister in Israel's January elections did not have enough of a challenge in trying to unseat Ariel Sharon, now the Western media is hobbling his efforts to connect with the voters.
This is not to say that the journalists who cover the Middle East for wire services and major newspapers are hostile to Mitzna's candidacy. On the contrary, most of them fancy knee-jerk liberals and secretly long for him to win. The problem is that, while they fawn over him in private and actually try to help him with their reporting in public, they do so for all the wrong reasons and are therefore undermining the very cause they seek to buttress.
The current fashion is to describe Mitzna as a "dovish former general." Virtually everyone who writes about the man has adopted this formula, never bothering to check whether or not it has any basis in fact. Given the track record of Western reportage from this part of the world, a failure to get the story straight should not surprise. What is amazing is that this time, the half-wits are shooting themselves in the collective foot because they refuse to learn anything about the subject matter at hand.
For one thing, if these shapers of public opinion would get off their pedestals long enough to do even a bare minimum of research, they would quickly realize that a) Israeli voters have never been predisposed to backing "doves"; and b) they are even less likely to do so with the current conflict raging. They are, therefore, doing Mitzna no favors by making him out to be the second coming of Gandhi.
In addition -- and this is even more pertinent -- Mitzna is anything but a dove. As commander of Israeli forces in the West Bank during the first intifada, he more than matched his counterpart in the Gaza Strip in terms of taking a tough approach against Palestinian activists and militants, including their families.
To be sure, the experience taught him a thing or two about the futility of using violence and intimidation to solve political problems. It also left an indelible impression on him about the dehumanizing effect that the occupation was having on both Palestinians and Israelis.
Having woken up to a painful reality does not make one a "dove," however, only a sentient being capable of absorbing the powerful lessons imparted by first-hand experience.
Even before then, Mitzna had had a crisis of conscience when he took part in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. That debacle, which included the massacre of hundreds of women and children at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut, scarred many Israeli soldiers and Mitzna was no exception. He even went so far as to offer his resignation, declaring that he could no longer serve under Sharon, who was then defense minister.
Again, being disgusted by Sharon's depraved tactics does not make one a dove. Professional military officers are not supposed to like hurting civilians, so when they protest against such crimes, they are really just doing their duty. Like those Israeli Air Force pilots who dropped their bombs into the sea rather than follow instructions to strike residential areas, Mitzna was simply revolting against what he rightly perceived to be illegal orders.
"But," the determinedly misguided will bleat, "Mitzna has to be a dove now because he wants to pull out of Gaza and start talks with the Palestinians before the shootings and bombings stop."
Irrelevant. Gaza does not belong to Israel. Every Israeli there, soldier or settler, is a walking violation of international law as embodied by the Geneva Conventions. Getting them out of there is not "dovish," only sensible. As for the timing of negotiations, history is replete with examples of people continuing to kill one another until the very moment their leaders announced that some sort of truce or treaty had been reached. As Mitzna likes to say, one makes peace with enemies, not friends.
"But," the resolutely confused will yammer, "Sharon wouldn't do any of that. He's a hawk, so Mitzna has to be a dove."
Judging one man solely by comparing him with another is always an exercise in inductive reasoning (i.e. a guess). In this case, the practice is even more flawed because Sharon is anything but a typical hawk. The latter is a hard-liner who frowns on compromise; the former is a mass murderer. Therefore, unless and until the person standing next to Sharon is Darth Vader or some sociopath who dines on human flesh, he or she will always be a "dove" by comparison.
In reality, Mitzna is a no-nonsense type who rejects the dogma that imprisons so many Israeli politicians, including many on what is referred to as "the left." He says that if he is elected, he will use both negotiations and force as he sees fit in order to protect the interests of his people. What he will not do, he insists, is close doors to any possible agreement by seeking to dictate in advance the conditions under which it will be discussed. None of that makes him a "dove," just (outwardly at least) a reasonable man.
"But," the doggedly mistaken will babble, "Israelis will be endangered by a government that fails to negotiate from a position of strength."
That is almost precisely the argument Hitler used when his generals told him to seek peace after it became apparent that the American, British, and Canadian armies flowing out of Normandy in the summer of 1944 could not be stopped. Israelis will not be safe until their leaders stop insisting on fighting battles that can't be lost for the sake of a war that they ultimately must lose. It might take fifty years or a thousand, but a continuing Israeli refusal to make a fair peace can only lead to ruin.
Mitzna's treatment at the hands of the myopic Western media has been anything but helpful, but it is still not too late for him to recover. Only a fool would declare him a savior, but at least he expresses the kind of opinions that make it possible for Israelis and Palestinians alike to envision better days ahead.
Contrast this with Sharon, whose own party's by-laws prevent its members from accepting a Palestinian state and whose coalition partners are avowed supporters of ethnic cleansing.
With no other viable candidates in the race, Mitzna's the man.
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Marc Sirois is a Canadian journalist who lives in Beirut, Lebanon, where he serves as managing editor of The Daily Star. He is also a columnist at www.yellowtimes.org
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