Last update - 03:33 11/07/2003
Maginot mentality in Israel
By Elia Leibowitz
"This territory must be defended against invasion by the enemy. We know the heavy casualties that can be inflicted, for which even a military victory cannot compensate. The defense system we seek to establish along the border has but one goal: keeping out potential invaders. A security fence is better and less costly than a wall of bare chests."
Is this taken from a speech delivered in the Knesset this year by some MK from a middle-of-the-road party? Is it a quote from the lecture of a high-ranking army officer at the recent conference on peace and security in Netanya? Is it a passage from the testimony of an expert called in by the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee's subcommittee on anti-terrorism?
The answer to all these questions is no. These words were uttered on the podium at a plenary session of the French Senate in Paris in 1930. The speaker was the French minister of war, Andre Maginot.
It was a successful speech that achieved its goal. The French parliament approved the minister's request, and budgeted an initial sum of no less than 2.9 billion francs to build a separation fence along France's borders with Germany and Italy. Further investment was approved to extend the fence in the direction of the Belgian border.
The security fence bearing the name of the minister was erected with great pomp and circumstance, and constituted the last word in military engineering at the time. For the sake of those who do not remember why this fence was built and what became of it, it is worth quoting British author and historian Ian Ousby: "Hindsight makes it abundantly clear that the Maginot Line was a foolish misdirection of energy when it was conceived, a dangerous distraction of time and money when it was built, and a pitiful irrelevance when the German invasion did come in 1940."
In an interview on Israeli television at the end of May, Israel's former prime minister and chief of staff, Ehud Barak, passionately argued that building a separation fence in the territories was urgent - practically a matter of survival. There is no better way to safeguard the citizens of Israel, he claimed, and it will reduce their vulnerability to terror by dozens of percentage points.
It was a little surprising to hear these things from such a senior authority in the defense establishment. One can be fairly certain that as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces, he told his soldiers countless times that a tank may be important in war, but armor is no match for the human spirit. He probably added, by way of explanation, that wars are won by the power of the spirit, which is stronger than metal.
In that TV interview, Barak was like a man who forgot his own teachings. For if the spirit of the Jewish soldier can triumph over the steel of Syrian tanks, is it not logical to assume that a Palestinian youth can penetrate the barbed wire of an Israeli security fence? Are we to believe that the environmental sculpture we call a separation fence can set up any real barrier against the Palestinian fighting spirit?
But Barak is right nonetheless. Israel's security does indeed depend on a separation fence, which we must waste no time in building. Except that the fence we are talking about is a metaphorical one. The essence of this fence is the recognition that Israel must release its grip on the Palestinian people. There is a need for separation, but it must be moral, political and geographical.
Maginot's big mistake was not recognizing the power of the spirit. The French government in 1930 failed to realize that when a nation has no will to fight, steel and concrete barricades will not make it secure. Neither does the government of Israel in 2003 have a sufficient appreciation of the strength of the spirit and the inability of matter to stand up to it. A fence of iron and concrete, even if it is electronic, will not suppress the Palestinian spirit. Nor will tanks and planes.
The Palestinian spirit can be calmed by only one thing: an Israeli spirit infused with wisdom, good sense - and a touch of compassion.
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