ISRAEL: THE WAITING GAME

HILLEL HALKIN HAS A VERY INTERESTING ARTICLE IN THIS MONTH'S COMMENTARY MAGAZINE. IF YOU DON'T SUBSCRIBE, I SUGGEST YOU PICK UP A COPY. BELOW IS AN ABSTRACT. HIS THESIS IS THAT FOR THE PRESENT ISRAEL CANNOT DO MUCH TO SHAPE ITS STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT, SO IT WOULD BE WISE TO GO INTO THE DIPLOMATIC EQUIVALENT OF UNC'S OLD FOUR CORNERS OFFENSE.

Israel: The Waiting Game by Hillel Halkin (Commentary)
Israel has entered a waiting period—and waiting is never easy. It involves the admission, potentially frustrating and even demoralizing, that one’s ability to change things for the better is highly limited.

The country has been through times of perceived passivity before, especially in the decade between 1983 and 1992 following the resignation of Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Then, after the failure of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to exact a peace treaty from Beirut and destroy the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and the disappointment of hopes for an Israeli-Arab détente in the wake of the 1979 peace agreement with Egypt, Israel retreated into a defensive position. This policy was most associated with Begin’s successor, Yitzhak Shamir, who, as prime minister for eight of those ten years, was guided by the belief that the fewer initiatives he took, the fewer mistakes he risked making.