Israel’s Response to Its 9/11 Risks Missing the Lessons of America’s 9/11

'Surely, the lesson of 9/11 is not that you should give unconditional support to a government that has an escalatory military response to terrorism.

..

Sontag’s call for an intelligent response to 9/11 remains bracing. It’s a call to think about the root causes of terrorism, to hold governments responsible for security failures, and to look at the reality of foreign policy squarely, not through the haze of patriotic mythology.'

'There’s already an impulse in Israeli politics (echoed in the United States and elsewhere) to give Netanyahu the same blank check Bush had. Former Republican representative Joe Walsh, a Never Trump Republican, tweeted, “Yesterday was Israel’s 9/11. And remember, after 9/11, nobody told the United States not to retaliate, nobody called for a ‘ceasefire’ or a ‘de-escalation,’ nobody ‘both-sided’ what had happened that horrible day.”

Surely, the lesson of 9/11 is not that you should give unconditional support to a government that has an escalatory military response to terrorism. Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis had a wiser response. He tweeted,

The shock and fury in Israel are reminiscent of the emotions in the US after 9/11. That provoked a display of American unity and power. It also led to a misconceived and self-destructive war on terror. Israel may be heading down the same dangerous path.

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After 9/11, Susan Sontag wrote an extremely unpopular essay for The New Yorker that spoke hard truths few at the time were ready to hear. Sontag asked, “Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a ‘cowardly’ attack on ‘civilization’ or ‘liberty’ or ‘humanity’ or ‘the free world’ but an attack on the world’s self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? How many citizens are aware of the ongoing American bombing of Iraq?” She added, “Let’s by all means grieve together. But let’s not be stupid together. A few shreds of historical awareness might help us understand what has just happened, and what may continue to happen.” For her trouble, Sontag was denounced as an “America-hater” and “traitor.”

Sontag’s call for an intelligent response to 9/11 remains bracing. It’s a call to think about the root causes of terrorism, to hold governments responsible for security failures, and to look at the reality of foreign policy squarely, not through the haze of patriotic mythology.

The intellectual courage of Susan Sontag remains as rare as hen’s teeth. It can be detected in an editorial in Haaretz on the causes of this catastrophe:

The disaster that befell Israel on the holiday of Simchat Torah is the clear responsibility of one person: Benjamin Netanyahu. The prime minister, who has prided himself on his vast political experience and irreplaceable wisdom in security matters, completely failed to identify the dangers he was consciously leading Israel into when establishing a government of annexation and dispossession, when appointing Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir to key positions, while embracing a foreign policy that openly ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians.

Netanyahu will certainly try to evade his responsibility and cast the blame on the heads of the army, Military Intelligence and the Shin Bet security service who, like their predecessors on the eve of the Yom Kippur War, saw a low probability of war with their preparations for a Hamas attack proving flawed.

They scorned the enemy and its offensive military capabilities. Over the next days and weeks, when the depth of Israel Defense Forces and intelligence failures come to light, a justified demand to replace them and take stock will surely arise. However, the military and intelligence failure does not absolve Netanyahu of his overall responsibility for the crisis, as he is the ultimate arbiter of Israeli foreign and security affairs.

Haaretz is no more likely to be heeded than Sontag was. Yet its call for holding Netanyahu and his government accountable and for honesty about the dispossession of the Palestinians points to the only way forward that doesn’t unleash more horrors.'

- Israel’s Response to Its 9/11 Risks Missing the Lessons of America’s 9/11, October 9, 2023


'..return to a law-enforcement counterterrorism paradigm .. de-emphasizing the military’s role..'

'..return to a law-enforcement counterterrorism paradigm while de-emphasizing the military’s role .. A more accurate framing would be that the post-9/11 wars started as a morally universalistic crusade in which Bush sought to marginalize members of the conservative camp who wanted to portray it as a civilizational struggle with Islam writ large. The failure of this project then shifted momentum to the nativist, proto-Trumpist right that wanted a brutal war against terrorists without any kind of democratic or human rights agenda. Overall, this book could have benefited from more recognition of the factionalism and variety of the modern U.S. right.

..The costs of America’s post-9/11 wars are usually counted in lives, resources, and the U.S. global standing, but Ackerman correctly includes the weakening of democracy and the stoking of racism as additional costs. This book’s comprehensive nature and reasonable size make it worthwhile for those who know little about these conflicts, and its innovative argument make it an important read for scholars and policymakers alike. Despite some problems, Ackerman’s analysis establishes a touchstone for future research and issues a warning about how ill-defined, overly ambitious foreign policies often return home with dire consequences.'

- How the United States Terrorized Itself, September 11, 2021



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The 'war on terror' that ruined Rome

'..Our last 18 years of war have not accomplished anything for America..', 2019


'The cost of the US wars on terror has reached into the trillions..'

'America must lead, but mainly by example .. Most importantly, invest the savings to build a secure, dynamic, and prosperous America that others want to emulate.'

'A lack of defense production .. the U.S. Is Unprepared for War'