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Friday April 9, 1999

Israel should take the lessons of Kosovo to heart

GERALD M. STEINBERG

When the Israelites left Egypt, they departed ready for battle. Even with divine intervention, the former slaves understood that in order to survive, they had to be able to defend themselves. During their 40 years in the desert, our ancestors did not precipitate wars, but they were attacked on a number of occasions.

Despite all talk of a "New World Order" and the agonizing in the United Nations and European Union, the ways of the world have not changed much since then. Whether in the Balkans, Kuwait, Cyprus, or Jerusalem, nations and peoples that are unable to defend themselves fall prey to brutality and destruction.

While much of the world may condemn Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and the Serbs as aggressors and war criminals, in their own eyes, they are ensuring their survival as a nation. They seem convinced that if they did not terrorize hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians into leaving Kosovo, the Serbian nation would eventually lose hold of the center of its heritage and become the victim of conflict itself.

Hundreds of years of ethnic and religious hatred and warfare, and the fact that for five centuries, Kosovo, as well as much of Serbia, was under Ottoman control, provide the evidence to support that conclusion.

With the exception of Russia, the rest of the world looks on in horror as thousands of defenseless civilians are killed or exiled and their homes torched in a scorched-earth policy. NATO's belated and limited bombing campaign has predictably failed to prevent the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo.

Despite the hand-wringing over the "humanitarian catastrophe," the stakes are not high enough to send in large armies and risk the lives of ground troops to save the Kosovars.

From an Israeli perspective, the images of the refugees, the families that were separated, and the reports of killings and torture recall the plight of Jews during the Holocaust. (Though of course, the Germans and their henchmen slaughtered 6 million Jews out of simple hatred, and not because of any threat, real or imagined).

Even though during World War II the Serbs showed great courage in resisting the Nazis, our sympathies today lie with the people of Kosovo.

At the same time, the events in the Balkans continue to provide an important reminder about the central importance of military force and warfare, even in the post-Cold War era.

If Israel is reduced further in size and power, as the result of overly optimistic agreements with the Palestinians and Syria, and we are confronted again by an Arab coalition intent on retrieving "Palestine" for the Arabs, our fate would be far worse than that of the Kosovars.

In such circumstances, the international community might meet in solemn assembly, and perhaps even wag its collective diplomatic finger at the Syrians, Iraqis, Palestinians and others. It is possible that America would provide weapons and assistance to Israel, as in 1973.

No such assistance should be expected from the Europeans, who have apparently deliberately forgotten the laws of realpolitik that were codified by Castlereagh, Metternich and Bismarck.

Western Europe, and Germany in particular, is responsible for the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. The German government started the Balkans on the road to hell, encouraging Croatia to become an independent state, while many other governments were attempting to avoid war by keeping the federal Republic of Yugoslavia together.

Today the European Union, under German leadership, finds the time to preach to Israel, while its diplomats bumble along in Serbia. Hiding behind simplistic slogans of humanitarianism, the Europeans lack any realistic vision of the future. It is easy and cost-free to talk theoretically about Palestinian rights, support a Palestinian state and advocate the redivision of Jerusalem.

The Europeans may press Israel for concession after concession, but they will be nowhere to be seen when the consequences must be faced. The evidence sadly seems to indicate that a Palestinian state could be the source of more "humanitarian catastrophes."

The war in Kosovo should give us all pause. The popular clichés and politically correct views about war and peace have again been exposed as hollow false prophecies. For Europe, these events provide a sober reminder that in the absence of a balance of power, whether in the Balkans or the Middle East, there is no stability.

Just as Serbia attacked Kosovo -- and, under different circumstances, the Kosovars might well have joined other forces in attacking Serbia -- if given a chance, the hatred and retaliation among Palestinians and much of the Arab world would again be a direct threat to Israel.

For the Jewish people, the plans for self-defense, characterizing the Exodus from Egypt and the delivery from slavery to freedom, are not merely relics of an earlier era.

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