Michael Zantovsky: The Old New European

A spy is sent to Israel from Prague in the old days of the communist era. His task is to look up a man named Levy in Tel Aviv, give him the secret password, “The fish is cooked; it will not rain tomorrow,” and collect some top-secret documents. The spy goes to the address of an apartment house and rings a bell on a first-floor door marked “Levy.” A man opens. “The fish is cooked; it will not rain tomorrow,” says the spy. The man just stares at him. “The fish is cooked; it will not rain tomorrow,” repeats the spy. The man’s face brightens. “Oh, you must be looking for Levy the spy,” he exclaims. “Two floors up, on the left.”

This old silly joke illustrates something about the intensity of information flows in a country as small and tight-knit as Israel. Most people know everything, and many seem to know more than that. There is no keeping a secret.

So now someone approved the plans to build another 1600 homes in Ramat Shlomo and Bibi did not know about it. Eli Yishai did not tell him. Mayor Barkat would not let him know. It was all work of nameless petty bureaucrats who do not read the papers. Please.

People who give credibility to the above do so largely because they find it impossible to believe that anyone with the IQ of the Israeli prime minister would do anything as guaranteed to anger the one important ally Israel has, during a vice-presidential visit to boot. Apparently they have not heard the story about Henry Kissinger who bought a piece of cloth which was not enough for a suit to be made in New York, but a tailor in Jerusalem made him two suits and a pair of trousers from it because in Jerusalem “you’re not such a big man.” 

It’s not that Israel does not take the U.S seriously when it feels it has no other option. It is not beyond it, however, to tweak the superpower when it feels it can get away with it. Apparently Bibi feels he should not be unduly worried.

He might be right. The administration is increasingly unpopular at home, it is entangled in a massive legislative fight and it faces a very difficult midterm election. And the Palestinians have not gone exactly overboard to rush into the proximity talks that Biden planned to unveil.

On the whole this seems to be the latest classic example of what happens when the mediator is the only one to expect anything from the process he wants to mediate. In theoretical terms, what we have is a game with a negative sum. Both sides feel they are to lose if they cooperate, and to lose if they don’t. Only asymmetrical strategies promise any real gain. The reason for that is the absence of an overlap between the minimum position and the maximum concession either side is willing to offer.

Are they and the rest of us with them, condemned to another 10, 20, or 50 years of this conflict? Under the existing paradigm it is quite likely unless the game changes. For that to happen, it is worth remembering that the only significant change on the ground in the last 30 years was the Israeli evacuation of Gaza, and that was a unilateral move. In contrast to classical versions of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, it was also an asymmetrical move, which brought tangible benefits to both sides although both would quite symmetrically deny this.

“But why do you have to go to a NATO conference?” asked my wife, seeing another family weekend go down the drain. “Nobody cares about NATO.”

“I do,” said I. “And there will be others there who care.”

“I wonder,” insisted she. “NATO is irrelevant.”

“It may seem irrelevant to you now, but one rainy day we may yet be grateful for having it,” I declared somewhat pompously, and left.

In fact, the continuing relevance of NATO (or the lack thereof), as expressed in the various drafts of the NATO new strategic concept to be unveiled later this year, was exactly what the conference was all about. The new strategic concept is an exercise that occurs regularly every ten years or so and which has apparently become increasingly difficult since the Cold War ended. It still seems to be relatively simple for the Allies to agree on the core mission, the all-important all-for-one, one-for-all Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, but this is where the simplicity ends. Who, actually, is to be defended, and what against?

In the old days, the answer was the West, and the Soviet Union, respectively. The West has expanded to the East, and the Soviet Union no longer exists. On the one hand, it is no longer necessary to build defenses against the armored wave of four million Warsaw pact troops heading for the English Channel (at one time I was being trained to be one of the four million, but I would never get that far—as a member of a radiation reconnaissance squad made up entirely of political unreliables, my life expectancy was about thirty seconds after the conflict started). On the other hand, it is sometimes difficult to find six helicopters to send to Afghanistan. With the out-of-area, “expeditionary” operations, which today comprise an equally important mission of NATO, the concept of defending a geographical area, i.e. the North Atlantic, has become somewhat fuzzy. So are we defending an area (North Atlantic), a geopolitical entity (the West), or a way of life (freedom, democracy, free markets, etc.)? And are we defending it against an enemy (the Taliban, al-Qaeda, an ideology (militant Islam), a method of warfare (terrorism) or a potential threat (let’s say Russia or China)? There are even those who are suggesting that NATO should make it its job to defend against climate change, but this seems to be a distinctly minority view. Evidently, NATO is better equipped to handle some tasks than others.

NATO revolves around the transatlantic link. It has always been as much about keeping Americans in Europe as about keeping others out of Europe. The relevance of this bond is not as self-evident today as it used to be. Europe, and to a lesser extent America, are demographically, economically, and politically diminished, while other parts of the world are on the rise. Is Europe as important for the Americans as it used to be? And do the Europeans care as much as they used to? The answer to this question is very much dependent on the answer to some of the questions above. The North Atlantic may be becoming a less important place; even the fish are fewer. If countries have only interests (incidentally, Lord Palmerston spoke not just about countries having no permanent friends, but also about them having “no permanent allies”), it would be only natural for the United States (and perhaps even for the Europeans) to start looking elsewhere. If on the other hand, our bond is value-based, we may attract and invite others with the same values, but we will inevitably stick together. Unless, of course, the values themselves change.

As someone who grew up on the fault lines of the Cold War, I love a good spy thriller as much as the next man. I don’t mind a James Bond spoof with fancy gadgets and gorgeous babes, but I truly thrive on the more real-life plots of John le Carré, full of bumbling agents, bureaucratic squabbles, complexities of human existence, and the fog of (the Cold) war. For falling asleep on airplanes, though, I rely on the outlandish Cold War tales of the heroic exploits of muscular hulks with stratospheric IQs who are being chased by a couple of tank divisions and a squad of world-class torturers. Usually taking place in palinka-soaked Budapest or slivovitz-flooded Bratislava, they are mostly written by people who could not tell the difference between either the drinks or the cities. As I sign off, I sometimes dream about the author being run over by a tank.

These days pulp fiction is much harder to come by. The next obvious topic—the conspiracies of sadistic bankers thwarted and unmasked by poorly paid yet honest treasury agents—is still getting written up, I suppose. So one has to make do with real life, or what passes for it.

Amid the news of a sluggish global economic recovery and frustrated electorates in Iraq and elsewhere, the story of the assassination in Dubai of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh—a member, by some accounts a founder, of the military wing of Hamas—by a squad of professional killers late January 19 or early January 20 (even that is not quite clear) has provided an element of suspense in this coldest of the climate-change era winters. To date, the number of spies who invaded Dubai's Al Bustan Rotana Hotel with tennis rackets in their hands, stalked and killed their prey, and then came out of the duty-free is 27 and counting.

The suspicion fell as it had to on the one country, which is both an enemy of Hamas and admits to having targeted killings in its repertoire. Israeli diplomats were invited to the ministries of several countries and given thinly veiled warnings about the wisdom of forging other countries’ passports. The media had fewer compunctions and declared the Israeli foreign intelligence arm, the Mossad, as “almost certainly” behind the operation. The Israelis, as usual, winked and smirked, which many people took as a tacit admission of guilt.

In my classification of thrillers above, the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh would definitely fall within my above-mentioned airborne category. Israelis with tennis rackets in Dubai are not something unheard of (Shahar Peer reached the semifinals there last year), yet to send perhaps as many as 30 Double-O agents into an Arab country to kill one arms smuggler sounds like so much of an overkill. The elaborate MO with men in drag, electronic door openers and muscle relaxants to dress up the murder as a natural death does not quite square with the same identity-stealing, fingerprints-borrowing, and strictly cash-paying rogues posing for security cameras and obligingly leaving behind imprints of their credit cards. Most people who met Meir Dagan would agree he is not stupid.

The reactions in the region itself were strangely subdued. Dubai's police chief mildly suggested that Israelis would do better to wage their wars at home rather than export them to the duty-free paradise. There were no outbursts of anger in the Arab street. Three suspects were in custody in Dubai—all Palestinians. Another three allegedly escaped to Iran. One would fear for their safety there.

So, could it in fact have been a le Carré story of boxes within boxes and mirrors reflecting the fleeting reflections in other mirrors? Could all the ill-covered tracks pointing to Israelis have been planted to draw the attention away from the real culprits? Or more explosively still, could the truly unspeakable have happened—Israelis and Palestinians working together to stop a common enemy? If it was the last, we will never know.

It is easy to be cynical about the Olympics. Over more than a century, they have developed from the celebration of the purity of Olympic ideas and amateur zeal into a gigantic athletic enterprise, a mega media event, and a global business venture. The amount of hype appeals to the unsophisticated, the credulous, and the easily duped. The amount of money, both invested and to be made or lost is staggering. While the cameras roll, the purists are hiking in Antarctica. There is probably more snow there even in summer than in Vancouver this winter, anyway. As for the arms falling silent during the Games, Operation Moshtarak in Marja came and went, scoring a victory of sorts for the allied forces. But I digress. Back to the Olympics: The opening ceremony contained some unforgettable moments, though at a length and pace of an Oscar night. And then there was yet another Georgian tragedy.

And yet, and yet. Maybe it was the fairy tale destination of Vancouver, the beauty of the land, the mountains and the sea that even the rain and fog at the beginning of the Games could not conceal. When the sun burst out a few days later, the picture-perfect setting, the thrill of the competition and the 24/7 euphoria of the locals merged into one. Awesome.

Or perhaps it was the locals. Not known for their sense of grandeur, their power to entertain, or their geopolitical exploits, the Canadians must be on average just about the most decent, friendly, and helpful people on this planet. Their eagerness to see Canada triumph at the Games is commensurate only with their ability to bear disappointment with a smile and rejoice in the triumph of others. They are the true patriots without being nationalists. Their talent to see the good side in the most unfortunate circumstances is exemplary. To see them at their best in their own backyard also makes one remember how much good they are doing as humanitarians, peacekeepers, and volunteers around the world.

Or perhaps it was the Games themselves. In one’s lifetime, they have changed beyond recognition, arguably mostly for the better except for the ongoing drug problem (which had been there, ignored, for a long time). The merciless demands of the 90-minute TV format have made a number of previously unwatchable sports (remember the men's figure skating compulsory program?) eminently thrilling (this year’s men's skating free program was apparently run and won under the last-man-standing rule). The only throwback to a previous era was President Putin's statement of changing the silver won by Yevgeny Plushenko to gold by decree. The girls (remember the East German Olympic team?) look incomparably better, and not just because one has aged a little. Not only do they look better but they play a mean ice hockey game that is fun to watch. Next time they are likely to be ski jumping, too.

And then there are the names. In the old days, you saw the name and you knew whether they were Finnish, Chinese, or Italian, and which side of the Iron Curtain they stemmed from (only the Germans and the Koreans came down on both sides). The Games used to be scored liked the NBA All-Star East-West Game. Not any longer. There are Russians competing for Slovakia, Japanese for Russia, Ukrainians for Germany, Slovaks for the United States, and Canadians with Chinese names, which raises an interesting question whether a chunk of the precious metal should not be given to the winners’ birthplaces and ancestries, as well as to their adoptive countries. One day, when a Chinese Olympic athlete with a Czech name is on the half-pipe starting list, you can be sure the world is a better place.

History will never know, but another outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian violence was barely averted earlier this month. Paradoxically, it marked the beginning of one of the more encouraging recent episodes in what we call the Middle East Peace Process (MEPP), something mostly conspicuous by its absence.

As a keynote event of the Herzliya Conference, the organizers advertised a speech by the Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. The night before, toward the end of a typical Israeli evening long on banter, argument, and jokes, and short on sleep, I bet one of the many friends a bottle of malt whisky against Fayyad’s making it to Herzliya. It was an educated guess, based on the nonappearance of scheduled Palestinian speakers at this and other Israeli conferences over the years. I was wrong.

Apparently I was not the only one to be surprised. When Fayyad walked in, accompanied by Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak, both got mobbed by a gang of battle-hardened Israeli photographers competing for the rarest of things—a picture of Israeli-Palestinian peaceful coexistence. Compared to the intensity of the onslaught, the Pope's visit to Israel last May was a tame media event. Chaos ensued. An innocent bystander, the governor of Israel’s central bank Stanley Fischer almost got trampled underfoot, with potentially disastrous consequences for the Israeli economy. Fayyad’s Palestinian close security detail was apparently unaccustomed to dealing with the rough-and-tumble Israeli media, and for a second it looked like the photographers were winning. Fortunately, Barak’s security detail responded and came to the rescue of their Palestinian colleagues, none too gently pushing and shoving the camera hounds back. It was a rather endearing sight.

Barak then spoke on the pressing need to restart and conclude the peace negotiations between the two sides. The sense of urgency underlined by the emotional delivery was strikingly different from the more measured if not leisurely approach of Prime Minister Netanyahu, and one could only speculate what Bibi would have thought of his coalition partner’s speech. No matter. Everybody was waiting for Fayyad.

There was not all that much new in Fayyad’s speech. He restated the Palestinian positions on the occupation, the settlements, and Jerusalem. He reaffirmed the commitment of the Palestinian Authority to the two-state solution. Still, one could not help being impressed not just by what he said, but how he said it. This was a serious man talking on a serious subject, not preaching, not embellishing, neither cajoling nor threatening, evidently meaning business.

The civility of the speech, so rare in the political discourse of the Middle East, pointed both to the strengths as well as the weaknesses of perhaps the only politician in the region who has as few enemies as he has supporters. The delivery, as flat as a long-opened bottle of champagne, suggested that while this was probably not the man who could lead his people in war, he might conceivably be the man who could lead the Palestinians to peace. The thought occurred, nonetheless, that he would find such a job easier if he were the Prime Minister of Switzerland. Still, one went to bed grateful for having been present at what might turn out to be a historical moment, and half-expecting the peace talks to start the next day.

The awakening was rude. There was a stamp-size photograph of Fayyad speaking, together with a short piece in one of the main newspapers, and nothing in the other. No mention of the Barak speech, no picture of the two of them together. As for restarting the talks, there were the usual rumors of maybe, when and if the other side did this, and refrained from doing that. I am sure it was similar in Ramallah.

The upside was that the friend of that night two days past had been apparently too tired to remember the bet. As for me, I had been apparently too tired to remember who the friend was. So this, in the spirit of full disclosure, is his opportunity to claim the prize.

Post scriptum. In Herzliya, I also met my fellow-WA-blogger Roya Hakakian for the first time. We seem to have hit it off rather well, discovering friends we had in common and comparing notes on the Velvet and Green revolutions. Roya is right, by the way: The link between security and democracy seems to have gone out of fashion, much to the detriment of both.