Cover Story/War On Terrorism
What's In Store?
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, U-M professor offers insights into the Mideast's future.
HARRY KI RS BAU M
Staff Writer
It
aymond Tanter is confident of the Israel
Defense Forces' ability to protect Israel
from another Yom Kippur War against
Arab states, but he sees the day-to-day
conflict between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs
as the real challenge.
"The IDF will not be able to deter suicide
bombers who are willing to die anyway," said
Tanter, professor emeritus of political science and
research associate at the Middle East Center at the
University of Michigan. "They are only relevant
against states like Egypt, Jordan and Syria."
The American Homeland Defense idea is designed
to stop the same type of unpredictable acts of terror-
ism in America, he told a crowd of 325 people at the
Jewish Community Center in West Bloomfield on
Oct. 15. The event was sponsored by the JCC's
Institute for Retired Professionals. "America now
joins Israel as a vulnerable society," he said.
Tanter is a scholar-in-residence at the Middle East
Institute in Washington, where he is researching U.S.
policy options regarding Iran. He wrote Rogue
Regimes: Terrorism and Proliferation (New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1997) and said he had trouble con-
vincing his publisher to put a picture of Osama bin
Laden on the cover with Iraq's Saddam Hussein and
Libya's Muammar Qaddafi. The publisher thought
Fidel Castro would become big trouble in the years
to come, Tanter said.
The 45-minute talk Oct. 15 included a short his-
tory of the Mideast conflict, bin Laden's real priori-
ties, the impact of Sept. 11, the different approach-
es used against terrorism and future scenarios.
Islamists: The Real Enemy
Tanter explained the true enemy of the allies are
Islamists, not Islam.
"[Cult leaders] David Koresh and Jim Jones are to
Christianity what bin laden is to Islam," he said. Bin
Laden and his followers are Islamists. "Islam doesn't
have a hierarchy, so no one can tell Osama bin
Laden to shut up, so he issues a fatwa [Muslim reli-
gious ruling] to kill Christians and Jews. There's no
Muslim authority to put them down, so young, dis-
enfranchised suicide bombers in Gaza and the West
Bank tend to get their energy from bin Laden."
According to Tanter, bin Laden's priorities are the
Saudi Arabian peninsula, Iraq and the Palestinians,
in that order, with the Palestinians a distant third.
"It was something bin Laden never, ever thought
about until he began to run from the bombs," he
said. "All of a sudden, the Palestinian youths have
become a priority."
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who suddenly
10/19
2001
16
took to wearing a white hat by
donating blood, is now saying,
`Look Osama, don't touch our
issue, we don't want anything
to do with you.'"
The terror attacks on the
World Trade Center, the
Pentagon and the downed jet
in Pennsylvania have given "a
shot in the arm" to an Israeli-
Palestinian agreement, Tanter
said.
"There could not have been
a statement by President Bush
about a Palestinian state with-
out the violence of Sept. 11,"
he said. The idea was allow-
able because Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon and
Raymond Tanter
Arafat had no choice but to
accept it.
"The Palestinians have expressed a willingness to
stop fighting. And this is likely to hold because neither
the Israelis nor the Palestinians are comfortable about
being on the wrong side of the U.S. on this issue."
What Now?
Tanter explained how differently Israel and the U.S.
handled terrorism, at least until Sept. 11.
The U.S. would handle a terrorist attack as a
criminal act; Israel would see it as a threat to
national security.
The U.S. treated terrorists as culpable individuals,
as they did with the Pan Am Flight 103 that
exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland.
"[They] indicted two Libyan intelligence agents
and got a conviction; they [the prosecutors] were
giving each other high fives,"
he said. "How is this a success
when Colonel Qaddafi was
• responsible?"
The U.S. is now moving
•
5
Q away from the law enforcement
• approach, he said. "That's why
President Bush called it a war
on terrorism. To put these
characters in jail misses the
point. States sponsor terrorism.
States should be held responsi-
ble for their action, not indi-
viduals."
Tanter defined victory in the
war on terrorism as a set of
milestones: Al Qaida, bin
Laden and the Taliban — in
that order.
"Without the Taliban ruling
Afghanistan, Osama is home-
less," he said. "Terrorists need somewhere to base
their operations. Al Qaida means the base, but the
base needs a base."
The allies should remain in Afghanistan once
the Taliban is rooted out, he said.
"You can't blow up buildings, kill people, drop
food to them and then not try to build the nation
back up again. If you have a failed state like
Afghanistan, it's going to be like a vacuum clean-
er, sucking in the Osama bin Ladens of the world
again," he said. "That's why nation building is a
corollary of the use of military force."
The next steps should be Iraq, then Iran, then
Syria, he said.
"Iraq is next, and Saddam knows it. Either Iraq
will go first against Israel, or Iraq will be hit by
the United States and Great Britain." ❑
Donating For Relief Efforts
New York/JTA
hose wanting to make
donations through Jewish
organizations to disaster
relief in the wake of the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks on America can
send funds to:
T
• The Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit, PO Box
2030, Bloomfield Township, MI
48303
• United Jewish Communities
Emergency Relief Fund, 111
Eighth Ave., Suite 11E, New York,
NY 10011
• United Jewish Appeal-Federation
of Greater New York, F.D.R.
Station, P.O. Box 5314, New
York, NY 10150
• American Jewish World Service,
45 W 36th St., 10th Floor, New
York, NY 10018 or call 1-800-
889-7146 or visit www.ajws.org
• Union of American Hebrew
Congregations Disaster Relief
Fund, Attn: Development
Department, 633 Third Ave.,
New York, NY 10017
• B'nai B'rith International
Disaster Relief Fund, 1640 Rhode
Island Ave. NW, Washington, DC
20036
• National Council of Young
Israel World Trade Center
Emergency
Fund, 3 W. 16th St., New York,
NY 10011
• Agudath Israel of America
Emergency Relief Fund, 42
Broadway,
New York, NY 10004.