Global Journal of Human Social Science, F: Political Science, Volume 22 Issue 5

pursuit of a moral ignis fatuus . The fierce Israeli controversy that erupted over the morality of the First Lebanon War is predicated on the view that it was a voluntarily war that achieved none of its objectives—an ethical chimera and military and moral entanglement that led to human sacrifice and civilian massacres on a shocking scale. The merging of these three dimensions accounts for the feelings of frustration and self- incrimination that have largely shaped Israeli public consciousness with respect to the Second Lebanon War. As Michael Walzer notes: In the spring of 1983, I came to the Hebrew University to give a seminar on war and ethics to a group of students, the majority of whom had served in Lebanon (many had had to stop studying in the third semester, traveling back and forth between Jerusalem and the north). We read this book in its English edition and other very varied material, historical and political. I thought it was clear to all the students that according to the criteria laid out herein, the Lebanon war was unjustifiable. The theory of just wars inevitably places sharp restrictions on “wars of choice,” its principal purpose, indeed, being give an ethical explanation of that moment— at the point at which national leaders and even ordinary citizens are choiceless: the moment of self-defense. June 1973 is a prime example; June 1983 the opposite. We may posit that within a large war such as Israel’s Lebanon war, there was a smaller one—the four-kilometer war—that could be justified. But the small war did not take place; the big one did . 14 III. S yria in the I sraeli S ecurity M ind- S et: the S tronghold of A nimosity T owards I srael Since the launch of the Syrian uprising, Israeli strategy towards the crisis has been intertwined with Israeli collective memory concerning the Lebanon civil war. The anxiety over the repetition of a military entanglement in Lebanon has subdued Israel from getting intervened in the Syrian chaos; despite the strategic interest in bringing down the Ba’ath regime or alternatively weakening it greatly, especially following the second Lebanon war, whereas more and more became totally persuaded that the regime has been heading to deepen the alliance with Iran and Hizballah. As Gil Eyal demonstrates, Israeli Orientalism plays a major role in shaping the consciousness and mind-set of the Israeli security and political establishment. Specializing in the modern history of the region, Israeli Orientalists analyze the Arab-Islamic milieu from a strictly security perspective. This serves as a value criterion that determines the moral judgement of and political position towards the Arab milieu. As Eyal evinces, Israeli Middle Eastern experts have been 14 Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars , trans. Yoram Bronowski (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1984), 8- 9 (for obvious reasons, this passage does not exist in the original English version). preeminent since the establishment of the State, not only formulating the Israeli public’s vision of the Arab world but also demarcating the cultural and political boundaries between Israel and its surroundings. Accordingly, experts and institutes of Middle Eastern studies play “a crucial role in shaping the dominant definition of reality through which Israelis perceive themselves and the Middle Eastern world around them” . 15 This logic is clearly reflected in academic studies on the modern history of Syria. These have long been the forte of scholars embedded in every level of the Israeli security establishment, exemplified by figures such as Eliezer Barry, Moshe Ma’oz, Itamar Rabinovich, and Eyal Zisser. Avraham Sela, who held senior positions in the army and security establishment, follows the same line. In an article published in Maarachot , the Israeli Ministry of Defense journal, he argues that since it gained independence, Syria has promoted the issue of Palestine more than any other Arab State. In line with the League of Arab of States (LAS), the country has fulfilled all its financial obligations in this regard. It also has prominently supported the resolution calling for an economic boycott of the Zionist settlement enterprise in Palestine, becoming the first Arab State to enact boycott laws and sentence anyone found guilty of engaging in economic relations with the Zionist settlement enterprise in Palestine to death . 16 The Syrian state also backed Fawzi al- Qawuqji’s efforts to form the Salvation Army, making Syrian army bases, particularly the Qatana encampment, available for training Palestinian fighters and volunteers . 17 Syrian ideology is also predicated on the struggle against the Zionist settlement enterprise. While the newly independent country failed to win the support of any of the superpowers, it rushed to provide the Salvation Army with material and weapons from its modest arsenals. As Sela observes, these were sometimes taken from statutory units of the Syrian army—the first unit of the Salvation Army to arrive in Palestine being led by a Syrian, Colonel Adib Shishakli, for example . After February 1948, when it became increasingly clear that the Arab states would not fulfil their commitment to support the irregular forces that had entered Palestine, Syria and Iraq were the only two countries that sought to keep their word on Palestine. 18 15 Gil Eyal, The Disenchantment of Orient: Expertise in Arab Affairs and Israeli State (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), p. 185. 16 Avraham Sela, “Syria and the Question of Palestine: From the Establishment of the Arab League to the Armistice Agreement,” Maarchot 294 ‒ 295 (1984): 46 ‒ 51 (Hebrew). 17 Ibid, 48. 18 Ibid, 49. Despite the Syrian army’s poor performance in the 1948/1949 war, Syria distinguished itself from other Arab states by its “extremist” position both during it and afterwards. Opposing the first truce © 2022 Global Journals Volume XXII Issue V Version I 28 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2022 F Israel, the Syrian Crisis and the Unbreakable Lebanese Syndrome