Avital Talmor has written for the South African Jewish Affairs and has published poems in Midstream and Jewish Affairs. She published a short story collection in Hebrew this year. In the past, she had a weekly satirical column on management that was published in Globes. Talmor can be reached at talmora@zahav.net.il.
	Israeli reactions: solidarity with the American people, high alert at home
	America’s second Pearl Harbor Jan Willem van der Hoeven

By calling the attacks "acts of war," President George W. Bush made it clear that the U.S. is going to rise to the challenge by taking up arms and anything it takes, to fight terrorism. The American way of life, all that the U.S. stands for - freedom and opportunity - had been attacked, Bush said. He further said that the U.S. would "make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."

Secretary of State Colin Powell said that the attacks were "a war against civilization," a statement repeated by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, among other leaders.

Congress has authorized the mobilization of 50,000 U.S. reservists. The U.S. is ready to launch its campaign against its - yet unknown - enemy.

Many European countries, notably Britain, France, Germany, Russia, were quick to declare their support for the U.S. Whether the declarations will be translated into action remains to be seen. Meanwhile NATO invoked Article Five, which means that NATO is ready for the U.S.' D-day command.

Pearl Harbor was widely invoked. Is the comparison apt?
On December 7, 1941, Japan mounted a surprise air strike on the U.S. naval fleet stationed in Pearl Harbor, killing over 2,000 American servicemen. Unfortunately, the terrorist attacks on the U.S. have exacted a much higher price. But Pearl Harbor was more than anything a slap in the face and a scorching affront. In Pearl Harbor the U.S. was taken totally off its guard, as it was again now. On September 11, the U.S. proved to have been totally unprepared on all possible fronts - intelligence, security, defense, airspace control, and more than anything in its essential conceptions - rather, misconception - of the enemy.

Who is this enemy? The U.S. has named Osama bin Laden as "prime suspect." The U.S. says that some 100 people were involved in the terrorist attacks, which were apparently masterminded by bin Laden, but whose groundwork was apparently done in the U.S. itself, by U.S.-based terrorist cells - stretching how far back in time, and how wide geographically? It is possible that the attacks were the workings of an international terrorist network, possibly not exclusively fanatic Islamic.

The anti-terrorist campaign that the U.S. has launched is going to extremely demanding militarily, economically, in brains, patience and scope, not less than the Cold War was. For decades, the U.S. has been amassing megatons of hate against it, which on September 11 turned into suicide planes that crashed into ultimate U.S. symbols - the financial center of the New York, the Pentagon. The White House is said to have been a target too, so theoretically, the U.S. president could have been killed in these attacks.

History repeats itself with cruel irony, and few, if at all, bother to learn a thing. Now the U.S. stands where Britain once stood, waiting for the U.S. to choose what Bush has now urged all countries to choose: between good and evil. A long and bloody waiting Britain had until the U.S. made up its mind - two years after the carnage was well under way, Britain facing a real threat to its existence.

Does the U.S. now face a threat to its existence? The terrorist attacks make it impossible to rule this out. After all, for the first time in history the U.S. has suffered a massive attack on its mainland, by incredibly simple means - reportedly knives, and planes turned into flying bombs.

Given the alarming ease via which these attacks were carried out, the U.S. would do well to revise both its domestic and foreign policies, and more than anything, to re-examine its basic conceptions. The U.S. has once again paid a terrible price for the conceit of invulnerability that comes with power. Back in 1973, in the Yom Kippur War, Israel failed to realize the war plans of its Arab neighbors for similar reasons. Strength often turns to be one's own worst enemy.

How the U.S. is going to regard those countries that do not choose the side of the good - the U.S.' - is clear. Branding them as enemy is one thing, doing something about it is another. The long and barbarous arm of terrorism has reached the U.S., rocking the fabric of its life. For too long the civilized world has let terrorism get away with murder. The U.S. has vowed to militarily address terrorism and its hosts. But what is the U.S. going to do about these hosts? Afghanistan is top target. Are also Iran and Iraq targets? And what about Syria, Algeria, Sudan, and the Palestinian Authority, which all harbor terrorism? Syria and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat have declared their commitment to the U.S. anti-terrorist crusade. This is nothing less than ironic. In the last year especially, the Palestinian Authority has become a terrorist organization per se. Syria has long backed Lebanon-controlled Hizbullah. It would be interesting to see how Syria and the Palestinian Authority deliver the goods, and what the U.S. will do if they do not.

Pundits have argued that the comparison with Pearl Harbor is not apt, because in Peal Harbor there was a definite enemy, but now? That's the problem with terrorism; it is so often elusive.

What do you do against suicide bombers? Israel has been fighting terrorism for the last hundred years, but terrorism continues. Our leaders have time and again made it clear that to eradicate terrorism is impossible; it can only be contained.

The Oslo peace process originated from the very realization that power has its limits, and that conflicts can be resolved only at the negotiations table and by extensive cooperation of the parties to the conflict.

The peace process has derailed, among other reasons because the Palestinians failed to abandon terrorism as a means to achieving their aspirations for a sovereign country. This thrust the region back into the throes of war, so far on a small scale.

Eventually, the warring parties will have to get back to talking with each other. There is no other way out of the vicious cycle of bloodshed.

But the U.S. is still in another stage. It is yet to launch its war on terrorism. Even as it does so, it should keep in mind that war is just the first step in a much more complicated process. It is the aftermath and outcome of its war that the U.S. should keep in mind. Addressing the symptoms of terrorism is one thing, and to a certain extend the U.S. is capable of that. But does the U.S. intend to address the causes of terrorism? Deal with its roots? With the political and social reality that are terrorism's breeding ground?

It is not only a war between good and evil. It is a war between the West and all it stands for and fanatic Islam. The U.S. has made up its mind. The fanatic Islamic countries would do well to look into themselves and decide whether they are remaining in the dark ages of despotism and repression, or whether they really want to join the New World Order of freedom and democracy. Now is their chance. It is presumably the first chance they have had since the 19th century, when the Ottoman Empire - one of the biggest empires in history - began losing ground to the new global power of the West, to eventually disintegrate at the end of World War Two. Not a few Islamic countries have ever come to terms with this loss.
Understandably, because so many Islamic countries failed to harness themselves to the changed and changing world, and remained stuck not only in the 19th century, but much further back than that.

For all too long the U.S. has neglected to take note of fanatic Islamic countries where despotism has bred deep-seated hate against all things American. That is how despotism props itself - on the backs of the repressed, whose frustration is channeled against the U.S. or against Israel, if you live in this part of the world.

The time has come to deal with the causes of this hate. The causes are repression. The causes are poverty. The causes are countries that have never come to terms with their not qualifying - for whatever reason - as being part of the civilized world, of today's New World Order.

Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.

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