Two extensively developed distinctions often rise to the forefront of debates about peace as concept and practice. The first is the distinction between laying solid foundations for peace, on the one hand, and being content with converting the outcomes of the hostilities into political and legal realities on the other. The second is between peace as a solution for the conflicts of the present (or perhaps even the past), and peace as a gateway to a framework for life in a future of flourishing economic and cultural relations among peaceful societies.
Those familiar with modern American history know how these two distinctions widened the rift between the Democratic President Woodrow Wilson and the Republican Senate Foreign Relations Committee Henry Cabot Lodge. Each of the two men had a coherent and holistic perspective. Wilson tried to develop a formula that ensured World War I would end with “peace without victory,” while Lodge insisted on Germany’s “unconditional surrender.” Wilson became known for creating the League of Nations, whose central mission was to prevent war through collective security, disarmament, and the resolution of international disputes through negotiation and arbitration. He had gotten the idea from Immanuel Kant’s “Perpetual Peace,” a book the president had taught when he was a professor at Princeton University. Lodge, an “isolationist,” despised the League of Nations and believed that it subordinated US national security interests to its considerations.
These same questions also sparked controversy on a smaller scale in Europe. John Maynard Keynes, who would go on to become one of the world’s most prominent economists a few years later, was its central figure. Keynes quit the British delegation at the World War I peace talks in Versailles and resigned from his advisory role at the British Treasury, which he had represented at the talks. He stepped down in protest against the concessions that the Allies (his own country among them) had imposed on Germany and the amounts demanded of Germany in reparations.
Later, in his book “The Economic Consequences of The Peace,” Keynes denounced the Treaty of Versailles for choosing vengeance against Germany over an opportunity to fix the war-torn European economy. He argued that the defeated nation ought to reject the reparations that had been imposed upon it and criticized the great powers for standing behind an agreement he considered immoral, and he foresaw the bitter repercussions of the cruelty inflicted on the German people.
“Idealist” was the term that “realists” (in this context, those seeking vengeance) used most often to characterize President Wilson and the economist Keynes. However, year after year, the extent to which the Treaty of Versailles and its humiliation of the German people fueled the rise of Nazism became increasingly apparent. It also became clear that Wilson and Keynes had had incomparably better foresight than those who advocated humiliation.
While these historical experiences are, for a whole host of reasons, not identical to our own, they do bear certain resemblances to it, especially regarding the need to ensure that victory and defeat do not bring humiliation. We know that, as talk of peace and normalization with Israel intensifies, Benjamin Netanyahu and his religious zealot partners in government are experts at humiliating their adversaries whenever they can, and they probably can today. However, we also know that reducing such matters to their military or security dimensions could end up becoming the source of future suffering engendered by a humiliating peace.
It seems that if this trajectory continues, we will be dragged into an Israeli peace against our will after having been dragged into the rejectionists’ wars against our will. At the very least, this outcome would strengthen the argument that Iran’s (or perhaps Türkiye’s) firepower is needed and should be sought to establish balance vis-a-vis the Jewish state.
At worst, the rage of the disillusioned could be channeled toward religious and ethnic communities at home- communities that are, by definition, weak and in the minority. We know all too well that our dismal traditions, which can be traced back to the mid-nineteenth century, have long made it easy to associate these minorities with foreign powers, and that with every failure to confront the (indomitable) latter, the appeal of lashing out at the (domitable) former grows.
Such considerations could explain and justify the desire for a stronger American role, as the United States is considered the only power capable of pressuring Israel- though there are good reasons to doubt whether it would actually apply such pressure and question how far it would be willing to go.
However, the picture is only complete once we account for our own role in making such an outcome more likely. The foolish posturing of the vanquished who refuse to acknowledge defeat, and thus to surrender their weapons, serves only to fuel this temptation to humiliate upon us all, if not to multiply our humiliation.
Listening to the nonsense spouted by Hezbollah’s spokespeople and their deranged bluster, and observing the sluggish and hesitant effort to collect the weapons of the vanquished, one inevitably concludes that maximal Israeli humiliation (of us all) is imminent. As for safeguarding our dignity, or whatever remains of it, today, this can be achieved by moving quickly to turn the page on this dark chapter once and for all.
