In the Middle East, recent events have faced an inexperienced national leadership with a tough test– and so far, they have been failing it. I’m talking about Ehud ‘the hair trigger’ Olmert, Israel’s recently elected Prime Minister, a man with almost no previous experience of strategic affairs, and his Defense Minister Amir Peretz (even less.)
I think this makes the current crisis more volatile than it would have been if– say– Ariel Sharon were still actively on the scene. Sharon was a pugnacious bulldozer of a military (and political) commander, it is true. But he did have a learning curve. Olmert and Peretz, by contrast, still have a lot to prove (and, I think, even more to learn.)
After the militants in Gaza had shown their determination to capture an Israeli soldier from near the border– and in light of long past history– dohn’t you think Israel’s military and political leaders should have been ultra-alert to the possibility that Lebanon’s Hizbollah might do the same? Hizbollah’s ability to do so surely showed a terrible lack of preparedness among the Israeli troops of the “Northern Command”. You can understand why the Israeli leadership felt embarrassed, angry, and just plain pissed off.
But what did they do with all that welter of emotions? They had a number of options they could have pursued since Wednesday– including conducting a rigorous investigation into how exactly the rreadiness in the Northern Command had fallen so low, launching some measured and focused military response, playing the “injured party” card and building a huge international campaign to persuade Hizbullah to release the captured soldiers, etc etc. Instead of which, there has been this infantile, primal-scream type of blanket military response against the infrastructure of much of Lebanon, backed up by some chest-thumping,angry-boy-in-schoolyard type of rhetoric.
To kill (so far) 86 Lebanese people, many or most of them civilians, and to rain fear, injury and massive and sometimes life-threatening destrucrion on many thousands more– all because some Israeli units on the Northern Front forgot their operational discipline and allowed a Hizbullah squad to infiltrate the border and seize control of a Humvee-full of soldiers? This is– as the EU has finally had the guts to say– far from being a proportional response.
I saw one Israeli leader– forget who– quoted as saying “we have to restore our deterrent power in order to restore stability.” This is a way to restore stability???
The WaPo’s David Ignatius had a thoughtful piece in the paper today. I disagree with some of David’s worldview. But he’s a solid and sensible thinker, well-versed in the strategic dynamics of the Middle East and well connected with some of the wiser people in the US intelligence agencies.
In today’s piece he writes this, which I largely agree with:
- Israeli and American doctrine is premised on the idea that military force will deter adversaries. But as more force has been used in recent years, the deterrent value has inevitably gone down. That’s the inner spring of this crisis: The Iranians (and their clients in Hezbollah and Hamas) watch the American military mired in Iraq and see weakness. They are emboldened rather than intimidated. The same is true for the Israelis in Gaza. Rather than reinforcing the image of strength, the use of force (short of outright, pulverizing invasion and occupation) has encouraged contempt.
I think he is right to link Israel’s doctrine with the US’s in this way. Both rely heavily on a unilateralist application of “shock and awe” tactics in order to bludgeon their opponents into political submission.
But what happens if you apply massive “shock and awe” tactics and the opponents don’t submit? Then, it seems to me, you end up looking really bloodthirsty, and also rather stupid. (As the US military posture now does, in Iraq.)
Along the way, you also have many further decision points that come along. Some of these can lead you into really serious over-reaching. Liike Sharon’s reckless and bullying decision in 1982 not just to pound Lebanon from air, sea, and land — but to send a large land force in, seize control of opver one-third of the country, andf “cleanse” it of all the Palestinian militants who were (then) his nemesis there… That ill-considered decision cost Israel, its people, and its economy dear… It took Israel a further 18 years that time to dig itself out of the hole it had dug for its forces inside Lebanon. (Hizbullah got born along the way there.) But Sharon also developed something of a learning curve there regarding the disutility of a policy of simply using bullying (and alwasys highly lethal) military force.
Ignatius makes another good point in his piece, too. Noting the importance of world public opinion he wrtites:
- To fight the Long War, America and Israel have to get out of the devil suit in global public opinion. For a generation, America maintained a role as honest broker between Israel and the Arabs. The Bush administration should work hard to refurbish that role.
Now, I disagree wityh David that America and Israel are required to fight any kind of a “Long War” at all. Finding reasonable, negotiated resolutions of outstanding political problems is the only way to exit from the existing cycles of hostilities in the Middle East and in US-world relations. There is no “Long War” to be fought. (The campaign against global terrorism is not, strictly speaking, a “war”.)
But David’s right to note that the salience of the fact that there is currently no ongoing Arab-Israeli peace diplomacy. Of course that affects the political dynamics in the whole of the Middle East. I saw one recent statement from Condi Rice when she talked about the importance of “getting back” to the Road Map and to– this is from my memory– “the shared goal of two democratic states living side by side for Israelis and Palestinians.” Well her attitude towards the democratically elected leadership that did emerge among the Palestinians wasn’t very supportive, was it? And similarly, her commitment to pursuing any serious peacemaking diplomacy between Israelis and Arabs has been just about non-existent.
I could write a lot more about this. I did want to write something about the radical strategic changes in the region since the Bushites recklessly (1) not only overthrew Saddam Hussein but then proceeded to dismantle the Iraqi state, and (2) recklessly broke off their previously close ties with the Saudis… To the point where of courser Iran is emerging as a newly self-confident power in the region. But I don’t have time to do it. It’s been a long couple of days.
One other thing I wanted to note regarding the current crisis is the noticeable dissonance between what Condi Rice is saying, as she continues to speak about the need for all sides to avoid hitting civilians and civilian infrastructure, and her boss the Prez, whose spokesman has just continued saying that he’s “going to second-guess Israel’s military decisions”, etc etc.
So guess which of those two the Israelis seem to have been listening to?
(Meanwhile, some very interesting political developments from Israel. I saw a family member of one of the two latest Israeli POWs saying on the BBC that Israel should negotiate for their release. (As Gilad Shalit’s father has also said.) And Gush Shalom– the Peace Bloc– has reported that just a few hours after Wednesday’s Israeli assault against Lebanon started, some 200 peace demonstrators were on the streets outside the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv.
On their website they report this:
- The reaction of passers-by was much less hostile then anticipated. Some drivers shouted curses at the activists, but quite a number honked in agreement. Most drivers seemed to be fatalistic.
The police brought a much larger force than usual, including a special unit for riot control. It seems that they feared a blocking of the traffic by the demonstrators.
The veterans among the demonstrators were reminded of the first demonstration not far from there which took place on the first day of Ariel Sharon’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. That time, also about 200 activists gathered – but their number grew within a few weeks to ten thousand, until the 400 thousand gathered to protest the Sabra and Shatila massacre.
Who knows how all this will end? I certainly make no claim to. I do know, though, that the vast majority of Lebanese, Palestinians, and Israelis all want to be able to escape from the horrors of repeated wars and to live lives that are secure, hopeful, and dignified. As I wrote before, it’s high time the Security Council stepped back into Arab-Israeli peacemaking and resolved the remaining dimensions of the conflict once and for all.
Good post, Helena. Thanks. To paraphrase W. Churchill, seldom have so few done so much TO so many.
I’ve just been dumbfounded by the entire tragedy. Helena’s made a strong point in asking why Israeli troops on the Lebanese border aparently weren’t prepared for a capture attempt. Why did Hezbollah do this in the first place, I’m still not sure. Maybe they were trying to relieve the pressure on Gaza by making Israel open up a second front?
I’m torn by conflicting fears. A two front war has always been a dangerous situation. I’m troubled about the possibility that Israel has been rendered weak in this position. Hezbollah appears strong compared to Hamas. I have this terrifying image that Hezbollah will overwhelm Israeli forces in the North, and overrun all of Northern Israel. Maybe even to the point of linking up with the northern West Bank. I don’t know how realistic that scenario will be; I hope someone can tell me this is unrealistic.
At the same time I’m appalled that Israel would blame the Lebanese government for independent acts of Hezbollah. I should’ve realized how vulnerable a small state like Lebanon was; I was still surprise that Israel could so cut it off from the rest of the world. Israel should never have responded to Shalit’s capture with military force; the government now has a mindset that it has to always respond militarily, it seems. The civilian populace of Lebanon is then put through Hell.
2006-07-14 Hizballah uses the attack drone
Leave it to Helena to blame the Israelis for being attacked. Oh, well, I guess they just weren’t quite as “daring” or “inventive” as Hezbullah at that particular moment. Cobban makes some good points, but they would be better taken if she weren’t such an obvious stooge for Hezbullah. Compare her comments with those of Juan Cole (juancole.com) – at least he’s got honesty and guts to to tell the truth about both sides.
Leave it to Helena to blame the Israelis for being attacked. Oh, well, I guess they just weren’t quite as “daring” or “inventive” as Hezbullah at that particular moment. Cobban makes some good points, but they would be better taken if she weren’t such an obvious stooge for Hezbullah. Compare her comments with those of Juan Cole (juancole.com) – at least he’s got honesty and guts to to tell the truth about both sides.
Leave it to Helena to blame the Israelis for being attacked. Oh, well, I guess they just weren’t quite as “daring” or “inventive” as Hezbullah at that particular moment. Cobban makes some good points, but they would be better taken if she weren’t such an obvious stooge for Hezbullah. Compare her comments with those of Juan Cole (juancole.com) – at least he’s got honesty and guts to to tell the truth about both sides.
Leave it to Helena to blame the Israelis for being attacked. Oh, well, I guess they just weren’t quite as “daring” or “inventive” as Hezbullah at that particular moment. Cobban makes some good points, but they would be better taken if she weren’t such an obvious stooge for Hezbullah. Compare her comments with those of Juan Cole (juancole.com) – at least he’s got honesty and guts to to tell the truth about both sides.
Spot on rose. Helena has been a shameful cheerleader for Hezbollah for quite some time.
She used to marvel about their “discipline” and willingness to stick to “strict rules of engagement against Israel.”
Of course, Hezbollah just belied that description with their quite undisciplined escalation of the engagement into a regional conflict. But Helena still manages to gush over their “inventive” “daring” actions.
Frankly, staging cross border raids and taking hostages is not particularly inventive. It’s happened in the past and is a typical m.o. of Hezbollah as well as predecessor terrorists.
Since Israel left its security zone in Lebanon, Hezbollah has maintained an occupation regime in the south. Ignored for years, it now has brought this conflict to a level which could bring untold destruction to the region.
And hateful Helena has the nerve to blame Israel for a) being attacked, and b) daring to defend itself. And while she’s at it, she blames the bushes for not being “very supportive” of the racist regimes that have perpetrated the latest escalation upon Israel. The great white mother really has no shame.
Inkan1969
Helena’s made a strong point in asking why Israeli troops on the Lebanese border aparently weren’t prepared for a capture attempt. Why did Hezbollah do this in the first place, ?
I agree with your view and with Helena bring this point.
There is a talk before that when Gaza breakout, some news reported that the Gaza war was planed before the captured israelii POW.
What make this same case here that the Israeli troops of the “Northern Command”. Turn blind eyes of Hezbollah operation to take the opportunity enter Lebanon and cross the borders in name of distraction of Hezbollah, but why Airport power stations bridges …etc.
We knew there were many case that Israelis do this doggy thinks in Jerusalem David Hotel bombing, the US Frigate in Mediterranean sea during war 1967, and Iraqi Jews who spoke they were have scared by terrorist israelii groups to leave Iraq for Israel before 1948
” Israel is a racially orientated democracy. Its leaders are engaged in one thing only, i.e. maintenance of the their political power. As far as the Israeli political game is concerned, the rule is very simple, the more Arab blood you have on your hands the more you are suited to get on with your governing job. This rule obviously was in favour of Rabin, Sharon, Barak and Netanyahu. Olmert and Peretz are still quite far behind. Both the prime minister and his defence minister lack some real experience in military and security matters. Hence they have a lot of catching up to do.
In other words, Peretz and Olmert have to provide the Israeli people with a glorious spectacle of merciless retaliation. They have to prove to their keen voters that they have internalised the real biblical meaning of ‘an eye for an eye’.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13989.htm
I applaud your sense of fair play in letting a pair of very piglike, irrational posters hit your comments. I do think it goes beyond the bounds of discourse to let the first authoritarian spam his screed 4 x, though.
I wonder if the zionbots realize a computer script could write every single comment they ever post, and a fairly short one at that.
“I wonder if the zionbots realize a computer script could write every single comment they ever post, and a fairly short one at that.”
You are so right, Marion. All they do is to repeat and repeat and repeat, almost word for word, the same, empty, standard stock pamphletesque exzcuses we have been hearing from them for decades.
Last week I attended a demonstration of several hundred people in front of the local Israeli consulate. Across the street from us was a “counter-demonstration” of some few tens of people. What struck me as I thought about the content of our signs vs their signs was that their signs said nothing at all about the subject of the protest – i.e. Israel’s current spate of massive violence against the people of Gaza and Lebanon. The best they could do in response to our pleas to stop punishing entire populations for the actions of a few was to repeat the same, tired generalities. They simply could not address in any way the issue of Israel’s violations of the rights of states and of humans, and, particularly in the case of Gaza, against a democratically elected government.
Then I noticed that while we were chanting our messages to Israel to stop the bombing, stop the killing, stop the wanton destruction in Gaza and Lebanon, their only defense was to try to drown out our clear message with empty, meaningless noise. They were blowing whistles, one was blowing a shofar (thus implying, I guess, that what we were actually protesting was Judaism and not the criminal actions of a state), and at one point they brought out a large boom-box turned up full volume with which they were trying to blast away our message with irrelevant rock music.
And this is what they always do, isn’t it? They have no effective response, so they try to drown us out with emptly, meaningless, irrelevant noise.
Just the opposite. The anti-Israel protests are largely the same meaningless “1-2-3-4” protest chants and tubthumping. Pro-Israel advocacy tends to be based on fact, logic, and morality.
There probably were fewer pro-Israel protestors, I don’t that. They were actually out accomplishing things, rather than spouting meaningless rhetoric.