237,000 artillery shells!

Yes, that is what the IDF has now said that Israel rained on Lebanon in the 33 days of the recent war, according to this HaAretz report…. And then there were all the additional tens of thousands of air-delivered and navy-delivered munitions,
That report also tells us that the direct costs of the war came to 11.2 billion NIS (i.e., shekels), which is $2.56 billion.
(The price of how many lattes there?)
No word yet on how those costs are going to be covered… That news report says lamely that the Knesset Budget Committee “authorized an additional NIS 1.75 billion for the defense establishment, of which NIS 600 million will be used to cover war expenses.”
Also, “MK Avshalom Vilan (Meretz) said that war is an expensive business and asked why no cost-benefit analysis had been done.”
Just a little late to start asking those questions, Mr. Vilan, don’t you think?
During the war, we may recall that Hizbullah launched some 4,000 of its rockets– the vast majority of them the ones that Michael Totten described as “pipsqueakers”– against Israel.
Well, this is a week when many important questions are starting to be asked in Israel… and some are even starting to be answered.
Amos Harel writesin Thursday’s HaAretz:

Chief of Staff Dan Halutz was yesterday subjected to the harshest criticism he has encountered since the end of the fighting in Lebanon last month. The army’s handling of the confrontation was roundly blasted at a meeting convened by Halutz with dozens of reserve generals at the Israel Defense Forces base at Tzrifin. The gap between the manner in which the chief of staff portrayed the war and the way the reservists saw it, in the words of one participant, “diametrically opposed.” That said, many of the participants said that Halutz appeared to listen intently to the criticism leveled against him.

And Ze’ev Schiff tells us that:

Two Israel Defense Forces General Staff officers, operations chief Major General Gadi Eisenkut and the Intelligence Division’s head of research, Brigadier General Yossi Beiditz, strongly opposed last month’s decision to launch a broad ground offensive against Hezbollah shortly before the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for a cease-fire in the war in Lebanon.
The decision to embark on the operation was made on Wednesday, August 9, when it was already clear that the Security Council would vote on a cease-fire resolution soon thereafter. The council in fact passed the resolution at 5 A.M. on Saturday.
Beiditz wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz that his division believed that the last-minute offensive would not significantly affect the enemy or lead to achievements. Beiditz sent a copy of the letter to Chief of Staff Dan Halutz.
Eisenkut opposed the decision for operational reasons.

Schiff tells us that there has also been disagreement in Israel over the value of the– according to him, repeated– operations to capture the town of Bint Jbeil: “The operation against the town, which IDF forces had to retake several times, led to significant losses.”
… And finally, at the end of a long evening’s reading here, this classic from Defense Minister Amir Peretz: “The aim of the campaign was to create the space for a diplomatic achievement.”
Right, Minister. And if you believe that, then I have a nice piece of real estate in Florida I’d like to sell you. (I.e., you must be extremely stupid and gullible.)
Here’s what the great Quaker peace activist A.J. Muste said: “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.” Think about it.