What
You're Missing in our subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter
Special Issue: the Collapse of America
Paul Craig
Roberts gives CounterPunchers the definitive data on what is
happening to jobs in America. Not just blue collar jobs. Middle-class,
white collar jobs. Roberts'
stunning probe is the first true picture of what the U.S. economy
is fast becoming and of the savage class wars that lie ahead.
Plus Mike
Ferner on what it really means to investigate war crimes in Iraq. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers
each month! But
remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the
print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription
to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find
anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions
are tax-deductible.Click
here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please:Subscribe
Now!
"Nasrallah will never forget the
name Amir Peretz!"
The
Junkies of War
By URI AVNERY
Tel Aviv.
For me it was a moment of shocking revelation.
I was listening to one of the daily speeches of our Prime Minister.
He said: "We are a wonderful people!" He said: We have
already won this war, it is the greatest victory in the history
of our state. He said: We have changed the face of the Middle
East. And more to that effect.
Well, I told myself, that's Olmert.
I have known him since he was 20-something. At that time, I was
a member of the Knesset, and Olmert was the book-carrier (literally)
of another member. Since then I have followed his career. He
has never been anything but a party functionary, a small-time
politician special[ty] in manipulations, a run-of-the-mill demagogue.
On the way [he] changed parties several times and served as a
mayor with a grade of D minus, until he climbed on the bandwagon
of Ariel Sharon. More or less by accident he was given the empty
title of "Deputy Prime Minister", and when Sharon suffered
his stroke, something happened that took Olmert too by surprise:
he became Prime Minister.
Throughout his career he has remained a complete cynic, basically
a right-winger but willing to pretend to be a liberal when faced
with leftists.
So, I told myself, this is just another cynical speech. But suddenly
a ghastly thought struck me: No, the man believes what he is
saying!
Hard as it is to imagine, it seems that Olmert really believes
that this is a successful war. That he is winning. That he has
radically changed Israel's situation. That he is building a New
Middle East. That he is a historic leader, far superior to Ariel
Sharon (who, after all, was beaten in Lebanon and who allowed
Hizbullah to build up its arsenal of rockets). That the longer
he is allowed to go on with the war, the more his stature in
history will grow.
Ehud Olmert has obviously cut himself off from reality. He lives
in a bubble all by himself. His speeches show that he has a very
real problem.
Of all the dangers facing Israel now, this is the most severe.
Because this man is deciding, quite simply, the fate of millions:
who will die, who will become a refugee, whose world will be
shattered.
* *
*
BUT OLMERT'S problem with megalomania
is nothing compared to what has happened to Amir Peretz.
Exactly nine months ago, after his election as Labor Party chairman,
Peretz made a speech in Tel-Aviv's Rabin Square in which he revealed
his dream: that in the no-man's land between Israel and the Gaza
Strip a football field will be built, and a match between the
Israeli children of Sderot and the Palestinian children of nearby
Bet-Hanoun will take place. An Israeli Martin Luther King.
Nine month's later, a monster has been born to us.
In the Knesset election campaign, Peretz appeared as a social
revolutionary. He announced that he would change the face of
Israeli society, set new national priorities, cut billions from
the military budget and transfer them to education, welfare and
measure to reduce the glaring gap between rich and poor. As a
veteran peace-lover, he would, of course, achieve peace with
the Palestinians and the entire Arab world.
This won him the votes of many citizens, including many who would
normally never consider voting for the Labor Party.
What followed is history. He seduced himself, when Olmert offered
him the Ministry of Defense. That was still Olmert the cynic.
He knew, as we all did, that Peretz was walking into a trap,
that as a rank civilian without serious military experience he
would be easy prey for the generals. But Peretz did not shrink
back. The supreme aim of his life is to become Prime Minister,
and in order to become a credible candidate he believed that
he must present himself as a security expert.
Since then, Peretz has become a rabid warmonger. Not only does
he endorse all the demands of the generals, not only does he
act as their spokesman - he has also helped to push Israel into
war, and since then he has been demanding that it should continue,
enlarge, widen, kill more, destroy more, occupy more. He himself
declared, "Nasrallah will never forget the name Amir Peretz!"
- like a spoilt child inscribing his name on a tourist attraction.
At the moment, he is trying to be more extreme even than Olmert.
While the Prime Minister is afraid of continuing to advance,
fearing that too many casualties from the rockets and the battle
on the ground might cloud the brilliance of his victory, Peretz
wants to reach the Litani River, whatever the cost. There's no
other way - if one wants to become Prime Minister, one has to
walk over dead bodies.
Thus a monster has been born to us. Rosemary's Baby.
* *
*
TODAY, THE 25th day of the
war, we can draw up an interim balance. What were the aims? What
are the results?
"To destroy Hizbullah".
Who would have believed it, but on the 25th day Hizbullah is
still standing and fighting. A few thousand fighters against
the fifth strongest army in the world. Nobody speaks anymore
about eliminating it. Not Olmert, not Peretz, not even Dan Halutz
- the third corner of this unholy triangle.
"To weaken Hizbullah".
That is a watered down version of the first aim. It is more convenient,
because it cannot be measured. After all, in any war both sides
are weakened. People are killed and wounded, arms are destroyed,
installations demolished. But while the Israeli army can mobilize
another division and another one, and the Americans are rushing
more bombs to us, can Hizbullah absorb such losses?
Nobody knows how many fighters the organization has lost. The
Israeli army distributes estimates, without being able to prove
them. The Lebanese speak about far smaller numbers, and do not
have any proof either.
But that is not the main thing. An organization like Hizbullah
has no problem in raising more and more volunteers for "holy
war". Be their losses as they may, after the war the organization
will train as many new fighters as necessary. Their arsenals
will also be replenished with new weapons arriving from Iran
and Syria. The border is long, it is impossible to seal it.
"To push Hizbullah away from the border".
That is the crumpled aim, after the two preceding ones were shown
to be unattainable. It, too, has not been realized yet, and never
will be, because it is also unattainable. Most Hizbullah fighters
are local boys of the South Lebanese towns and villages. They
will continue to be there, overtly or covertly. No international
force can prevent that, and certainly not the Lebanese Army.
The rockets can be moved further away. How many kilometers? Ten?
Twenty? That will not remove the threat from Nahariya, Haifa
and Tel-Aviv - especially since the range of the missiles is
bound to grow with time, when technologically more advanced types
arrive.
"To kill Hassan Nasrallah".
For the time being, so it seems, the report of his death was
an exaggeration, to quote Mark Twain. True, in a kind of parody
of the Entebbe exploit, Nasrallah was pulled out of a hospital
in Baalbek, but it was another Hassan Nasrallah. Oops.
In the meantime, the original Nasrallah is flourishing. Compared
to the kitschy speeches of Olmert, with their endless clich?s
and the fist thumping on the table, the Hizbullah leader comes
over as a sober speaker, measured and mostly quite credible.
"To return to the Israeli army the power of deterrence".
Nobody has any doubt that the Israeli army is a good, professional
army, capable of defeating regular armies. But this war proves
that it is not capable of achieving a military decision against
an able guerilla organization with determined fighters. If Hizbullah
is alive and kicking after 25 days, the deterrence power of the
Israeli army has been weakened - whatever happens from now on.
From this point of view, the war has harmed the security of Israel.
It has proved that the Israeli rear is exposed, that the Hizbullah
fighters are not inferior to the Israeli soldiers, that there
is no de-luxe war, that the Air Force cannot win without land
forces. Not even in ideal circumstances, when the other side
has no anti-air defense to speak of.
Some comfort themselves with the thought that "the Arabs
have seen that we are crazy". We react to a small local
provocation with an orgy of killing and destruction, destroying
whole countries, a sort of national amok. But running amok is
not a policy. It does not solve any problem. It is an uncontrollable
reflex. It does not allow for straight thinking. It even allows
the other side to manipulate us with premeditated provocations.
"Deploying an International Force along the border".
That is a kind of emergency exit, after all the other aims have
gone up in smoke.
At the beginning of the war, Olmert himself strenuously objected
to such a force, because it would restrict the freedom of action
of the Israeli army. Clearly, no international force will dare
to come, unless there is a cease-fire in place and an agreement
with Hizbullah has been reached. Nobody wants to be exposed to
cross-fire. Therefore, this force will also have to serve Hizbullah's
interests, for fear of a guerilla war starting against it. Have
all the sacrifices been made for this?
""We shall create a new situation in the Middle
East".
This aim has indeed been achieved - but not the way Olmert told
himself (and us).
The long-range results of the war are not immediately obvious.
They belong to the category defined by Bismarck as "imponderables"
- things that cannot be measured.
Every day on their TV screens tens of millions of Arabs and hundred
of millions of Muslims see the atrocious pictures of crushed
babies, the sights of the horrible destruction. These are deeply
imprinted in the consciousness of the masses and will leave behind
them an accumulation of anger and hatred that is far more dangerous
than an arsenal of missiles. In these 25 days, thousands of new
suicide bombers have been created. And as the stature of Nasrallah
as the hero of the Arab world increases, so the respect for the
"moderate" Arab regimes hit new lows - the very regimes
that the US and Israel rely on for creating the New Middle East.
* * *
AFTER THE 25th day, the 26th
will arrive, and so on and on. President Bush, who pushed us
into this war to start with, is now pushing us to fight on ("Until
the last Israeli soldier," as the saying goes.) Like Olmert,
he lives in an imaginary world.
Bush, Olmert and their like can incite and draw the masses behind
them, until the call of "the Emperor is naked" finds
receptive ears.
One of the most sickening sights of the war is the picture of
the international diplomats doing everything they can to enable
Olmert & Co. to go on with the war. The UN has long since
become an agent of the White House. Hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness
are having a field day, while lives are being destroyed and the
dead buried on both sides of the border.
Olmert wants to "gain" as many days as possible for
continued fighting. What sort of gain is this? We are conquering
South Lebanon as flies conquer fly-paper. Generals present maps
with impressive arrows to show how Hizbullah is being pushed
north. That might be convincing - if we were talking about a
front-line in a war with a regular army, as taught in Staff College.
But this is a different war altogether. In the conquered area,
Hizbullah people remain, and our soldiers are exposed to attacks
of the kind in which Hizbullah has excelled from its first day.
So we shall get to the Litani River. Beyond it, there is another
river, and another one. Lebanon has an abundance of rivers we
can get to.
Perhaps it would be worthwhile for these two junkies, Olmert
and Peretz, to come down from their "high" and study
the map.
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.
