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Thirty three days of war. The longest
of our wars since 1949.
On the Israeli side: 154 dead--117
of them soldiers. 3970 rockets launched against us, 37 civilians
dead, more than 422 civilians wounded.
On the Lebanese side: about
a thousand dead civilians, thousands wounded. An unknown number
of Hizbullah fighters dead and wounded.
More than a million refugees
on both sides.
So what has been achieved for
this terrible price?
"GLOOMY, HUMBLE, despondent,"
was how the journalist Yossef Werter described Ehud Olmert, a
few hours after the cease-fire had come into effect.
Olmert? Humble? Is this the
same Olmert we know? The same Olmert who thumped the table and
shouted: "No more!" Who said: "After the war,
the situation will be completely different than before!"
Who promised a "New Middle East" as a result of the
war?
* *
*
THE RESULTS of the war are
obvious:
* The prisoners, who served
as casus belli (or pretext) for the war, have not been released.
They will come back only as a result of an exchange of prisoners,
exactly as Hassan Nasrallah proposed before the war.
* Hizbullah has remained as
it was. It has not been destroyed, nor disarmed, nor even removed
from where it was. Its fighters have proved themselves in battle
and have even garnered compliments from Israeli soldiers. Its
command and communication stucture has continued to function
to the end. Its TV station is still broadcasting.
* Hassan Nasrallah is alive
and kicking. Persistent attempts to kill him failed. His prestige
is sky-high. Everywhere in the Arab world, from Morocco to Iraq,
songs are being composed in his honor and his picture adorns
the walls.
* The Lebanese army will be
deployed along the border, side by side with a large international
force. That is the only material change that has been achieved.
This will not replace Hizbullah.
Hizbullah will remain in the area, in every village and town.
The Israeli army has not succeeded in removing it from one single
village. That was simply impossible without permanently removing
the population to which it belongs.
The Lebanese army and the international
force cannot and will not confront Hizbullah. Their very presence
there depends on Hizbullah's consent. In practice, a kind of
co-existence of the three forces will come into being, each one
knowing that it has to come to terms with the other two.
Perhaps the international force
will be able to prevent incursions by Hizbullah, such as the
one that preceded this war. But it will also have to prevent
Israeli actions, such as the reconnaissance flights of our Air
Force over Lebanon. That's why the Israeli army objected, at
the beginning, so strenuously to the introduction of this force.
* *
*
IN ISRAEL, there is now a general
atmosphere of disappointment and despondency. From mania to depression.
It's not only that the politicians and the generals are firing
accusations at each other, as we foresaw, but the general public
is also voicing criticism from every possible angle. The soldiers
criticize the conduct of the war, the reserve soldiers gripe
about the chaos and the failure of supplies.
In all parties, there are new
opposition groupings and threats of splits. In Kadima. In Labor.
It seems that in Meretz, too, there is a lot of ferment, because
most of its leaders supported the war dragon almost until the
last moment, when they caught its tail and pierced it with their
little lance.
At the head of the critics
are marching--surprise, surprise--the media. The entire horde
of interviewers and commentators, correspondents and presstitutes,
who (with very few exceptions) enthused about the war, who deceived,
misled, falsified, ignored, duped and lied for the fatherland,
who stifled all criticism and branded as traitors all who opposed
the war--they are now running ahead of the lynch mob. How predictable,
how ugly. Suddenly they remember what we have been saying right
from the beginning of the war.
This phase is symbolized by
Dan Halutz, the Chief-of-Staff. Only yesterday he was the hero
of the masses, it was forbidden to utter a word against him.
Now he is being described as a war profiteer. A moment before
sending his soldiers into battle, he found the time to sell his
shares, in expectation of a decline of the stock market. (Let
us hope that a moment before the end he found the time to buy
them back again.)
Victory, as is well known,
has many fathers, and failure in war is an orphan.
* *
*
FROM THE deluge of accusations
and gripes, one slogan stands out , a slogan that must send a
cold shiver down the spine of anyone with a good memory: "the
politicians did not let the army win."
Exactly as I wrote two weeks
ago, we see before our very eyes the resurrection of the old
cry "they stabbed the army in the back!"
This is how it goes: At long
last, two days before the end, the land offensive started to
roll. Thanks to our heroic soldiers, the men of the reserves,
it was a dazzling success. And then, when we were on the verge
of a great victory, the cease-fire came into effect.
There is not a single word
of truth in this. This operation, which was planned and which
the army spent years training for, was not carried out earlier,
because it was clear that it would not bring any meaningful gains
but would be costly in lives. The army would, indeed, have occupied
wide areas, but without being able to dislodge the Hizbullah
fighters from them.
The town of Bint Jbeil, for
example, right next to the border, was taken by the army three
times, and the Hizbullah fighters remained there to the end.
If we had occupied 20 towns and villages like this one, the soldiers
and the tanks would have been exposed in twenty places to the
mortal attacks of the guerillas with their highly effective anti-tank
weapons.
If so, why was it decided,
at the last moment, to carry out this operation after all--well
after the UN had already called for an end to hostilities? The
horrific answer: it was a cynical--not to say vile--exercise
of the failed trio. Olmert, Peretz and Halutz wanted to create
"a picture of victory", as was openly stated in the
media. On this altar the lives of 33 soldiers (including a young
woman) were sacrificed.
The aim was to photograph the
victorious soldiers on the bank of the Litani. The operation
could only last 48 hours, when the cease-fire would come into
force. In spite of the fact that the army used helicopters to
land the troops, the aim was not attained. At no point did the
army reach the Litani.
For comparison: in the first
Lebanon war, that of Sharon in 1982, the army crossed the Litani
in the first few hours. (The Litani, by the way, is not a real
river anymore, but just a shallow creek. Most of its waters are
drawn off far from there, in the north. Its last stretch is about
25 km distant from the border, near Metulla the distance is only
4 km.)
This time, when the cease-fire
took effect, all the units taking part had reached villages on
the way to the river. There they became sitting ducks, surrounded
by Hizbullah fighters, without secure supply lines. From that
moment on, the army had only one aim: to get them out of there
as quickly as possible, regardless of who might take their place.
If a commission of inquiry
is set up--as it must be--and investigates all the moves of this
war, starting from the way the decision to start it was made,
it will also have to investigate the decision to start this last
operation. The death of 33 soldiers (including the son of the
writer David Grossman, who had supported the war) and the pain
this caused their families demand that!
* *
*
BUT THESE facts are not yet
clear to the general public. The brain-washing by the military
commentators and the ex-generals, who dominated the media at
the time, has turned the foolish--I would almost say "criminal"--operation
into a rousing victory parade. The decision of the political
leadership to stop it is now being seen by many as an act of
defeatist, spineless, corrupt and even treasonous politicians.
And that is exactly the new
slogan of the fascist Right that is now raising its ugly head.
After World War I, in similar
circumstances, the legend of the "knife in the back of the
victorious army" grew up. Adolf Hitler used it to carry
him to power--and on to World War II.
Now, even before the last fallen
soldier has been buried, the incompetent generals are starting
to talk shamelessly about "another round", the next
war that will surely come "in a month or in a year",
God willing. After all, we cannot end the matter like this, in
failure. Where is our pride?
* *
*
THE ISRAELI public is now in
a state of shock and disorientation. Accusations--justified and
unjustified--are flung around in all directions, and it cannot
be foreseen how things will develop.
Perhaps, in the end, it is
logic that will win. Logic says: what has thoroughly been demonstrated
is that there is no military solution. That is true in the North.
That is also true in the South, where we are confronting a whole
people that has nothing to lose anymore. The success of the Lebanese
guerilla will encourage the Palestinian guerilla.
For logic to win, we must be
honest with ourselves: pinpoint the failures, investigate their
deeper causes, draw the proper conclusions.
Some people want to prevent
that at any price. President Bush declares vociferously that
we have won the war. A glorious victory over the Evil Ones. Like
his own victory in Iraq.
When a football team is able
to choose the referee, it is no surprise if it is declared the
winner.
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