August 16, 2006
Thirty-three days of war. The longest of our wars since 1949.
On the Israeli side: 154 dead – 117 of them soldiers; 3,970 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 Hizbollah 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 ceasefire 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.
Hizbollah 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 structure 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 honour 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 Hizbollah. Hizbollah will remain in the area, in
every village and town. The Israeli army has not succeeded in removing it
from a 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 Hizbollah. Their very presence there depends on Hizbollah’s
consent. In practice, a kind of coexistence 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
Hizbollah, 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. Its 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 criticise 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 Labour. 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 symbolised 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 ceasefire 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 Hizbollah fighters from them.
The town of Bint Jbeil, for example, right next to the border, was
taken by the army three times and the Hizbollah 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 20 places to the mortal
attacks of the guerrillas 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 ceasefire 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 any more 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 ceasefire took effect, all the units taking part
had reached villages on the way to the river. There they became sitting
ducks, surrounded by Hizbollah 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
brainwashing 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. 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 guerrilla will encourage the Palestinian guerrilla.
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. n
(Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom.)