Posted on 08/19/2006 5:36:45 AM PDT by Clive
Four years ago Yossi Klein Halevi, an American-born Israeli and one of the wisest analysts of Middle East politics, tried to explain why Israel's hopes for peace were grounded in a fallacy.
In the 1990s, the time of the Oslo Accords, Shimon Peres was selling his vision of a New Middle East. A former Labour prime minister, Peres believed the region would unite to produce not only peace but also something equally elusive in Arab states -- economic progress. With help from the rich countries, and Israel's participation, the Middle East would come to life, the way Europe revived under the Marshall Plan after 1945. Like the Europeans, the Arabs would trade dreams of national glory for prosperity.
But, Klein Halevi wrote, Peres was projecting his own feelings on to a radically different community. Certainly Israel shared his vision; like Europe in 1945, it had fought one war too many. Otherwise the analogy didn't fit. As Klein Halevi saw it, Arab society more closely resembled Europe after 1918 -- "aggrieved, militaristic and waiting for revenge for all those decades of Israeli military victories."
Now the Arabs have apparently achieved some of the revenge they desired. The longest war in the history of Israel ended with pictures of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, displayed across the Arab world as he took his place alongside all those tyrants who have won Arab hearts by posing as their defenders. Meanwhile, Iran and Syria are freshly emboldened, happy to intensify their threats against Israel.
In five weeks of struggle, Israel moved backwards. It severely damaged its position, not by bombing Hezbollah installations hidden among civilians (as much of the West imagines) but by failing to defeat Hezbollah decisively.
Official Israel may claim victory but most Israelis find that hard to believe. Few of them expect that Hezbollah will be disarmed, that the UN will provide effective peacekeeping or that Lebanon will control the south.
Klein Halevi is an odd combination of poetic idealist and shrewd realist. One of his books, At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden (2001), describes his experience worshipping with various Christian and Muslim sects to absorb the meaning of their faiths. But he's not easily fooled. The son of a man who spent the Second World War hiding in a tiny hole in Hungary, Klein Halevi grew up in Brooklyn without illusions. A quarter of a century ago he and his wife moved to Israel, where he's now altogether at home.
After reading his summary of the war (which appeared in these pages yesterday), I called him in Jerusalem to ask how he sees Israel's post-war status. He said we have to understand Israel has been at war for six years. The first battle was the suicide-murder intifada, which began shortly after the breakdown in 2000 of Bill Clinton's attempt to organize a lasting peace. The Palestinians in that period tried to destabilize Israel and shatter its nerve with suicide bombings against civilians. Instead, Israel won. "We figured out how to live with it," Klein Halevi recalls. "The Israeli economy was not wrecked."
And this time? "We didn't win, we lost." But the defeat was suffered by the leadership, the politicians and the army general staff. "The people proved themselves. They showed their courage in their willingness to take as many rockets as Hezbollah cared to send. Hezbollah is right to declare victory, in a sense, but if they think they defeated the people of Israel they are wrong. Hezbollah defeated our leadership."
For the next battle, probably not far in the future, Klein Halevi believes both the senior Cabinet and the generals will have to be replaced. "This leadership cannot take us to the next phase of the war."
It will be hard finding leaders untainted by defeat, but he believes they will emerge. He also believes the new government will need higher ethical standards. At the moment, the Israeli newspapers, when not deciding whom to blame for their defeat, feature stories about ethical collapse. Typically, the state comptroller's office wants to question Prime Minister Ehud Olmert about suspicions that he was given a huge discount on the price of an apartment in return for favours to the developer.
Five weeks ago, as Klein Halevi says, most Israelis saw the war as a way to reaffirm Israel's ability to deter aggression. It accomplished the opposite.
Arab triumphalism constitutes in itself a danger, Klein Halevi believes: "When the Arab leaders think we are on the run they almost always go too far." Meanwhile, Israelis focus their anger on their leaders. "Right now," Klein Halevi said, "the country is still numb. In a few weeks it is going to explode."
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From the article:
"But the defeat was suffered by the leadership, the politicians and the army general staff. "The people proved themselves. They showed their courage in their willingness to take as many rockets as Hezbollah cared to send. Hezbollah is right to declare victory, in a sense, but if they think they defeated the people of Israel they are wrong. Hezbollah defeated our leadership."
This is the crux of the matter...the people were ready to accomplish the painful task of obliterating Hizballah...their leadership failed them.
I prefer to view the situation differently.
Israel did not suffer a defeat. Their leadership did not fail. They did not destroy their enemy, and neither have we. Neither Israel nor the U.S. have failed, but are on a long road with many twists and turns.
We did not fail, Israel did not fail, we just aren't done yet.
Their leaders and their military did accomplish, and are still accomplishing their primary goal. They have defended Israel and have forced the enemy to withdraw and regroup, with a minimum of death and destruction. We have and Israel has, the right people in the right place at the right time.
It may take a new administration in Israel to take more aggressive steps. If so, it will be because it is the right time. We will have an administration change here in the U.S. and I can only hope that whomever it is, they are ready to do what will have to be done.
Israel has the same internal enemy that we have here in the U.S. The Media. The Israeli media thinks that by feeding the leaders of Israel to the tiger(Hezb'allah) it can keep the tiger full and themselves safe.
The tiger will get hungry again, and it will only stop when it runs out of food.
Spot on analysis. You have the feeling the clock's ticking, and the author is so right...Arabs always go too far when they think they've won.
It was not strictly speaking a military defeat, but rather a political one. The lack of political will to decisively defeat the enemy was a major mistake. It would have been a costly yet simple move to invade Lebanon and go up to Beirut. This would have driven Hez from striking distance and accomplished the major obective of obliteration. Failure to do this has been perceived by the Arabs as a victory. This virtually guarantees the next war will occur on multiple fronts and be much costlier in terms of lives and capital. The invicibility of the IDF has been shattered, but more importantly, the acceptance of the cease fire has made Israel look weak and the Arabs are deluding themselves into believing that they can be defeated.
Wars are won or lost on the battlefield. As Krauthammer said, "Ties go to the terrorists," which this one surely has.
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