I know the conventional wisdom is that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert botched the Lebanon war. Indeed that is pretty much the conclusion of the long awaited Winograd Commission Report. And it is the subject of much commentary both in the conventional media as well as on the blogs. Everyone is really beating up on poor Mr. Olmert. Even his own foreign minister, Tzipi Livni has advised him to step down from office. His approval ratings in the polls are about as low as they can get.
So why do I attempt to defend him at all? Well, I do not believe that the botched war is entirely his fault.
True, the war was botched. But let us examine the circumstances. First let us dispense with I believe to be his mistakes which are considerable. The biggest mistake, in my view was to go to war in yhe first place. I will explain why later. Second was his choice as Minister of Defense, Amir Peretz, who was chosen for political rather than tactical and strategic reasons. Thirdly, he chose to go into Lebanon without a clear plan. And lastly he failed to anticipate the barrage of rocket attacks into Israel as part of Hezballah’s response. And the late surge by Israeli troops into Lebanon only increased Israeli casualties without accomplishing anything. All pure folly.
But as bad as those things are, once he was at war, the results were as predictable as is the surety of another suicide bombing in Iraq. Israel cannot possibly win a war against an invisible enemy. Especially one that is committed to the religious principle of Milchemes Mitzvah… a Holy War, or to use their term, Jihad. It is a religious principle they are willing to die for. In spades.
Hezbollah is comprised of fundamentalist Muslims. They have been indoctrinated to believe that the re-taking of the holy Muslim land of Palestine is worthy of dying for… even if there are innocent civilian Muslim casualties, let alone casualties that are infidel.
And Jews are certainly the most evil of infidels since they hold on to the Holy land, claim it theologically, and oppress their poor Palestinian Muslim brothers. Jews are therefore more deserving of death than any other infidel. Killing as many Jews as possible while sacrificing oneself is a great Mitzvah for them. Their Jihadist philosophy is “by any means necessary”. No compromise. God is on their side and great rewards are reaped in heaven for Muslims who die for this cause, even if unwillingly as innocent victims of a suicide attack.
The willingness of so many of them to die, a seemingly endless supply, and the ability to ignore any civilized rules of engagement, makes any war against them un-winnable, short of a nuclear attack against an entire country or the like. And perhaps not even then. That’s why Prime Minister Olmert should have never gone into Lebanon. Killing one Jihadist just makes him a martyr giving rise to another ten. Killing hundreds of them during the war did nothing to diminish their capacity to fight on for their cause. They know that terrorism works and that without using it they will lose. So they will continue to use it. “Blowing up an entire country” did not make them go away.
To blame Israeli tactics during the war is foolish. I doubt that it really matters who the Prime Minster was at the time. No matter how strong the Israeli army is relative to the armies of the Arab states, they are virtually powerless against Jihadists. Hezbollah knows that. They weren’t worried. They were right to believe that as long as even one of their members was left standing, they win. Even if country was devastated by Israeli bombs, it doesn’t matter.
Even if Ariel Sharon himself would have been in charge, the outcome would likely have been the same. The casualty list on both sides may have been different, more for them, less for us. But the war would still not have been won, if one defines winning as destroying the enemy of forcing them to give up their arms and make peace on Israeli terms.
Prime Minister Olmert is a decent person who got caught in a situation not of his own doing. He needed to respond to increasing kidnappings. His response was to declare war. Perhaps he felt there was no other choice except to capitulate to their demands, which are unacceptable by any standard. But his Defense Minster was incompetent, his intelligence agencies badly informed, and his generals unprepared. He miscalculated. He was wrong and is paying a price.
But “piling on” does no one any good. And in other different areas of governance like economic policies, his government may have succeeded given the chance. But we will probably never know. His political career is finished.
The Israeli government should learn a valuable lesson from this. They should now realize that conventional war against Islamist fundamentalists cannot work. They need to find another way of winning. And that may prove to be quite elusive as the United States is now finding out in Iraq.
