With the cease fire now in place (albeit not so firmly) there has been much speculation with respect to the handling of the war by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government. As a result, many pundits have predicted his government’s demise.
I’m not so sure. In fairness to the Omlert government time is needed to sort things out. Time is needed to examine and analyze what has, and what has not accomplished. And many variables have yet to be played out.
Yet, the feeling by many Israelis and American pundits, even those very supportive of Israel, is that the mission was not accomplished. …that Hezbollah has …not… only not been destroyed, but has remained relatively unscathed by the entire enterprise. Nasrallah has already claimed victory for Hezbollah by virtue of the fact that it stood up to the mighty Israeli army. And this is precisely how the Islamist world perceives it too.
Well, that may be so in one sense… the PR one. But let us examine what actually has happened. Israel has devastated the country of Lebanon. All of which was precipitated by Hezbollah’s aggressive acts in kidnapping Israeli soldiers. Much of its infrastructure has been destroyed. There have been over 1000 supposedly innocent civilian Lebanese killed. There has been a displacement of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese many of whom have been left homeless. And there has been billions of dollars in damage. If one wants to call such devastation a victory for those who precipitated it… well, I think that stretches the definition of victory a bit far. By most standards this can hardly be called a victory. Especially when the casualties in Israel are only one tenth the amount and the economic damage is relatively small in comparison to Lebanon.
This is not to diminish the pain suffered by all of Klal Yisroel by the loss of life and limb by civilian and soldier alike. The pain is there and it hurts. But when trying to determine who won and who lost, it should certainly be concluded that Lebanon lost… even if Israel did not win.
But the fact still is that in PR terms Hezbollah won by merely surviving. And they survived in a lot better shape than anyone predicted… it seems. And the kidnapped soldiers remain kidnapped. So… many people are asking, “What has Israel gained by all of this”? Hezbollah is as defiant as ever and claiming victory.
Everyone was expecting (or at least hoping for) a quick “6 day war” like victory, including me. But what we all failed to realize was that this war was different in kind than any of the previous wars Israel fought. This time Israel was not fighting a country with identifiable soldiers. Israel was fighting an Islamist ideology with invisible fighters who were one moment Islamist Hezbollah terrorists and the next moment civilians who blended right in with their neighbors… living in heavily populated civilian neighborhoods with their families and friends. It is almost impossible to have any kind of victory under these circumstances… certainly not the type of decisive victory that one nation can have over another.
So before one blames Israel for not wining one should consider the very different nature of this war versus the wars of he past. The United States is currently experiencing the same type of problem in Iraq. They too are fighting an invisible terrorist army.
That being said there is legitimate criticism of the way in which Israel prosecuted the war. In an attempt to minimize Israeli casualties, PM Olmert tried to conduct the entire war from the air. He did not want to send in ground troops as that would have significantly increased casualties. Virtually everyone, including me, feels this was a mistake. Had they gone in on the ground immediately, there could have been a more decisive victory with less Lebanese “civilian” casualties, albeit more Israeli ones.
To be fair this is 20/20 hindsight. No one anticipated the fire-power of Hezbollah. And no one anticipated their ability to resist the Israeli onslaught. By the time Israel decided to send in ground troops, it was very late in the game.
But, even with this criticism, and with Hezbollah claiming victory and world punditry agreeing, I think it is too early to tell what the final result of this war will be. Will we return to the status quo ante? I don’t know but I don’t think so. I certainly hope not. What the final outcome will be I don’t know. My gut feeling is that there will be some material improvement in the security situation for Israel. Prime Minister Olmert cannot be blamed for not having a decisive win. No Israeli leader could have accomplished that, in my view.
As for the larger picture, Islamism has survived this battle and until the ideology itself is somehow destroyed it will always remain a mortal danger to… not only Israel… but the entire world.
