Today's Situation

The fog of war Friday, July 21, 2006

The Israelis are still talking about ‘changing the rules’ -- making it too painful for the Hizbollah or anyone else to violate Israeli territorial sovereignty to even think about it -- but the idea that the IDF could decisively defeat the Lebanese-Shiite group seems to have given way to something with less bravado and more pragmatism: withdrawal of Hizbollah from south Lebanon, replacing it with a responsible force of some kind, whether Lebanese Army or multinational, to guard the Lebanese border with Israel, and elimination of the stockpiled rockets in Hizbollah hands. Oh, yes, returning the two captured Israeli soldiers in Hizbollah hands is also on that agenda.

Since the Lebanese Army seems unable to do any of that on its own, Israel is not yet interested in a ceasefire. Nor is Nasrallah, judging by his interview last night. So, Israeli special forces are operating inside Lebanon, along the border and deeper inside, with only one of their raids against Hizbollah forts -- opposite Avivim on the border -- noticed by the public and that only because it has encountered stiff resistance from the Hizbollah, costing some IDF casualties. Five soldiers have been killed so far in that battle. In another development involving casualties, two Apache helicopters crashed, killing one of the pilots, and wounding the other three crew members.

It’s said that some 20 percent of the Lebanese population has been made into refugees in their country. In Israel, 20 percent of the population is paralyzed, unable to go to work, spending days and nights in bomb shelters or in the concrete ‘defense rooms’ required of all new Israeli construction ever since the first Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein’s missile launches into Israeli cities became a reality that Israelis learned to live with. The years of horrific civilian casualties suffered at the hands of suicide bombers, inured Israelis to the suffering of the Palestinians, and appears to have also inured them to Lebanese pain now.

True, the Israeli air raids on Lebanon have wreaked devastation much worse than what the Iranian rockets launched by Hizbollah have caused in northern Israel. But also true is that both Hizbollah and Israel apparently regard this battle as being for something much larger than returning the captured soldiers or even ‘changing the rules’ in south Lebanon. The battle is being viewed by Western capitals -- and some Arab capitals as well -- as a watershed moment in the conflict between extremist Islamic movements and the West.

This morning, as of noon, only one rocket has been launched from Lebanon toward Israel and it fell short of its mark, hitting a UNIFIL outpost in south Lebanon. But shortly after 1 p.m., sirens went off in Haifa, and at least two rockets were said to have fallen somewhere in the city’s environs.

Nasrallah and Israeli military spokesmen argue about how much of Hizbollah’s infrastructure has been destroyed -- the Israelis say that 50 percent is gone, Nasrallah mocks that figure. But Hizbollah is not out of rockets or motivation. Israel has counted about 1,600 rocket landings inside Israel (an untold number have fallen into the sea or inside Lebanon) out of the estimated 10,000-15,000 Hizbollah was said to have. If Israel has indeed destroyed half the rockets, and Hizbollah has used up a third of those, that still leaves some 2,500 rockets in Hizbollah hands. And many of those are precisely the kind of long-range rockets that Iran wanted Hizbollah to use against Israel in case of a military attack on Tehran’s nuclear development facilities. Even if Hizbollah is pushed north of the Litani, as some Israeli analysts are suggesting be a proper outcome of the conflict, those long-range rockets will still threaten Tel Aviv.

The underlying Iranian-Hizbollah strategy, based on the idea that Israel society would collapse with the first rocket barrage against it, has been proven mistaken. Israelis are not breaking down in hysteria, and while there’s criticism of military tactics and even strategy, there is very little criticism of the premise of the war -- that after Israel totally withdrew from Lebanon, there was and can be no cause for any attack against Israel from Lebanon. Of course, it’s little consolation for the million Israelis from Haifa to the Lebanese border who are bearing the burden of the battle, but that might end up being the real change of the rules of the game.

Meanwhile, the army is calling up another 5,000 reserve troops, with many of those called up slated for action in the south, on the almost forgotten Gazan front. According to Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy czar, Prime Minister Olmert indicated during their meeting this week that is still work on a plan for a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. It’s unlikely Abbas can be seen meeting with Olmert while Israeli planes bomb Lebanon and troops are on the ground there. On the other hand, if Olmert has a plan to release hundreds or even thousands of Palestinian prisoners to Abbas’ hands, it would do a lot to assuage tension with the Palestinians. The fog of war conceals much more than can be seen.

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