Today's Situation

More questions than answers Tuesday, July 25, 2006

The government, Histadrut and Manufacturers' Association are holding marathon meetings to solve the problem, but they can only solve the problem of employees, not the tens of thousands of small businesses or the self-employed. The government says it will make sure everyone is compensated, but for cash poor businesses that rely on credit from even poorer customers, the promises of compensation some time n an unknown future are not satisfactory. As Gazit said, 'the support for the war is very brittle, and it could break very easily.' One obvious result of the two weeks of rockets hitting northern Israel is that the only people remaining in the north are either the super-patriotic or those without the money to move south, to Tel Aviv or further south, for a few weeks. Hotels in Eilat, for example, are said to be completely booked, indeed, there are complaints of price gouging.

So even as the Israeli media and political arena basks in the very unusual circumstances of the Americans not holding up a stopwatch to end the fighting, Olmert must keep in mind that the home front, the rear, might be telling the polls that it is behind the war, but the ground might be much less firm than he has assumed. And that is particularly true if casualties among soldiers continue to mount, not only from bitter combat with Hizbollah but from friendly fire, as happened this week, or disobeying orders, as happed in a case involving a tank that took a wrong turn and drove over a land mine, with two soldiers dead and several wounded.

Rice was telling the Israelis that they have time to do the job, but she is probably also asking if the job can be done -- and asking for better definitions of the job. It began with the goal of militarily crushing the Hizbollah. According to Vice Premier Shimon Peres, speaking in the Knesset this morning, the job of disarming Hizbollah is actually in the Lebanese hands while Israel's effort is aimed at returning its kidnapped soldiers and making sure the Hizbollah never returns to the border area near Israel.

There is still populist support for the war against Hizbollah but it is clear that the popular expectations for some kind of quick victory have given way after 14 days to something more realistic. The IDF continues its campaign to 'cleanse' the area immediately north of the Israeli border with Lebanon. The strategy now seems to be to prepare that area for the Lebanese Army, which would be backed somehow by a multinational force.

Meanwhile, it's the timing of the stages of the package deal that seems to be emerging that could be the stumbling block. The Israelis want their captured soldiers returned first. The Lebanese want an immediate ceasefire. The French have a 2,000-man force already in Lebanon and off-shore, for humanitarian aid and to help French citizens out, so that could become the core of a multinational force. Israel will likely have to hand over the Shaba Farms -- but to do so, Syria would have to say that it is handing them over to Lebanon, which would mean bringing Damascus into the negotiations. And there's the question of what will happen to Hizbollah. Can the Lebanese disarm it on their own, without force, as Fouad Siniora says? Will Syria keep trying to arm it? And what about the Iranian money that keeps it alive? Do the Lebanese want such foreign influence inside their parliament, indeed their government? These are among the many difficult questions that Rice, the Israelis, the Lebanese, and indeed Damascus, and Tehran, as well as Cairo, Riyadh and Amman will have to answer.

And meanwhile, rockets kept falling in northern Israel today.

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