Today's Situation

Who won? Friday, August 11, 2006

But even without a formal resolution, let alone a ceasefire beginning to be implemented, there is the rising pitch of recrimination from some Israeli public opinion makers, taking shots at Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, and Chief of Staff Dan Halutz. Ari Shavit, of Haaretz, for example, writes today that if Israel accepts the UN resolution, Olmert should be made to resign. Sima Kadmon of Yedioth Aharonoth, is drawing comparisons between Halutz, the cocky air force commander who was sure he would yet end up prime minister to David ‘Dado’ Elazar, the chief of staff in the Yom Kippur War, who was forced to resign after that war and soon after died of what everyone called a ‘broken heart.’ As for Peretz, unless he can somehow come out of this war leading a dramatic move for a peace deal with Syria -- and the Palestinians -- he has lost his political base among the doves and in the Left.

There are already calls for ‘Commissions of Inquiry,’ which in Israeli history means retribution meted out to politicians and sometimes generals, for failing to meet the expectations they created. In this case, the expectations created by Olmert and Peretz and Halutz were for a brief air campaign that would not only force Hizbollah to return two kidnapped soldiers, but make it surrender to overwhelming Israeli force. It was as if nobody around the three Israeli leaders had ever learned anything from the history of guerrilla wars in the last century. Political cleverness not brute force is the way to weaken groups like Hizbollah. But Olmert and Peretz, neither of whom had any military experience, decided within hours to go to war after the two soldiers were kidnapped and when, after a week, the war did not go the way they expected on the basis of what Halutz had told them, they began a series of zigzagging maneuvers that tried to be all things to all people, satisfied nobody, and did little except squander international support for Israel’s angry response to the Hizbollah kidnapping the two soldiers and launching rockets into Israel.

Israel public opinion meanwhile has confidence in the army, Olmert and Peretz, or at least so says a poll today in Yedioth. But the national consensus in favor of the war seems to be slowly unraveling. Last night, Meretz and Peace Now joined more hard-core peace activists in a demonstration outside the defense ministry in Tel Aviv. The Right meanwhile has launched full-scale attacks on Olmert and Peretz for their hesitation, their lack of resolve, and Israel’s readiness -- indeed eagerness -- for a UN Security Council resolution that would end the fighting.

That resolution is still being hammered out, after an earlier version was worked out between the U.S. and France. Putting pressure on Washington and Paris, Moscow came up with its own resolution for a 72 hour ceasefire that it said it would withdraw if the U.S. and France finally agree. France threatened to bring its own resolution to the council, telling the U.S. there was a majority in favor. That would have forced the U.S. to veto the French resolution, further isolating the Americans.

In Israel, even the most incorrigibly optimistic who favor a ceasefire immediately admit that the resolution now expected to be passed sometime this weekend, will not put an end to the Iranian threat, via Hizbollah proxy, against Israel, nor will it marginalize the Hizbollah in Lebanese politics. Hizbollah might come out of the entire affair thinking it has won. Israel certainly does not think it has won, even though the army and air force did manage to inflict considerable damage to the Iranian-trained battalions of the Hizbollah. Those are not the best conditions imaginable for a full-scale peace conference, such as the one in Madrid called by the current President Bush’s father after the first Gulf War. But they might be enough to at least start a discussion about a broader arrangement for coexistence, if not peace, between Israel and Lebanon, Syria, and perhaps even the Palestinians.

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