The
Thirty Three Day War-
From Mania To Depression
By Uri Avnery
17 August, 2006
Gush Shalom
Tel Aviv.
Thirty three days of war.
The longest of our wars since 1949.
On the Israeli side: 154
dead--117 of them soldiers. 3970 rockets launched against us, 37 civilians
dead, more than 422 civilians wounded.
On the Lebanese side: about
a thousand dead civilians, thousands wounded. An unknown number of Hizbullah
fighters dead and wounded.
More than a million refugees
on both sides.
So what has been achieved
for this terrible price?
"GLOOMY, HUMBLE, despondent,"
was how the journalist Yossef Werter described Ehud Olmert, a few hours
after the cease-fire had come into effect.
Olmert? Humble? Is this the
same Olmert we know? The same Olmert who thumped the table and shouted:
"No more!" Who said: "After the war, the situation will
be completely different than before!" Who promised a "New
Middle East" as a result of the war?
* * *
THE RESULTS of the war are
obvious:
* The prisoners, who served
as casus belli (or pretext) for the war, have not been released. They
will come back only as a result of an exchange of prisoners, exactly
as Hassan Nasrallah proposed before the war.
* Hizbullah has remained
as it was. It has not been destroyed, nor disarmed, nor even removed
from where it was. Its fighters have proved themselves in battle and
have even garnered compliments from Israeli soldiers. Its command and
communication stucture has continued to function to the end. Its TV
station is still broadcasting.
* Hassan Nasrallah is alive
and kicking. Persistent attempts to kill him failed. His prestige is
sky-high. Everywhere in the Arab world, from Morocco to Iraq, songs
are being composed in his honor and his picture adorns the walls.
* The Lebanese army will
be deployed along the border, side by side with a large international
force. That is the only material change that has been achieved.
This will not replace Hizbullah.
Hizbullah will remain in the area, in every village and town. The Israeli
army has not succeeded in removing it from one single village. That
was simply impossible without permanently removing the population to
which it belongs.
The Lebanese army and the
international force cannot and will not confront Hizbullah. Their very
presence there depends on Hizbullah's consent. In practice, a kind of
co-existence of the three forces will come into being, each one knowing
that it has to come to terms with the other two.
Perhaps the international
force will be able to prevent incursions by Hizbullah, such as the one
that preceded this war. But it will also have to prevent Israeli actions,
such as the reconnaissance flights of our Air Force over Lebanon. That's
why the Israeli army objected, at the beginning, so strenuously to the
introduction of this force.
* * *
IN ISRAEL, there is now a
general atmosphere of disappointment and despondency. From mania to
depression. It's not only that the politicians and the generals are
firing accusations at each other, as we foresaw, but the general public
is also voicing criticism from every possible angle. The soldiers criticize
the conduct of the war, the reserve soldiers gripe about the chaos and
the failure of supplies.
In all parties, there are
new opposition groupings and threats of splits. In Kadima. In Labor.
It seems that in Meretz, too, there is a lot of ferment, because most
of its leaders supported the war dragon almost until the last moment,
when they caught its tail and pierced it with their little lance.
At the head of the critics
are marching--surprise, surprise--the media. The entire horde of interviewers
and commentators, correspondents and presstitutes, who (with very few
exceptions) enthused about the war, who deceived, misled, falsified,
ignored, duped and lied for the fatherland, who stifled all criticism
and branded as traitors all who opposed the war--they are now running
ahead of the lynch mob. How predictable, how ugly. Suddenly they remember
what we have been saying right from the beginning of the war.
This phase is symbolized
by Dan Halutz, the Chief-of-Staff. Only yesterday he was the hero of
the masses, it was forbidden to utter a word against him. Now he is
being described as a war profiteer. A moment before sending his soldiers
into battle, he found the time to sell his shares, in expectation of
a decline of the stock market. (Let us hope that a moment before the
end he found the time to buy them back again.)
Victory, as is well known,
has many fathers, and failure in war is an orphan.
* * *
FROM THE deluge of accusations
and gripes, one slogan stands out , a slogan that must send a cold shiver
down the spine of anyone with a good memory: "the politicians did
not let the army win."
Exactly as I wrote two weeks
ago, we see before our very eyes the resurrection of the old cry "they
stabbed the army in the back!"
This is how it goes: At long
last, two days before the end, the land offensive started to roll. Thanks
to our heroic soldiers, the men of the reserves, it was a dazzling success.
And then, when we were on the verge of a great victory, the cease-fire
came into effect.
There is not a single word
of truth in this. This operation, which was planned and which the army
spent years training for, was not carried out earlier, because it was
clear that it would not bring any meaningful gains but would be costly
in lives. The army would, indeed, have occupied wide areas, but without
being able to dislodge the Hizbullah fighters from them.
The town of Bint Jbeil, for
example, right next to the border, was taken by the army three times,
and the Hizbullah fighters remained there to the end. If we had occupied
20 towns and villages like this one, the soldiers and the tanks would
have been exposed in twenty places to the mortal attacks of the guerillas
with their highly effective anti-tank weapons.
If so, why was it decided,
at the last moment, to carry out this operation after all--well after
the UN had already called for an end to hostilities? The horrific answer:
it was a cynical--not to say vile--exercise of the failed trio. Olmert,
Peretz and Halutz wanted to create "a picture of victory",
as was openly stated in the media. On this altar the lives of 33 soldiers
(including a young woman) were sacrificed.
The aim was to photograph
the victorious soldiers on the bank of the Litani. The operation could
only last 48 hours, when the cease-fire would come into force. In spite
of the fact that the army used helicopters to land the troops, the aim
was not attained. At no point did the army reach the Litani.
For comparison: in the first
Lebanon war, that of Sharon in 1982, the army crossed the Litani in
the first few hours. (The Litani, by the way, is not a real river anymore,
but just a shallow creek. Most of its waters are drawn off far from
there, in the north. Its last stretch is about 25 km distant from the
border, near Metulla the distance is only 4 km.)
This time, when the cease-fire
took effect, all the units taking part had reached villages on the way
to the river. There they became sitting ducks, surrounded by Hizbullah
fighters, without secure supply lines. From that moment on, the army
had only one aim: to get them out of there as quickly as possible, regardless
of who might take their place.
If a commission of inquiry
is set up--as it must be--and investigates all the moves of this war,
starting from the way the decision to start it was made, it will also
have to investigate the decision to start this last operation. The death
of 33 soldiers (including the son of the writer David Grossman, who
had supported the war) and the pain this caused their families demand
that!
* * *
BUT THESE facts are not yet
clear to the general public. The brain-washing by the military commentators
and the ex-generals, who dominated the media at the time, has turned
the foolish--I would almost say "criminal"--operation into
a rousing victory parade. The decision of the political leadership to
stop it is now being seen by many as an act of defeatist, spineless,
corrupt and even treasonous politicians.
And that is exactly the new
slogan of the fascist Right that is now raising its ugly head.
After World War I, in similar
circumstances, the legend of the "knife in the back of the victorious
army" grew up. Adolf Hitler used it to carry him to power--and
on to World War II.
Now, even before the last
fallen soldier has been buried, the incompetent generals are starting
to talk shamelessly about "another round", the next war that
will surely come "in a month or in a year", God willing. After
all, we cannot end the matter like this, in failure. Where is our pride?
* * *
THE ISRAELI public is now
in a state of shock and disorientation. Accusations--justified and unjustified--are
flung around in all directions, and it cannot be foreseen how things
will develop.
Perhaps, in the end, it is
logic that will win. Logic says: what has thoroughly been demonstrated
is that there is no military solution. That is true in the North. That
is also true in the South, where we are confronting a whole people that
has nothing to lose anymore. The success of the Lebanese guerilla will
encourage the Palestinian guerilla.
For logic to win, we must
be honest with ourselves: pinpoint the failures, investigate their deeper
causes, draw the proper conclusions.
Some people want to prevent
that at any price. President Bush declares vociferously that we have
won the war. A glorious victory over the Evil Ones. Like his own victory
in Iraq.
When a football team is able
to choose the referee, it is no surprise if it is declared the winner.