Israel's
Verdict: We Lost The War
By Donald Macintyre
in Metulla, Israel
15 August 2006
The
Independent
Ehud
Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, was obliged to admit "shortcomings"
in the 34-day-old conflict in Lebanon yesterday as he launched what
may prove a protracted fight for his own political survival.
Mr Olmert's admission in
a stormy Knesset session came in the face of devastating poll figures
showing a majority of the Israeli public believes none or only a very
small part of the goals of the war had been achieved.
Adding insult to injury,
the leader of Hizbollah, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, crowed on television
that his guerrillas had achieved a "strategic historic victory"
over Israel.
The Prime Minister, who was
repeatedly heckled by opposition MPs during his address, insisted the
international commitments in Friday night's UN resolution would "change
fundamentally" the balance of forces on the country's northern
border.
But, facing his first major
political crisis since winning the election five months ago, he acknowledged
"the overall responsibility for this operation lies with me, the
Prime Minister. I am not asking to share this with anyone." A number
of Knesset members including the Israeli Arab Ahmed Tibi, a furious
opponent of the war, were ejected from the chamber.
The opening of what is likely
to prove a bitter post-mortem came as the two sides began an uneasy
truce. The conflict is estimated to have cost well over 1,000 Lebanese
lives as well as those of 156 Israelis - civilians and soldiers.
The fragility of the ceasefire
was underlined by four incidents in which Israeli troops shot dead six
Hizbollah fighters after the ceasefire began at 8am yesterday. The Israeli
military insisted the incidents were within guidelines permitting troops
to open fire when threatened and did not jeopardise the truce.
Promising that the government
"will have to examine ourselves at all levels," Mr Olmert
fought to pre-empt a probable campaign by the political right by declaring
that Hizbollah had been dealt a "harsh blow". He added that
the guerrilla group was no longer "a state within a state"
or a "terrorist organisation that is allowed to act inside a state
as an arm of the axis of evil", referring to Syria and Iran.
While refraining from a direct
personal attack on Mr Olmert, Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-
wing Likud opposition, lost little time in declaring "there were
many failures, failures in identifying the threat, failures in preparing
to meet the threat, failures in the management of the war, failures
in the management of the home front."
Critics from right and left
were fortified by a Globes Smith poll showing, remarkably given the
degree to which the army is embedded in Israeli society, that 52 per
cent of electors believed the Israel Defence Forces had been unsuccessful
in its Lebanon offensive as opposed to 44 per cent who believed it did
well.
Mr Netanyahu also pointedly
chose to attack unilateral withdrawals - the issue on which Mr Olmert
fought his election in March. Mr Netanyahu said: "We left Lebanon
to the last centimetre and they are firing. We left Gaza to the last
centimetre and they are firing."
Meanwhile, the Hizbollah
leader said he believes the Lebanese army and international troops are
"incapable of protecting Lebanon". He also said it was the
"wrong time" for a public discussion on disarming the guerrilla
group.
At the eastern end of the
northern border, heavy artillery barrages and repeated tank machine-gun
fire continued yesterday up to the ceasefire deadline.
But as the artillery batteries
fell silent and firing stopped, there was a final single explosion at
about 8.05pm, sending a plume of grey smoke upwards before the uneasy
calm began.
Amid a wave of angry civilian
reactions in Israel after more than a month in which an estimated 3,500
rockets were fired into northern Israel, Sam Echahid, the manager of
a local supermarket, was asked whether he thought the ceasefire would
hold. He said: "I hope not. We haven't done anything yet."
© 2006 Independent News
and Media Limited