A New Thread fot the Current Israel/Palestine/Lebanon mess

NY Times today has a front page article on the disappearence of the peace camp in Israel. Supposedly there is near-zero opposition to the war, though there is plenty of criticism of Olmert's leadership. As in, Ehud, you're not a wartime consigliere...

Also a front-pager about how pro-democracy groups in the Arab world are finding their positions increasingly difficult given the US & Israeli actions during the conflict. Much frustration that the current hostilities are merely reinforcing the existing power structures rather than bringing about real change.

Like a lot of polls in Israel, they may not bother polling the 20% of the population who are not Jewish. Arab members of the Knesset have been quite vocal in their opposition to the bombardment of Lebanon... one has to assume that that to some extent represents the opinions of their electorate (or maybe not, as some of them have been killed by Hezbollah missiles).

But yeah, I have read how the peace camp in Israel is more interested in peace with the Palestinians rather than with the Lebanese. I have also read that the media in Israel has not done much in the way of reporting what their armed forces are doing in Lebanon.

I see you've chosen to talk out of your ass (as usual) rather than do a bit of reading. ("The telephone interviews were carried out by the B. I. Cohen Institute of Tel Aviv University on July 31-August 1, 2006, and included 617 interviewees who represent the adult Jewish and Arab population of Israel (including the territories and the kibbutzim.")

I have also read that the media in Israel has not done much in the way of reporting what their armed forces are doing in Lebanon.

More stupidity.

Pre-conflict:
Israelis sympathetic to anti-Hezbollah Lebanese = 50%
Anti-Hezbollah Lebanese sypathetic to Israelis = 50%

Hezbollah attacks Israel:
Israelis sympathetic to anti-Hezbollah Lebanese = 0%
Anti-Hezbollah Lebanese sympathetic to Israelis = 50%

Israel attacks Hezbollah:
Israelis sympathetic to anti-Hezbollah Lebanese = 0%
Anti-Hezbollah Lebanese sympathetic to Israelis = 50%

Israel attacks Lebanon:
Israelis sympathetic to anti-Hezbollah Lebanese = 0%
Anti-Hezbollah Lebanese sypathetic to Israelis = 0%

So who's responsible for Lebanese radicalization?

The root issue is whether you think Israel's campaign is excessive or not. Some people are not willing to agree with, "If Israel is attacked it can do anything it wants," just like some people are not willing to agree with, "If the US is attacked it can do anything it wants."

Not sure how useful this is, but here's how I'd apply your equation to different situations:

Hezbollah attacks Israel -> Israel attacks Hezbollah = Hezbollah's fault
Hezbollah attacks Israel -> Israel attacks Lebanon = Israel's fault

Al Qaeda attacks US -> US attacks Iraq = US's fault
Al Qaeda attacks US -> US scales back civil liberties = US's fault

A country that doesn't take responsibility for how it responds to an attack is, well, irresponsible.

Also, why is Siniora trying to push for a better deal with the UN as if he's in any position of power at this point?

9/11 gave the Bush administration the "reason" to attack Iraq - they never would've been able to build support for it without 9/11 as a motivating factor. Hence all the pathetic attempts to link Saddam to
Al Qaeda.

Why isn't "the root issue" the Hezbollah rocket attacks? Are the 3500 rockets launched at Israel not "excessive", plus the constant repeated threats to launch more (particularly on Tel Aviv)? I'll remind you again that about 1Mil people have been displaced in Israel, or roughly the same number as in Lebanon. There are fewer deaths, but plenty of property damage (those rockets still have to hit *something*) and when the war is over I think the direct cost of Hezbollah attacks on Israel will surprise a lot of people.

I agree with you completely. There's going to be a huge economic fallout from the evacuation/bombing of northern Israel. There is no Hezbollah sympathy in my outlook. I'm not sure why you're unable to view the actions of Hezbollah as separate from Lebanon, though.

why is Siniora trying to push for a better deal with the UN as if he's in any position of power at this point?

I don't blame him for rejecting the terms of a ceasefire that is guaranteed not to cease the fire. His position is as unenviable as Israel's in this. Can't back down, can't move forward.

Now he essentially wants to move his army into place to quell a weakened Hezbollah (no thanks to Israel for doing the work that he wouldn't, or couldn't do) (and probably with fewer deaths and economic damage too, the current war sucks but it's nothing compared to the 2nd civil war he would have faced)

To quote Chris Rock, this is like being grateful to the uncle who paid your way through college... but molested you.

I'll add that Lebanon never attacked Israel, nor was it threatening to do so.

God bless them. What I actually read was that they weren't showing that much in the way of TV footage of bomb strikes in Lebanon (this pre-Qana), though I read somewhere else on a pro-Israel place that they do not like showing images of injured and dead people generally, whether foreign or Israeli.

Your logic works, but the examples don't really correlate to real life. It's impossible to attack a militant group who are heavily integrated in Lebanese urban areas without, at least to a certain extent, attacking the Lebanese urban areas.

I'll add that Lebanon never attacked Israel, nor was it threatening to do so.

When a de facto Lebanese government attacks Israel, it's still a form of Lebanon attacking Israel.

Also, interesting NYTimes article: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/magazine/04lebanon.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

It controls territory, provides its own governmental services and has an army...

• Anders Strindberg, formerly a visiting professor at Damascus University, Syria, is a consultant on Middle East politics working with European government and law-enforcement agencies. He has also covered Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories as a journalist since the late 1990s, primarily for European publications.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0801/p09s02-coop.html

Errr....

Another would be the false analogy to "Negroes who refuse to sit at the back of the bus." That would work better if the *Negroes* also felt it was ok to have their brethern attack the bus, and that it was ok to kill the white children sitting at the front of the bus in order to make their point.

Without getting sucked into every detail of the CS Monitor, let's say that the central point it seems to be making is that the idea of maintaining a "Jewish state" is religiously/culturally discriminatory (not really "racist" as Jews are not a single race or ethnic group), and that right of return would be the only real way to right the wrongs of the past, which I admit are very real.

To some extent, I agree with the first part of that formulation. Maintaining a majority Jewish state must by definition be discriminatory, and the best one can hope for is that the balance will be maintained by relatively benign methods.

However, even most modern nations practice some form of discrimination in this sense by limiting immigration. I don't often hear criticism of France, for example, which has an ultra-rigorous standard of cultural assimilation required for citizenship. And forget about most of the nations surrounding Israel, where any Jews remaining live as dhimmi and where any person with even an Israeli stamp on his passport may not enter.

Right of return de facto would mean creating an ethnically Arab state, not a tolerant Western-style democracy. You'd just reverse the situation only I imagine it'd be worse for Jews than Israel for its 1.2 million Arab citizens. You'd have to overturn an entire nation and society. Many Israelis are now third or fourth generation.

Yes, recognize what's been done wrong, but do what's realistic.

My ass can talk, but you are right in that in this case I have slipped into referring to a supposition (ultimately incorrect) as a statement of fact.

This is a surprising and insightful take on the conflict from a Palestinian politician.

The basic gist is that if Israel can survive military defeat that only proves it's here to stay - wars it fights are no longer matters of survival or life and death and should not be treated as such.

That being said, I wouldn't conclude that the IDF have lost the war just yet...it sure doesn't look like it's over.

I've always been somewhat uncomfortable with the bent of post-Rabin/post-Oslo Israeli policy, even when it was in the context of the dubiousness of Arafat's sincerity and his corruption. I've always wrestled with Israel's rash military actions in the territories, even in the context of suicide bombings targeting women and children.

But I can't abide this madness anymore. Israel seems to be increasingly dominated by people who don't believe in peace and who possess a paranoid and exaggerated sense of the threats to Israel's "survival." None of this is helped by a growing fringe religious right movement who believe in "one Israel" and just couldn't care less about anyone else.

I make no excuses for suicide bombers and the organizations that sponsor them. But none of that excuses Israel's conduct, either.

It's not as though I was ever an Israeli flag-waving, rally-going, AIPAC-donating cheerleader, but this conflict has pushed me over the line. I'm not even entirely sure what that means yet - but I did donate money to the Palestinian Red Crescent, and also to Tikkun (a great progressive Jewish organization) to help them run an ad calling for a ceasefire.

If anyone wants to sign their ad/petition and or donate, btw:

http:/www.tikkun.org

That being said, I wouldn't conclude that the IDF have lost the war just yet...it sure doesn't look like it's over.

"winning", "losing", it's all relative... those stratfor guys keep saying that for Israel a "draw" is a "loss". It depends where you set your targets.

Following on from Krauthammer, they say that if the struggle does not end in unqualified victory for the Israeli state, then its value to the USA will be greatly diminished and radical Islamists emboldened.

Haaretz guy says that Olmert must cut his losses: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/749257.html

...He rambled on about how this war had been foretold in the Bible and that the prophet Ezekiel foretold an attack on Israel by Russia, Iran, Libya, and Sudan, although I haven't figured out what that has to do with the current conflict. (Ezekiel says the attackers will come on horses, but Pat didn't address that.) He countered Blitzer's mild criticism of the killing of civilians by talking about the 8,000 soldiers who died on D-Day. He blathered on and on about the Oslo accords and pictures of Auschwitz, and pretty much made no sense.

oh yeah, and ostensibly this trip was a show of support and love for Israel. Hmmm.

1 Quoted in Hannan Greenberg, ‘The Limited Conflict: This Is How You Trick Terrorists’, in Yediot Aharonot; www.ynet.co.il (23 March 2004)
2 Eyal Weizman interviewed Aviv Kokhavi on 24 September at an Israeli military base near Tel Aviv. Translation from Hebrew by the author; video documentation by Nadav Harel and Zohar Kaniel
3 Sune Segal, ‘What Lies Beneath: Excerpts from an Invasion’, Palestine Monitor, November, 2002;
www.palestinemonitor.org/eyewitness/Westbank/what_lies_beneath_by_sune_segal.html 9 June, 2005
4 Shimon Naveh, discussion following the talk ‘Dicta Clausewitz: Fractal Manoeuvre: A Brief History of Future Warfare in Urban Environments’, delivered in conjunction with ‘States of Emergency: The Geography of Human Rights’, a debate organized by Eyal Weizman and Anselm Franke as part of ‘Territories Live’, B’tzalel Gallery, Tel Aviv,
5 November 2004
5 Eyal Weizman, telephone interview with Shimon Naveh, 14 October 2005
6 Ibid.
7 Michel Foucault’s description of theory as a ‘toolbox’ was originally developed in conjunction with Deleuze in a 1972 discussion; see Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault, ‘Intellectuals and Power’, in Michel Foucault, Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews, ed. and intro. Donald F. Bouchard, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1980, p. 206
8 Weizman, interview with Naveh
9 Quoted in Yagil Henkin, ‘The Best Way into Baghdad’, The New York Times, 3 April 2003
10 Weizman, interview with Naveh
11 Naveh is currently working on a Hebrew translation of Bernard Tschumi’s Architecture and Disjunction, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1997.
12 Weizman, interview with Naveh

The situation in Israel tonight has become extremely confused, verging on the chaotic. Government ministers, like the foreign minister and prime minister, are publicly feuding. The government is saying that the assault into Lebanon will definitely be rolling tonight while it has simultaneously implied that it intends to accept the cease-fire resolution. Leaders of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are demanding to be unleashed while leaks from some government members hint that they have no confidence in the military. The media has now surged into the battle with highly contentious columns and editorials.

There is a saying in Israel: "When the cannon roar, we fall silent." It means that, while there is a war on, politics -- and even public controversy -- are impermissible. That rule has clearly collapsed. Controversy has raged inside the government and military during wars, and some of it has been savage. But this combination of contradictory signals from the government and increasingly open battling is fairly unprecedented. The closest Israel has come to this was in 1967, between the time Egypt imposed a blockade on Israel's port of Eilat and the time Israel launched its attack on Egypt. We would judge this as worse.

There appear to be two basic and competing schools of thought. One argues that Israel cannot defeat Hezbollah without incurring unacceptable losses and re-occupying parts of Lebanon, thereby winding up in a counterinsurgency situation. The other school of thought argues that the price of accepting a cease-fire that leaves Hezbollah intact is much higher than the cost of war.

The interesting thing is that Olmert himself seems to embody both views. On the one hand he is saying that the offensive is on while at the same time asserting that he is inclined to accept the cease-fire. In some ways, either position would be more comforting to Israelis than the apparent vacillation. There had been a belief that Olmert was using this as psychological warfare against Hezbollah, but the view is now spreading that it is doing more damage to the Israeli psyche than to Hezbollah's.

The cease-fire that appears to be on the table is rather extraordinary. It lacks a timetable and turns over the problem of disarming Hezbollah to the Lebanese government, which probably has neither the means nor the appetite for the job. In the unlikely event that this is achieved, French forces would then join the existing U.N. force. They would have the authority to actively suppress any breaches of the cease-fire. The argument against the cease-fire is obvious from the Israeli point of view. Olmert's view might be that accepting it means nothing since it has no time limit and the disarming of Hezbollah won't happen. Therefore, it allows Israel to accept the cease-fire without halting operations.

Hezbollah has certainly achieved an extraordinary degree of success. It has fought IDF to a draw, with the Israelis clearly being concerned about the price of going up against it. It has also created an unprecedented political crisis in Israel, while its own base remains firm. Hezbollah's strategy has worked thus far, establishing it as the most effective force ever to confront the Israelis.

The pressure on Olmert from IDF is intense. But it is also intense politically. Benyamin Netanyahu, leader of Likud, has remained virtually silent, holding off criticizing the government. He has even restrained some of his colleagues. Clearly, he does not want to destabilize the government now. Yet, at the same time, his relative steadfastness while the government tries to sort things out remains odd.

In looking at Israeli behavior -- which has become the most interesting and perplexing aspect of this conflict -- we are struck by an oddity. The Israeli leadership seems genuinely concerned about something, and it is not clear what it is. Obviously, the government doesn't want to take casualties, but this is not a political problem. The Israeli public can deal with high casualties as long as the mission -- in this case the dismantling of Hezbollah's capabilities -- is accomplished. The normal pattern of Israeli behavior is to be increasingly aggressive rather than restrained, and the government is supported.

When a government becomes uncertain, it normally reverts to established patterns. We would have expected a major invasion weeks ago, and we did expect it. Something is holding the Israelis back and it is not simply fear of casualties. The increasing confusion and even paralysis of the Israeli government could be explained simply by division and poor leadership. But we increasingly have the feeling that there is an aspect to Israeli thinking that we do not understand, some concern that is not apparent that is holding them back from doing what they would normally do.

Hezbollah has fought well, but it is hard to believe that the Israelis can't defeat them or that Israel can't take casualties. (Interestingly enough, Iran and Hezbollah, who are aiming for an imminent cease-fire to claim victory in this conflict, have remained silent while the discussion of a coming cease-fire intensifies.) As the pressure to act mounts and Israel doesn't act, the question of what is restraining them becomes increasingly important. We can't speculate on what their concern might be, because we don't know it. However, Olmert is acting as if he doesn't want to become too aggressive, and the reasoning is unclear.

When dawn comes over Lebanon, we might well find Israeli troops attacking in their traditional fashion, and the entire debate in Israel tonight will be of little importance. Then the question will be whether Hezbollah can continue to resist. However, while there are those who would argue that Israel's inability to decide clearly on a path is simply cover for action, our view is that the situation has gone well beyond that. Hezbollah is not being rattled at all. The Israelis are.

This said, of course, we have the news just now:

Israel says it has tripled the number of its troops in southern Lebanon in an expanded offensive, despite a United Nations vote backing a ceasefire.

The soldiers are moving towards the strategically significant Litani River, the military said.

Hezbollah's leader has said the group will abide by the UN Security Council resolution, which calls for a "full cessation of hostilities".

Israel's Cabinet will discuss the issue on Sunday.

It says it will only halt military action after taking a vote.

I am not convinced by Stratfor's assumption that Hezbollah can be defeated... if Hezbollah was not defeatable when Israeli forces occupied south Lebanon and had a quisling force to fight alongside them, why would it be defeatable now? I know the situation is a bit different now - Syria is (probably) weaker and so on - and I am not saying that Hezbollah cannot be defeated, but an assumption that victory is inevitable should Israel really want it seems a bit optimistic.

I have grown more fond of Stratfor's briefings, not necessarily because they say anything new that you couldn't glean from the more advanced media, but because they do not pretend that they know more than they do. Like, when they say Hezbollah is about to start kidnapping westerners or that Israel is about to launch a major ground invasion, they do not pretend that they heard this from some confidential source, but just that it is their prediction on the basis of observable evidence.

Whatever the political crisis was yesterday, Israel has clearly decided to invade southern Lebanon, at the very least. The apparent battle between those who oppose a full invasion and those who support one appears to have been settled in favor of the latter.

...

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz, Halutz and other senior IDF officers visited Northern Command headquarters in Safed late Aug. 11. This meeting appears to have been to approve last-minute changes to the expanded offensive, and to coordinate the initial phase of the attack.

...

Bottom line: Whatever the U.N. Security Council might have intended, the outcome in Israel was an IDF order to disarm Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. At present, there is only air action in the Bekaa Valley.

...

The advance seen thus far is methodical and, in spite of reports, fairly conservative. The Israelis do not seem to be carrying out slashing armored attacks, but are concentrating on combined arms operations to isolate and destroy strong points. It is now clear that, unless another shift takes place among Israeli leadership, the destruction we expected in the south is taking place. This has already diminished rocket fire into Israel, but we remain doubtful that all rocket attacks can be shut down by attacking the south. Further operations remain an option, although that option is uncertain in this political environment.

The issue now is Hezbollah's response. The group clearly knows it will be defeated by IDF in the south. One of its goals is obviously to inflict maximum casualties. Another must be to impose as many delays as possible. Hezbollah has been under sustained air attack for more than a month, so the resilience of its forces is a question mark.

However, broader than this issue is the strategic response of Hezbollah. A defeat in the south would obviously hurt Hezbollah greatly. It would not, however, eliminate Hezbollah's warfighting ability, since we assume it holds reserves in the Beirut area and the Bekaa Valley. The group also claims to have longer-range rockets in its arsenal -- we assume with only conventional warheads, but we don't know that for certain. With Israel committed, two questions arise: First, how far does Israel go? And, second, what is Hezbollah's response?

Granted, the rumours of Israel's potential demise are greatly exagerrated ... but let's be realistic, we know that a majority of Israelis don't think that Israel is fighting for survival, and yet the war has a 90% approval rating. Instead, I think people are united by the "damned if we do, damned if we don't" principle, e.g. rushing to make peace after being attacked makes the country look weak, and attacking back "strengthens Hezbollah" in the eyes of many, so what can you do? France's behaviour epitomizes the problems here -- they dole out condemnations of Israel like candy, but don't want to get involved. How does that help anybody involved? It's about time that the French CONTRIBUTE to peace by committing soldiers and resources to the region rather than sitting back and trying to appear neutral. I can't blame Israelis for being tired of that standoffish approach (while Syria and Iran, the countries responsible for funding Hezb, sink into the shadows without being called out) (in fact, France said that Iran were a stabilizing factor in the region) and thinking "to hell with it, let's take matters into our own hands."

if Hezbollah was not defeatable when Israeli forces occupied south Lebanon and had a quisling force to fight alongside them, why would it be defeatable now?

Hezb can't be engaged like you would a conventional army, they're highly decentralized and spread thin amongst dozens of civilian areas. It's like trying to root out gangs, except these gangs have rockets, machine guns, and anti-tank missiles.

If the UN peace deal comes through, I almost guarantee that we'll see Hezbollah rockets launched from Lebanon within a month or two of the international force hitting the ground (regardless of the exact time frame, this is inevitable, no?). Has anyone planned ahead to consider what the "acceptable" response should be from all parties?

General idea though seemed to be that there's a fair amount of evidence that 1) Cheney and Bush either pushed for this or enthusiastically supported it because they saw it as an important step toward invading Iran, and 2) There may have been less enthusiasm elsewhere in the administration, with Rumsfeld possibly concerned about the implications for Iraq and Rice possibly growing increasingly concerned that the costs were too great as the conflict wore on.

Also, 3) Relying so heavily on air power was a really bad idea (as if we haven't heard that enough by now), and 4) Kosovo was not really an appropriate model for Israel's actions, despite the Olmert govt's claims.

4) Kosovo was not really an appropriate model for Israel's actions, despite the Olmert govt's claims.

The Kosovo example is still instructive, as it was another war where overwhelming air power proved surprisingly ineffective.

The Hersh thing - fascinating that something can, apparently, be planned carefully in advance, and still fuck up.

If you are interested in nerdy military stuff (and who isn't?), this article is interesting: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4794829.stm . In a technological sense, the race between anti-tank weapons and armour seems to have brought us back to 1973.

http://www.counterpunch.org/chomsky08162006.html

"Iran spreading viruses through Ahmadinejad’s blog?" asks that Malkin chick.

"Starting in those days [after 9/11], I felt not merely part of an administration, but part of a story; a noble story."

And so of course we need to invade Iran now now now goddammit, etc, and it doesn't matter that nobody wants another war b/c

"presidential decisions on national security are not primarily made by the divination of public sentiments"

When the Israeli-Lebanese situation began to deteriorate, I wrote in this space that the conflict amounted to a “futile, little war”. I subsequently regretted this verbiage, only because it could be construed in a manner that appeared to diminish the tragic loss of life on both sides. This was never my intent. I merely sought to explain that I felt Israel’s effort was doomed from the get-go to be rather futile, not least given the manner by which she was pursuing the campaign. I believe events have, more or less, fully borne my analysis out.

About right, I figure. Worth reading through the whole thing.