Israeli cabinet rejects masive reliance on troops.
The Israeli war with Hizbullah is going badly for the Israelis. Some generals think the problem is too few troops. But the Israeli cabinet rejected that way of thinking, Thursday, sticking to its current mixture of air power and light infantry.
Air strikes in the south will continue.
Bloomberg reports that the the Israeli assault on Lebanon may have much strengthened the hand of Shaikh Hassan Nasrullah.
Mitch Prothero in Salon.com on the myth that Hizbullah hides among civilians.
' Throughout this now 16-day-old war, Israeli planes high above civilian areas make decisions on what to bomb. They send huge bombs capable of killing things for hundreds of meters around their targets, and then blame the inevitable civilian deaths -- the Lebanese government says 600 civilians have been killed so far -- on "terrorists" who callously use the civilian infrastructure for protection.
But this claim is almost always false. My own reporting and that of other journalists reveals that in fact Hezbollah fighters -- as opposed to the much more numerous Hezbollah political members, and the vastly more numerous Hezbollah sympathizers -- avoid civilians. Much smarter and better trained than the PLO and Hamas fighters, they know that if they mingle with civilians, they will sooner or later be betrayed by collaborators -- as so many Palestinian militants have been.
For their part, the Israelis seem to think that if they keep pounding civilians, they'll get some fighters, too. '
A Christian Bishop in Jerusalem would get a better hearing among American Christians than would non-Christian leaders, right? Wrong.
posted by Juan Cole @ 7/28/2006 12:32:00 AM
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According to the news I just heard, Israel has called up 30,000 Reservists. Must be planning a love-in, lots of flower-chains and cries of 'Peace' and 'Love'. Yeah!
The Israeli Cabinet says that the war is not going to be escalated. Perhaps they are giving the troops a nice holiday in Lebanon, on a nice beach somewhere. Is there still a nice beach somewhere?
Then perhaps the Israeli Cabinet is lying and WW3 has begun.
Given the fact that Israel's casualties number 19 civilians as of 07/27, and Lebanon's civilian dead number close to 600 (400 + 200 missing presumed dead in rubble of bombed buildings), it is no longer a matter of speculation as to which party is deliberately targeting more civilians...
Israel has threatened that any Lebanese village it deems to be a point of launch for missiles will be "completely destroyed" - that is Collective Punishment a la Genghis Khan... Are 12th Century Mongols now running Israeli war policy?
And when the IDF fights Hizbollah on the turf in South Lebanon it is finding the resistance, now joined by secular Lebanese Shiite militia AMAL, to be dishearteningly strong...
The New York Times says the Arab opinion has turned to supporting Hizbollah... The Christian Science Monitor reports 87% of Lebanese support Hizbollah, including 80% of Christians and 80% of Druze in Lebanon...
This Israeli war is making Hizbollah more popular, and stronger, among the Lebanese, the Arabs and the Muslims...This is Israel's Iraq War moment in Lebanon (unless, of course, you count the Bush War in Iraq to ALSO be Israel's war).
Bishop Riah H. Abu El-Assal, Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, is a bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States which is afflicted with its own branch of the Israel lobby -- more here.
In the last few days we verified some disturbing facts about the background to the current conflict. the below text from a press release we sent out today is a little long, but i think absolutely essential to understand the dynamics of what's unfolding in the middle east.
SHIN BET VETOED SECRET ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN PEACE AGREEMENT
Israeli and Palestinian Sources Concur: Israel Made War Inevitable
The Omega Institute (OI), which works closely with the Institute for Policy Research for Development (IPRD), has learned from Israeli and Palestinian sources that just prior to the current crisis, senior Hamas leaders were in active dialogue with Israeli religious leaders in a round of bilateral peace negotiations. Israeli negotiators included Rabbi Menachem Froman, former deputy leader and co-founder of the Israeli Settler movement Gush Khatif; Rabbi David Bigman, head of the liberal religious Kibbutz movement Yeshiva at Ma’ale Gilboa; and Yitzhak Frankenthal, founder of the Arik Institute. Ongoing negotiations had resulted in a breakthrough peace “understanding”, which was to be announced at a press conference in Jerusalem to mark the launching of an extraordinary peace initiative. Israeli Prime Minister Olmert had been briefed extensively about the initiative by Frankenthal. Also due to attend the conference were Khaled Abu Arafa, the Palestinian Cabinet Minister for Jerusalem, Sheikh Muhamed Abu Tir, senior Hamas Member of the Palestinian Parliament, and other senior Palestinian delegates.
The meeting was to announce a joint Israeli-Palestinian call for the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit who had been abducted by Hamas in Gaza, along with proposals for the beginning of the release of all Palestinian prisoners. These measures were to precipitate unprecedented new peace negotiations on a framework peace agreement, drawn on the 1967 borders. The presence of Palestinian Cabinet Officers and senior Israeli religious leaders in contact with the Prime Minster was to underline the seriousness of this peace proposal on both sides.
Just hours before the meeting was due to start, the Israeli Shin Bet internal Security Service arrested Abu Tir and Abu Arafa and warned them not to attend the meeting, under threats of detention. The meeting, which offered a major opportunity to obtain Shalit’s release and launch a new framework for peace, was thrown into disarray. The next day, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) invaded Gaza, and the day after both Abu Tir and Abu Arafa were abducted by Israeli forces, along with a third of the Palestinian Cabinet, provoking a predictable escalation of violence.
"The Israeli war with Hizbullah is going badly for the Israelis. Some generals think the problem is too few troops. But the Israeli cabinet rejected that way of thinking, Thursday, sticking to its current mixture of air power and light infantry."
They should pay attention to Mr. Alan "Israeli lives are more important than Lebanese lives" Dershowitz. He has explained why the war is going badly. In case anyone missed the point, I'll summarize.
Deshowitz has stated (correctly, trumpets please) that Israeli lives are more important to Israelis than Lebanese lives are to Israelis. His mistake was in thinking that anyone but Israelis cared.
Apparently, Hizbollah soldiers, for that is what they are, also think that Israeli lives are more important to Israelis than Lebanese lives are to Isrealis, and they have committed their manpower to making Israelis soldiers suffer casualties as quickly as possible.
If news reports can be believed, the kill ratio is heavily in favor of the Israelis, but as Hizbollah understands, the casualty acceptance ratio is heavily in favor of Hizbollah.
It might appear that Hizbollah as no regard for their own lives. I hope that something else is going on, that Hizbollah understands the sacrifice of its own troops leads to a faster resolution in their own favor, leading to overall fewer casualties on both sides.
So, in effect, although Israel has the greater fear for loss of its troops, Hizbollah is actually doing what needs to be done to preserve Israeli lives. Irony is a lovely thing.
All this leads to something I would like to call the Dershowitz Doctrine. It goes like this.
We Americans loved Israel and we want to see Israel protected from its enemies.
From time to time, Israel becomes Israel's worst enemy. This occurs when they start to believe too much of their own 'light unto nations' garbage.
An aside: For all his barbarism, I never came to despise Ariel Sharon because I believe he did only what was necessary to gain certain advantages for his people. I believe he did not hate Arabs, only intended to beat them. I do not believe the same can be said for Olmert or Netanyahu. I believe they hate Arabs as 'lesser humans.'
Back to the 'Dershowitz Doctrine.'
When Israel becomes its own worst enemy, it is our duty as Israel and Israeli loving Americans to administer some tough love to the 'light unto nations.' This cannot be done by witholding funds or arnaments. It cannot be done by pulling Bolton out of the UN and replacing him with Cindy Sheehan. It cannot be done by sending Condi Rice to bitch slap Olmert because, apparently, he likes it. No, no, no, it cannot be done in any fashion where the 'light unto nations' sheds its inspiring luminescence.
Nay, verily, it can be done only by utilitzing the 'Dershowitz Principle' where each lost Israeli yields life yields enormous consequences.
My humble suggestion, and I offer this with the highest sincerity, is that we find a way to smuggle certain weapons into the hands of those who might use them to Israel's advantage. I'm talking Hizbollah.
My hope is that certain administration officials, such as Vice President Richard Cheney, will see the logic in this. Sometimes you just have to shoot your best friend in the face.
See, if we let Hizbollah have a precision guided weapon or two, and they use it to take out a tank or even a fighter jet, just one or two at a time, then the Israelis will quickly declare victory and leave Lebanon.
Perhaps they can be persuaded to attack Bolivia or Paraguay. (Or was it Uruguay. I forget. Ask Douglas Feith, it was his idea.)
By letting Hizbollah do our dirty work for us, it's probably wise to contract this out to Blackwater, they have so much discipline, we maintain plausible deniability.
Not that Bush needs anymore plausiblity, deniabilitismishly speaking. When he says, "I did not know that," we believe him. We really, really believe him. I digress.
The Dershowitz Doctrine, arming Hizbollah one effective weapon at a time, but only to keep Israel centered, also has tremendous cost/benefit aspects.
Does one seriously accurate, laser guided missle cost more than rebuilding Haifa, or even rebuilding 5% of Lebanon (which is all we would do)?
Nay, verily, it does not.
Sometimes you just have to bitch slap your best friend, and it is long past time to do that to^H^H for Israel.
I fear that this reflects the syndrome that we must let ethnics in the US fight all battles relevent to their homeland and that "unrelated" US citizens should not presume to intrude.
Up to a point this might be tolerable, but the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cries out for citizens of all ethnicities to get involved, because everyone's sons are being killed in our military and everyone is suffering from the terrorism consequent on not solving this problem.
All citizens must become hardened against being called anti-semitic. Personnally I have been reassured by several Jews who have thanked me for my "evenhanded" positions. So it may not be as bad as some fear to face the problem in a straightforward way.
i am both deeply moved and a little disturbed by bishop riah's letter. in it, he explicitly and strongly identifies with the arab population, repeatedly using the pronoun "we". in the opening sentence he explicitly identifies israel as a "predator."
i share most of the bishop's sentiments and am moved by his generous and brave heart, but i find his polarization (we, they) unhelpful. there's a lot of history behind and around the state of israel, which cannot be by-passed with the simple label of israelis (jews?) as predators. i dunno. i am a christian, and i bleed for the arab population in the palestine and lebanon. but israel is not simply a predator. i would expect a more compassionate, understanding, nuanced view from a bishop, however frustrated and pained. painting israel as the predator is rash and dangerous.
RE: article about the 'myth' about HZ hiding among civilians
No myth to me. Israel is targeting civilians, HZ is targeting civilians and HZ is fighting from civilian positions.
And the refugees seem to be saying 'a pox on both their houses'
no good guys here....
but only the stronger group can stop this ---
dear frebnedzo,
i don't know what you mean by a hezbollah 'victory.' unless the world becomes a very different place in a hurry, no such thing is in the cards. the only question, pace the bush adminstration, is how soon people will stop killing people. no one is going to win here. no stability of any kind is going to be reached in the foreseeble future. we need to stop the humanitarian catastrophe asap.
Please correct "masive" in the first sentence.
Thanks for the ever-insightful window on fact-based reality, Juan.
Following a BBC report, Alaistair wrote :
I agree. Since the Israeli cabinet decided yesterday not to launch a major invasion, it is impossible to see how Israel can achieve their declared objectives of destroying Hizbullah
I think that their biggest victory is that US/Israel have managed to draw Chirac in their boat on the theme of disarming the Hezbullah. What the EU is asking is an international force who will be in charge of the application of UN resolution 1955 (or whatever number that is, concerning exactly the disarming of the Hezbullah). Without the Israelian attack there won't have been any move to achieve this resolution. On this chapter France, Germany and the US are united, although given their public opinions the EU government can't show it too clearly. Also the EU think that Israel is going to far in terms of destruction and harm to civilians, but that is only a question of degree, there is no disagreement on the issue itself.
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