ISRAEL'S STRATEGIC BLUNDERSSnatching Disaster From the Jaws of Victory?James S. Henry

"Retaliation is not the point in this case. This 3000-man raid with tanks and planes was out of all proportion to the provocation and was aimed at the wrong target." 

-- Walt Rostow, Advisor to Pres. Lyndon Johnson, Memo Re: Israel Raid on Jordan, November 1966

For those of us who have always defended Israel's "right to exist,"  its wild over-reaction -- or, more likely, its willful, calculated,  brutilitarian, and -- worst of all -- ineffective response to Hezbollah's July 12th provocation has certainly not made the job any easier.

Only the Bush Administration, the Pentagon, and our own hapless intelligence agencies were supposed to be capable of such counterproductive conduct in such a one-sided war. 

Now it emerges that, indeed, according to The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, Israel may have consulted closely with Vice President Cheney and other senior members of the  Bush Administration on its plans for a punishing air campaign against Hezbollah, well before the July 12th incident on the Lebanese border.

Evidently all these astute war planners expected widespread bombing not only to degrade Hezbollah quickly, but also to cause it to lose political support within Lebanon. According to Hersh, Cheney and Bush were especially enamored of this strategy because they hoped to achieve a similar miracle with an air campaign against Iran -- by some reports, supposed to begin in just a few months.

Now that Hezbollah has been able to stand up to Israel's onslaught for more than five weeks, and has only seen its political position strengthened, Israeli and Washington war planners should in principle reconsider the premises of their high-tech air war/ quick strike-based strategy.

UN-approved "ceasefires" not withstanding, Hezbollah has succeeded in pulling the IDF back into a ground war in Lebanon -- something it has been hankering for since 2000.

In just the last 24 hours of this war, it cost the Israelis the lives of at least 40-45 soldiers, nearly 10 percent of their losses in Lebanon from 1982 to 2000. 

While most Americans and Israelis have dismissed the Hezbollah fighters as "terrorists," throughout the Muslim world they are now being hailed as heroes -- thanks in large measure to this massive Cheney-approved bombing strategy.

As discussed below, while Hezbollah can justifiably be accused of having lit the match on July 12th, there had been plenty such provocations before, without leading to this conflagration.

Overall,  the so-called Middle East "peace process" -- and, indeed, "democratization," have become a casualties, not only of "Islamic extremism," but also of  Israel's prolonged dawdling over withdrawing from the Occupied Territories, and its preference for "military solutions," except in impossible outposts like Gaza, which all but a few Israeli extremists had long since agreed to forego.  

The only remaining "process" now is a war process, which has cost more than 20,000 Lebanese lives, 8,000 Palestinian lives, and more than 2,000 Israeli lives since 1982.

The most fundamental truth is that there are no "uncaused causes" in this conflict, nor are there are any "white hats" -- any more than there were in the case of the IRA and the Unionists in Northern Ireland.  As in all such quasi-colonial struggles,  one person's "terrorist" is indeed another's "resistance fighter." Anyone who doubts that just needs to examine the biographies of Begin, Weitzman, and Shamir, all of whom were pretty cool killers in their time. While Israel boasts about the fact that it has supposedly just killed "500 Hezbollah terrorists," its bombing campaign in Lebanon and its escalating "lock down"  against the residents of Gaza and the West Bank have almost certainly produced more than an ample supply of potential replacements.

All this explains the fact that a growing share of Americans finds it increasingly hard to justify taking sides in, much less subsidizing,  the seemingly endless, obsessive conflicts over this parched, inhospitable, water- and resource-bare, way-too theocratized territory one-tenth the size of California.

THE BUBBLE 

Ironically, as of early July 2006, just before the latest crisis erupted, Israel had achieved a very high level of international support, even among Muslim countries, and its strategic and economic position was stronger and more secure than ever.  

• The Tel-Aviv stock market was at an all-time high, Warren Buffet had just made a $4 billion investment in a northern Israel-based company, investments by other high-tech foreign investors like SanDisk and HP  were also setting records, economic growth was accelerating, and Jewish immigration -- the "Aliya" -- was at an all-time monthly high.   

• The economic situation was especially good news for the 18 wealthy families that now control over half of Israel's business GDP. It probably also encouraged Israel's "best and brightest" to engage in wishful thinking about the growing security risks in their own neighborhood,  and to swallow the fantasy that their country can continue to develop as an outpost of Western civilization, with stronger economic and diplomatic ties to the US, Europe, and Asia than to the Middle East.
  

• In 2005, Syria had been compelled to withdraw its Army from Lebanon for the first time since 1976 -- something that Israel had not been able to achieve in two decades of military occupation. 


• Since May 2000 and 2005 respectively, Israel had managed to withdraw from untenable occupations in both Lebanon and Gaza.

• While Hezbollah still had a large following in Lebanon,  popular support for its military activities had waned since Israel's withdrawal, while its relatively-weak position in a newly-elected coalition government was creating pressures to refocus on political activities -- along "IRA conversion" lines.

• Despite a surprising victory in the January 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council elections on the West Bank and Gaza, Hamas had been effectively isolated by the US and Europe,  because of its refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist.

• While armed resistance continued from the West Bank and Gaza, the "Oslo process" toward a negotiated two-state solution was all but dead, and Israel appeared to face little practical pressure to abandon its "unilateral homeland" approach to the problem.

• Iran's loud-mouthed President had been widely condemned by the international community, and pressure was building for multilateral sanctions against Iran's home-grown nuclear research program.    

• Libya, which had recently been close to acquiring nuclear weapons, had given them up voluntarily, but was also cooperating with the US and Europe on fighting terrorism and welcoming trade and investment.
  

• Pakistan was seriously considering recognizing Israel,  as Jordan and Egypt had done in 1994 and 1979. Morocco was also about to renew diplomatic ties after a four-year hiatus. Israel also enjoyed close new ties with Turkey, a leading non-Arab Islamic country, and India, which actually has the world's largest Muslim population.
  

• While Iraq's insurgency was continuing, and a low-level civil war among Shiites and Sunni elements had begun,  Ira'q  newly-elected Shiite leaders had not yet adopted an overt anti-Israel/ pro-Hezbollah.

• Some observers have expressed concern about a resurgence of anti-Jewish feelings -- so-called "new anti-Semitism." But in fact, the trend of worldwide opinion has been precisely in the opposite direction for several decades.

THE BUBBLE BURSTS

Four weeks into the full-scale war that started on July 12, Israel's "stupid-bombing" campaign,  its ineffective ground war, and the unexpected resilience of Hezbollah's 3,000-man army, have combined to undermine most of these accomplishments. 

Around the world, many observers have been disturbed by the blatant war crimes that Israel has committed "in response to Hezbollah" during this most recent invasion of Lebanon  --  at least the fifth incursion into Lebanon since 1978.

Of course Hezbollah has also committed blatant war crimes "in response to Israel," including not only the thousands of missiles that it has fired into Israel "in response" to Israel's bombing campaign, but also the initial abduction of two Israeli soldiers that provided the excuse Israel may well have been looking for.

Indeed, as usual, both sides now insist that the other guys started it, that the other guys are "the real war criminals,"  the "invaders,"  the "terrorists," "the religious zealots," armed to the teeth with sophisticated weapons provided by foreign powers (Iran,Syria, the US) and willing to kill innocent civilians by the score. 

Such language provides useful rhetoric for propagandists. But the beginning of wisdom about this deep-seated conflict is to understand that both sides are essentially correct about each other -- there are no "good guys" in this war.

Back in the USA, however,  where sympathy for Israel is virtually inexhaustible, the news media and the vast majority of politicians have been rooting for (finally!) a quick victory over "terrorists" -- especially given the fact that our own wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have become too painful to watch, and, accordingly, are tending to disappear  from the evening news.

With respect to Lebanon, therefore, while the US population as a whole distributes the blame for the continuing violence about equally between Israel and Hezbollah, the American elite appears to be disappointed mainly that Israel -- once considered the sine qua non of invincible military prowess -- has bogged down.
 
So what's gone wrong? How could this have happened to the world's fourth most powerful military, and its best intelligence service? Given the fact that there have been many similar Hezbollah provocations, why did Israel respond so differently to this one?  And what on earth will the parties to this conflict do for an encore?

FIVE LONG WEEKS......

As noted, in just five weeks, many of Israel's recent strategic and diplomatic accomplishments have been completely dissipated by its ineffective bombing campaign -- arguably a clumsy over-reaction to Hezbollah's July 12th incursion into northern Israel.

• Israel has managed to convert what started out as just another in a long series of minor border skirmishes into a full-scale re-occuption of southern Lebanon -- entailing all the security hazards that caused Israel to withdraw from Lebanon in May 2000.
  

• Combined with inadequate intelligence, Israel's excessive reliance on high-altitude bombing of civilian targets and infrastructure has created a public relations and diplomatic disaster, which has invigorated radical forces throughout the Middle East. 

• While Hezbollah can be accused of precipitating the crisis, and,later, attacking Israeli civilians indiscriminately with its missles, it is Israel that has in fact inflicted by far the most civilian casualties, not only in absolute terms, but also relative to military fatalities. (To date, Israel claims to have killed more than 500 Hezbollah fighters -- at least a 2-to-1 civilian to military kill ratio.)

• With the bombs still falling all over the country, Lebanon's losses to date have included (as of August 13) at least 1071 civilians killed (including more than 350 children) and more than 3500 wounded. Israel's bombing campaign has also created at least 700,000-900,000 refugees, destroyed more than $2.5 billion of Lebanese property and infrastructure, and dealt a crippling blow to Lebanon's economy. Belying the notion that such "collective punishment" was unintentional, one IDF General Staff member commented, "At the end of the story, Lebanon could be in the dark for a few years." In the end, this threat proved to be overstated, but the tenor did nothing to improve relations with ordinary Lebanese.
  

• To achieve such results, Israel held nothing back from its largely US-supplied military arsenal, employing "bunker busters," white phosphorus bombs, thermobaric bombs, flechette shells,  and cluster munitions that are anything but "smart weapons." 

• The employment  of such weapons by Israel,  especially in areas  heavily populated by civlians, even with warnings, constitute war crimes,  for which senior Israeli officials and (associated US arms suppliers and other enterprises) might well be held accountable under statutes like the US Alien Tort Claims Act -- assuming that there are any Lebanese survivors left alive to file such claims. 

• Of course senior Hezbollah officials could also face similar charges for the results of their missile attacks on civilians in Israel. But they would be less likely to be available for "service of process" within the US. Israeli victims of alleged Hamas attacks have, however, already attempted to pursue such a lawsuit against leading Arab financial institutions, like Arab Bank.    

• While Israel has defended its actions on the grounds that Hezbollah has supposedly employed  Lebanon's  civilian population as a "human shield," this argument doesn't account for
  
  • (a) Israel's decision to bomb power stations, airports, ports, and suburban apartment complexes all over the country, far beyond the range of Hezbollah's missiles (see the chart);
   
  • (b) the fact that bombing raids have often hit civilian apartment buildings long after Hezbollah's missle launchers had come and gone -- as in Qana, where 54 people were killed by Israeli bombs dropped two days after missiles were fired from the area; and
  
  
  • (c) the fact that Israeli pilots have reportedly been refusing to fire on specific targets, because the intelligence is so inaccurate.        

Meanwhile, on the Israeli side, to date there have been at least 39 civilian deaths and 117 military deaths, plus more than 700 injured, more than 500,000 people displaced, and over $1.1 billion of property damage. As the provocative British MP George Galloway recently gloated,  all this adds up to a "bloody good hiding," with Hezbollah continuing to fire more than 160 missles per day into northern Israel, four weeks into the fight.  

• This may appear to be a rather insensitive way of characterizing Israel's losses.  But it does highlight the fact that this war is be shaping up to be a tedious, painstaking grind -- compared with, say,  the 1967 "Six Days War," when the IDF battled decisively defeated Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq in six days,  or the 1973 "Yom Kippur" War, when defeating Syria and Eqypt took 20 days.

• In another escalation of the conflict with the Palestinians, Israel has recently been firing more than 150 artillery shells per day into Gaza, causing at least 163 fatalities in July 2006 alone -- the highest monthly total since the Second Intifada began in September 2000. According to the Israeli organization B'Tselem, more than half of those killed were not involved in hostilities. 

• Israel has also recently instigated a policy of abducting cabinet ministers and MPs in Hamas' government, including the newly-elected head of Parliament, and Ministers of Finance, Planning, and Labor. Apparently Israel intends to negotiate an exchange for Corporal Shalit, the young Israeli officer who was abducted by Palestinians fighters on June 25 -- which Palestinians say was, in turn, a response to Israel's renewed attacks on Gaza. Perhaps Israel will be able to negotiate such a deal. So much,then, for "democracy in the Middle East,"  when it doesn't produce results that we like.  

• And so much as well for Israel's argument with that such abductions are an illegitmate weapon used only by "terrorists." In fact, Israel has practiced such abductions for decades, not only on the West Bank and Gaza, but also in Lebanon -- it remains the only "democratic" country in the world whose Supreme Court has officially sanctioned such hostage taking -- as well as torture -- "for bargaining purposes."

• Indeed one key reason for recent events in Lebanon and the West Bank/Gaza has been Israel's continued secret detention of 9700 Palestinians and at least 21 Lebanese, many of them for over a decade. Israel's abduction of two alleged Hamas civilian members from Gaza on June 24, one days before Corporal Shalit's, was a key recent example -- the first arrest raids by Israel in Gaza since it withdrew in 2005. Those Israeli abductions didn't receive anything like the media attention that Cpl. Shalit's received, but they illustrate the basic point that "causal responsibility" for this situation is very much in the eye of the beholder.

A PROPORTIONAL (OR AT LEAST RATIONAL), RESPONSE?

The conventional Israeli explanation for its overpowering response to the July 12th incident is that, in PM Olmert's words, "Hezbollah committed an act  of war."  More specifically, Hezbollah fighters managed to abduct two Israeli soldiers "near the border" on the morning of July 12th,  apparently intending to exchange them later for some of the prisoners held by Israel.

Whether or not the Israelis were captured during a commando raid into Lebanon or during a Hezbollah raid on an Israeli border patrol, and whether or not Hezbollah also fired missles into Israel that morning,  are matters of dispute.

What is clear is that Israel lost no time in responding to this incident with a dramatic re-escalation, including the country-wide bombing campaign.  After sending a search party into Lebanon for the first time since 2000, and taking 8 casualties, Israel immediately called up thousands of reserves, launched intensive bombing raids, missle attacks, and artillery barrages that destroyed bridges, roads, and power plants all over the country, knocked  Beirut's new International Airport out of commission, itnroduced a total sea and air blockade of Lebanon. During the first 24 hours alone, 52 Lebanese civlian lives were lost,  and over 100 were wounded. Within the first five days, 220 Lebanese civilans had been killed by bombing raids, and more than 100,000 were homeless.

Meanwhile, in the background, the US provided a "blank check" for all this frenzied military activity by the Israel -- which is consistent with the Sy Hersch claims noted above. 

On July 13th the US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have condemned Israel's incursions into Gaza and its "disproportionate" use of violence.  Despite the mounting bloodshed, President Bush repeatedly resisted calls for a ceasefire, placing all blame for the escalation on Hezbollah. Again and again, senior officials like Secretary of State Condi Rice and UN Ambassador Bolton denied  -- counterfactually -- that a ceasefire with "terrorist organizations" like Hezbollah had ever been achieved. (..One need only mention the de facto ceasefire with the PLO negotiated by Bush's father.)

All told, this appeared to be part of a transparent effort by the BUsh Administration to provide the IDF enough "running room" to finish Hezbollah once and for all,  Lebanese civilians be damned. Meanwhile, of course, extraordinary efforts were made to evacuate the estimated 25,000 US civilians in the Lebanon.

This stalling was easier to sustain so long as it appeared that Israel really would be able to finish the job swiftly. At first that was what everyone, including the IDF brass, clearly expected. As  IDF Deputy General Moshe Kaplinsky said on July 18, "The fighting will in Lebanon will end within a few weeks. We will not take months."

As the days turned into weeks, however, Hezbollah's tiny army continued to hold out even with less than 3000 troops, and without a tank, fighter aircraft, Apache helicopter, bulldozer, or warship, while the missle attacks from southern Lebanon actually increased. Evidently this force was more like a highly-trained Special Forces troop, and the Israelis walked right into the trap that had been set for them.

Furthermore,  while Israel's massive bombing campaign evidently did not do nearly enough damage to Hezbollah, it did succeed in uniting most of Lebanon's political factions -- and indeed, much of world opinion, especially the Muslim "street" throughout the Middle East -- against Israel. Clearly what some generals and security analysts had imagined would be a "walkover" was shaping up to be a major embarrassment for Israel's  hallowed "army with a state"  if not quite yet a Iraq-scale strategic fiasco. 

WHY NOW?

If we step back from the last five weeks' detailed chronology, and examine the basic patterns, the interesting question that emerges is -- why now?   After all, from an historical standpoint,

• Hezbollah's July 12th infraction, while egregious, was hardly unique. After all, it has engaged in many similar low-level acts of aggression on the Lebanese border, including abductions of Israeli soldiers and occasional short-range missle attacks, most of them directed at the IDF. None of these succeeded in provoking  massive bombing raids, much less a full-scale reoccupation of southern Lebanon.

• Israel may have given Hezbollah reason to believe that the "abduct soldiers and swap for prisoners" ploy would work, as it did in October 2000, when Hezbollah abducted tjree IDF soldiers from Shebaa Farms, and Israel later agreed to exchange their bodies for several hundred prisoners.

• Israel's "over-reaction" was also not unique. In June 1982, for example, Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon finally got the opportunity to implement his long-aborning "Big Plan" to invade Lebanon when a dissident faction  of the PLO tried and failed to assassinate Israel's UK Ambassador. There are also many other examples where Israel has decided for its own reasons to respond differentially to similar provocations by its enemies.

• Israel argues that the cumulative effect of Hezbollah's provocations had been to force it to decide that enough is enough, and that Hezbollah's accumulated military strength right on Israel's northern border would eventually have to be dealt with -- so why not now? 

• Furthermore, Hezbollah's alleged growing ties to Hamas, Iran, and Syria, the Bush Administration's impatience to "deal with Iran" before it leaves office in 2008, the anti-radical Shiite fears of other conservative regimes in the Middle East like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan,  and the window of opportunity before the October 2006 Congressional elections, and the encouragement that Israel received in Washington must have all made this  seem like an ideal time for Israel to finally deal with the problem. The very strength of the Israeli economy in the last year may have further encouraged this viewpoint.

• All of this was exacerbated by the difficult US situation in Iraq, which has certainly not helped to restrain radical forces in the region. As popular opposition to the Iraq venture continues to grow in the US, with a clear majority now favoring setting a timetable for withdrawal,  this encouraged military planners to believe they needed to act against Hezbollah (and Iran) more quickly, before US forces withdrew and the Shiites became even more powerful. Ironically, therefore, one strategic blunder encouraged another.

(c) JSH, SubmergingMarkets, 2006 

Comments

[ScotlandGuy]

This was some fascinating reading, with tons of good information. Thank you for posting this.