Not Sparta - And Just as Well
By Doron Rosenblum
Reprinted Courtesy of Haaretz
August 18th, 2006

When Israel embarked on Lebanon War I, one of its secondary aims was said to be "to heal the trauma of the Yom Kippur War." And what will heal us from the trauma of Lebanon War II? In this regard, there is almost complete consensus - only the next war. Yes, it is always the next war - the redeeming, corrective war that restores our "honor" and defines us until the war thereafter.

Lebanon War I began on June 5 - and not by chance: This is attributed to the melodramatic historical sense of then prime minister Menachem Begin, who saw it as some kind of an allusion to the date of the start of the Six-Day War - the queen of all our wars. That stunning (alas, one-time) victory that they remembered neither lets up nor gives rest, a victory that has been seeping since then into the national bloodstream like a toxic drug. Toxic, because nothing during the past 40 years even came close to the glory of those six days in the summer of 1967 (okay, except for the Entebbe operation and the triumph in the Eurovision song contest), yet we are living in its shadow and are not letting go of the longing for its return.

The roots of the failures of this war - the excessive ease with which it began, the arrogance and scorn for the enemy, the conceit and mystical belief in the power of the air force - can also be explained as distant by-products of those "three hours in June" 40 years ago. And it is not by chance that the smoking embers that now remain symbolize this - the hubris of a chief of staff like Dan Halutz and the myth of the all-powerful, haughty and arrogant air force in which he wrapped himself.

In any case, the tremendous Katyusha barrages that landed on Israel for an entire month are already beginning to diminish in the face of the barrages of self-torture, reciprocal floggings and accusations - barrages that no cease-fire will halt and will continue for years no doubt. Make room, therefore, on the shelf for the trauma of Lebanon War II - the third volume in the trilogy (so far), a continuation of the Yom Kippur War and the "War for the Peace of the Galilee."

But before we "investigate" and decapitate the leaders who have disappointed, and without exempting them from their responsibility, one must nevertheless remember: The haste, the wild gambling with human lives and the shoddy planning that accompanied this war did not arise in a vacuum and did not stem from some mental disturbance reserved exclusively for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Halutz. They were not the only ones who were deceived into thinking that they had in their hands an all-powerful tool that is replete with gadgets - the Israel Defense Forces and the air force - and can be put into operation and stopped by pressing a button, when the main thing is the fact of the desire to operate it and not the concern for its operation.

And indeed the semi-messianic slogan, "Let the IDF win," was, and is still, despite everything, the demesne of most of the Israeli public. No empirical proof, not even repeated bereavement and failure, have shaken the naive belief that somewhere out there is a huge, mystical, redeeming victory that failed leaders are preventing from taking place.

This longing, which reduces all of our existence to military bullying, does not stop at the country's borders: Of all the barrages of blame and disappointment that are falling on us after the war, the most annoying are the ones that are coming at us from the direction of our "friends" and "well-wishers" from the United States - those politicians and article-writers, Jews and others, who are clicking their tongues in disappointment at our performance on the battlefield and are even starting to wonder whether the investment of billions of American dollars is not being wasted on a hapless ally like us.

But to both those who send us into battle in order to derive joy from our performance, and those among us who are thoroughly depressed by the results of the war, it must be said: Comfort, comfort, my people. With all the acute importance of military might, Israel cannot be solely a derivative of victories or tactical defeats on the battlefield. Its existence is far richer and far more meaningful and varied than that.

If the Israeli mentality is "inferior" to that of Hezbollah, Iran and Hamas in that it does not seek suicidal death, the virgins in Paradise and genocide for its neighbors; if Israel has pity on the lives of its sons, on its comfort, on the nurturing of its landscapes and even on bed and breakfasts, wineries and the pleasures of life, it is nothing to be ashamed of. On the contrary: We shall proudly bear our weaknesses as fragile, vulnerable human beings.

Israel is not Sparta, and this is a good thing. It was not established in order to be a spearhead against global Islam, or in order to serve as an alert squad for the Western world. It was established in order to live in it. And after the obvious is stated - with respect to the importance of might and strength - this too shall be said: Unlike some of its enemies, Israel has a far more means of existential solace - in vitality, culture and in creativity - than the planting of a flag of victory among the ruins.


Lebanon, Israel and the "Greater West Asian Crisis"
By Fred Halliday
openDemocracy.net
August 18th, 2006

All wars are different, but the war between Israel and Hizbollah of 12 July-14 August 2006 proves indeed that some are more different than others. It may be that this war has resemblances to other conflicts in the recent history of the region, but it is in important respects both a departure from and more than its predecessors:

* it is more than an Arab-Israeli war of the kind seen on five previous occasions since 1948

* it is more than another chapter in the war of Lebanon, which began in 1975-6 and lasted to 1990 *

* it is more than (even if linked to) the wars that have in different parts of the region ensued from the Iranian revolution of 1979.

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Hizbullah Has Achieved What Arab States Have Only Dreamed Of
By David Hirst
The Guardian
August 17th, 2006

There was nothing new about the broad objective behind Israel's war on Lebanon: through the destruction of Hizbullah it was to wreak fundamental change in a strategic, political and military environment that it had come to regard as menacing to its future. Nothing new about its methods either: the use of massive violence not merely against its military adversary but against the civilians and the infrastructure of the country in which it operates. Or about its official justification: seizing upon one single act of "terrorist" violence from the other side as the opportunity to strike at the whole "terrorist" organisation that was responsible for it. Or about the international support, even outright collaboration, it enjoyed, although in the case of the US and Britain this support was unprecedented in its partisan degree and in the perception of the vast dimensions, nature and menace of the "enemy" against which Israel was waging war. For Condoleezza Rice the "root causes" of the Lebanese crisis lay not on the Israeli side but in the wider Arab and Muslim world: Hizbullah was but the cutting edge of "global terror", of the Islamic fanaticism that nurtured it, and of those states, Iran and Syria, that succour these forces for their own purposes, whether inspired by ideology or realpolitik.

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Its a New Era, If You Haven't Noticed
By Gideon Samet
Reprinted Courtesy of Haaretz
August 16th, 2006

This is the beginning of a new period, whether we recognize it in time or pay the price of repeated blindness. This month, phenomena that have never been revealed before to the national consciousness have emerged from black holes. However, nearly all of them were visible to anyone who wanted to sharpen his eyesight in the cave. It is cold comfort to say, as in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's smart aleck comment, that the Creator did well by us in that the war fell upon us in time. It did not create the clauses for necessary change in Israeli life. The war only bathed them in a dazzling new light. And these are the clauses, in short:

1. Never before, even after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, did it become clear to what extent the era of relying on the army as the perfect fix to stabilizing national security must come to an end. Never before has such a short time elapsed between boasts about what we are going to do to the villains who are facing us and the appalling sight of the collapse of the promise. This realization must guide the country's moves in the future, not because the Israel Defense Forces - or more precisely, the General Staff and the prime minister - failed to achieve the aims of the war this time. The real, profound reason is that the IDF cannot win even in the cruel struggle against the Palestinian liberation movement. During the course of the effort in the north, beyond the headlines, the IDF killed nearly 200 Palestinians in Gaza, about half of them civilians, fired more than 10,000 shells, abducted government ministers, and starved the Gaza Strip. It did not prevent the Qassams.

2. The new era needs to instill the realization that only real negotiations with the Palestinians, and not any hapless General Staff, can ever deal with the conflict, be it even an interim agreement. Every leader after the late Yitzhak Rabin, including former prime ministers Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak, was still sunk in the hubris of our military might. Negotiations must proceed, in good faith, without boastful machismo and with readiness for far-reaching withdrawals, even if they get stuck time after time.

3. The exclusive reliance on America is passe. Thank you, Bush administration, for sending ammunition and rescuing us from complications with Secretary General Kofi Annan's United Nation. And three cheers for your road map that has led nowhere. Your help from now on is needed in drawing up a clear line for a Palestinian agreement, and insofar as possible for a larger regional understanding. Henry Kissinger called this a "grand bargain" this week. And therefore, the United States will shoot in Iraq and - yes, with a finger ready on the trigger - we will talk here. To this end, in the new era, a new approach to Europe is needed, which will strengthen Israel's connection with it at the expense of that addiction to phone calls from President Bush and Secretary Rice.

4. We must, nevertheless, know that the threat of fanatic Islam, with a broad Asian horizon, is no fairy tale. That a big struggle against the Iranian nukes awaits. That an agreement is not the immediate end to all violence in this neighborhood.

5. As is always the case here, the political system is lagging behind the pace of time. It is certainly lagging behind when a new era is dawning, while the ruling party is a strange hybrid between the court of an absent rabbi and the political barracks of his successor. "Olmert go home" is a silly thing to say not because the prime minister excels. He must remain together with the crumbled system in order to give new forces time to get organized. They are in a crater that gaped when the Israeli center collapsed together with the Shinui party. It is quite possible that Kadima will now limp backward. The reservists are now returning home with a great many bellyaches in the style of Moti Ashkenazi - the reserve officer who led the protest against the government after the Yom Kippur War - 30 years ago. Too many Israelis have seen their country in great dismay - both military and political, on the battlefield and on the home front - for the new era not to push for the filling of the very empty gap on the party map.

6. What is called civil society, that which is beyond political organization, was perhaps the only element that reacted appropriately. The Israeli "citizenry" wasn't able to organize in a month, while the government and the army were driving it crazy with zigzags. This includes the "bubble" of the central region that is vilified for its hedonism, as though it is forbidden to enjoy oneself here any more. Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu this week coined the hollow slogan of "returning to the values that ensured our existence." Perhaps he knows which crown needs to be returned to its former glory. An Israeli majority in the new era will want something entirely different: a society that is for the most part secular and pursues a good life without remorse, yet with empathy for the needy and loathes corruption; a modern society that looks forward to an agreement with the Palestinians instead of toward exclusive reliance on its military muscle. This alone is a nuclear platform of a new party. 7. And even this: To rebuild the north with imagination and taste in cooperation with the best architects. Kiryat Shmona is - sorry - an ugly town, backward in its services, an insult to Israel 2006. What did its inhabitants do to deserve such a town?

8. And to understand that without all of this and more, we will not last long here.


Final Reckoning
By Yossi Klein Halevi
The New Republic
August 15th, 2006

However hard Ehud Olmert tries to spin it, the U.N. ceasefire that began yesterday is a disaster for Israel and for the war on terrorism generally. With an unprecedented green light from Washington to do whatever necessary to uproot Iranian front line against Israel, and with a level of national unity and willingness sacrifice unseen here since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, our leaders squandered weeks restraining the army and fighting a pretend war. Only in the two days before the ceasefire was the army finally given the go-ahead to fight a real war....

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A Self-Defeating War
By George Soros
Truthout.org/Wall Street Journal
August 15th, 2006

The war on terror is a false metaphor that has led to counterproductive and self-defeating policies. Five years after 9/11, a misleading figure of speech applied literally has unleashed a real war fought on several fronts - Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia - a war that has killed thousands of innocent civilians and enraged millions around the world. Yet al Qaeda has not been subdued; a plot that could have claimed more victims than 9/11 has just been foiled by the vigilance.....

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Robert Fisk: No Civil War is Looming
Al-Hayat
August 15th, 2006

From Beirut, where he has chosen to settle down, Robert Fisk, the Middle East correspondent of the British "Independent", sets out for Palestine, Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, reaching Afghanistan. Following "Pity the Nation," widely perceived as the most courageous and outspoken book approaching the thorny issues, the Arabic translation of Fisk's new book, "The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East" will come out in few days in Beirut.

On this occasion, "Al-Hayat" met Robert Fisk, who said: When I first embarked on writing this book, I feared I would simply ponder on our failure to overcome and evade history, especially that everything we suffered from in the past, as we will in the future, is but the outcome of our fathers and forefathers' deeds. I wasn't born when Balfour Promise was made and Sykes-Picot Agreement concluded. But I endure in every moment of my life the repercussions of both events. We, the Europeans and Americans, believe we can surmount history, slamming the door behind the past. At the end of World War II, when Adolf Hitler and Mussolini passed away, we set up the United Nations then the European Union. So, we keep on slamming doors, on overlooking and disregarding history in sharp contrast with the people of the Middle East.

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We Simply Blew It
By Yoel Marcus
Reprinted Courtesy of Haaretz
August 14th, 2006

The cease-fire has caught us in the worst possible position: We didn't win and we didn't lose. We simply blew it. It was a war with too many people being led and no one leading; a war with too much bluff and bluster at the top; a war with too many Churchillian speeches and not enough thinking about what we were trying to achieve and where we were heading.

What makes an army - or its chief of staff, to be exact - get up one fine morning and persuade a semi-rookie government to launch an all-out war at the drop of a hat because two of our soldiers were kidnapped? How did a whole country get sucked into this thing, without an organized plan, without a defined objective, without calculating how it would end, without giving thought to the costs and the damage that would be inflicted, without knowing how long it would last and what constituted a victory?

Ariel Sharon had the knack. Whatever he did, good or bad, in the course of his long career, he did with leadership. Before he started something, he knew where he was going and what he wanted. He had strength, patience and the ability to keep his eye on the target.

When he decided to cross the Suez Canal in the Yom Kippur War, he knew in advance what the objective was. He planned his route and correctly assessed the Egyptians' breaking point.

When he decided to confront the PLO, which was breathing down Israel's neck on the Lebanese border, he set himself a goal, went into Beirut and saw to it that the top echelons of the organization, headed by Yasser Arafat, were expelled from our northern border.

Sharon spent more than three years mulling over the disengagement plan. From the moment he decided, he took charge, persuaded people and made it happen. When he saw his party would not allow him to complete the job, he founded Kadima as a vehicle for ending the occupation.

Ehud Olmert stepped into Sharon's extra large shoes without having the qualities of a true leader. He tried to talk like Churchill, but the Chamberlain in him crept through. In his first speech to the nation, he pledged to wipe out Hezbollah and stop the rockets from falling on Israel. In his second speech, delivered at a military college, he promised that his achievements would change the face of the Middle East.

Now, what was the basis for his grand declarations? His prophetic abilities and rhetorical brilliance? Or something his chief of staff, Dan Halutz, said? Since I assume Olmert didn't pull this stuff out of a hat, my guess is that the chief of staff convinced him. Halutz was the leader, and Olmert was led.

The question is whether Olmert posed the right questions and the army gave him truthful answers. Did Olmert ask, for example, whether the army was capable of knocking Hezbollah out of commission, or at least disarming it? Did he ask about the risks to the home front and how well Israeli citizens could be expected to stand up under a barrage of missiles? Did he inquire whether it was truly possible to win the war on the strength of air power alone? Did he ask whether Hezbollah could really be neutralized without a massive land operation? Did he ask whether Israel could declare a military victory by the time the guns died down? And if so, for how many years?

Dan Halutz may be a brilliant pilot, but he is overconfident, and that is what convinced Olmert. Judging by the outcome of this war, one might also say he led him astray. After 3,500 rocket strikes on half the country, a million citizens turned into refugees, the last-minute call-up of reserves soldiers without equiping them - handing them ancient guns and antediluvian flak jackets, and at a certain stage, not even supplying them with food - the war is ending with an agreement cobbled together by the United States to save Israel from a humiliating defeat. Not only is there no victory, but our power of deterrence has been hobbled.

The government did not give sufficient thought to how this "rolling operation" would roll. Halutz's self-confidence had a hypnotizing effect. President Bush likes it when Israel wins. His demand for a quick cease-fire stems from the fear that Tehran will race to rehabilitate Hezbollah, and before we turn around Lebanon will be an Iranian province.

Olmert has made a mess of things, but there is no justification for dragging the country into another round of elections. Neither is there any need to torture ourselves with investigation committees to reach the conclusion that we were sucked into an unplanned war that our army did not win. The man who failed, who deluded us, who was overconfident and transmitted the disease to the government, is the chief of staff. He should be the one to go.


How the European Left Supports Lebanon
By Hazem Saghieh
openDemocracy.net
August 14th, 2006

Europe's left-wingers are supporting us Lebanese against Israel and its war crimes. Thanks, that's great: the Lebanese need all the backing they can get in facing the overwhelming technological savagery unleashed on their land and airspace, scorching the earth and not distinguishing civilians from soldiers, babies from adults.

Yet it would be better if the left, which is by definition progressive, grasped the specificity of the situation it is dealing with, rather than contenting itself with generalisations motivated only by hatred of American foreign policy and sometimes of America itself. American policy, especially in the middle east, is certainly despicable, but love for Lebanon and other countries and peoples should come before hating America and its policy, just as devotion to concrete peoples should always take precedence over allegiance to "causes".

It is all very well for demonstrators to wave placards depicting George W Bush, Tony Blair and the Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, but it would be much better if the face of Hizbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah were up there with them, too.

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American Support May No Longer Be Enough
By Martin Jacques
The Guardian
August 14th, 2006

This has been a war that did not happen by accident. The kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hizbullah was merely the pretext, long since forgotten in the absurdly disproportionate response by the Israelis, and the death and destruction that their country has wrought on Lebanon. Israel has, throughout its short existence, lived by the sword, safe in the knowledge that its military power, as an honorary western nation, is far superior to that of its enemies. Israel has managed to justify this behaviour, in the eyes of the world (or at least the west), by two means: first, the insistence that its very survival always hangs by a thin thread; and second, the remorse felt by the west over the suffering of the Jews in the Holocaust.

Based on previous expectations, this was another war that the Israelis should have won. It was of their choosing, long in the planning and preparation; and from the outset they enjoyed the open support of the US. How wrong the Israelis have turned out to be. This is not a war they have won: indeed, as they have fallen so far short of their objective - the effective destruction of Hizbullah as a military force - it might well turn out to be a war that the Israelis have, in effect, lost. They surely expected that Hizbullah's resistance would crumble within a matter of days, but a month later Hizbullah appears to be as strong as ever, inflicting heavy casualties on the massive Israeli assault launched after the UN security council vote, its ability to fire rockets at Israeli cities little, if at all, impaired. Just as the US found that superiority in conventional arms was of little use in Iraq when confronted with urban and guerrilla resistance, rooted in the overwhelming opposition of the people, so Israel has discovered the same in Lebanon.

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Israeli Leaders Fault Bush on War
By Robert Parry
Consortium News
August 13th, 2006

    Amid the political and diplomatic fallout from Israel's faltering invasion of Lebanon, some Israeli officials are privately blaming President George W. Bush for egging Prime Minister Ehud Olmert into the ill-conceived military adventure against the Hezbollah militia in south Lebanon.

    Bush conveyed his strong personal support for the military offensive during a White House meeting with Olmert on May 23, according to sources familiar with the thinking of senior Israeli leaders.

    Olmert, who like Bush lacks direct wartime experience, agreed that a dose of military force against Hezbollah might damage the guerrilla group's influence in Lebanon and intimidate its allies, Iran and Syria, countries that Bush has identified as the chief obstacles to U.S. interests in the Middle East.

    As part of Bush's determination to create a "new Middle East" - one that is more amenable to U.S. policies and desires - Bush even urged Israel to attack Syria, but the Olmert government refused to go that far, according to Israeli sources.

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The 'Morning After' Commission
By Yossi Beilin
Reprinted Courtesy of Haaretz
August 13th, 2006

On the "morning after," there will be a state inquiry established to examine the war's management and maybe other questions, like, for example, whether it was possible to prevent the arming of Hezbollah over the last six years through political or military means.

The recent weeks, in which such a large part of the country was exposed to Hezbollah rockets, in which economic life was paralyzed for a third of the country and tourism halted; in which the security ramifications of the enormous gaps between rich and poor, Jew and Arabs were exposed, and in which tens of thousands of reservists were mobilized and the military and civilian price was so heavy, all demand a commission of inquiry and it will be established.

Instead of responding to the demands raised by the media, at demonstrations, in both parliamentary opposition and his own coalition, the prime minister should initiate a proposal for such an inquiry as soon as possible. He must already prepare for the appointment of such a commission to ensure there is no hint of his evading the issue. Furthermore, as the law states, he should turn to the Supreme Court president and ask him to appoint the commission members and decide who should head it. I think Aharon Barak himself would be the most appropriate person of all to chair the commission. But on the day after, our national agenda should not only be about the commission of inquiry.

On the one hand, the government will have to make a supreme effort to ensure the 2007 budget is one that narrows the social gaps - even if it is impossible to cut the defense budget as promised. On the other hand, Olmert will have to lead a political move that is an alternative to his idea of "convergence" or "realignment."

Olmert does not have the option of running "the morning after" in maintenance mode alone. He came to power promising political negotiations with the Palestinians. If this did not work, he would lead a unilateral move to evacuate settlements in the West Bank and move their residents to the settlement blocs. He cannot go ahead with that move because the events in Gaza and Lebanon convinced the public that unilateral moves could not replace peace agreements, and because he would not win a majority for it in Knesset. The right and the religious parties will not lend a hand to the withdrawal and evacuation of settlers, and the left will not let him forgo negotiations and move settlers from one side of the fence in the West Bank to the other without an agreement.

An attempt to convene a second Madrid Conference would be a grand, dramatic political move that would be accepted, at least at the start, by a very large majority in the public and the Knesset. The first Madrid Conference, which convened in October 1991, changed the face of the Middle East and allowed, for the first time in history, direct negotiations between Israel and Syria, Lebanon and a Jordanian-Palestinian delegation over a peace agreement. The discussions led exactly three years later to the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty, which was made possible by the Oslo agreements signed by Israel and the PLO. The discussions with Lebanon were totally dependent on those with Syria, and therefore did not lead anywhere. The discussions with Syria, which ceased in 1996 and resumed in 1999 were halted again when the sides reached an agreement on all the problems on the agenda except for the northeast coastline of the Kinneret.

It is true that many terrible things have happened since: the second intifada, the Hamas victory, 9/11, Iranian extremism, the conflict in Gaza after the disengagement and a second war in Lebanon. But there were also positive developments. Syria left Lebanon, Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled, Fouad Siniora was elected prime minister of Lebanon and Bashar Assad and Mahmoud Abbas' willingness to begin negotiations with Israel create better circumstances for a second Madrid Conference than existed on the eve of the first.

It is also worth adding that the gaps in the matter of the final status arrangements have been greatly narrowed over the last 15 years. In Israel of 2006, there is a near-consensus about a Palestinian state, and Israel's prime minister is ready to give up 90 percent of the West Bank, unilaterally. The Clinton document, the Bush "vision," the Road Map, the Arab League Summit decision of 2002 and the Geneva Initiative all paint a clear picture of a permanent Israeli-Palestinian agreement. The public and secret talks with the Syrians since 1991 also sketch, nearly completely, the outline of an Israeli-Syrian agreement.

In 1991, it was the U.S. that invested the effort in persuading Israel to take part in such a conference. This time it will be Olmert's job to persuade President Bush that prying Syria out of the Axis of Evil, peace with Lebanon and an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are practical moves, which - if they work - could save the Middle East and help achieve the reforming vision Bush believes in so much.


What the Hell has Happened to the Army?
By Uri Avnery
Reprinted Courtesy of Gush Shalom
August 12th, 2006

This question is now being raised not only around the world, but also in Israel itself. Clearly, there is a huge gap between the army's boastful arrogance, on which generations of Israelis have grown up, and the picture presented by this war.

Before the choir of generals utters their expected cries of being stabbed in the back - "The government has shackled our hands! The politicians did not allow the army to win! The political leadership is to blame for everything!" - it is worthwhile to examine this war from a professional military point of view.

(It is, perhaps, appropriate to interject at this point a personal remark. Who am I to speak about strategic matters? What am I, a general? Well - I was 16 years old when World War II broke out. I decided then to study military theory in order to be able to follow events. I read a few hundred books - from Sun Tzu to Clausewitz to Liddel-Hart and on. Later, in the 1948 war, I saw the other side of the medal, as a soldier and squad-leader. I have written two books on the war. That does not make me a great strategist, but it does allow me to voice an informed opinion.)

The facts speak for themselves:

On the 32nd day of the war, Hizbullah is still standing and fighting. That by itself is a stunning feat: a small guerilla organization, with a few thousand fighters, is standing up to one of the strongest armies in the world and has not been broken after a month of "pulverizing". Since 1948, the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan have repeatedly been beaten in wars that were much shorter.

As I have already said: if a light-weight boxer is fighting a heavy-weight champion and is still standing in the 12th round, the victory is his - whatever the count of points says.

In the test of results - the only one that counts in war - the strategic and tactical command of Hizbullah is decidedly better than that of our own army. All along, our army's strategy has been primitive, brutal and unsophisticated.

Clearly, Hizbullah has prepared well for this war - while the Israeli command has prepared for a quite different war.

On the level of individual fighters, the Hizbullah are not inferior to our soldiers, neither in bravery nor in initiative.

THE MAIN guilt for the failure belongs with General Dan Halutz. I say "guilt" and not merely "responsibility", which comes with the job.

He is living proof of the fact that an inflated ego and a brutal attitude are not enough to create a competent Chief-of-Staff. The opposite may be true.

Halutz gained fame (or notoriety) when he was asked what he feels when he drops a one-ton bomb on a residential quarter and answered: "a slight bang on the wing." He added that afterwards he sleeps well at night. (In the same interview he also called me and my friends "traitors" who should be prosecuted.)

Now it is already clear - again, in the test of results - that Dan Halutz is the worst Chief-of-Staff in the annals of the Israeli army, a completely incompetent officer for his job.

Recently he has changed his blue Air-Force uniform for the green one of the land army. Too late.

Halutz started this war with the bluster of an Air-Force officer. He believed that it was possible to crush Hizbullah by aerial bombardment, supplemented by artillery shelling from land and sea. He believed that if he destroyed the towns, neighborhoods, roads and ports of Lebanon, the Lebanese people would rise and compel their government to remove Hizbullah. For a week he killed and devastated, until it became clear to everybody that this method achieves the opposite - strengthens Hizbullah, weakens its opponents within Lebanon and throughout the Arab world and destroys the world-wide sympathy Israel enjoyed at the beginning of the war.

When he reached this point, Halutz did not know what to do next. For three weeks he sent his soldiers into Lebanon on senseless and hopeless missions, gaining nothing. Even in the battles that were fought in villages right on the border, no significant victories were achieved. After the fourth week, when he was requested to submit a plan to the government, it was unbelievably primitive.

If the "enemy" had been a regular army, it would have been a bad plan. Just pushing the enemy back is hardly a strategy at all. But when the other side is a guerilla force, this is simply foolish. It may cause the death of many soldiers, for no practical result.

Now he is trying to achieve a token victory, occupying empty space as far from the border as possible, after the UN has already called for an end to the hostilities. (As in almost all previous Israeli wars, this call is being ignored, in the hope of snatching some gains at the last moment.) Behind this line, Hizbullah remains intact in their bunkers.

HOWEVER, THE Chief-of-Staff does not act in a vacuum. As Commander-in-Chief he has indeed a huge influence, but he is also merely the top of the military pyramid.

This war casts a dark shadow on the whole upper echelon of our army. I assume that there are some talented officers, but the general picture is of a senior officers corps that is mediocre or worse, grey and unoriginal. Almost all the many officers that have appeared on TV are unimpressive, uninspiring professionals, experts on covering their behinds, repeating empty clichés like parrots.

The ex-generals, who have been crowding out everybody else in the TV and radio studios, have also mostly surprised us with their mediocrity, limited intelligence and general ignorance. One gets the impression that they have not read books on military history, and fill the void with empty phrases.

More than once it has been said in this column that an army that has been acting for many years as a colonial police force against the Palestinian population - "terrorists", women and children - and spending its time running after stone-throwing boys, cannot remain an efficient army. The test of results confirms this.

AS AFTER every failure of our military, the intelligence community is quick to cover its ass. Their chiefs declare that they knew everything, that they provided the troops with full and accurate information, that they are not to blame if the army did not act on it.

That does not sound reasonable. Judging from the reactions of the commanders in the field, they clearly were completely unaware of the defense system built by Hizbullah in South Lebanon. The complex infrastructure of hidden bunkers, stocked with modern equipment and stockpiles of food and weapons was a complete surprise for the army. It was not ready for these bunkers, including those built two or three kilometers from the border. They are reminiscent of the tunnels in Vietnam.

The intelligence community has also been corrupted by the long occupation of the Palestinian territories. They have got used to relying on the thousands of collaborators that have been recruited in the course of 39 years by torture, bribery and extortion (junkies needing drugs, someone begging to be allowed to visit his dying mother, someone desiring a chunk from the cake of corruption, etc.) Clearly, no collaborators were found among the Hizbullah, and without them intelligence is blind.

It is also clear that Intelligence, and the army in general, was not ready for the deadly efficiency of Hizbullah's anti-tank weapons. Hard to believe, but according to official figures, more than 20 tanks were hit.

The Merkava ("carriage") tank is the pride of the army. Its father, General Israel Tal, a victorious tank general, did not want only to build the world's most advanced tank, but also a tank that provided its crew with the best possible protection. Now it appears that an anti-tank weapon from the late 1980s that is available in large quantities, can disable the tank, killing or grievously wounding the soldiers inside.

THE COMMON denominator of all the failures is the disdain for Arabs, a contempt that has dire consequences. It has caused total misunderstanding, a kind of blindness of Hizbullah's motives, attitudes, standing in Lebanese society etc.

I am convinced that today's soldiers are in no way inferior to their predecessors. Their motivation is high, they have shown great bravery in the evacuation of the wounded under fire. (I very much appreciate that in particular, since my own life was saved by soldiers who risked theirs to get me out under fire when I was wounded.) But the best soldiers cannot succeed when the command is incompetent.

History teaches that defeat can be a great blessing for an army. A victorious army rests on its laurels, it has no motive for self-criticism, it degenerates, its commanders become careless and lose the next war. (see: the Six-day war leading to the Yom Kippur war). A defeated army, on the other side, knows that it must rehabilitate itself. On one condition: that it admits defeat.

After this war, the Chief-of-Staff must be dismissed and the senior officer corps overhauled. For that, a Minister of Defense is needed who is not a marionette of the Chief-of-Staff. (But that concerns the political leadership, about whose failures and sins we shall speak another time.)

We, as people of peace, have a great interest in changing the military leadership. First, because it has a huge impact on the forming of policy and, as we just saw, irresponsible commanders can easily drag the government into dangerous adventures. And second, because even after achieving peace we shall need an efficient army - at least until the wolf lies down with the lamb, as the prophet Isaiah promised. (And not in the Israeli version: "No problem. One only has to bring a new lamb every day.")

THE MAIN lesson of the war, beyond all military analysis, lies in the five words we inscribed on our banner from the very first day: "There is no military solution!"

Even a strong army cannot defeat a guerilla organization, because the guerilla is a political phenomenon. Perhaps the opposite is true: the stronger the army, the better equipped with advanced technology, the smaller are its chances of winning such a confrontation. Our conflict - in the North, the Center and the South - is a political conflict, and can only be resolved by political means. The army is the instrument worst suited for that.

The war has proved that Hizbullah is a strong opponent, and any political solution in the North must include it. Since Syria is its strong ally, it must also be included. The settlement must be worthwhile for them too, otherwise it will not last.

The price is the return of the Golan Heights.

What is true in the North is also true in the South. The army will not defeat the Palestinians, because such a victory is altogether impossible. For the good of the army, it must be extricated from the quagmire.

If that now enters the consciousness of the Israeli public, something good may yet have come out of this war.


Ceasefire on Paper, Fire on the Ground
Reprinted Courtesy of The Other Israel
August 12th, 2006

So, it goes on.

For the past week and more we had lived under the illusion that when the UN Security Council solemnly resolves to cease the fire, the fire will indeed cease. The media certainly helped create this feeling, reporting extensively and minutely on the the ups and downs of the negotiations between the French and the Americans. And when on Friday the news from New York told of an approaching breakthrough, commentators started talking of the war as if it already were a thing of the past. And a great variety of nationalists and demagogues started crying and howling over "the surrender" and "the betrayal".

They could have saved their breath. Olmert and his Defence Minister Amir Peretz heard last night's news from New York while closeted in the Army's Supreme Headquarters, with the generals making the final preparations for what seems the biggest ground offensive in this war. And after midnight the headlines on the internet websites seemed taken directly from Orwell: "Government to approve UN Ceasefire resolution, major ground offensive into Lebanon goes ahead on schedule".

Looking carefully at the text approved at that hallowed hall of international diplomacy, things become a bit clearer. For the framers of that new UN Security Council Resolution, 1701 (a number which we will undoubtedly hear quoted ad nauseam in the coming weeks and months) - have left a loophole in their "cessation of hostilities". Or rather a gaping opening wide enough to allow the passage of hundreds of tanks and fighter airplanes and tens of thousands of soldiers, the full four divisions reported to be now charging northwards.

The fifteen members of the Security Council have solemnly and unanimously determined that "the situation in Lebanon constitutes a threat to international peace and security" and therefore called for "the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations". However, as anybody knows who had ever attended a lesson in Basic Civics at a Tel-Aviv elementary school, the Israeli Defence Forces never have and never will conduct any offensive military operation. Each and every one of their operations, in this war as in its predecessors, is purely defensive and is conducted solely in order to defend a peace-loving population against unprovoked aggression, for which reason the IDF coat of arms is the Sword and Olive Branch, and third grade pupils are required to paste that coat of arms in their copybooks and write under it the caption "our army hates war and wants only peace".

So, it continues. The number of Israeli soldiers in Lebanon has tripled in the past twenty-four hours, according to Chief of Staff Halutz, all of course involved in the purely defensive race to conquer all the territory up to the Litani River, which the generals expect to take "four days to a week" and then involve "several weeks of mopping up" (not that the army was very effective in "mopping up" the limited parts of Lebanon which it already invaded two and three weeks ago). So far, at least 19 people are reported killed since the diplomats affixed their signatures to that solemn document, and a Lebanese contact just informed us that the villages east of Saida, left untouched since the war broke out, had today gotten a lethal "visit" from the Israeli Air Force.

And so, we must continue as well. A few hours from now, there will be hundreds of us answering the call of Yesh Gvul to climb the hill overlooking Military Prison 6 at Atlit, shouting words of greetings and solidarity and warm support into the plainly visible prison courtyard - to the five soldiers who preferred imprisonment over participation in the Lebanese folly and madness, and also for their fellow-prisoners and guards. Climbing that hill is a tradition dating back to the First Lebanon War, a tradition which it seems we need to revive, like so much else.

At least, the stifling atmosphere of "national unity" which characterized the past weeks seems to have decisively dissipated. "The Big Three" of Israeli literature - "Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua and David Grossman - have come out against the war, three weeks after they had endorsed it in public. (Some 60 younger authors, who opposed the war from the first minute, had been constantly snapping at these three's heels). Also, the magnitude of the Lebanon invasion and its similarity to the fiasco of 1982 (except that the guerrillas now seem much better organized and armed...) at last nudged mainstream groups such as Peace Now and the Meretz Party out of their complacency and the "support from the left" which many of their leaders gave to this vicious war on its inception. On Thursday they were in their hundreds in front of the Ministry of Defence, with big signs reading "There is No Military Solution!", and cracks start to appear in the Labor Party support for the mad careering of Party Leader and Defence Minister Amir Peretz - once a staunch dove and militant trade unionist, now the the most hawkish of hawks.

As things stand, it seems that all of us - radicals and moderates, those who opposed the madness from its inception and the latecomers - will still have to go and protest again and again. And meanwhile, the occupation and oppression of the Palestinians are still there, to any who tended to forget. Yesterday afternoon, the weekly anti-Wall procession at Bil'in was viciously attacked by the army and Border Guard troops. Limor, a young Israeli activist, was hit in the head by one of the misnamed "rubber bullets" - which is actually made of metal. After emergency surgery at Tel-Hashomer hospital, he is now under medically induced coma, and only when he wakes up will it be possible to asses the permanent damage. Due to Lebanon, the case got very meagre media attention; updates will appear on the International Solidarity Movement website.


Why the Dems Have Failed Lebanon
By Stephen Zunes
Reprinted Courtesy of Foreign Policy in Focus
August 12th, 2006 

The Bush administration's unconditional support for Israel's attacks on Lebanon is emblematic of the profound tragedy of U.S. policy in the region over the past five years. The administration has relied largely on force rather than diplomacy. It has shown a willingness to violate international legal norms, a callousness regarding massive civilian casualties, a dismissive attitude toward our closest allies whose security interests we share, and blatant double standards on UN Security Council resolutions, non-proliferation issues, and human rights. A broad consensus of moderate Arabs, Middle East scholars, independent security analysts, European leaders, and others have recognized how—even putting important moral and legal issues aside—such policies have been a disaster for the national security interests of the United States and other Western nations. These policies have only further radicalized the region and increased support for Hezbollah and other extremists and supporters of terrorism.

The Democratic Party could seize upon these tragic miscalculations by the Bush administration to enhance its political standing and help steer America's foreign policy in a more rational and ethical direction. Instead, the Democrats have once again overwhelmingly thrown their support behind the president and his right-wing counterpart, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

To read the rest of this article, click here.


Like a Bolt Out of the Blue
By Orit Shohat
Reprinted Courtesy of Haaretz
August 11th, 2006

The war in Lebanon was not forced on us, because the decision to go to war was ours. It was not a decision made under pressure; it was made hastily, but in an orderly fashion. In the morning, Hezbollah fired Katyusha rockets at the North, and abducted and killed soldiers inside Israeli territory; and in the evening, the government decided to bomb Lebanon. Therefore, when Cabinet Secretary Yisrael Maimon says that the war hit us "like a bolt out of the blue," he is expressing his amazement at the way things developed, but is misleading us regarding the facts.

The government chose to respond with an all-out war, on which it apparently embarked unprepared. An officer from the Israel Defense Forces' unit for the collection of spoils of war stood astounded this week next to an exhibit of materiel seized in Lebanon. "We didn't know how prepared they were," he said. From this statement, we can conclude the opposite as well.

When Defense Minister Amir Peretz, who knew nothing whatsoever about defense until he assumed his post on May 4, said on the first day of the war: "We are giving up on the stage of threats and going on to deeds," on what information did he base his decision? Did he manage to examine the map showing where the Hezbollah bunkers are deployed? Or did he not even manage to visit the bunker of his General Staff? Did he check to what extent the soldiers were prepared for a war of this type? Or did he make do with memories of his own military service? Is he now covering up for his lack of basic knowledge with unbridled security activism?

Even a war in which it is clear to everyone who the bad guy is can be a war of choice. This does not mean that Israel has to accept the firing of rockets and the abduction of soldiers time after time. We can describe a controlled alternative script in which on July 12, instead of dropping bombs on Lebanon, the government had chosen to secure the release of the three hostages in exchange for Lebanese prisoners (Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah promised at the time to release Corporal Gilad Shalit as well), and thereafter, when the hostages were already home, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert could have made his "this far" speech, with a view to the future.

Olmert could have declared a new policy vis-a-vis Hezbollah that would be followed from now on. He could have said that his predecessors' policy of restraint was unacceptable to him and that the next time Hezbollah attacks, we will embark on a war in which we will destroy Nasrallah's army, even if it involved the destruction of South Lebanon and the north of Israel. We would have no choice.

It is possible that a year later, we would have been in the same place, but then time would be on our side. We would have had time to consider military steps, to try diplomatic moves; Peretz might have found time to read the state comptroller's report about the situation on the home front; the foreign minister would have worked overtime in an attempt to convince the world to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1559 in order to prevent the predictable war. They might even have dusted off the contingency plan for evacuating the home front.

The intensive preparations would have conveyed the seriousness of our intentions to the other side. Perhaps the war would in fact have been avoided. Perhaps the Hezbollah missiles would have been taken over by the Lebanese Army. The very existence of the missiles is not a threat, as long as they are in the hands of a group considered sovereign and responsible. After all, the entire region is full of missiles aimed at one other.

A prime minister and a defense minister who decide on a war in half an hour, two months after taking office, give the impression that they suffer from a lack of judgment. The questions about responsibility and judgment have become more serious in recent days, with Olmert starting to behave like a lawyer rather than a leader. While the government he heads decides to expand the ground operation to distant targets, Olmert is conveying a lack of involvement and unease with his decision, as though he were being forced to defend a step with which he disagrees, which was forced on him by Peretz and by Chief of Staff Dan Halutz.

After the war, nobody will escape responsibility for its outcome, even if his excuses are now being feverishly written in personal diaries. Even those who abstain are responsible. A minister who does not take a clear stand when voting on a decision that is liable to cost the lives of thousands, like Shimon Peres, Ophir Pines and Eli Yishai, is not worthy of being a government minister.

The war against Hezbollah could have been waged at any other time, by choice, because the pretext for war has existed for years. It would also have been possible to stop it after two days, or after a week, and to try diplomacy. At any point in time, Israel would have arrived at a political discussion about the same arrangement to deploy a force other than Hezbollah in South Lebanon.

Even now, and even after the promised "victory," Hezbollah will be a partner to this discussion, since it is part of Lebanese politics. Now, we are waging a lost war up to the last missile, a war that during the first week everyone agreed had no chance. Suddenly, Peretz sounds like Menachem Begin in 1982 - "Assad watch out, Yanush is waiting for you" - whereas King Abdullah of Jordan sounds like the most reasonable man in the area when he says, "I'm afraid that the new Middle East that [U.S. Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice is talking about will look like a combination of Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq and Somalia."

A month later, it is not clear how Israel managed to get itself into a war the likes of which America has already lost in Iraq. With open eyes, like a bolt out of the blue.


Drafted Art: Israeli Artists Statement on the 2nd Lebanon War
Reprinted Courtesy of Maarav
August 10th, 2006

We are opposed to the war, to the Israeli army’s horrible bombardment of Lebanon and to Hezballah’s firing of rockets onto northern Israel. Our conflict with our neighbors has lasted for more than 100 years and so the question of who started this round of violence is irrelevant. We believe that conflicts are solved through dialogue, negotiations and compromise, not through violence, more bombings and annihilations, more security zones and occupations, more territories in which soldiers and civilians alike will be killed from both sides.

As Israeli citizens we are responsible for our government’s actions. It is our duty to do all that we can to stop the war crimes committed by our country in our name. The Israeli army’s actions in Lebanon – the shelling of entire neighborhoods, the destruction of bridges and roads, and water, communications and electrical infrastructure, and especially the killing of hundreds and wounding of thousands of nonaligned civilians – are an immoral and criminal response. It is the common interest of Israelis and most Lebanese that Hezballah be disarmed and dissolved and for the shelling of northern Israel to be stopped. Yet, our rash and cruel reactions lead to the opposite outcome.

It is a civil and moral duty to oppose the government and the army’s actions in Lebanon and in Gaza. We stand in solidarity with our northern neighbors, the Lebanese, and our southern neighbors, the Palestinians, whose lives are coming to ruin. We stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in northern Israel, who the government, under pretext of defending their lives, has turned into the hostages of its floundering diplomacy.

We love Israel. We have chosen to live here, in the Middle East, and we want to contribute to it, to be a part of it, and to enjoy all that it has to offer. But the walls of hatred, the shelling and the forceful military actions corner us back behind ghetto walls. Under such conditions we will not be able to live in this region in peace for many years to come.

It is with a love for Israel, a love for Lebanon and a love for the entire Middle East, with true patriotism and love for our homeland, for mankind and for peace, that we call for the immediate ceasefire of shelling and all military activities, the release of Lebanese, Palestinian and Israeli prisoners and hostages, negotiations with any party that is willing including the Lebanese and Syrian governments, Hamas, and, if possible, Hezballah as well.

Many of us have signed petitions, participated in demonstrations and distributed important information through the media and internet. These are important actions, but they also increase the feeling of helplessness. There are no magic answers. Every action is a step towards a just resolution. Instead of being comprised of just names, this exhibition is a petition consisting of visual signatures (using design, photography, comics, painting, video, etc.). We are recruiting our creativity and talent for the fight against war.


Persian Borders
By Hassan Haydar
Al-Hayat
August 10th, 2006

In early 1987, the Iranian Embassy in Beirut sent surprise notices to local newspapers, magazines, and radio and TV channels. Attached to these notices were 'historical' documents. The Embassy urged these media organizations to use the expression 'Persian Gulf' instead of the Arabian Gulf. It said this would show deeper respect for history and would keep the 'good ties' between the Persian and Arab nations. Included also were maps that date back to the ages before, during and after the Persian Empire. At this time, Iran was knee-deep in a confrontation with Baathist Iraq. Saddam Hussein waged this war to protect his regime from the motto 'Exporting Revolution' hailed by Imam Khomeini. It was 'natural' for Iran to mobilize all its efforts in order to defend its Persian identity, which was a target of Arab nationalism. However, it made the mistake of addressing a State that adopted Arabism, such as Lebanon. It preferred Lebanon to any other Arab State, even those it maintained excellent ties with. Was that a real mistake or an early sign of a revolutionary phase the country has been suffering from ever since? Does this stage account for all the devastation and schisms? Does it threaten Iran's present and future with misfortunes, the least of which would be a sectarian civil war?

To read the rest of this article, click here.


The Pundits' Platitudes Do Nothing to Solve the Crisis
By Simon Jenkins
The Guardian
August 9th, 2006

If the first casualty of war is truth, the second is comment. While soldiers fight, diplomats struggle and civilians die, the commentariat is having a poor Middle East conflict. "Solutionists" dribble out their six-point plans for peace and interventionists behave as if all the world were fools and only they wise. I almost prefer the propagandists.

The format is familiar. It starts with an eye-catching list of atrocities attributed equally to the Israelis and Hizbullah, followed by nuanced sympathy for each in turn. Having thus established his impartiality, the writer continues with a dollop of historical bromide in which the west is to blame, as prelude to a "proposal" as pat as it is implausible. Last comes a thunderous demand that all show various abstract qualities "if peace is to return" - and the west's moral supremacy made evident.

To read the rest of this article, click here.


Their Power of Endurance
By Amira Hass
Reprinted Courtesy of Haaretz
August 9th, 2006

Hezbollah's Al-Manar television station would dismiss as feminine and sentimental the view that peoples don't win wars. Like other Arab analysts, they regard attacking Israeli civilians and engaging the IDF in fierce battles as an Arab victory. But where's the victory for the 1,000 Lebanese the Israeli army has killed? Where's the victory in a million people fleeing homes that were bombed and destroyed? Are such losses worthwhile just to demonstrate that a guerrilla group can entangle a regular army and expose such an Israeli weakness?

On the other hand, the non-victory of the other side is not an Israeli victory, even if Israel triples the number of Hezbollah fighters and doubles the number of Lebanese mothers that it has killed so far. Even if the Israeli Air Force wipes out a thousand villages, it would still not bring back to life the Israelis who were killed.

The trauma and economic damages will continue to affect many people's lives. Even if the cease-fire agreement is closer to Israel's positions than to Lebanon's, it would still not be a victory. Israel's insistence to unilaterally lay down the rules in the region perpetuates and deepens its character as an alien element within it. Israel's future generations will continue to pay for this obstinacy.

It comes as no surprise that this war has not yet been finished in one fell swoop. For six years, the Israeli army has accustomed its soldiers to regard their assaults in the occupied territories as "fighting" and "battles." They fostered the myth that there was symmetry between the advanced regular Israeli army and groups of Palestinians armed with light weapons and homespun bombs, scurrying among the tanks and helicopters that are demolishing their houses and fields. Indeed, on a few occasions, the Palestinians succeeded in guerrilla operations that killed or wounded the troops. But these were the exception. The suicide attacks inside Israel attest to the "military" weakness of the Palestinian organizations.

Now the IDF has sent to Lebanon soldiers who have been taught to believe that warfare is running down refugees' homes with tanks and bulldozers; that a battle is firing from helicopters at fighters with Kalashnikov rifles who cannot even scratch the Israeli tank surfaces. These soldiers think that defending the homeland is preventing hundreds of thousands of people from living like human beings, by operating roadblocks in the territories.

By another twisted standard set by the Israeli army in recent years, homes in northern Israel whose occupants have left to escape the Katyushas are to be designated as "abandoned." This, after all, is how Israeli military spokesmen justified, initially, the fact that bulldozers systematically demolished the homes of civilians in Khan Yunis and Rafah - civilians who had fled massive Israeli fire.

Bulldozers will not raze the homes of Israelis in the North, but why should thieves, for example, not take from them whatever they can get their hands on? These are, after all, abandoned homes, the thieves will say in their defense, citing the precedents.

Why bring this up today? First, because the war - state cruelty - against the Palestinians is ongoing. Second, because Israel's double standard and basic contempt for anyone who isn't "us" explains better than the army's outdated equipment and faulty training why it has been receiving blows so far and will continue to receive them. Israel is convinced that in Lebanon, as in Gaza and the West Bank, its unlimited power to destroy is both a deterrent and spur to political change. It is ignoring the human factor - that the Palestinians and Lebanese' fortitude grows in lockstep with our strengthening powers of destruction.

We are justly concerned about the welfare of northern residents, proud of their fortitude, understand those who leave, are shocked by the death of each person and by every rocket hit, and identify with those suffering from anxiety. Take what the northern residents have been going through for a month, multiply it by 1,000, add an economic blockade, power and water cuts, and no wages. This is how the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been "living" for the past six years.

The Israelis allow their army to continue destroying, trampling and killing in the Palestinian territories. Here, like in Lebanon, the real intelligence and security failure is Israel's ignoring the extent of our uninhibited, unrestrained devastation and their amazing power of human endurance. This is why Israel has delusions of "victories." If the homemade rockets are still being fired at Sderot despite the Palestinians' extensive suffering, it is because they have concluded, correctly, that Israel's destruction power is not intended to stop Qassam rockets - or to free Gilad Shalit. It is intended to force them to accept a surrender arrangement, which they reject not with military victories but with their power of endurance.


I'm Tired
By Mark LeVine
August 8th, 2006

The Difference Between Tired and Dead Tired

I called my friend Moe in Beirut last night. He sounded tired, dead tired. Not the tired I'm used to him being, which is when it's 4 AM and we're just finishing a session in his recording studio in northern Beirut and going out for a late night chicken and hummus. Instead, it's the tired of someone who's been up all night wondering if his apartment building will still be standing in the morning; whether the latest Hezbollah attack will prompt Israel finally to carry out its threat to attack central and northern Beirut (which has largely been spared in the fighting so far because so much of it is owned by European capital and Israel hasn't wanted to piss them off unless it "has to").  Tired of wondering if life as he knew is over for good.

I know the feeling; when I was in Iraq in 2004, I spent my nights sitting in the hallway on the 7th floor of my hotel, the Aghadir, on Salahhhadun Street, a huge, ugly, but most importantly, very solidly built cement hotel. My companions and I figured that if any RPGs came through the windows we'd at least be safer in the halls because the walls were at least two feet thick. And a lot of locally-brewed Arak, at 50 cents a bottle, to help the evenings pass by a bit more easily, despite the concussive sounds of shells periodically going off nearby, the never-ending rumble of American convoys on the street below.

When insurgents blew up the hotel around the block, shattering most of the windows in the front of my hotel with it, I decided to move in with Iraqi friends in a poor/working class neighborhood half a mile away. In their tiny apartment, however, I felt even more claustrophobic, and my heart raced unimaginably fast with each explosion, or burst of gunfire nearby (all of which sound much worse in a 100 year old small tenement building than they do in a twenty year-old hotel).  I would not wish this experience - so mild compared with what people in Lebanon and Israel are going through - on anyone.

Moe, the lead singer of one of Lebanon's premier rock groups, The Kordz was a seasoned pro at this, however, having grown up in the last war.  But he never thought he'd have to relive his youth, blasting heavy metal at night in his headphones to drown out the violence outside just like he did twenty years ago.  His dreams of a future in Lebanon are shattered, and he's looking for a way out. A gig possibility in Germany, maybe a job in London. Maybe he'll stay, if things quite down soon or if he just can't get out (Israel is slowly suffocating Beirut by bombing all the bridges in and out of the city, leaving its residents no possibility to escape. Please remember this when they bomb the heart of the city and claim, as Alan Dershowitz has done, that any civilians left must be Hezbollah supporters because they were "warned" to leave).

So who am I to complain? Yes, I have not slept more than five hours a night since at least the second week of the war, but that's by choice. No one is trying to bomb me out of existence, as is happening to friends and loved ones in Haifa as well as Beirut.

Tired of the Media Game, and My Own Role in It

But lack of sleep is not why I'm tired. I'm tired because on a near daily basis I am involved in some sort of interview or debate, in print, cyberspace, radio or television, where I am confronted with streams of lies, half truths, disinformation and propaganda parading around as the truth, which is spewed out with such velocity (and often venom) that it is impossible to begin to respond to most of them. And so the audience can only be left to assume that they are true.

This is nothing new. Several years ago I was called a liar on national radio by the right-wing Jewish talk show host Dennis Prager because during a commercial break he couldn't find online "proof" of a Palestinian anti-Hamas demonstration I said I had witnessed. From the moment he called me a liar, every caller to his show picked up on that theme and my credibility was gone. Of course, I wasn't lying; I found the proof the old fashioned way, in the newspaper, and sent it to Prager, as he had promised to retract his statement and put me on his show again if I could prove that the protest had taken place. Needless to say he did no such thing.

With the second Lebanon war, things have gotten even worse. Debating David Horowitz on Hannity and Colmes last week, I was called an "apologist for terrorists" and "one of the most dangerous professors in America," and a "disgrace", all within the first two minutes. That's okay; I can handle that. What was worse was that most every claim he made about what was happening between Israel and Lebanon was utterly incorrect. But how to correct the record when you're too busy denying that you're "Osama bin Laden's favorite Jew"? (Judging by the numerous emails I later received, some people saw through the attacks. Others were too busy trying out their best Yiddish vocabulary, calling me everything from a "schmuck" to a "putz"--aren't they the same thing? And, of course, a traitor).

Then yesterday, I debated the head of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, Malcolm Hoenlein, on KISS-FM in New York.  Hoenlein started out with the same argument: that this is a clash of civilizations, one between good and evil, democracy and freedom versus Islamist terrorism; in other words, the usual Bush Administration arguments since the invasion of Iraq. When I attempted to point out, (as I've done in previous posts,) that things are more complicated than they seem, Hoenlein would have none of it. It's impossible for me to relate all the false accusations, half-truths, distorted arguments and false claims Hoenlein made, because after a while my mind became numb, and it was hard to tell them apart. But a few should help demonstrate what anyone trying to get at the truth in the public sphere today is up against.

First, after Hoenlein began by explaining (and repeated over and over again), that Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 "and all it wanted was security in its northern border" and did nothing to provoke the latest attack; and that moreover, the invasion was only triggered by Hezbollah rocket attacks, not the kidnapping. When I offered a more accurate chronology, which I have outlined in a previous posting, that reveals the continual tit-for-tat fighting since the withdrawal, and the innumerable Israeli violations of the "blue line" that I verified with evidence from the UN's own reports, Hoenlein denounced the UN as untrustworthy, only to then point out that in fact UNIFIL reported that Hezbollah used a "barrage of missiles" into Israel when it kidnapped the soldiers on July 12.

With all the other misinformation in his arguments, I could not deal with this claim at the time; yet it is very crucial, because if true it lends credibility to Israel's argument that however severe its violence, Israel exercises it in self-defense and is therefore morally legitimate. Yet I knew that Mr. Hoenlein was not correct. It was only afterwards, however, that I could search and find articles from the day after the kidnapping and confirm that in fact Hezbollah did not fire a barrage of rockets into Israel. Rather, as the conservative and very pro-Government Jerusalem Post reported the next day,  Hezbollah fired anti-tank rockets at the patrol it attacked; certainly an immoral activity but in no way the same as launching a huge missile attack into civilian areas of Israel.

These little nuances count for a lot however. And when you have a dozen or two of them twisted this way and that, the resulting distorted picture of reality is easily confused with what actually happening; in so doing it dulls the sense of urgency or outrage that most people would otherwise feel at Israeli actions (of course, we all feel outrage at Hezbollah's actions. That's the easy part).

The next trick is historical. When a caller pointed out that perhaps as a settler colonial movement Zionism had some culpability in creating the present sad state of affairs in Israel, Palestine and Lebanon, Hoenlein went for the Gold Standard of "pro"-Israel arguments: that Israel always wanted peace, that Jews had the "right" to return to Israel (as if Palestinians didn't have the right to stay in Palestine), had signed "fifteen agreements over the years" (this is a paraphrase, and I have no idea where he got that number from...) and never broken any of them, and was willing to "give up 95% of the West Bank in a peace deal" that once again the recalcitrant Palestinians rejected.

Each one of these statements is demonstrably false. Israel has regularly violated agreements it has signed, particularly those related to the Oslo process. I am writing a book about these negotiations, (so I know something about them). But how does one explain 300 pages worth of evidence and arguments in one sentence? It's impossible, and thus it's extremely difficult to counter such arguments in the media of radio or TV. By claiming that it's true, at the very least people assume it might be true, even though empirically speaking his claim is demonstrably not true. Again, how can I explain, in the midst of so many other false claims, that the idea that Israel was willing to give up 95% of the West Bank is besides the point, since the way it has divided the territory, bisecting it with settlements and bypass roads, strangulating the Palestinian economy, and more, make the seemingly generous offer meaningless on the ground, where it counts. (For a detailed analysis of this dynamic, see Israeli geographer Jeff Halper's description of Israel's ever-deepening "matrix of control" over the Occupied Territories.

Score two to Mr. Hoenlein.  (That fact that the show's host kept asking us to "keep our answers short" didn't make my job any easier, since it takes a lot more words to correct misinformation than it does to throw it out there).

Hoenlein made other claims too: That Mahmoud Ahmedinejad wants to destroy Israel.  Score three, but that's only half the story, since in 2003 and 2006, as Yediot Ahronot, the conservative Israeli paper reported a few days ago, the Supreme Leader of the Revolution, Ayatollah Khameini, (Ahmedinejad's superior) publicly agreed to accept a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as part of a larger settlement of outer regional issues (including its nuclear program, which Iran is clearly holding on to, at least in part, for a grand deal to trade its weapons potential for Israel's weapons).  So things are a bit more complicated, once again, than the typical portrayal of Iran as a maniacal and irrational regime bent on destroying Israel and dominating the Middle East

Then there was the problem of Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz calling for southern Lebanon to be turned into dust. First, if I recall correctly, Hoenlein replied that he didn't really say it; then when I provided date and source (the Israeli paper Haaretz, July 28) for the comment, he claimed it was "taken out of context." As if one can say that southern Lebanon should be ground to dust in some other context. Never mind that his remarks caused an uproar in Israel precisely because the context was quite clear--and on the television sets of hundreds of millions of people around the world.

But what's more, according to Hoenlein, Israel not only didn't harm Lebanon, it in fact did a world of good for the country during its 18 year occupation. Hoenlein saw that with his own eyes when he visited the "good fence" which Israel set up in the waning years of the occupation. Israel even flew Lebanese to Haifa for medical treatment! As if that justifies an illegal invasion, occupation and war that killed at least 20,000 Lebanese, not to mention the Sabra and Shatila massacres.  How does one counteract someone who's still stuck in an imperial mind set that sounds more like Winston Churchill speaking when he was Colonial Secretary than any honest, respectable person would dare to speak today?

But this is only half the reason I'm tired.

Tired of Explaining the Seemingly Indefensible

The other reason is that Muslim leaders--from guerrillas to presidents, in Iran, Lebanon, Palestine and elsewhere--have made it almost impossible for anyone to defend Muslims in the public sphere. When Ahmedinejad or the founding documents of Hezbollah and Hamas speak of destroying Israel, no amount of nuance or context will convince people that reality is different from these texts or statements. When school books in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere continue to be rife with anti-Jewish or Western stereotypes, it's impossible to explain why most of them don't hate most of us. When Al-Qa'eda crashes planes into American buildings, no one wants to hear that other Muslims have the "right" to defend themselves against occupation, especially when the occupier is our special ally (of course, when Muslims are occupied by our adversaries, like the Soviets or Saddam, then they not only have the right to fight the occupier, we'll help and even do the job of resisting for them). When Hezbollah fires rockets at Israeli civilian centers, everyone forgets that Israel has killed far more civilians than Hezbollah - at least so far. When after every appearance on TV I get sent emails with dozens of links to videos of al-Qa'eda beheadings, texts of jihadi documents, and the like that the sender cites as proof that all Muslims are evil and I am a self-hating, naive moron... well, after a while, it's hard to keep replying with detailed histories, explanations and clarifications.

Even the long dead are resurrected to prove the argument that Muslims are essentially irrational Jew and American haters who can only be pacified by the sword. The most famous example of this is, of course, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who was a major Palestinian nationalist leader, whom, after his exile by the British, collaborated with the Nazis.  In my debate with Horowitz on Hannity last week, the first sentence out of his mouth--after being prompted by Hannity's intro question that specifically asked whether Ahmedinejad is another Hitler and "Islamo-fascism" the same as Nazism, the proof Horowitz cited for his claim that an implacable hatred permeated the Muslim world was the Grand Mufti, followed by a fallacious claim, discussed by me in an earlier posting, that the Qur'an said that "Allah won't come till all the Jews are killed."

But the greatest harm comes from the violence of groups like Hezbollah or Hamas. It is a political and moral disaster for Palestinians and Lebanese, as we see in the "dust" of Lebanon and the rubble of Gaza. Israel and the US are extremely adept at using every act of violence against them to advance their own policy goals. In Israel's case it is strengthening its control over the biblical heartland of the West Bank, all the while decrying Palestinian terrorism. In America, it's strengthening its position in Iraq, all the while stating that we'll leave as soon as we're asked to (but the potential for full scale civil war we have generated is so bad that now neither Sunnis nor Shiites feel secure enough to ask us to leave).

Can We All Just Get Some Sleep?

I always try to explain to people that the most important thing I've learned as an historian is that history doesn't care who's right or wrong. It only cares who's smart or strong. In this regard, Palestinians have been ill-served by their leaders for decades, if not a century. Hezbollah is being portrayed as having played its hand against Israel fare more smartly than most Palestinian leaders have been able to do--and indeed, seemingly smarter than Israel has played its hand in the latest conflict. Hezbollah has also shown itself to be stronger than Israel or the world had imagined it to be. But it has done both at a terrible cost to its people that belies any sense of accomplishment it leaders can take at having stood up to the mighty IDF.  Indeed, sometimes one can be too smart and strong for one's own good. Israel is now learning that lesson in spades. Let's hope it doesn't take Hezbollah fifty years to do the same.

The real question is when everyone going to wake up and realize that violence breeds more violence, that twisting the truth and history to support immoral policies, whether you're the victim or the victimizer, makes you less strong and secure, not more? Perhaps people could think more clearly if they just got a good night's sleep.

Mark LeVine is a Contributing Editor to Tikkun. He teaches in the Department of History at UC Irvine, and is the author of Why They Don't Hate Us and Overthrowing Geography.


The Test of the Zionist Left
By Yossi Beilin
Reprinted Courtesy of Haaretz
August 8th, 2006

There are those who expect the Zionist left to join in the revelry of war, in the pathetic slogans such as "We will win" and in the fiery comments such as "Nasrallah will remember who Amir Peretz is."

There are those who expect us to join the non-Zionist left, which is calling for a unilateral cease-fire, accuses Israel of war crimes, demands that Hamas and Hezbollah be given what they want, and opposes all use of force. Both sides say this is the test of the Zionist left - and they are right.

We have a deep belief in the right of the Jewish people to a democratic and secure state, which has a stable Jewish majority: the state of the Jewish people and all of its citizens. We are convinced our national interest is in completing the moves toward peace with the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon, and that there is no alternative to an agreement.

If it were up to us, we would have reached a peace agreement with the Palestinians in May 1991, as was promised in the interim agreement with them. If it were up to us, the Shepherdstown peace talks involving Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak and Farouk Shara would have ended in December 1999, with an Israeli-Syrian peace agreement that would have led to an Israeli-Lebanon deal and prevented the need for a unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon six months later. If it were up to us, we would have renewed the peace negotiations when Mahmoud Abbas was elected Palestinian Authority chairman in 2005, preventing the need for a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip only a few months later.

But our feeling that peace could have been reached long ago and that Israel has played a not insignificant role in the fact that this has not happened does not justify, in our eyes, the behavior of our enemies. It doesn't justify the Qassams Palestinians continued to fire on us from Gaza after we dismantled the settlements, or Hezbollah's major arms buildup, or the concealment of rockets in the homes of innocent Lebanese civilians, or the irresponsible excitement and baseless territorial claims of Hassan Nasrallah, even though we withdrew from Lebanon to the last millimeter.

The military response in Gaza is justified in our eyes, and the response in Lebanon is no less justified - but that is not reason enough to support all aspects of the war. Brief military activity, followed by an ultimatum for the release of our abducted soldiers, would have been far more proper in our eyes. In any case, it was not right to get drawn into the trap set by Hezbollah - into an extended war of attrition, continued exposure of the Israeli home front to rocket fire and a ground operation involving tens of thousands of soldiers, at a very heavy financial cost.

A formal change in the attitude toward noncombatants led to hundreds of Lebanese civilian casualties. We cannot justify such a change, even if it came from the mouth of someone who does not stop glorying in being a man of peace. Amir Peretz's dovish past does not grant him a license to violate ethical norms that have guided us for many years.

A few days after the fighting broke out, we called for a mutually agreeable cease-fire to achieve the goals Israel has set for itself: the return of the abducted soldiers, a total halt to all hostile acts and the deployment of the Lebanese army in southern Lebanon. We did not believe for a moment that these legitimate goals could be reached by another few days of combat, the control of a few more kilometers, a massive call-up of reservists or the heavy bombardment of an Arab capital.

Therefore, we were the only ones who abstained in the Knesset, both in the no-confidence vote and in the vote on the government's announcements over the course of the war. We were the only ones in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee who opposed the call-up of tens of thousands of people for emergency reserve duty. We were the only ones who appealed to the High Court of Justice against the prime minister over the government's failure to declare war, despite the requirements stated in the Basic Law on government. We see our role over the course of the war as warning against Israel's lapsing into situations that it did not anticipate at the beginning of the war and warning against acts that contradict the values of Israeli society, while demanding that we reach the negotiation table as soon as possible to discuss a cease-fire.

After the war, when Ehud Olmert once again talks about unilateral convergence as a wonder drug and the right speaks out against agreements with our neighbors as well as against any unilateral move, we will need, with all our might, to present the agreement option as the path that is all the more necessary following the conflict in Gaza and the war in Lebanon.

The test of the Zionist left will be in its ability to come out of this war without losing its designation as the group that warns the public and suggests realistic solutions, as the group that does not become inured to the world or set itself up as the judge in the conflict between us and our neighbors, but presents its positions from within the heart of Israeli society, for the sake of its safety and prosperity.


Bring the Soldiers Home: Anti-War Demonstration Report
Gush Shalom
August 5th, 2006

The biggest demonstration against the war held in Israel until now took place today (5.8.06) in the heart of downtown Tel-Aviv, an area that is considered especially right-wing.

Close to 10 thousand demonstrators from all over the country, among them many Arab citizens, marched from Ben-Zion Boulevard, along King George Street, to Magen David Square. There, at the entrance to the Carmel market, a stage was set up. The thousands that did not find place in the square flowed over into Nahlat Binyamin and the other neighboring streets.

When the demonstrators were still waiting for the start, a salvo of eggs was thrown at them from the balcony of a building. The perpetrators fled before the police could reach them.

More serious was another act of sabotage. It had been decided to carry a mass of black flags. One of the activists brought the flags to the assembly point before the demonstrators arrived. Suddenly a car stopped, three youngsters got out, seized the flags by force and disappeared. The demonstration had to take place without them.

During the march, the demonstrators shouted (in Hebrew): "Jews and Arabs / refuse to be enemies!" - "We shall not die nor kill / in the service of the USA!" - "Children want to live / in Beirut and Haifa!" - "Peretz, Peretz resign / peace is more important!" - "A million refugees / that's a war crime!" - "Olmert, Peretz and Ramon / Get out of Lebanon!"

The two most popular stickers were Gush Shalom's "Bring the Soldiers Home" and the Israeli-Palestinian Bereaved Families' Forum's "It will not End Until we Talk!"

Some conspicuous posters: "We shall all lose!" - "Occupation and War are a disaster!" - "Just Peace = Security!" - "39 Years are enough - End the Occupation!" - "There is no military solution!" - "Cease-fire NOW!" - "Stop the war! Stop the massacre!"

All peace organizations took part. Besides Gush Shalom, participants included the Women's Coalition for Peace, Ta'ayush, Anarchists Against Walls, Yesh Gvul, the Israeli-Palestinian Forum of Bereaved Families, feminists, many parents with their children, veteran and young peace activists as well the political parties Hadash, Balad and the United Arab List.

A sign of the ferment in the political system was provided by members of Meretz, who took part in spite their party's pro-war position. They were led by former MKs Naomi Hazan abd Ya'el Dayan.

Dayan's speech caused an incident, when she sent greetings to the soldiers fighting in Lebanon. Her words aroused heated protests, and some activists tried to storm the stage, but were held back by their friends.

Among the speakers were the secretary of the Arab Citizens' Monitoring Committee, a representative of the Russian immigrants, a conscientious objector about enter prison, a peace activist whose housed has been hit by a rocket, and others.


Interview with Israeli Author Meir Shalev
Der Spiegel
August 7th, 2006

Spiegel: Mr. Shalev, is the Israeli Army fighting a just war?

Shalev: The cause of the war was a just one, but the conduct has not been. And by this I do not just mean the tragedy of Qana, but also what happened in the first days: Attacking Beirut like this, killing civilians in Lebanon. From the very first day we should have limited ourselves to attacks against the Hezbollah strongholds along the Israeli-Lebanese border.

Spiegel: Why haven't limitations been placed on the scope of the attacks?

Shalev: You could feel a high level of testosterone, of hormones, that shouldn't be there in such a situation. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah drives everybody crazy in Israel. He just sits there with this very calm voice. He is never angry, he doesn't curse, in a way he looks even gentle. For that, our political leaders and the military wanted to take revenge.

To read the rest of this article, click here.

Two Souths, One War
By Tamim Al-Barghouti
Al-Ahram Weekly
August 7th, 2006

Any war must set political goals the achievement of which is the principle criterion for measuring victory and defeat. The three political goals that Israel has set for this war -- the release of its two soldiers, the disarmament of Hizbullah and the deployment of the Lebanese army in the south -- can be achieved in two ways: either Israel reoccupies the south with ground forces and neutralises Hizbullah using its own troops, a task that it failed to accomplish after 22 years of occupation, or else it will have to put pressure on the Lebanese government to do the job.

Even if we overlook the fact that the Lebanese government will lose its legitimacy if it does so -- and Hizbullah is, after all, part of that government -- Israel has already hit the Lebanese army badly, and the army has declared its full allegiance to Hizbullah. Any attempt to place the Lebanese army in a confrontation with Hizbullah on Israel's behalf will lead to the army's disintegration, for it is just as sectarian as Lebanon itself. Shiites in the army will simply refuse to fight Hizbullah, as will half the Sunnis. The Muslim Brothers, one of the two big Sunni organisations in Lebanon, and based in Tripoli, the largest Sunni city in the country, has allied itself with Hizbullah, as has one of the two major Maronite factions under the leadership of General Michel Aoun.

Even if we overlook these obstacles and assume that by some miracle the government of Lebanon will decide to implement UN resolution 1559 it has only two options; it can try to implement the resolution before a ceasefire, which means it will embrace the politically impossible position of fighting alongside Israel, or it can try to do so after a ceasefire. The problem with the second option is that once a ceasefire is reached Hizbullah will have won. Hizbullah would still have arms, the ability to operate in the south and, most importantly, the two Israeli soldiers. And if Hizbullah emerges as the winner from this confrontation it will be too strong for any Lebanese government to dare attempt disarm it.

To read the rest of this article, click here.


Gaza, Haifa, Beirut, Seattle: Open Season on Defenseless Civilians
By Assaf Oron
Reprinted Courtesy of Occupation Magazine
August 6th, 2006

Israeli dissenters have been increasingly angry at the American Jewish leadership. Mainstream Jewish organizations ensure blanket US support to Israeli government policies, creating a culture of impunity that has repeatedly gotten that country into trouble. For me, the last straw was an invitation from all major Jewish organizations – headed by Seattle’s Jewish Federation - to join a ‘support Israel’ rally, just as Israel’s IDF was pounding Lebanon and Gaza. I did not go to the rally, but I did visit the Federation’s website: it was split between calls to assist Israelis displaced due to Hizbullah rockets, and descriptions of the rally. I could not find a single word about Lebanese civilian deaths, which at that point outnumbered Israeli civilian deaths by a 20:1 ratio. I sent an angry letter to the local Jewish paper.

The next day, Naveed Haq (angry about Lebanon and possibly deranged) broke into the Federation building, killed Pamela Waechter and wounded five more employees. Can Haq’s defense argue thus: “Since the Federation is effectively complicit in the killing of Lebanese civilians, its employees are culpable and killing them is legitimate”? Heavens, no! The Federation employees are defenseless civilians. You cannot kill them as proxy targets to anyone. Moreover, it is wrong to reduce the Federation’s complex ties with Israel – cultural, historical, religious – to a single political act. The Seattle attack is a reprehensible crime. No one in his or her right mind would argue differently.

So why is it that the Israeli mainstream and many Americans condone the collective punishment-by-proxy of Palestinian civilians? Since January the Israeli government has punished Palestinians for voting Hamas into power. Israelis have good reasons to be angry about this electoral outcome; but reducing it to ‘a Palestinian nation turned into Hamastan’, as has become the mainstream Israeli-American interpretation, is overly simplistic and plain wrong. Above all, Israelis conveniently ignore the limited practical meaning of any Palestinian election – given that Israel controls virtually all aspects of Palestinian life.

Israel’s government, however, knows this full well, and proceeded to punish Palestinians for their ‘nerve’ - by denying them money which is theirs, and a host of other measures that worsened the economic situation of the impoverished Palestinians, pushing them further towards social chaos and humanitarian disaster. This – together with a decision to use the IDF more aggressively in Gaza – triggered a cycle of mutual escalation which killed dozens of civilians (mostly Palestinians) and culminated in Hamas ending its year-long ceasefire and kidnapping an Israeli soldier on June 25. Then, the IDF immediately destroyed Gaza’s only power plant, demolished major bridges, and completely sealed Gaza off from the world, stranding thousands of Palestinians on the Egyptian border in the scorching heat. Eight civilians died while waiting to return, including a dehydrated baby.

In Lebanon we see more of the same. After the Hizbullah raid that reignited the front, IDF’s chief of staff vowed to turn Lebanon “20 years back” – in reference to the total destruction from civil war and the 1982 Israeli invasion. His words became reality, with the IDF bombing infrastructure across the land; for example, Beirut International Airport. According to Israel, the Lebanese deserve this for their leadership’s failure to rein in Hizbullah.

Morally speaking, there is no difference between the death of Gaza civilians due to direct or indirect Israeli actions, the killing of 8 Israeli Railways employees by a Hizbullah rocket that hit their Haifa depot, the killing of hundreds of Lebanese civilians by IDF airstrikes, and Pamela Waechter’s murder. All are murders of defenseless civilians, explained as political punishment-by-proxy.

In the past, ‘pro-Israel’ apologists have claimed a moral higher ground, arguing that Israel does not target civilians and its enemies do. While this claim’s veracity often seemed questionable to unprejudiced observers, in summer 2006 it has become patently absurd. We now witness a surreal, Orwellian spectacle: the main armed protagonists are engaged mostly in hurting each other’s civilian support bases. These civilian populations themselves unwittingly cheer on their ‘heroes’ to deal yet another blow to the other side – all but guaranteeing that they will be attacked again.

We must sound a clear moral voice. No use of force (including collective punishment) should be tolerated except immediate, narrowly-defined self-defense. Violators – whether individuals, militia or nations – must be stopped and brought to justice. If we fail to uphold the sanctity of life everywhere regardless of nationality, we risk seeing the whole planet drenched in blood soon.

Assaf Oron is an Israeli military refuser living in Seattle, where he is also a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Washington. This is an expanded version of an op-ed printed by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which was itself a translation from a Hebrew essay he posted on an Israeli news portal.


Voices Across The Divide
By Rami Khouri
The Observer
August 6th, 2006

A colleague from London asked me what I would say to Israeli journalists if I could talk to them on issues related to this war and the broader conflict between Arabs and Israelis. I replied that we cannot and do not talk directly, due to the state of war and consequent legal and political constraints.

If we could talk openly, there would be much to discuss. Journalists have a greater responsibility today than ever before. They can provide the vital combination of accuracy, rationality, balance and historical context that is needed to offset the amateurish leadership and catastrophic policies of most politicians and officials in Israel, the Arab world and the United States - now conspicuously joined by neo-vacuous Tony Blair.

To read the rest of this article, click here.


The Real Estate War
By Gideon Levy
Reprinted Courtesy of Haaretz
August 6th, 2006

This miserable war in Lebanon, which is just getting more and more complicated for no reason at all, was born in Israel's greed for land. Not that Israel is fighting this time to conquer more land, not at all, but ending the occupation could have prevented this unnecessary war. If Israel had returned the Golan Heights and signed a peace treaty with Syria in a timely fashion, presumably this war would not have broken out.

Peace with Syria would have guaranteed peace with Lebanon and peace with both would have prevented Hezbollah from fortifying on Israel's northern border. Peace with Syria would have also isolated Iran, Israel's true, dangerous enemy, and cut off Hezbollah from one of the two sources of its weapons and funding. It's so simple, and so removed from conventional Israeli thinking, which is subject to brainwashing.

For years, Israel has waged war against the Palestinians with the main motive of insistence on keeping the occupied territories. If not for the settlement enterprise, Israel would have long since retreated from the occupied territories and the struggle's engine would have been significant neutralized. Not that a non-occupying Israel would have turned into the darling of the Arab world, but the destructive fire aimed at Israel would have significantly lessened, and those who continued to fight Israel would have found themselves isolated.

The war against the Palestinians is therefore unequivocally a territorial war, a war for the settlements. In other words, in the West Bank and Gaza, people were killed and are getting killed because of our greed for land. From Golda Meir to Ehud Olmert, the lie has held that the war with the Palestinians is an existential one for survival imposed on Israel when it is actually a war for real estate, one dunam after another, that does not belong to us.

The situation is different with Syria. For 33 years, the Syrians gave up the military effort to reinstate their occupied lands. Israel can pass a dozen Golan Heights laws to annex it, but occupied territory remains occupied territory. During those three decades, the prevailing view in Israel was that there was no need for peace with Syria: The Syrians sat quietly anyway, so why give them back the Golan?

This is the same dangerously foolish thinking that characterized the first 20 years of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestinians sat quietly, surrendered under the Israeli occupation boot, and it did not occur to anyone to return their territory. Instead, Israel established the settlements. Only when the Palestinians woke up and realized they were going to lose their lands forever did they begin a violent campaign; and only after blood was spilled, did Israel wake up from its dreams and realize that it could not hold onto all of the territories forever. Thus, with regrettable delay and years of bloodshed, the recognition of the PLO, the Oslo accords, the disengagement and the convergence were born - all partial and fake solutions meant to postpone the end of the occupation.

We did not need all of that with the Syrians - after all, they sat quietly all of these years. Now comes the war in Lebanon and proves that this was a mistake. Although the Syrians sat on the sidelines, the danger from that direction was not removed and the delusion that the Golan would forever remain in Israeli hands, without our being asked to pay for its occupation, is now slapping us in the face.

But the current war could yet turn out to be only an appetizer for the coming wars, which will be far more dangerous. The saying that time is on our side is another delusion. The Arab and Muslim world has armed, in all of this time, and the danger of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles is already hovering over our heads. The only response to that is maximum neutralization of the flashpoints, before the bomb arrives. But Israel has chosen to close its eyes and build its future on a horrifyingly temporary quiet, or on more and more war operations.

Just when territory is losing its military importance because of the development of new fighting technology, Israel is using security excuses to stay in the territories. Former-prime minister Ehud Barak criminally missed the opportunity to sign a peace treaty with Syria after he got "cold feet," as witnesses said, and retreated at the last minute. That's how it works with us. When the other side is quiet, why return territories? And when they do go to war, "there's nobody to talk to," and certainly not while we are "under fire."

While we are ready to jump on any war bandwagon, as in this time, we endlessly procrastinate when it comes to peace negotiations. Now, too, when Syria, pushed around by the U.S., desperately wants to return to the "family of nations," is an excellent time to try to make peace with it - but there are those who say now is not the time. What will the Americans say? They, after all, are against any deals with Bashar Assad of "the axis of evil."

So, there it is, another excuse to miss a golden opportunity, another mendacious excuse. As in the case of the peace with Egypt, the move that has guaranteed Israel's security for years far more than any war, and which was put together behind the America's back, America would not be able to oppose a peace agreement with Syria. Now, after we've hit Hezbollah and ruined Lebanon, the prime minister of Israel should declare: the Golan for peace. That could contribute a lot more to our security than a thousand useless daring operations in Baalbek, but it would take a lot more courage than going off to fight another unnecessary and useless war.


Whither the Republic
By Mark LeVine
August 6th, 2006

Last week Michael Walzer wrote an article for the New Republic titled War Fair, which attempted to justify the Israeli invasion and destruction of southern Lebanon. As I argued in a previous posting, it was one of the most puerile, ill-conceived, self-contradictory and badly argued justifications for this or any other war I have read. One wonders: If they can take Todd Landi's Yellow Jersey away for imbibing a bit of testosterone, shouldn't they (whoever the appropriate "they" are) take away Walzer's PhD for this article? For certainly the logic and argumentation were not those of an employee of the Institute for Advanced Studies, let alone an esteemed philosopher. Certainly if this is the best that philosophy can offer in coming to terms with this war, then to paraphrase Dickens, philosophy is an ass.

Apparently so is the field of literary editing, at least at the New Republic. That this is the case is strongly suggested by Leon Wieseltier's The Children of Qana posted on August 4th on the TNR website. Although he bends over backwards to seem utterly conflicted and deeply disturbed by what Israel is being forced to do (How dare those fanatical Arabs force Israel to kill their children!!!), the essential point is the same as Walzer's: That Israel's destruction of southern Lebanon is in the end a "just war" despite the large loss of life of civilians and the turning to dust, as the Israeli Defense Minister described it, of so much of the country.

It seems that Wieseltier doesn't necessarily believe what he is writing. For at almost every turn, after explaining that sometimes violence (even the killing of children) is justified, Wieseltier makes sure to point out that it only remains justified as long as people are killed in a just manner (or perhaps for a just cause; the logic is quite confusing here). Whatever the rationale, in the end, as with most supporters of the war, the death and destruction wrought by Israel is justified for the usual reason: "the exterminationist objective of Israel's adversary and of its adversary's patron, the rain of rockets launched precisely to kill non-combatants... For Hezbollah, the murder of innocents, in Israel and in Lebanon, is its strategy."

So Hezbollah has exterminationist thinking. Unlike Israel, of course, which only wants to turn half of Lebanon (and if necessary, as we've seen with the destruction of bridges in north Beirut which people were trying to use to escape the fighting, all of Lebanon) to dust. I suppose the dust to which hundreds of people and tens of thousands of buildings and other structures have been reduced indicates a warm heart and keen moral compass?

However, does Iran really want to destroy Israel?  According to Ahmedinejad, yes. But according to his boss, Surpreme Guide Ali Khameini, the Ayatollah Khomeini's successor as leader of the Revolution, this is not necessarily the case. As Noam Chomsky reminds us in yesterday's Yediot Ahronot, Iran has publicly endorsed the 2002 Arab League call for full normalization of ties with Israel on the condition of a fair two-state settlement. If we turn to Hezbollah, its founding statement also explicitly announces its desire to destroy Israel. But of course, in reality, it can do no such thing, and Nasrallah, as Haaretz has reported, has generally been pretty good at keeping attacks at the same level as Israel's--that is, attack soldiers in response to similiar Israeli attacks; attack civilians when Israel.

Indeed, the only country in the Middle East that has actually destroyed a "state" is Israel, not Iran; and in fact it's destroyed two to date, if we recall its dismantling of the Palestinian Authority after the outbreak of the second intifada. Of course, these actions were purely defensive and also much regretted - so they can be forgotten.  Hezbollah keeps its arsenal in the thick of its population--ah yes, the "human shield" defense. Of course, Israeli military leaders don't buy this argument, and never expected Hezbollah to line up like a Revolutionary War regiment of Redcoats, waiting for a nice set-piece battle. That's not the way guerrilla movements have ever operated, including the Zionist movement, which we might remember based its military wing, the Haganah, in Kibbutzim as well as Tel Aviv in the lead up to the 1948 war. But it sure works to assuage the guilt of  moralising Americans, particularly American Jews with a few pangs of conscience.

Anyway, since "we are all hypocrites" in our humanitarianism, who are we to hold a grudge against Israel; particularly since "there are no experts in the calculation of the relations of means and ends, of costs and purposes." Oh wait, there are the Geneva Conventions, Hague Conventions, and other laws of war. But they're not au courant, so who cares about them. And this being August, most of the experts in these affairs are on the Italian Riviera or Cape D'Antibe, so who's counting.

Finally, Mr Wieseltier "do[es] not see that one can fairly oppose the Israeli campaign against Hezbollah" because to do so is equal to asking Israel to "acquiesce in a mortal danger to itself, and a region to acquiesce in the ascendancy of jihadism." Of course! Israel is engaging in this selfless act of destruction not to advance its strategic interests, but for the good of the "New Middle East" still stuck in Shimon Peres's womb. Even more, it's doing it for the Lebanese people, who will surely revolt against Hezbollah with the same ferocity as Iraqis were to revolt against the Ba'ath after the invasion in March 2003 if only Israel can give them the right air cover.  Yes, Mr. Wieselter, Israel is the Muslim world's great defender against jihadism, and its victory will in fact lead to nothing short of "a strengthening of Lebanon." Oh wait, would that be the Lebanon that Israel is busy destroying wholesale?

As Zeev Maoz wrote in Yediot Ahronot this past weekend, it is true that Israel is in a war for its future and even existence. But as he argues, the war is with itself, not with Hezbollah or Iran, which are in fact a far less serious threat to it than are its own actions.  And leading Jewish voices like Wieseltier and Walzer, with their tortured logic, unjustifiable justifications, defense of the indefensible, and unwillingness to hold Israel to the same standards that they wish to hold its enemies, are not going to help it win either war.


Apocalypse Near: An Interview with Noam Chomsky
By Merav Yudilovitch
Yediot Ahronot
August 5th, 2006

Last week, a group of renowned intellectuals published an open letter blaming Israel for escalating the conflict in the Middle East. The letter, which mainly referred to the alignment of forces between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, caused a lot of anger among Ynet and Ynetnews readers, particularly due to its claim that the Israeli policy's political aim is to eliminate the Palestinian nation.

The letter was formulated by art critic and author John Berger and among its signatories were Nobel Prize winner, playwright Harold Pinter, linguist and theoretician Noam Chomsly, Nobel Prize laureate Jos é Saramago, Booker Prize laureate Arundhati Roy, American author Russell Banks, author and playwright Gore Vidal, and historian Howard Zinn.

To read the rest of this article, click here.

Resurrect the Peace Ship!
By Mark LeVine
August 4th, 2006

In my last posting I criticized some of my true heroes, for seemingly offering their "solidarity and support"  not just to the people of Lebanon, but those using violence to resist the Israeli invasion.  At the end of the post I said that those of us who are really committed to resisting empire, and in this case Israeli colonialism in Lebanon, should be willing to put our bodies on the line by going to Lebanon to stand with our Lebanese sisters and brothers against this aggression. Gnawing at the back of my head when I wrote this was the fact that it isn't so easily to get to Lebanon these days, although one can go by road from Syria, if you're willing to risk death by Israeli artillery or missile fire to stand up for your beliefs.

But then I remembered the "peace ship" that was a fixture of the eastern Mediterranean for twenty years, from 1973 until 1993. The Peace Ship was the brainchild of Israeli peace activist Abie Nathan, who sailed from New York  to the international waters off the Israeli coast, with an international crew, and began broadcasting as a "pirate" radio station featuring music, news and commentary that Israelis and their neighbors weren't being exposed to through official media outlets. John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and numerous well known new