Friday, March 29, 2024 -
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Cautious Optimism: More signs of Israeli success now than against Hezbollah, 2006

There’s something not quite right about all the predictable responses to Israel’s long overdue, ferocious attack on Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip.

We hear that Israel is using disproportionate force; we hear that Israel is losing the media war; we hear that “the world” is against Israel; we hear that Israel is relying too heavily on air power (the mistake it made in its attack on Hezbollah in 2006). Somehow, all this doesn’t ring right. Something’s changed — we are cautiously optimistic.

I.

Take the media war. The Winograd Report, which excoriated Israel for its poor media coordination during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, said to establish a centralized media spokesman for Israel during war. Israel did so. She established the National Information Directorate. Preliminary results show that Israel is getting more air time, and better air time, than usual.

Take the familiar “the world is against Israel” complaint. The anti-Israel rhetoric seems a bit toned down, not completely, by any means, but still, a bit less strident. For the first time, we have Palestinian Arabs blaming Hamas for the conflict. Not all Palestinians, to be sure; and maybe this won’t last. But still: a breakthrough. A glimmer of understanding that this war did not have to happen, that Israel was provoked, that Hamas went too far. We hear this out loud from Mahmoud Abbas, the PA president, and we hear it more quietly from other Arab leaders. They are not sad to see Iran’s proxy pummeled.

Plus, we don’t hear the same decibel level of outcry from the UN. This could all change, of course, but even if it does, the new approach is on record: terrorist violence against Israel should not go unchallenged.

And take the “disproportionate use of force” argument, also an old staple trotted out whenever Israel uses force. This claim seems to have trouble against a fairly black-and-white reality: As long as Hamas keeps shooting missiles at Israeli cities, any Israeli force is, if anything, not strong enough. Put differently, the definition of force is set clearly by Hamas, not by Israel. Hamas’ attacks follow a self-declared ideology of intent to destroy Israel, not of intent to redress grievances. Against this hateful Hamas ideology — which, again, also seems to be better grasped than in the past — Israel’s resort to strong force is seen more widely than usual as a last resort against an unbending, uncompromising, violent, self-defined anti-peace enemy.

There is also a somewhat better understanding of Hamas’ tactics: using human shields. When Israel attacked buildings housing Hamas operatives, and the flying debris injured or killed innocent civilians, more and more people asked: Why did Hamas place its military positions in the middle of civilian areas to begin with? In the past, Israel was blamed reflexively. That’s changed, to an extent.

Is Israel relying too heavily on air power, and is she undertrained for ground war? It’s certainly a possibility. But, again, there are signs of cautious optimism:

  • First and foremost, the IDF chief-of-staff appointed after the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Gabi Ashkenazi, has openly and soberly confronted the weaknesses in the IDF that the 2006 war revealed, has reassessed both training and strategy, has put in place new procedures, has raised morale, and has carefully prepared for precisely the type of military response that Israel launched.
  • Remember, Ashkenazi’s predecessors were taken up with fighting the second intifada, and paid little attention to Hezbollah. But Ashkenazi has concentrated on Hezbollah and Hamas. This seems to have manifested itself in much better intelligence in this war than in the last.
  • Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, has the reputation of being an extraordinarily qualified soldier, one of the best Israel has ever produced. For example, he has long resisted going to war against Hamas because he didn’t think his forces were ready yet. His term as prime minister was a disaster, but that was his measure as a politician. Now, he seems in his element.
  • Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, having suffered the ignomy of previous failures in 2006, not to mention his failures in court and in politics, is not calling the shots by himself, as was the case in 2006. He is working with level heads in Ashkenazi, Tzipi Livni and Barak. This is a team effort, bringing, among other things, the diplomatic ground work in Egypt, the US and elsewhere by Livni, the military groundwork by Barak, and the solid backing of the Israeli population. Israel is now responding to years of provocations, having taken the measure of her enemy, rather than responding, off the cuff, to a surprise kidnapping, as in 2006.
II.

Other differences between now and 2006:

  • The Israeli home front is better prepared. Bomb shelters in both southern and northern Israel are better prepared. A tremendous amount of idea-sharing among mayors of small Israeli towns has taken place.
  • The Israeli public is better informed of the capabilities of the enemy. Patience and endurance are greater.
  • The Israeli leadership is more realistic, seeing a possibly long war against Hamas, and willing to finish the job “to the bitter end,” in the words of Ehud Barak. Or, just possibly, a Hamas collapse: either will work, but the end to the rocket fire from Gaza must be assured and, equally, the end to Hamas’ arms smuggling, arms tunnels and arms build-up must be assured. Hamas’ military link to Iran must be broken. That’s Israel’s appropriately tough bottom line.
  • There is a better bipartisan environment in the US than in 2006. It’s not just the Bush administration that has backed Israel’s military response to Hamas rocket fire. The Obama team, pointedly, has not sounded a different note, nor did Obama himself during the campaign express anything but a full understanding for an Israeli response to attacks on her children and her homes.
III.

All of these positives could get swallowed up in a minute, victim to the chaos of war. But as of press time we are cautiously optimistic that Israel can do a more thorough job of shutting down Hamas than it did against Hezbollah — although, as we’ve said on this page before, Israel did a lot more damage to Hezbollah than is generally acknowledged.

Hezbollah’s role at this time could also change on a dime. But for now, it is issuing statements making it very clear that it has no intention of going to war. It knows how much it suffered at Israel’s hands, all its post-war braggadocio notwithstanding.

It is infinitely sad that some human beings can do nothing better than to figure out how to destroy other human beings. That is Hamas. Israel has taken steps to do that which it has long needed to do — destroy every weapon of the enemy, while taking every possible precaution to do nothing more.

Israel’s future depends on its total success — her destruction of every weapon of Hamas and her destruction of every means for their replacement.

That is what we pray for.




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