August 14, 2006
Who won?
A typically superb overnight analysis of the Israel-Hizbullah war by Ze'ev Schiff in Ha'aretz.
One clear victor in all of this is Hizbullah's media strategist, with an assist from the Israeli leadership. HIzbullah managed to convince the world that it would win if it survived, a claim helped by early, reckless Israeli statements that it was attempting to destroy Hizbullah. You can't destroy an organization that has the kind of popular backing based on ethnicity as does Nasrallah's organization, especially as long as it receives such substantial aid from Iran.
Note that Schiff compares this result to the Yom Kippur War. I think that that is apt. In 1973, militarily, the IDF clearly triumphed; politically, Egypt came out the victor. Hizbullah mastered an expectations game that in my view would be more suitable for 1968 than 2006. Note that Schiff also compares this war to the first Lebanon war: it is not clear to me why there should have been such expectations of crushing Israeli victory now if the IDF couldn't achieve it the last time.
Yossi Klein Halevi is peddling the same drivel over at the New Republic site ( http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w060814&s=halevi081506 ): Israel would have won by completely and permanently "ending Hezbullah" if only the overly dovish Olmert government hadn't hesitated to do so; moderate Arabs turned against Israel only because it stupidly hesitated to immediately "defeat Hizbollah" (rather than because it was slaughtering civilians all over Lebanon during its attempts at such obliteration at 30 times the rate Israeli citizens were being killed), blah blah blah. The Israeli Right, in short, has not learned a damn thing from this experience, and in fact is now energetically peddling the same "stab in the back" theories that have done such wonders for international rationality in the past. (Martin Peretz, of course, hasn't learned anything either, which is why he's printing this tripe in TNR -- but then, Peretz never learns anything.)
Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at August 14, 2006 10:05 PMPerhaps I can understand why the Bush-Cheney crowd would always make the Israeli position the default US policy in the region. However there are lots of friends of IL who knew better back in July. Level heads not only didn't prevail, they didn't appear.
Is everyone so afraid of AIPAC? And when Bibi gets back in to power, are we supposed to instantly follow whatever lunatic direction he takes us?
Remember friends don't let friends start wars while under the influennce.
Posted by: wren at August 15, 2006 04:09 AMA typically superb overnight analysis of the Israel-Hizbullah war by Ze'ev Schiff in Ha'aretz.
The best overall coverage has been at billmon.org.
Posted by: liberal at August 15, 2006 08:22 AMThe only positive thing that MAY come from the Iraq and Lebanon debacles is that Americans and Israelis MIGHT start to question the sanity of neverending military interventions by both our nations.
This article:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1219241.ece
is quite informative.
Hezbollah started the war, but Israel is the never ending warrior. Billmon, whose objectivity on Israel resembles Hitler's objectivity on the Jews, is balanced.
Is this the funny farm reality based community?
Posted by: shmuel at August 15, 2006 03:56 PMI'll take Godwin's Law for $400 Alex.
Shmuel? Um. What is a species of neo-con troglodite suffering cognitive dissonance?
Posted by: Juicy Lurker at August 15, 2006 04:42 PMThanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)
