Payback time
After a month of military failure, dark clouds are gathering over Israel's political leaders, writes Jonathan Cook in Nazareth
Al-Ahram Weekly, 17-23 August 2006
As soon as the guns fell silent on the battlefields of South
Lebanon Monday, the knives came out: Israel is in for a lengthy
period of bloodletting among its political and military classes
following the army's failure to inflict serious damage on the
Lebanese militia Hizbullah in a month-long confrontation.
Ehud Olmert, the recently elected prime minister who had hoped to
prove that despite his lack of military experience he could fill the
shoes of his predecessor, Ariel Sharon, is a certain victim.
Although he may cling to power for some time, the question is not
whether he will fall but when. Few in Israel appear convinced that
the terms of the UN-brokered ceasefire -- pushing Hizbullah back
from the border and replacing it with an international peace-keeping
force and Lebanese troops -- were worth the cost in blood or that
they will ever be properly implemented.
Olmert tried to put the best gloss he could on the UN resolution
in a speech to the Knesset Monday, shortly after the ceasefire
kicked in. He said Hizbullah had been dealt "a harsh blow" and that
it was no longer "allowed to act inside a state as an arm of the
axis of evil", referring to Syria and Iran. But he admitted: "The
overall responsibility for this [military] operation lies with me,
the prime minister. I am not asking to share this with anyone."
Certainly no one was offering to share the burden.
Although Israeli newspaper headlines were urging, "Olmert must
go", others will find themselves in the firing line too. Amir
Peretz, the insecure leader of the rival Labour Party, who joined
Olmert's coalition government in a role -- defence minister -- he
was transparently unsuited for, will struggle to salvage his
political reputation after a lacklustre martial performance. The
huge costs of the war -- so far estimated at more than $5 billion --
will be paid for in cuts to social and welfare reforms that were at
the heart of Peretz's election platform.
The army will probably suffer its own losses at the command
level, to add to -- and account for -- the 120 or so soldiers killed
on the battlefield. It is facing criticism in particular for failing
to stop the barrage of 1,000 plus Hizbullah rockets fired into
Israel every week for a month.
Chief of Staff Dan Halutz is likely to face calls for his
resignation as soon as it becomes clear that the ceasefire is
holding. The former head of the air force has faced an avalanche of
criticism that he put too much weight on aerial strikes in the early
stages of the military campaign, trusting that his pilots could
disable Hizbullah without the need for a ground invasion. Popular
perception is that he held off too long on sending in troops and
then left the invasion force too little time to complete its task.
Another senior army officer, Udi Adam, head of the northern
command, has already paid a price. He was effectively replaced last
week by Halutz's deputy, Moshe Kaplinsky, who was put in charge of
overseeing the stepped-up invasion of South Lebanon in the final
days before the ceasefire. Adam is known to be fearful that he will
be made the scapegoat for the army's failings and is already arguing
in public that politicians tied his hands. "The moment the
diplomatic echelon made the decision, we launched the offensive," he
told the media. "The Northern Command was ready from the moment we
were told to begin the offensive."
Olmert rejected this and similar criticisms from the army,
arguing last week -- before the hurried push to the Litani River, 30
kilometres inside Lebanon -- that, "no operative plan was brought to
me to widen the picture beyond the lines where the IDF [Israeli
army] is today."
More of these disputes will doubtless surface in an
all-but-inevitable public inquiry. At the moment, Peretz has
promised to establish a "team" to investigate the way the army
conducted the war, but pressure is already growing from the left and
right to set up a full commission of enquiry that will also examine
the government's performance.
Areas of particular concern that will be the focus of attention
in any enquiry are: why it took so long for the army to launch a
ground invasion; why military intelligence failed to assess the
extent of Hizbullah's arsenal or its ability to protect its weapons
and fighters from aerial bombardment; and why the government
approved a last- minute push to the Litani, with a predictable rise
in casualties, when a ceasefire had already been agreed.
Inevitably the battle lines in any such enquiry will be drawn
between the generals and the government. This is likely to be
Olmert's undoing. Most Israelis still place their highest trust in
the army, and there can be little doubt about who will be believed
if the senior command claims -- as it already appears to be doing --
that the government failed to support its recommendations for
harsher reprisals against Hizbullah and opted instead for the
diplomatic track. If Olmert argues that he deferred to the army, his
lack of military competence -- and the differences with his mentor,
Sharon -- will only be underscored.
Nonetheless, a Monday poll showed the damage that has been done
to the reputation of the army among the Israeli public. A Globes
Smith poll revealed that 52 per cent of respondents believed the
army had failed in its Lebanon offensive, compared with 44 per cent
who thought it did well.
A sign of Olmert's political weakness was evident in an opinion
poll taken by Haaretz newspaper late last week, as Israel's approval
of a ceasefire looked imminent. The survey showed Olmert's rating
had plunged from 75 per cent at the start of the conflict to 48 per
cent. Peretz received an even more dismal ranking: 37 per cent
thought he was doing a good job.
The poll coincided with the first demonstrations against the war
by Peace Now, the largest of the country's peace groups and the one
most reluctant usually to challenge the government or army. Three
acclaimed authors, Amos Oz, A B Yehoshua and David Grossman also
expressed their opposition to the cabinet decision to expand ground
operations in Lebanon. Grossman's son, a tank commander, was killed
a day later in South Lebanon by a Hizbullah anti-tank missile.
There will be two likely beneficiaries of Olmert and Peretz's
sinking fortunes. The first is Shaul Mofaz, a rival for the
leadership of the prime minister's Kadima Party and a former army
chief of staff. He was humiliated after the recent election by being
stripped of the Defence Ministry portfolio and given the Transport
Ministry instead. There is no love lost between Olmert and Mofaz. In
fact, Mofaz was the only cabinet minister not to vote in favour of
the ceasefire last Sunday. He abstained.
The other possible winner is Binyamin Netanyahu, the leader of
the Likud Party, which was routed at the election. Netanyahu was
lost in the political wilderness until the war with Lebanon erupted,
when he started to reverse his standing by offering statesmanlike
support to Olmert while making it clear that he would have conducted
the war in a firmer manner. Netanyahu's rating has risen to 58 per
cent.
In a Knesset speech Monday, Netanyahu began preparing the case
against the government: "It must be said honestly, there were many
failures, failures in identifying the threat, failures in preparing
to meet the threat, failures in the management of the war, failures
in the management of the home front."
There is widespread speculation that Netanyahu might make a
comeback by trying to recruit the previous chief of staff, Moshe
Yaalon, to his party. Yaalon, like Netanyahu, is known to be deeply
opposed to the core policy of Olmert and his Kadima Party:
unilateral withdrawals like the one from Gaza last year, the
proposed one from the West Bank, and the forerunner of both, the
withdrawal from South Lebanon in 2000.
Olmert will probably not go without a fight, and may hold on for
some time. One of the quickest ways to postpone the day of
reckoning, he might decide, would be to sink Israel deeper into war,
either by finding a way to break the ceasefire with Hizbullah or by
widening the hostilities to Syria or Iran.
