[LCM Articles] "It's only with enemies that one makes peace"--Uri Avnery

[Maurice Hage-Obeid]

Uri Avnery is a prominent Israeli journalist and a left activist. He is a
staunch voice in the Israeli peace movement.

This piece discusses aims of the war as seen by the someone within Israel.


Maurice

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August 4, 2006
THE DAY AFTER THE WAR
by Uri Avnery

The day after the war will be the Day of the Long Knives.

Everybody will blame everybody else. The politicians will blame each
other. The generals will blame each other. The politicians will blame
the generals. And, most of all, the generals will blame the
politicians.

Always, in every country and after every war, when the generals fail,
the "knife in the back" legend raises its head. If only the
politicians had not stopped the army just when it was on the point of
achieving a glorious, crushing, historic victory.

That's what happened in Germany after World War I, when the legend
gave birth to the Nazi movement. That's what happened in America after
Vietnam. That's what is going to happen here. The first stirrings can
already be felt.

The simple truth is that up to now, the 22nd day of the war, not one
single military target has been reached. The same army that took just
six days to rout three big Arab armies in 1967 has not succeeded in
overcoming a small "terrorist organization" in a time span that is
already longer than the momentous Yom Kippur War. Then, the army
succeeded in just 20 days in turning a stunning defeat at the
beginning into a resounding military victory at the end.

In order to create an image of achievement, military spokesmen
asserted yesterday that "we have succeeded in killing 200 [or 300, or
400, who is counting?] of the 1,000 fighters of Hezbollah." The
assertion that the entire terrifying Hezbollah consisted of one
thousand fighters speaks for itself.

According to correspondents, President Bush is frustrated. The Israeli
army has not "delivered the goods." Bush sent them into war believing
that the powerful army, equipped with the most advanced American arms,
would "finish the job" in a few days. It was supposed to eliminate
Hezbollah, turn Lebanon over to the stooges of the U.S., weaken Iran,
and perhaps also open the way to "regime change" in Syria. No wonder
that Bush is angry.

Ehud Olmert is even more furious. He went to war in high spirits and
with a light heart, because the air force generals had promised to
destroy Hezbollah and their rockets within a few days. Now he is stuck
in the mud, no victory in sight.

As usual with us, at the termination of the fighting (and possibly
even before) the War of the Generals will start. The front lines are
already emerging.

The commanders of the land army blame the chief-of-staff and the
power-intoxicated air force, who promised to achieve victory all by
themselves. To bomb, bomb, and bomb, destroy roads, bridges,
residential quarters and villages, and - finito!

The followers of the chief-of-staff and the other air force generals
will blame the land forces, especially Northern Command. Their
spokesmen in the media already declare that this command is full of
inept officers, who have been shunted there because the North seemed a
backwater while the real action was going on in the South (Gaza) and
the Center (West Bank).

There are already insinuations that the chief of Northern Command,
Gen. Udi Adam, was appointed to his job only in homage to his father,
Gen. Kuti Adam, who was killed in the First Lebanon War.

The mutual accusations are all quite right. This war is plastered with
military failures - in the air, on land, and on the sea.

They are rooted in the terrible arrogance in which we were brought up
and which has become a part of our national character. It is even more
typical of the army, and reaches its climax in the air force.

For years we have told each other that we have the most-most-most army
in the world. We have convinced not only ourselves, but also Bush and
the entire world. After all, we did win an astounding victory in six
days in 1967. As a result, when this time the army did not win a huge
victory in six days, everybody was astounded. Why, what happened?

One of the declared aims of this war was the rehabilitation of the
Israeli army's deterrence power. That really has not happened.

That's because the other side of the coin of arrogance is the profound
contempt for Arabs, an attitude that has already led to severe
military failures in the past. It's enough to remember the Yom Kippur
War. Now our soldiers are learning the hard way that the "terrorists"
are highly motivated, tough fighters, not junkies dreaming of "their"
virgins in Paradise.

But beyond arrogance and contempt for the opponent, there is a basic
military problem: it is just impossible to win a war against
guerillas. We have seen this in our 18-year stay in Lebanon. Then we
drew the unavoidable conclusion and got out. True, without good sense,
without an agreement with the other side. (We don't speak with
terrorists, do we? - even if they are the dominant force on the
ground.) But we did get out.

God knows what gave today's generals the unfounded self-confidence to
believe that they would win where their predecessors failed so
miserably.

And most of all: even the best army in the world cannot win a war that
has no clear aims. Karl von Clausewitz, the guru of military science,
pronounced that "war is nothing more than the continuation of politics
by other means." Olmert and Peretz, two complete dilettantes, have
turned this inside out: "War is nothing more than the continuation of
the lack of policy by other means."

Military experts say that in order to succeed in war, there must be
(a) a clear aim, (b) an aim that is achievable, and (c) the means
necessary for achieving this aim.

All three conditions are lacking in this war. That is clearly the
fault of the political leadership.

Therefore, the main blame will be laid at the feet of the twins,
Olmert-Peretz. They have succumbed to the temptation of the moment and
dragged the state into a war, in a decision that was hasty,
unconsidered, and reckless.

As Nehemia Strassler wrote in Ha'aretz: "They could have stopped after
two or three days, when all the world agreed that Hezbollah's
provocation justified an Israeli response, when nobody was yet
doubting the capabilities of the Israeli army. The operation would
have looked sensible, sober, and proportional."

But Olmert and Peretz could not stop. As greenhorns in matters of war,
they did not know that the boasts of the generals cannot be relied on,
that even the best military plans are not worth the paper on which
they are written, that in war the unexpected must be expected, that
nothing is more temporary then the glory of war. They were intoxicated
by the war's popularity, egged on by a herd of fawning journalists,
driven out of their minds by their own glory as War Leaders.

Olmert was roused by his own incredibly kitschy speeches, which he
rehearsed with his hangers-on. Peretz, so it seems, stood in front of
the mirror and already saw himself as the next prime minister, Mister
Security, a second Ben-Gurion.

And so, like two village idiots, to the sound of drums and bugles,
they set off at the head of their March of Folly straight toward
political and military failure.

It is reasonable to assume that they will pay the price after the war.

What will come out of this whole mess?

No one talks anymore about eliminating Hezbollah or disarming it and
destroying all the rockets. That has been forgotten long ago.

At the start of the war, the government furiously rejected the idea of
deploying an international force of any kind along the border. The
army believed that such a force would not protect Israel, but only
restrict its freedom of action. Now, suddenly, the deployment of this
force has become the main aim of the campaign. The army is continuing
the operation solely in order to "prepare the ground for the
international force," and Olmert declares that he will go on fighting
until it appears on the ground.

That is, of course, a sorry alibi, a ladder for getting down from the
high tree. The international force can be deployed only in agreement
with Hezbollah. No country will send its soldiers to a place where
they would have to fight the locals. And everywhere in the area, the
local Shi'ite inhabitants will return to their villages - including
the Hezbollah underground fighters.

Further on, the force will also be totally dependent on the agreement
of Hezbollah. If a bomb explodes under a bus full of French soldiers,
a cry will go up in Paris: bring our sons home. That is what happened
when the U.S. Marines were bombed in Beirut.

The Germans, who shocked the world this week by opposing the call for
a cease-fire, certainly will not send soldiers to the Israeli border.
That's just what they need, to be obliged to shoot at Israeli
soldiers.

And, most importantly, nothing will prevent Hezbollah from launching
their rockets over the heads of the international force, any time they
want to. What will the international force do then? Conquer all the
area up to Beirut? And how will Israel respond?

Olmert wants the force to control the Lebanese-Syrian border. That,
too, is illusory. That border goes around the entire West and North of
Lebanon. Anybody who wants to smuggle weapons will stay away from the
main roads, which will be controlled by the international soldiers. He
will find hundreds of places along the border to do this. With the
proper bribe, one can do anything in Lebanon.

Therefore, after the war, we will stand more or less in the same place
we were before we started this sorry adventure, before the killing of
almost a thousand Lebanese and Israelis, before the eviction from
their homes of more than a million human beings, Israelis and
Lebanese, before the destruction of more than a thousand homes both in
Lebanon and Israel.

After the war, the enthusiasm will simmer down, the inhabitants of the
North will lick their wounds and the army will start to investigate
its failures. Everybody will claim that he or she was against the war
from the first day on. Then the Day of Judgment will come.

The conclusion that presents itself is: kick out Olmert, send Peretz
packing, and sack Halutz.

In order to embark on a new course, the only one that will solve the
problem: negotiations and peace with the Palestinians, the Lebanese,
the Syrians. And with Hamas and Hezbollah.

Because it's only with enemies that one makes peace.
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