Today, I can do no better than to quote Yigal Sarena, from Ynet (Yediot Ahronot)
But I am not sure that he's right about Lebanon having the only strong, effective army...
Where will it all end?
I know: Vanity, vanity, all is vanity...
May you have a peaceful Sabbath...
Ruth
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3275645,00.html
A most unnecessary war
Experienced politicians and cautious Americans could have avoided this war
Yigal Sarena
It has always appeared to me that in war, wisdom comes after the fact. After the destruction and the mourning. Afterwards, summation reports appear to outline just how stupid we were, books are written about all the mistakes we made, and about just how we allowed ourselves to be dragged into a trap it will take 10 or 20 years to extricate ourselves from.
Gaza and Lebanon are traps we return to periodically. The cemeteries I visit each year on Memorial Day to visit my friends' graves – Tzupar, Tziki, Ori and Mintz – are full of casualties from Gaza and Lebanon.
Now, too. We are facing a wholly unnecessary war. Previous wars were followed by deterioration, failed negotiations, political freeze. The July, 2006 war was followed by elections – in Israel and the PA.
No leaders
In both places there is a vacuum of leadership. Leaders are confused and arrogant, and security forces are sitting with itchy fingers and looking for action.
The crushing of Beirut and the destruction of Nahariya will be the most unnecessary war we've ever fought. Every thing that happens could have been predicted and prevented, if only we'd had experienced politicians to act alongside restrained Americans.
This is a war that has quickly disintegrated due to armed militias and a strong army, hurt and seething for revenge and lacking all stops.
Failure to capitalize
The recent past, following the blood-soaked second intifada , is full of our own mistakes. The death of Yasser Arafat that so many people waited for was not capitalized on. Israel failed to strengthen Mahmoud Abbas, and the Fatah party prepared for elections emasculated. Israel and the United States supported those elections, and Hamas emerged victorious.
We pulled out of Gaza unilaterally and left Gaza a wasteland. I have visited Gaza many times since the pullout and sensed the hell of hunger, the misery. It is a pressure cooker with no release valve.
"A cat pushed into a corner becomes a panther," goes the Arab saying. The miserable Gaza panther fires its annoying tin-can Qassams as a call of poverty from those choking, those who lack answers.
Boomerang
But when the army's pride took a blow and Gilad Shalit was kidnapped, the army hit back with all its might. Instead of negotiations, patience and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, our forces have killed about 100 Gazans over the last month, many, many of them civilians, including women and children.
The reaction came as a boomerang from Lebanon, the only Arab country with a strong, effective army, that came along and humiliated the IDF by hitting a weak spot. (Ruth's comment: that makes it worse that they've let the Hizbollah militia sit in the south!)
In Lebanon, as in Gaza, the army made its decision and responded. The civilian echelon, which was so weakened during the intifada it just about disappeared, is just about invisible.
All the gains from the Lebanon and Gaza were lost in the blink of an eye. All that would seem left for us now is to consider the developments of new tragedy, of stupidity and blindness on both sides, both of whom lack wise leaders who could put out the fire before it consumes us all.
Friday, July 14, 2006
Thursday, July 13, 2006
From a different war....
I once wrote a doctorate. It was a long time ago - just after our last "official" war in Israel (our local version of the "Gulf War"). I was always too lazy to publish it. Eventually I came to my senses and engaged an editor, who's doing a fine job of adapting it for publication.
Donna sent me chapter 4 today, with the following comment:
I wanted to send the material to you now in case all hell breaks loose here... The thought of going into the smelly, dirty and disgusting miklat in our building that has probably never been used is very disconcerting to me. But we are sitting here between XXX and XXX, so who knows. What a world.
So I replied to her as follows:
Dear Donna
Thank you very much for being a beacon of sanity and stability...
Re the chapter and the bill: certainly, send and I shall pay. Can't have you down in the disgusting miklat [shelter] with no money to stock up on goodies and a chemical toilet...Reminds me of January 2001. My husband (then aged 44) had been called up under a Tsav 8 [emergency call-up order] and was somewhere outside on a hillside overlooking the Jordan. They were saying it was going to be non-chemical attacks and we'd have to go into the miklatim. Ours in our building was what you wrote. So I spent the first Motzei Shabbat of the war cleaning it out - just like playing "homes" when we were kids. I even borrowed some old rugs and curtains from neighbours, having first vacuumed the place out of all the cobwebs, peeling paint, and whatever. There was no light in the ceiling, so I used floor lamps. It was truly lovely. It was the time when the winter rains had decided Israel was not a place for them, and people were praying for rain down at the Kotel. On Sunday it started to rain. And it rained. So of course it started getting damp down there. Always a problem. But we'd had it fixed the previous year. Not. So I removed the soft furnishings before they became completely waterlogged. On Monday afternoon a client came to see me, and told me that the water was rising up the basement stairs. I had to go down and rescue a neighbour's invaluable tape recordings of Ethiopian Jews in Ethiopia. She'd placed them on a baking tray, in a package triple wrapped in plastic. The baking tray was on an empty oil drum.Archimedes was right and as the water rose, the drum rose with it and - tipped over. The package of tapes floated in the water - just.I spend the rest of the afternoon unwrapping scores of tapes.My husband, on a brief leave, came home and spent the rest of the evening with me laying the tapes out in our neighbour's flat. That's largely what I remember of the Gulf War. What are we going to call this one? Milhemet Shalit? ("Shalit War") What a mess. And indeed, what a world. So if I were you, I'd get together with some neighbours (how many are you in your building?) and provide some cheer down there. And hopefully the "umbrella principle" will work...
Donna sent me chapter 4 today, with the following comment:
I wanted to send the material to you now in case all hell breaks loose here... The thought of going into the smelly, dirty and disgusting miklat in our building that has probably never been used is very disconcerting to me. But we are sitting here between XXX and XXX, so who knows. What a world.
So I replied to her as follows:
Dear Donna
Thank you very much for being a beacon of sanity and stability...
Re the chapter and the bill: certainly, send and I shall pay. Can't have you down in the disgusting miklat [shelter] with no money to stock up on goodies and a chemical toilet...Reminds me of January 2001. My husband (then aged 44) had been called up under a Tsav 8 [emergency call-up order] and was somewhere outside on a hillside overlooking the Jordan. They were saying it was going to be non-chemical attacks and we'd have to go into the miklatim. Ours in our building was what you wrote. So I spent the first Motzei Shabbat of the war cleaning it out - just like playing "homes" when we were kids. I even borrowed some old rugs and curtains from neighbours, having first vacuumed the place out of all the cobwebs, peeling paint, and whatever. There was no light in the ceiling, so I used floor lamps. It was truly lovely. It was the time when the winter rains had decided Israel was not a place for them, and people were praying for rain down at the Kotel. On Sunday it started to rain. And it rained. So of course it started getting damp down there. Always a problem. But we'd had it fixed the previous year. Not. So I removed the soft furnishings before they became completely waterlogged. On Monday afternoon a client came to see me, and told me that the water was rising up the basement stairs. I had to go down and rescue a neighbour's invaluable tape recordings of Ethiopian Jews in Ethiopia. She'd placed them on a baking tray, in a package triple wrapped in plastic. The baking tray was on an empty oil drum.Archimedes was right and as the water rose, the drum rose with it and - tipped over. The package of tapes floated in the water - just.I spend the rest of the afternoon unwrapping scores of tapes.My husband, on a brief leave, came home and spent the rest of the evening with me laying the tapes out in our neighbour's flat. That's largely what I remember of the Gulf War. What are we going to call this one? Milhemet Shalit? ("Shalit War") What a mess. And indeed, what a world. So if I were you, I'd get together with some neighbours (how many are you in your building?) and provide some cheer down there. And hopefully the "umbrella principle" will work...
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