Cabinet okays wider ground operation in Lebanon, but chance will be given first to diplomatic efforts
The cabinet authorized Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz to widen the offensive and to determine its timing. According to the decision, however, the two are not obliged to implement the decision.
The offensive would not begin for two or three days so as not interfere with ongoing efforts to broker a cease-fire at the United Nations, said one minister in the meeting.
Labor Party Ministers Shimon Peres and Ophir Pines-Paz, who abstained from voting, said all diplomatic channels must be exhausted before the war is expanded.
This is just mind boggling. What planet are they living on? Diplomatic channels must be exhausted???? Determine it's timing??? Wait another 2 or 3 days???? Why not right now? A month of rockets is not enough? From this decision you would think that we have all the time in the world. Don't they understand that every day that passes means another 150 rockets, more civilians killed or injured, more damage done, more people not working, more damage to the economy? Can anyone explain the logic here?
10 comments:
Bluke, what do you want the government to do? If they launch a fall scale invasion they will get stuck in a massive insurgency. The Shias in southern Lebanon all hate all Jews and Israel. They are taught to believe from the time they are 2 years old. With Israel occupying their territory we would see suicide bomber every hour. It will be 1982 all over again. Many many soldiers will die at a far greater scale than at present. And Hezbollah would garner even more support. A whole nation would regard them as heroes. Israel would find itself in a Vietnam situation. And the carnage would never let up.
The only way militarily to deal with the problem would involve massive civilian casualties in Lebanon. It would require wholesale bombing of southern Lebanon as well as not allowing relief agencies in forcing out Hezbollah fighters due to hunger. When I talk about civilian casualties I mean hundreds of thousands. It would also require massive bombing of Syria and Iran. That might work. But at a very heavy diplomatic price.
Both options would create a reaction from the outside world. The EU and most of the world would impose economic sanctions and the economy in Israel would tank in a way not seen hitherto.
So the government is caught between a rock and hard place.
The most fundamental responsibility of a government is to provide security for it's citizens. The current Israeli government has utterly failed this basic test. For 1 month, 150 rockets a day have been raining down on the North of Israel. 1 million people are either in shelters or homeless. This is a complete and utter failure of the government that needs to be fixed. The pupose of the army is to protect the civilians not vice versa.
The answer was a full scale invasion 4 weeks ago when we had the full support of the world. Once we controlled the territory and basically stopped the rockets the Lebanese would have been begging for a ceasefire and a withdrawal. The government wasted a month doing basically nothing allowing Hezbollah to shoot 150 rockets a day. When Israel was in Lebanon during the late 1990's the average number of soldiers kiled in a year in lebanon was I believe 6.
The answer today is still a full scale invasion, it will be harder now but it is doable.
Ok, if a full scale invasion occurs what will stop Hezbollah returning once we withdraw? What will stop a gerrila insurgency while we occupy Lebonon? Why will be better off than the USA during the Vietnam years?
Ok, if a full scale invasion occurs what will stop Hezbollah returning once we withdraw? What will stop a gerrila insurgency while we occupy Lebonon? Why will be better off than the USA during the Vietnam years?
That is where the multinational force comes in. If Hezbollah is really defeated then it has a chance to work.
Hezbollah defeated?????
uh????????
Hezbollah is an idea that exists in millions of civilians in Southern Lebonon. If one organization is stamped out another will arise! The Palestinian case is an example. The PLO stops violence and hamas takes its place. Hamas gets less keen on violence and Islamic Jihad takes its place. Similar idea with al-keida.
This fight is not one against some organization that can physically be defeated. It exists as an idea in millions of Lebanese. Armed resistance against Israel is something that millions subscribe to. You cannot just drive out 5,000 fighters and expect normality. Even with a UN peacekeeping force.
I predict that even if Hezbollah’s weapons are seized and some of its members are captured or forced to flee, new ones will mushroom up. And it will be rockets and bullets flying over the border all over again.
What really bothers me is that these decisions and deliberations on tactics and strategy are ebing made public. How can you fight a war when you tell the enemy beforehand what you're going to do and how you're going to do it?!
Very true, unfortunately in Israel the politicians all run to the press.
The way to end it is to recognize, as doresh does, that all "good" (i.e. religious) Muslims hate Israel and want to destroy it, as they and their leaders have been saying very publicly. Acting with that enlightening knowledge firmly in mind, the next step is to announce that any village from which a rocket is launched will be flattend from the air, regardless of civilian presence. If civilians don't want themselves to be killed, let them police their own village and make darn well sure that not a peep escapes their area. The next step is for any government leader who opens his mouth in hatred of Israel and calling for its destruction is found dead in his bed the next day. After all guys, Hashem has given us our own army and intelligence. We're not supposed to go like sheep this time.
To defeat one's enemy, you've got to understand him. When the Arabs respected the Jews, after the awesome miracles of the previous wars, notice how quiet and subdued they were. Once they see the weakness of Israel, stemming from lack of belief in G-d and twisted Christo "morals" like "tohar haneshek" rather than Torah-true morals, they begin to raise their eyes from the ground and lick their lips hungrily. Like predators, they attack when they see vulnerability. The beginning of the end (chas v'shalom) was when the leaders of the army and state of Israel begged the Arabs not to flee for their lives (anticipating that what they would have done to innocent and vulnerable women and children whould be done to them in what they expected to be Israel's bloodbath of victory)but to come back and live peacefully with the Jews side by side. The root of our present problem and the "middle eastern cycle of violence" is that we never declared unequivocally, as the Jewish people, that G-d gave this land to us, and only to us, and we will live here forever, with the Arabs living peacefully not among us, but in their 21 other countries. If we had annexed the territories, i doubt we would be in this situation today. We are past due to claim what is rightfully ours, from G-d himself.
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