Friday, August 18, 2006
Results and Prospects of the Second Lebanon War. posted by Richard Seymour
Another incisive article from Daniel in Haifa:Haifa, August 13, 2006
A Historical Prognosis for the Middle East after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
On March 17, 2003, against a background imperialist bombast about the quick defeat of the Iraqi army and the images of alleged Iraqi citizens bringing down Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad, Prensa Obrera published an article by Jorge Altamira entitled “The Middle East: Imperialism's Quagmire,” which gave the following historical prognosis “of what will happen from now on in Iraq”:
Some see the future scenario as a new Intifada; others as a new version of the guerilla resistance that drove out of Lebanon the American marines and the Zionist army; still others foresee a new Vietnam. Whatever the case, the Yankee government’s plans to turn Iraq into a protectorate will undoubtedly backfire and give rise, sooner or later, to a huge anti-imperialist struggle…. The Yankee invasion has not only failed to give political stability to the Middle East but opened up a new cycle of revolutions in the entire region…. A quick look at the map of the Middle East and Central Asia shows that American imperialism has in fact adopted a policy of "infinite warfare." The military occupation of Afghanistan in the East and of Iraq in the West has destabilized all the regimes of the neighboring countries…. The sands of the Middle East will inevitably turn into the swamp of US imperialism. (Source: Prensa Obrera, Nº 959, August 17, 2006.)
More specifically, the article argued that “if the invasion of Iraq had as one of its main objectives to crush the Palestinian resistance, the next step is to dismantle the guerrillas operating under Syrian protection in Lebanon” ( Jorge Altamira, “The Middle East: Imperialism's Swamp,” Prensa Obrera, No. 797, 17 de abril del 2003), our emphasis. —i.e., the article predicted that, after the defeat of Iraq, the next targets of American imperialism would be Iran and Syria, and that the United States would first of all try to destroy their supposed Lebanese arm: Hizballah.
The failure of the pro-imperialist “cedar revolution” in Lebanon
Imperialism first attempted to carry out this plan by maneuvering to its benefit the popular mobilizations that followed the killing of the Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri—a real-estate speculator and the richest bourgeois in the country—on February 14, 2005. Imperialism made some important achievements in the aftermath of this event, such as the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559 (calling for the disarming of Hizballah and the deployment of the Lebanese Army in southern Lebanon), the rise of the Siniora-Hariri team to power, and the withdrawal of the Syrian army, which operated in Lebanon since 1975, from Lebanese territory on April 27, 2005. It should be emphasized that many people in both countries see Lebanon as an artificial creation of French and later American imperialism, set up in order to weaken Syria and the Arab liberation movement in general.
The current Siniora government in Lebanon emerged from the farcical “cedar revolution,” in the course of which pogroms were carried out against Syrian workers. According to Amnesty International, tens of Syrian workers were killed and scores of others beaten, shot, threatened or robbed in Lebanon after the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri, and Lebanese assailants set fire to tents and other temporary housing of Syrian workers. When elections were held in June 2005, Saad al-Hariri (Rafiq’s son, whose personal fortune is estimated at 4.1 billion dollars and appears in the 2006 Forbes list of the richest people in the world) formed an anti-Syrian bloc led by his own “Current for the Future” political movement, that ultimately won 72 of the 128 available seats in the unicameral National Assembly. Fouad Siniora became the prime minister of Lebanon and Saad Hariri the leader of the majority bloc of seats in the Lebanese Parliament.
But the so-called “cedar revolution” in Lebanon failed to achieve the Americans’ main goal, namely the disarming of the Hizballah militia. In the wake of the demonstrations organized by the anti-Syrian opposition, Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah called for a "massive popular gathering" on March 8, 2005, supporting Syria and accusing Israel and the United States of meddling in Lebanon’s internal affairs. Nasrallah also criticized UN Resolution 1559, whose call for the disbanding of all Lebanese militias was aimed against its military wing, the force widely credited for the liberation of south Lebanon from the Israeli army on May 24, 2000. In his speech on March 8, 2005, Nasrallah said: "The resistance (moqawama) will not give up its arms ... because Lebanon needs the resistance to defend it", adding that "all the articles of U.N. resolution give free services to the Israeli enemy, who should have been made accountable for his crimes and now finds that he is being rewarded for his crimes and achieves all its demands." This Beirut rally called by Hizballah dwarfed the earlier anti-Syrian events; the Arab news network Aljazeera reported a figure of 1.5 million demonstrators. The protestors held pictures of Syrian President Bashar Assad and placards reading "No to the American Intervention."
Hizballah’s military act of solidarity with the Palestinian cause
After the failure of the pro-imperialist “cedar revolution” in Lebanon, the United States and its Zionist military base in Israel saw an opportunity to deal with this unfinished business—which, as the Prensa Obrera article remarked, was also meant to crush the Palestinian resistance—after Hizballah’s military act of solidarity with the besieged people of Gaza on July 12, 2006. Hizballah fighters seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, killing three more soldiers and declaring that they would release them if Israel freed Lebanese and Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails.
Much hue and cry was raised about Israel being “attacked” by Hizballah, whose fighters crossed the Lebanese-Israeli border—the “Blue Line.” Nobody seems to remember the numerous kidnappings and assassinations carried out by Israel in Lebanese territory during the last years, the repeated violations of the Lebanese air space by the Israeli air force or the Lebanese political prisoners held without trial in the Israeli dungeons. Technically, therefore, Hizballah did nothing that Israel hadn’t done before in Lebanese territory.
But the political significance of Hizballah’s military act of solidarity with the Palestinians goes well beyond a mere retaliation for Israel’s repeated violations of Lebanese sovereignty. To quote once again from Prensa Obrera, Zionism and imperialism “do not fight Hizballah because it is a terrorist organization. They fight it because, being Lebanese, it has come to the defense of Palestine; because, being Shiite, it came to defend secularists and Sunnis, inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank. They fight it because it gathers the masses instead of promoting a sectarian or civil war. They fight it because, instead of indiscriminate terrorism against civil population, it keeps on its armed resistance against the aggressor military forces. They do not fight it because it is Iran’s or Syria’s instrument… they fight it because it put the solidarity with the Palestine people above the interests of the states and great powers.” (“A Zionist Vietnam or the Endless Barbarity,” Prensa Obrera, No. 956, July 27, 2006.)
The analogy with the Vietnam War
On July 24, 2006, ten days after the outbreak of the war we wrote an article called “The Meaning of the Second Lebanese War,” where we argued that the brutality of the Israeli assault was due to the nature of Imperialism and Zionism as terrorist regimes, whose domination and exploitation of the semi-colonial countries (besides counting on the collaborationist role of the local bourgeoisie) is ultimately based on the disunity and military intimidation of the peoples of the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America. We also pointed out that, like the first Lebanese war of 1975-1990, this war also had the aim of installing a puppet regime in Lebanon under the watchword of "the implementation of United Nations Security Council resolution 1559." Finally, we predicted that, after the failure of the “Yugoslav model” (according to which the war would be won quickly through mass bombings by aerial forces alone), the Zionist army would be forced to “attempt a full-scale invasion of the country by ground troops.” This invasion, we concluded, would bog down thousands of Israeli troops in a high-casualty guerrilla warfare, turning Southern Lebanon into a quagmire for the Zionist-imperialist plans: “Potentially, it's Vietnam all over again—terrible suffering for the Lebanese people and, to a much lesser degree, for the Israeli civilians—but good news for the anti-imperialist fighters all over the world." (“The Meaning of the Second Lebanese War: Zionism and Imperialism as Terrorist Regimes,” Socialist Voice, Number 89, July 28, 2006.)
Three weeks later, this prediction is gradually being confirmed, both as regards the tragedy of the Lebanese civilians (1,130 dead and 3,600 wounded —as against 41 Israeli civilians dead and 46 "seriously and moderately wounded"—and more than 1,000,000 refugees) and the dire military consequences for the invasion army. The Israeli army first occupied, at the cost of dozens of soldiers killed, a so-called “buffer zone” some eight kilometers inside Lebanon, which means nothing in either military or political terms. The ground operation, dubbed "Change of Direction 8," was intended to conquer a border strip of two to three kilometers, which was later expanded to five to six kilometers, including numerous Lebanese villages and towns. The mission was to blow up all Hizballah's outposts in this strip and drive its forces out.
The “security zone” a death trap for the Israeli forces
But, after the Israeli occupation of the so-called “security zone,” the large number and the location of the casualties that the Israel Defense Forces sustained shows, as the military analyst of the Zionist daily Haaretz put it, that “the IDF is still not in control of the strip along Lebanon's border.” In an article that looks like a description of what really happened in the areas supposedly “liberated” by the American army in Vietnam, Ze'ev Schiff wrote: “What happened in Bint Jbail recurred in Ayta al-Shab. Although it seemed that the town had been conquered, it transpired again and again that there were still Hezbollah men in it. Once again, clashes and battles took place, and again, the IDF suffered dead and wounded… Although the army had conquered the town, Hezbollah men were hiding in underground bunkers well camouflaged from the outside. The bunkers had been stocked with large quantities of food, enough to last for weeks, and ammunition, including antitank missiles and, in several cases, short-range rockets… When the fighting dies down, Hezbollah fighters emerge from the bunkers and set up ambushes for IDF soldiers and armored vehicles. That is why soldiers are hit repeatedly in the same places.” After sustaining heavy losses, the IDF decided no to occupy the border towns. “The IDF could forge ahead, as it has done in the last two days in the Marjayoun area. But even after such an incursion, Hezbollah fighters who remain in the bunkers could continue launching rockets. In other words, they could fire toward Israel from behind the lines of IDF forces that have progressed deep into Lebanon.” (Ze'ev Schiff, “IDF still not in control of strip along Lebanon's border,” Haaretz, Friday, August 11, 2006.)
In short, the army is unable to stop the firing of even short-ranged missiles by Hizballah: “The strikes on the home front are becoming worse as the IDF sends more and more brigades into Lebanon. Launchings from areas in which the army is operating have been reduced by half, but Hezbollah combatants simply relocate to the next range of hills and fire from there.” (Amos Harel, “IDF belatedly realizes Lebanon assault is no Kosovo,” Haaretz, August 04, 2006.) At the same time, the “security zone” provides Hizballah with both nation-wide support as a resistance force fighting against a foreign invader and enables its fighters to engage the IDF troops in full-scale guerrilla warfare. Even Zionist analysts wonder whether an international force would be willing to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for the IDF: “Israel intends to hold the security zone as a bargaining chip until a multinational force arrives. The bargaining chip, however, could become a burden if the troops remain in Lebanon for any length of time. Over time, troops on the ground develop a routine, and guerrillas know only too well how to take advantage of this.” (Ibid).
Escaping forwards: The rush to the Litani river
Given the failure of the successive military steps undertaken by Zionism so far, and the huge cost of the war for Israel (estimated at 5 billion dollars, or NIS 23 billion, by the Israeli Finance Ministry: Moti Bassok, Amiram Cohen and Avi Bar-Eli, “War cost: NIS 23 billion, including compensation, treasury estimates,” Haaretz, Sunday, August 13, 2006.), the “Labor” party Defense Minister of Israel, the war criminal and former Histadrut leader Amir Peretz, came up with a brilliant idea: “Defense Minister Amir Peretz told Israel Defense Forces officials on Thursday evening to begin preparing for the next stage of the military offensive in south Lebanon, which would extend the IDF's control to all Lebanese territory south of the Litani River. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, however, was reluctant about expanding Israel's ground operation.” (Ze'ev Schiff, Amos Harel and Aluf Benn, “Peretz to IDF: Plan to take territory up to Litani,” Haaretz, Sunday, August 6, 2006.) The move, which meant a further call-up of reservist soldiers, was eventually approved in principle by the security cabinet, but its application was suspended pending further diplomatic developments, after the IDF tasted the first fruits of the Hizballah guerrillas in Bint Jbail, Maroun al-Ras, Ayta al-Shab, Debel, and other villages of southern Lebanon which have become symbols of the successful resistance to the Israeli army.
Vice Premier Shimon Peres put the case for the “diplomatic channel” most clearly on August 9: “Fifteen victims a day is a proof of the price we are likely to pay if we don't try to utilize the diplomatic process to the fullest." (Ronny Sofer, “Peres: Give diplomacy a chance,” Ynetnews, August10, 2006.). On the other hand, an Haaretz editorial presented the case for the Zionist warmongers: when defeated, rush to the Litani river. “Despite the efforts of the prime minister and IDF generals to enumerate the IDF's achievements, the war as it approaches its end is seen by the region and the world—and even by the Israeli public—as a stinging defeat with possibly fateful implications…. Now, at this late and critical stage of the conflict, the IDF must propose, recommend and indeed must demand political approval—public approval is clearly assured—for extensive operations that can snatch a victory from the jaws of looming defeat.” (Haaretz Editorial, “Snatch a possible victory,” Haaretz, Friday, August 11, 2006.)
Eventually, an incoherent compromise was adopted: Israel accepted the UN Security Council Resolution 1701, calling for “a full cessation of hostilities” starting Monday (August 14, 2006), while simultaneously dropping thousands of paratroopers along the Litani river, which it had been unable to reach by land due to the Hizballah’s successful military resistance (moqawama) to the Israeli army. An estimated 30,000 Israeli troops are now operating in Lebanese territory. Yesterday, (Saturday, August 12, 2006), than 24 Israeli troops were killed in a single day by the resistance, five of whom belonged to the aircrew of a helicopter shot down by a missile launched by the Hizballah fighters.
Political crisis in Israel and revolutionary mood among the Arab masses
According to Haaretz analyst Avraham Tal, the “supreme objective” of the Israeli military aggression in Lebanon was “the restoration of Israel’s deterrence.” (Avraham Tal, “Deterrence put to the test,” Haaretz, Fri., August 04, 2006). That is the thread running through all the Zionist analyses of the war: the Zionists’ panic at the possibility that the Arab masses will lose their fear of the Israeli army and realize that Zionism and imperialism can and must be defeated. Ze'ev Sternhell, an Haaretz analyst, wandered how “the campaign's goals have been reduced and shrunk during these three weeks. From restoring Israel's power of deterrence, eliminating Hezbollah, and disarming it immediately—after three weeks we have arrived at the present goal, which is the dismantling of the forward outposts of Hezbollah and the deployment of an international force to defend the North of Israel from the possibility of a repeat attack…. Is this how we are restoring the IDF's power of deterrence? Haven't we accomplished exactly the opposite? Hasn't it become clear to the entire world that our "invincible" air force not only failed for three weeks to end the barrage of rockets, but also even needs an emergency airlift of war materiel, as during the 1973 Yom Kippur War?” He went on to argue that “several thousand guerrilla fighters constitute an existential danger to a country with a strike force and weaponry that are unparalleled in this part of the world,” and concluded that “the present war is the most unsuccessful we have ever had; it is much worse than the first Lebanon War, which at least was properly prepared, and in which, with the exception of gaining control over the Beirut-Damascus highway, the army more or less achieved its goals as determined by then-defense minister Ariel Sharon.” (Ze'ev Sternhell, “The most unsuccessful war,” Haaretz, Sat., August 05, 2006.)
The political crisis in Israel has reached such proportions that even during the war there have been calls in the mainstream Zionist media for the government to resign. Ari Shavit, an Haaretz correspondent, argued that “Olmert cannot remain in the prime minister's office”: “You cannot bury 120 Israelis in cemeteries, keep a million Israelis in shelters for a month, wear down deterrent power, bring the next war very close, and then say - oops, I made a mistake.” (Ari Shavit, “Olmert cannot remain in the prime minister's office,” Haaretz, Fri., August 11, 2006). The same criticism has been aimed, in even sharper terms, against Amir Peretz, who is trying to save face by appearing (together with his fellow “Labor” minister and former general Binyamin Ben Eliezer) as the spokesman of the most war-mongering wing of the government. Many analysts also wonder about the potential reaction of the Israeli “home front,” i.e. the Arab and Jewish masses living under direct control of the Zionist state. The “powerful” state of Israel has not only failed to protect its own citizens against Hizballah’s rockets and the Arab towns and cities that, because of the lack of shelters, suffered proportionately more casualties than the Jewish ones. It is also going to throw the costs of the war on the poor, the workers and the petty bourgeoisie: the Israeli cabinet has already decided to cut some two billion shekels from the national budget and the finance ministry is going to raise taxes, mainly on small businesses.
The counterpart to the political crisis in Israel is the widespread reports in the Arab media that a revolutionary mood is developing among the masses of the Middle East. Even the Zionists agree that those regimes that adopted a more anti-imperialist stance (notably Syria) have come out strengthened from the current crisis. (Shmuel Rosner, “The Pentagon is worried by Syria's 'rising self-confidence',” Haaretz, Fri., August 11, 2006.) Even more importantly, the "relations between Arab leaders and their peoples now stand at the edge of total estrangement. The Arab regimes have been exposed to their populations as the epitome of subservience to their American masters." (Doha Al Zohairy, “Arab street rallies behind Hezbollah,” Aljazeera, Cairo, 1 August 2006.) The growing discontent was exemplified by the mass demonstrations expressing support for Lebanon and Hizballah in the capitals of Iraq, Yemen, and Egypt, as well as in the West Bank cities.
A senior Hizbullah officiall said openly what is now in the mind of every politically conscious Palestinian and Arab: the countdown has begun for the Zionist entity in Palestine. Ahmed Barakat, a member of Hizbullah's central council, declared in an interview to Qatari newspaper al-Watan that "today Arab and Muslim society is reasonably certain that the defeat of Israel is possible and that countdown to the disappearance of the Zionist entity in the region has begun." According to Barakat, "this is the reason why Shimon Peres said it was a life or death battle and this is why the triumph of the resistance is the beginning of the death of the Israeli enemy. For, if a mere organization succeeded in defeating Israel, why would Arab nations not succeed in doing so if they allied? Many Arabs and Muslims viewed Israel in a fictional way and the resistance has succeeded in changing this." (Roee Nahmias, “Hizbullah: Countdown has begun to end of Zionist entity,” Ynetnews, August 13, 2006.)
Imperialism’s diplomatic offensive and the Zionist swamp in Lebanon
While these lines were written, the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 1701, a text modeled on a draft submitted by the American and French imperialists, aimed at achieving a “full cessation of hostilities” in Lebanon. The aim of the resolution is to prevent Israel from falling even deeper into the Lebanese swamp and from suffering an even worse defeat, increasing the present crisis of the American occupation in Iraq. From a formal point of view, resolution 1701 is not much different from resolution 1559, providing for the withdrawal of Hizballah’s militias from southern Lebanon and their eventual disarmament. The main question will be the character and capacity of the army that will be sent to the south of the Litani river to stop the Lebanese resistance against Israel.
Point 2 of Resolution 1701 “calls upon the government of Lebanon and UNIFIL (the UN Interim Force in Lebanon),” which will be increased to a maximum of 15,000 troops, “to deploy their forces together throughout the south and calls upon the government of Israel, as that deployment begins, to withdraw all of its forces from southern Lebanon in parallel.” Point 3 “emphasizes the importance of the extension of the control of the government of Lebanon over all Lebanese territory in accordance with the provisions of resolution 1559 (2004) and resolution 1680 (2006), and of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords*, for it to exercise its full sovereignty, so that there will be no weapons without the consent of the government of Lebanon and no authority other than that of the government of Lebanon.” Point 8 requires again “the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon [i.e. of Hisballah], so that… there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state” and provides for an embargo on the transfer of military supplies to Hizballah from Iran and Syria: “no sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its government”—a key imperialist-Zionist demand repeated on point 15. (“Full text: UN Lebanon resolution,” Aljazeera, Sunday, August 13, 2006.)
The question is, of course, who will implement all these—for Zionism and imperialism—wonderful measures. Who will uproot the Hizballah militias from southern Lebanon, if the Israeli army was unable to do it in a month of massive bombing and fighting? Who will disarm Hizballah’s militia, something that the imperialists have been unable to do during the last two years (ever since the implementation of resolution 1559 in 2004), despite all their bullying? Who will implement the arms embargo against the will of Iran, Syria and the majority of the Lebanese population that sees in Hizballah the only reason why Israel didn’t invade Beirut in a few days as during the first Lebanese war in 1982? Certainly not UNIFIL, that “pensioners’ army” as Olmert not inaccurately called it. Nasrallah has already declared that as long as any Israeli soldiers occupy Lebanese territory they will be legitimate targets for the resistance, which will continue fighting until all foreign invaders are removed from the country.
The Zionists fantasize about a contingent of 15,000 imperialist troops that will somehow materialize in the next few weeks and do the job that they were unable to do for the US. They dream about French, Australian and German troops that will come and do the actual fighting with the Lebanese resistance as the IDF retreats safely home—Paris, Sidney and Berlin having apparently developed a sudden fondness for coffins arriving at their airports every day. Without any pretensions to military expertise, we confidently predict that nobody in a foreign country will be willing to risk their lives for the sake of the miserable Zionist enterprise, that if Israeli soldiers remain in Southern Lebanon they will be bogged down as much as the Americans soldiers were in south Vietnam and suffer many casualties in a war of attrition, and that the eventual Israeli retreat will be as sudden and shameful as the one orchestrated by Ehud Barak on May 24, 2000.
The current war and the revolutionary perspective in Palestine
The current war has substantially deepened the crisis of the Zionist regime in Palestine, which up until now has been, as we already remarked elsewhere, purely the result of the Palestinian and Arab struggle (including the triumph of Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza) rather than of a common working-class struggle overcoming national barriers. The Zionist segregation regime in Palestine can be dismantled in a number of ways. It may fall as a result of a military defeat and leave behind a devastated country and region, much like Germany and Europe in the aftermath of the Nazi defeat. Roberto Rossellini’s movie Germania anno zero can provide an idea of how Palestine and the Middle East will look like if Zionism has to be defeated by purely military means.
Zionism can also theoretically be dismantled, like the Apartheid regime in South Africa, as a result of mass uprisings in the region that would be contained by imperialism by granting formal democratic reforms while leaving untouched the property system. Of course any measure providing for the end of partition, the return of the refugees to their homes, and the granting of full democratic rights to all the inhabitants of the historic territory of Palestine should be supported unconditionally, but this purely bourgeois democratic scenario is highly unlikely in the current circumstances, because the usefulness of the Zionist regime for the imperialists stems from it military rather than its economic role, and the dismantling of the Israeli army would represent a serious blow for imperialism.
That is why the Trotskyists in Palestine raise the program of attempting to gain the Jewish workers and poor to the cause of repudiating Zionism and engaging in a common struggle with the Arab masses. The precondition for the emancipation of the Jewish masses and their survival in the Middle East is the emancipation of the Palestinian people and the overthrow of the Zionist regime of national oppression and social misery, for a secular, democratic and socialist republic in the entire historic territory of Palestine, as part of a united Arab nation and a socialist federation of peoples of the Middle East.
A "Postwar" Afterword
Haifa, August 17, 2006
The preceding pages were written during the last day of the war, when, against all the predictions of the Zionist military "experts," Hizballah dropped a record numbers of missiles on the Northern area of Israel and especially on the city of Haifa. Since August 14 at 7:30 AM, no more sirens or explosions have been heard, and the war has, as far as the civilian population of Israel is concerned, finished, although there are still thousands of Israeli troops occupying Southern Lebanon and their complete withdrawal in the coming weeks is by no means assured.
Though Olmert and Bush are doing their best to market the second Lebanese war as an Israeli triumph, there are widespread feelings in Israel that it was a resounding failure, and many voices call for a second round, if not immediately then in the next few years. But if Seymour Hersh's article in the New Yorker, according to which the Zionist aggression in Lebanon was a sort of pilot project (in his own words, "the mirror image") of what the United States has been planning for Iran, is correct, then Israeli's defeat in Lebanon would help prevent a planned American-Israeli war against Iran. Hersh argued that the Bush administration was convinced "that successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah's heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel's security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran's nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground." Yet the IDF's failure in Lebanon "may, in the end, serve as a warning to the White House about Iran. If the most dominant military force in the region—the Israel Defense Forces—can't pacify a country like Lebanon, with a population of four million, you should think carefully about taking that template to Iran, with strategic depth and a population of seventy million." Again: "The surprising strength of Hezbollah's resistance, and its continuing ability to fire rockets into northern Israel in the face of the constant Israeli bombing … is a massive setback for those in the White House who want to use force in Iran. And those who argue that the bombing will create internal dissent and revolt in Iran are also set back." (Seymour M. Hersh, “Test Case: Washington's interests in Israel's war,” The New Yorker, August 21, 2006.)
Zionism's military defeat in Lebanon led to a deep crisis in the Israeli army and government. The press revealed that Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Dan Halutz sold a NIS 120,000 investment portfolio a few hours after the two IDF soldiers were abducted by Hizballah on the northern border, and it is clear to everybody that he cannot escape resignation in the coming weeks. (The Marker, “Chief of staff dumped his stocks three hours after soldiers' abduction,” Haaretz, Thu., August 17, 2006.) Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz announced Tuesday that he had decided to indict MK Tzahi Hanegbi, currently the chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and a leading member of the government party Kadima, for making 80 illegal political appointments to the Environment Ministry between 2001 and 2003. (Dan Izenberg, “Mazuz indicts Hanegbi for political appointments,” Jerusalem Post, Tue., August 15, 2006.) The police said Tuesday that there is sufficient evidence to indict Justice Minister Haim Ramon, another leading member of Kadima, for sexual harassment of a government worker last month. (Jonathan Lis, “Police: Solid evidence in Haim Ramon sexual harassment case,” Haaretz, Tue., August 15, 2006.) Ramon will almost surely share the fate of the current President of Israel, Moshe Katzav, who also faces sexual harassment charges by at least five women and will have to resign in the near future. (Esti Aharonovitch and Roni Singer-Heruti, “Five more women accuse President Katsav of sexual harassment,” Haaretz, Thu., August 17, 2006.) Finally, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert himself has been summoned to an investigation in the State Comptroller's office for illicitly receiving about half a million dollars from the contractor who sold him his new house. Haaretz columnist Ari Shavit predicted that, as a result of the bribery deal, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz will have no choice but to open a criminal inquiry against the prime minister and his wife and concluded: "It is highly doubtful that Olmert could even temporarily survive such a police probe considering the present public mood. Chances are that within about two months he will no longer be Israel's prime minister." (Ari Shavit, “Dead man walking,” Haaretz, Thu., August 17, 2006.)
The mood among the Zionists was described most vividly by Reuven Pedatzur in Haaretz:
When the largest and strongest army in the Middle East clashes for more than two weeks with 50 Hezbollah fighters in Bint Jbail and does not bring them to their knees, the commanders are left with no choice but to point to the number of dead fighters the enemy has left behind. It can be assumed that Bint Jbail will turn into a symbol of the second Lebanon war. For the Hezbollah fighters it will be remembered as their Stalingrad, and for us it will be a painful reminder of the IDF's defeat.
Ze'ev Schiff wrote in Haaretz on August 11 that we had "gotten a slap." It seems that "knockout" would be a more appropriate description. This is not a mere military defeat. This is a strategic failure whose far-reaching implications are still not clear. And like the boxer who took the blow, we are still lying dazed on the ground, trying to understand what happened to us. Just like the Six-Day War led to a strategic change in the Middle East and established Israel's status as the regional power, the second Lebanon war may bring about the opposite. The IDF's failure is eroding our national security's most important asset—the belligerent image of this country, led by a vast, strong and advanced army capable of dealing our enemies a decisive blow if they even try to bother us. This war, it soon transpired, was about "awareness" and "deterrence." We lost the fight for both. (Reuven Pedatzur, “The Day After / How we suffered a knockout,” Haaretz, Thu., August 17, 2006.)
The situation in the Arab world and the Middle East is quite the opposite. The refugees as returning to Southern Lebanon en masse, waving Hizballah flags and carrying pictures of Nasrallah, despite the flyers dropped by Israeli airplanes calling on them to stay away from their homes until an imperialist army is deployed in their cities and villages. Hizballah already declared that it has no intention of disarming its militia, which is surely rearming quickly since the opening of the roads from Syria to Lebanon. The UNIFIL force is still a Fata Morgana, and the Lebanese army (35 percent of whose members are Shiites and 25 percent Sunnis) has announced that, though it will deploy forces in the South, it has no intention of disarming the resistance. Huge celebrations of the Hizballah victory against the IDF invasion plans were held in Teheran, and Syrian President Bashar Assad gave a speech on Tuesday declaring that America's plan for a "new Middle East" has collapsed "because of the achievements of the resistance." Assad said this war revealed the limitations of Israel's military power: while in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Israeli forces surrounded Beirut within seven days, in this opportunity after five weeks Israel was "still struggling to occupy a few hundred meters." (Eli Ashkenazi, “Assad: U.S. plan for Mideast is 'illusion' after Lebanon war,” Haaretz, Thu., August 17, 2006.)
Evidently anti-imperialism has become the vogue, even among unsavory characters like the Assad dynasty in Syria. Those are surface manifestations of the deep revolutionary mood developing among the Arab masses, which will surely find more honest and effective expressions in the near future.
* The Taif Accords were signed on October 22, 1989. The Lebanese National Assembly meeting in Taif, Saudi Arabia, endorsed an “accord for national reconciliation” which restructured the political system in Lebanon by transferring some of the power away from the Maronite Christian community, which had been given a privileged status in Lebanon under French colonial rule. The accords established a cabinet divided equally between Christians and Muslims. Prior to Taif, the Sunni Prime Minister was appointed by and responsible to the Maronite President. After Taif the Prime Minister was responsible to the legislature, as in a traditional parliamentary system. But representation in the legislature is still apportioned according to Lebanon’s anti-democratic confessionalist system, by which government offices are distributed according to religion. The 128 seats in the Lebanese parliament are apportioned confessionally as follows (58.7% Muslims and 41.3% Christians): 34 Maronite Christians, 27 Sunnites, 27 Shiites, 14 Greek, Orthodox, 8 Greek Catholics, 8 Druzes, and 10 members of other religious denominations.