Israel's next war has begun - Yossi Klein Halevi

Yossi Klein Halevi, the New Republic's MidEast Correspondant was a big fan of `disengagement' from Gaza. He now belatedly states some fairly obvious truths that readers of JoshuaPundit have been aware of for some time. It's an effort by a liberal to backtrack a bit in view of recent events...something I'm not really prepared to allow him to get away with. Nevertheless, it's a good summary by an excellent writer, and worth the read. I reproduce it in it's entirety because the New Republic, like some other print media, is a bit stingy with content and can be hard to link to after the initial day or so.

The emphasis and snide comments in blue are mine....but you knew that, right?

Here is the link, for anyone who wants to see this in its original:Israel's next war has begun


ISRAEL'S NEXT WAR HAS BEGUN.
Battle Plans
by Yossi Klein Halevi


The next Middle East war--Israel against genocidal Islamism--has begun.(Actually, it began a long time ago, IMO Yossi, in 1948)The first stage of the war started two weeks ago, with the Israeli incursion into Gaza in response to the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier and the ongoing shelling of Israeli towns and kibbutzim; now, with Hezbollah's latest attack, the war has spread to southern Lebanon. Ultimately, though, Israel's antagonists won't be Hamas and Hezbollah but their patrons, Iran and Syria. The war will go on for months, perhaps several years. There may be lulls in the fighting, perhaps even temporary agreements and prisoner exchanges. But those periods of calm will be mere respites.

(In fact, the way I see it, the longer Israel futzes around, the bigger problem they will have. If this lasts a couple of months, Iran will bring in ground forces to fight to Jews on the Syrian and Lebanese border if Olmert lets things drag on for a couple of months and allows the Iranians time to deploy their men and supplies. Either Olmert had better catch fire and let the IDF do their job or Israel had better find someone who can. And Olmert had best get rid of Peretz as Defense minister in any case and find someone who actually has military command experience.)

The goals of the war should be the destruction of the Hamas regime and the dismantling of the Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon. Israel cannot coexist with Iranian proxies pressing in on its borders. In particular, allowing Hamas to remain in power--and to run the Palestinian educational system--will mean the end of hopes for Arab-Israeli reconciliation not only in this generation but in the next one too.

(And Fatah are the good guys, eh? Change this to `the destruction of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Palestinian Authority' and THAT makes sense,in terms of a long term solution.)

For the Israeli right, this is the moment of "We told you so." The fact that the kidnappings and missile attacks have come from southern Lebanon and Gaza--precisely the areas from which Israel has unilaterally withdrawn--is proof, for right-wingers, of the bankruptcy of unilateralism. Yet the right has always misunderstood the meaning of unilateral withdrawal. Those of us who have supported unilateralism didn't expect a quiet border in return for our withdrawal but simply the creation of a border from which we could more vigorously defend ourselves, with greater domestic consensus and international understanding. The anticipated outcome, then, wasn't an illusory peace but a more effective way to fight the war. The question wasn't whether Hamas or Hezbollah would forswear aggression but whether Israel would act with appropriate vigor to their continued aggression.

(Are you trying to deny that the Israeli people weren't sold a fairy tale by Sharon and the Kadima government that if they just tossed those nasty settlers out of their homes, gave the land to the Arabs and hid behind the fence there would be peace? Gee, I guess you were wrong, weren't you? Just like you were wrong about Oslo. At least have the grace to admit it..it won't hurt for long, and we can move on.)

So it wasn't the rocket attacks that were a blow to the unilateralist camp, but rather Israel's tepid responses to those attacks. If unilateralists made a mistake, it was in believing our political leaders--including Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert--when they promised a policy of zero tolerance against any attacks emanating from Gaza after Israel's withdrawal. That policy was not implemented--until two weeks ago. Now, belatedly, the Olmert government is trying to regain something of its lost credibility, and that is the real meaning of this initial phase of the war, both in Gaza and in Lebanon.

(Umm, not quite true, Yossi. The Israelis were TOLD that they would be able to `disengage' and forget about the Palestinians..and that this retreat would `consolidate the IDf ' who would no longer have to `protect the settlers'. In fact, as we've all found out, the IDF was in Gaza to protect ISRAEL. And making Gaza Jew free made deterence more difficult. Not to mention putting Israel's cities in qassam missile range.)

Still, many in Israel believe that, even now, the government is acting with excessive restraint. One centrist friend of mine, an Olmert voter, said to me, "If we had assassinated [Hamas leader] Haniyeh after the first kidnapping, [Hezbollah leader] Nasrallah would have thought twice about ordering another kidnapping." Israel, then, isn't paying for the failure of unilateral withdrawal, but for the failure to fulfill its promise to seriously respond to provocations after withdrawal.

( Maybe. But Iran would still have wanted Hezbollah to ramp up the attacks against Israel, regardless, to buy time for Iran's nukes program, I think. And the withdrawals gave the Palestinians a platform to shoot rockets at Israel and make raids that they otherwise would not have had. And the confidence to carry out the attacks. And you conveniently forget that Fatah's al Aqsa brigade ALSO kidnapped a Jew, teenager Eliahu Asheri and murdered him. So does Abbas get a pass for Fatah's kidnapping? Why just assasinate Haniyeh? In reality, assasinating neither of these terrorist leaders is an answer. Defeating Hamas, Fatah and the entire terrorist infrastructure built by Arafat thanks to the Israeli left's fiasco known as Oslo decisively and driving them away for Israel is the answer.

Isreal has lived with hostile forces on its borders before..but the IDF and massive retaliation for any attacks was always a factor in keeping the jihadis at a distance. Destroy these people militarily and annex strategic borders instead of uprooting your own people and merely giving the jihadis a closer platform to shoot rockets and carry out terrorist raids against Israel. And once you annex those borders, move every non-Israeli Arab to the other side of them.

If you have any plans of ever living in relative peace. Or living at all, for that matter)

Absurdly, despite Israel's withdrawal to the international borders with Lebanon and Gaza, much of the international community still sees the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers as a legitimate act of war: Just as Israel holds Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners, so Hamas and Hezbollah now hold Israeli prisoners. One difference, though, is that inmates in Israeli jails receive visits from family and Red Cross representatives, while Israeli prisoners in Gaza and Lebanon disappear into oblivion. Like Israeli pilot Ron Arad, who was captured by Hezbollah 20 years ago, then sold to Iran, and whose fate has never been determined. That is one reason why Israelis are so maddened by the kidnapping of their soldiers.

Another reason is the nature of the crimes committed by the prisoners whose release is being demanded by Hezbollah and Hamas. One of them is Samir Kuntar, a PLO terrorist who in 1979 broke into an apartment in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, took a father and child hostage, and smashed the child's head against a rock. In the Palestinian Authority, Kuntar is considered a hero, a role model for Palestinian children.

The ultimate threat, though, isn't Hezbollah or Hamas but Iran. And as Iran draws closer to nuclear capability--which the Israeli intelligence community believes could happen this year--an Israeli-Iranian showdown becomes increasingly likely. According to a very senior military source with whom I've spoken, Israel is still hoping that an international effort will stop a nuclear Iran; if that fails, then Israel is hoping for an American attack. But if the Bush administration is too weakened to take on Iran, then, as a last resort, Israel will have to act unilaterally. And, added the source, Israel has the operational capability to do so.

(You REALLY expect the `international community to do anything about Iran? Talk about big time denial! The only possible country that might take out Iran's nukes is the US..and I think you had better not put all your chips on that, unfortunately. I hope your source knows what he's talking about. Jabotinsky was right)

For Israelis, that is the worst scenario of all. Except, of course, the scenario of nuclear weapons in the hands of the patron state of Hezbollah and Hamas.

Yossi Klein Halevi is a foreign correspondent for The New Republic and senior fellow of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem.