War As Make Nice Israel’s commendable but costly military tactic Has a nation every conducted a war like the one Israel is waging against Hezbollah? Instead of the usual “war is hell,” it’s more like an attempt to conduct war as make nice. Do we hear announcements from Israel anywhere remotely near “we will destroy you to the last man”? No, we hear niceties like: "… terrorist elements ... are using you as human shields by launching rockets toward the state of Israel from your homes." "All cars and of any type will be shelled if seen moving south of the Litani River because it will be considered a suspect of transferring rockets, military ammunitions and those causing destruction.” “You need to know that anyone moving in any type of car will put their life in danger." Leaflets warn of a "painful and strong" response to attacks by Hezbollah and warn the residents of three suburbs in the south of Lebanon to evacuate. And, to make nice even more, Israel has granted the Red Cross "freedom of movement" for its convoys, which have been providing aid to people in Lebanon. Yes, many Lebanese civilians have been killed – 689 at last count. But there has also been a toll among the Israelis: at last, count, 36 civilians and 67 soldiers dead, and each death is a heartrending tragedy. But war does come with some unavoidable loss of life. In the wake of this unprecedented war with warnings, numerous Israeli soldiers have confessed that they feel the army should be hitting Hezbollah harder but is being held back by the government’s concern for civilian casualties. Finally, just as the UN reached agreement on a cease-fire plan, Israel moved ahead with force. Yet the initial tardiness is still evident. Just days earlier, Lt. Col. Svika Nezer, the commander of an artillery battery a few miles outside Kiryat Shemona, said his unit was only using about 20 percent of its firepower. "We could do much, much more. But the orders we get are limited." Meanwhile, Ehud Olmert made nice right away by declaring that a proposal by Lebanon to send 15,000 troops south to prevent attacks by Hezbollah is “interesting,” even though under the Lebanon’s watch the guerilla group has been able to amass an arsenal of thousands of missiles aimed at Israel. He also made nice big time by agreeing to put a larger offensive on hold to give the international community more time to work out a peace plan. Apparently, by Friday afternoon, he had finally had enough of make nice and announced that the larger offensive had begun. Apparently, much of the Israeli cabinet wants to make nice, too. Rafi Eitan, a cabinet minister, said on Israel radio, "There are diplomatic considerations. There is still a chance that an international force will arrive in the area. We have no interest in being in south Lebanon. We have an interest in peace on our borders." To confirm the unusual facts before us, the usual parade of retired American generals has appeared on CNN and Fox News, stating that Israel is prosecuting the war in a way that exceeds the requirements of the Geneva Accords and with more care to control collateral deaths than even the proudly idealistic US when it goes to war. And, by the way, did Harry Truman, generally recognized presidential hero but quintessential pragmatist, drop leaflets on Japan before we dropped the two A-Bombs? If you still believe Israel erred on the side of excess, compare this indulgent kindness with what we hear from Hassan Nasrallah, the ruthless leader of Hezbollah, who, worst fear of all, may live through the war to become a mistaken hero and, as such, a thorn of even festering magnitude in Israel’s quest for survival. In a recent departure from his bunker to appear on TV, he threatened to turn southern Lebanon into "a graveyard" for the Israelis. "I say to the Zionists, you could come anywhere, invade, land airborne forces, enter this village or that, but I repeat, all this will cost you a high price.” Then, continuing with bravado as false as it is impractical, he said, “We will fight until the last bullet, as long as there's a grenade, as long as there's a rocket, there will still be fighting." We suppose that this is an imposture to sound heroic to the uneducated masses, who look to him simply because he is supposed to be a brave leader, while what he has led to most conspicuously is the death of many Lebanese citizens and the destruction of much of the infrastructure of his own country. We can also add to his murderous manias the bonkers claim by his patron and boss in absentia, the madman of Iran, the vituperative vow to “wipe Israel off the face of the map.” Given the above comparison, never has a nation waged a more ethically restrained war than the one in which Israel has been engaged. Yet, even in light of Israel’s unprecedented carefulness, the little state is still reviled by Arab nations and even the United Nations for its “overreaction” and “indiscriminate bombing.” Considering the ingratitude elicited by its make nice war conduct, we find flickers of the old sinister observation that it is better to be feared than to be loved, especially, we should add, when making war, in which case love may be unattainable. Given the entire indecisive mishmash, Israel’s greatest general, Moshe Dyan must be rolling in his grave and tearing at his black eye patch. If he had been in control, he would surely have planned an initial tactic other than entering Lebanon gingerly to combat Hezbollah’s on its own terms. How he would have ranted at inching across the border to battle the guerillas, entrenched in their cement bunkers on byways long booby trapped, and then marching back home to rest up, while another troop of soldiers wandered in, treading carefully among the booby traps and jack-in-the-box Hezbollah gunners and rocketeers. We have only been curious observers of military strategy – from Caesar, at the head of 10,000 or so cohorts, patiently monitoring tribes of barbarians in excess of, we are told by him in his Gallic Wars, 100,000 persons, until he had them in a defile to our own swift and decisive thrusts. But even we can imagine that he would have planned a dramatic movement, like a breathtakingly rapid phalanx of tanks up the 20 miles to the Litani river, along the most accessible route, accomplishing the goal in perhaps less than an hour; then slicing across the narrow land to cut the guerillas in the south off and have them trapped in a pincer action as old as prehistoric combat. Noting the hesitant conduct of the war, even the usually stoic Israeli public has been urging its government to let its army hit Hezbollah harder, so it can never threaten Israel again. Why, even a Jewish grandmother is upset by the tentative prosecution of the war. Ehud Yaari, an Arab affairs analyst, said of his mother, who is 85: “She calls me all the time to ask me how come the army is still having a fistfight with Hezbollah in places 500 meters from the border.” The daily paper Haaretz published a cartoon satirizing the group Peace Now, with a balding member, sporting a ponytail, saying, “It won’t end until we wipe Beirut off the map.” And Yossi Beilin, leader of the dovish Meretz Party, went so far as to confirm that the Jewish people have the right to “a democratic and secure state.” Of course, not every Israeli is for the war to be stepped up. Some want it stopped. Every Friday, anti-war activists demonstrate against it. But current opinion polls show support for the war at about 80%. Unfortunately, one of the collateral complications of Israel’s careful approach is the steady publicity of buildings blown up and civilians killed, instead of the usual major attack and, hopefully, swift end of the conflict. The effort is sort of like a dentist attempting to pull a tooth with his fingers, instead of using forceps. So he pulls a little here and there, and every time the patient winces, he stops, until he and the patient give up, and the tooth is still stuck right where it was. Of course, there are those who are vocal critics of the gradually waged war. Gerald M. Steinberg, director of the Program on Conflict Management at Bar-Ilan University, said, “… there is a strong sense of hesitation, of the lack of military leadership needed in times like this.” But the slowness of Israel’s advance against Hezbollah is, given the flatfooted ground offensive, expected, much like our own difficulty in neutralizing the insurgents in Iraq. Security officials blame the delay on Hezbollah’s bunkers, which are fortified with cement, electrified, and well-stocked with weapons and food. As if these “into the breach” complications on the Lebanese front aren’t enough, the Palestinian guerillas must still be dealt with. The worst effect is, Israel’s hesitant assault on Hezbollah may give its other arch enemies with dire power, Syria and Iran, false confidence that they can launch an attack and actually rid themselves of the thorn in the toe of their own incompetent governance. Insightful observers understand the provocation by Hezbollah that initiated the war c was mainly motivated, not only by its admitted goal of using the kidnapped soldiers as bargaining chips to obtain the release of many of its members in Israeli jails, but also by its anxious need to justify its existence, along with the present need of Iran, its banker and arsenal, to provide a distraction from its nuclear dilemma. In the end, Israel must do whatever it takes to survive and, if luck will allow, to live in peace with its uncomfortable neighbors. And, despite every ethical person’s abhorrence of war and its wages, history shows quite consistently that in this flagrantly treacherous world a nation needs, in times of treachery, leaders who are made of armor-hard and aggressive, if not outright mean, stuff. And, remorseful as it sounds, it appears that the sudden of taking of more life, while terrible in itself, often, as the result of the shock it produces, prevents the loss of more life over a grueling pattern of half measures. These are terrible conclusions, but what is more dangerous than to don blinders while the enemy is aiming at you? While we are, in all our being, advocates of life, life in fact as our principal weapon against death, we also know that a slow war of attrition can kill more people than a deft move that achieves a military goal suddenly. The war will finally wane, either as a result of the UN resolution or Israel’s belated resolve to pick up the forceps and remove the inflamed molar by the name of Hezbollah. Should peace prevail, it will be, in the remembered history of the area an unprecedented felicity. Not since recorded history began, some 5,000 years ago, cut in Sumerian cuneiform, has peace reigned in the persistently irate area. As for now, on the part of Israel there is admissible shame. Its vaunted defense forces did not defeat relatively diminutive Hezbollah, and, of course, there will be, in that surprising how of indecision and apparent weakness, untoward sequelae. For Hezbollah, considering the Lebanese civilians who had died as a reaction to its ill-considered kidnappings and the damage that has been wreaked on Lebanon’s material wealth, there must, as painful realizations set in, be a point in which the guerilla group must pay a price at the hands of its own countrymen. It would be too much, we think, for Hezbollah to expect those bereaved and bludgeoned citizens to make nice.
Tom Attea, humorist and creator of NewsLaugh.com, has had six shows produced Off-Broadway. Critics have called his writing "delightfully funny," "witty," with "great humor and ebullience" and "good, genuine laughs."
Title: Make War As Make Nice; Israel’s Commendable But Costly Military Tactic Article Distribution and Free Web Content by www.reprint-content.com
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