Lessons from Lebanon

[Administrator]

Much has been written about Israel's strategic errors in this summer's conflict with Hezbollah, from the embrace of the long-since discredited notion that a war can be won with air power alone to the fateful indecisiveness of political and military leaders whose plans had gone awry. Israel lost the media war and squandered combat opportunities because of a dread of friendly casualties. Wretched though it was to watch, all of that simply reprised the postmodern Western Way of War, which begins with absurd expectations and ends with a whimper, not a bang.

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/10/2069044

[gcfraser]

I found Ralph Peters analysis of the latest Israel-Lebanon war interesting but completely off-base in some respects. Peters wrote, "Attuned to the Israeli fear of friendly casualties — as well as Israel's reluctance to inflict high numbers of civilian casualties among its enemies — Hezbollah structured its defenses to make it forbiddingly expensive for the IDF to seize, sanitize and hold urbanized terrain." He must be writing about a different Israel than the one I'm familiar with in regard to Israel's reluctance to inflict high numbers of civilian casualities.

Here are the latest stats on Palestine. According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) has inflicted the following since 25 June 2006:


315 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including 62 children and 14 women, have been killed. At least 1072 Palestinian civilians, including 315 children and 45 women, have been wounded by IOF gunfire. At least 286 air-to-surface missiles and hundreds of artillery shells have been fired at the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of National economy, the office of the Palestinian Prime Minister and a number of educational institutions have been destroyed as well as the Palestinian government compound in Nablus.

The electricity generation plant, providing 45% of the electricity of the Gaza Strip, was destroyed, and electricity networks and transmitters have been repeatedly attacked. Six bridges linking Gaza City with the central Gaza Strip and a number of roads have been destroyed. Hundreds of acres of agricultural land and dozens of houses have been destroyed.

In addition, Israel has imposed a strict siege on Palestine, isolated the Gaza Strip from the outside world, and continues to construct the Apartheid Wall in the West Bank. In addition, Palestinian farmers have been denied access to their agricultural lands. Starving an enemy out is another means of inflicting heavy casualties as well as the strategy of denying them water and sanitation and medicines. Sounds rather fascist to me.

Peters also wrote, "Hezbollah had no intention of invading Israel and occupying territory — it recognized its limitations." Hezbollah did more than recognize its limitations. Lebanon has defined borders. As a resistence organization, it was defending those borders. Israel has no defined borders because its history since the get-go has been to grab as much as it can. Israel is unrestrained. Hezbollah is restrained.

Israeli newspapers are now stating that the IOF is planning to step-up attacks on Palestine and plans to continue to fly-over Lebanon and attack at will. Perhaps what Peters meant to say is Israel is reluctant to inflict high numbers of civilian casualties among its enemies - when the world is watching. Currently all eyes are on Iraq.


Genevieve Cora Fraser