Olmert undone by the
militia he said he could destroy
Robert Fisk:
Published: 03 May 2007
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A Man Of Peace
So it has come to this.
All those bodies, all those photographs of dead children - more than
1,400 cadavers (we are not including the 230 or so Hizbollah
fighters and the Israeli soldiers who died) - are to be commemorated
with the possible resignation of an Israeli prime minister who knew,
and who cared, many Israelis suspect, little about war.
Yes, Hizbollah provoked
last summer's folly by capturing two Israeli soldiers on the
Lebanese-Israel border, but Israel's response - so totally out of
proportion to the sin - produced another debacle for the Israeli
army and, presumably now, for its Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert.
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Israel Beaten By A Villain
Looking back at this terrifying,
futile war, with its grotesque ambitions to "destroy" the
Iranian-supported Hizbollah militia, it is incredible Mr Olmert did
not realise within days that his grandiose demands would founder.
Insisting the two captured Israeli soldiers should be released and
the militarily powerless Lebanese government should be held
responsible for their capture was never going to produce political
or military results favourable to Israel. One would have to add that
Tzipi Livni's demand for the Prime Mnister's resignation sits oddly
with her support for this preposterous war.
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The Generals Ran The War
A close reading of the interim
report of Judge Eliahou Winograd's report on the summer war - to
which Mr Olmert himself only granted the title the "Second Lebanon
War" a month after it had happened - shows clearly that it was the
Israeli army which ran the military, strategic and political
campaign. Again and again in Winograd's report it is clear that Mr
Olmert and his Defence Minister failed to challenge "in a competent
way" (in the commission's devastating phrase) the plans of the
Israeli army.
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The Lebanon Attack
Day after day, for 34 days after 12
July, the Israeli air force systematically destroyed the major
infrastructure of Lebanon, repeatedly claiming it was trying to
avoid civilian casualties while the world's press watched its
aircraft blasting men, women and children to pieces in Lebanon.
Israelis, too, were savagely killed in this war by Hizbollah's
Iranian-provided missiles. But it only proved the Israeli army,
famous in legend and song but not in reality, could not protect
their own people. Hizbollah fighters were told by their own
leadership that if they would just withstand the air attacks, they
could bite the Israeli land forces when they invaded.
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Hezbollah Is The Victor
And bite they did. In the final 24
hours of the war, 30 Israeli soldiers were killed by Hizbollah
fighters and their land offensive, so loudly trumpeted by Mr Olmert,
came to an end. During the conflict, a
Hizbollah missile
almost sank an Israeli corvette - it burnt for 24 hours
and was towed back to Haifa before it was able to sink - and struck
Israel's top secret military air traffic control centre at Miron.
The soldiers captured on the border were never returned - pictures
of them, still alive, are flaunted across the border at Israeli
troops to this day - and Hizbollah, far from being destroyed, remain
as powerful as ever;
And so one of Washington's last "pro-American" cabinets in the
Middle East is now threatened by the very militia which Mr Olmert
claimed he could destroy.
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