Thursday, January 31, 2008

How To Interpret the Winograd Report

If you are Lebanese Prime Minister Faoud Siniora, it's to claim that Israel is preparing for another war. Of course, Siniora is doing his best to make war in Lebanon a certainty by continuing to tolerate Hizbullah's presence in direct violation of UN SCR 1701, Hizbullah's paymasters in Syria continuing to pull strings in Lebanese politics, and Israel's right to defend itself from attacks.

If you're Amnesty International, it's to claim that the report fully ignores war crimes. Of course, one should ignore Amnesty International because they have ignored Hizbullah's ongoing human rights violations, including war crimes of their own that precipitated the conflict in Lebanon to begin with. Hizbullah invaded Israel, killed Israeli soldiers, captured two and have held them in Lebanon or parts unknown, started a rocket war against Israel (4,000 rockets, inflicting millions in damages on Israeli territory and killing dozens of Israelis), all while operating from Lebanese civilian areas and purposefully blending into civilian areas to inflate the body counts. Hizbullah purposefully limited access to those areas to maximize the propaganda (not to mention stage managed multiple incidents), and AI fell for it totally (as did the rest of the media).

For Prime Minister Olmert, it's about asking profound questions except for the one that matters most. He isn't going to resign, which means that the Israeli government will continue to limp along as it has since Sharon became incapacitated. Indeed, the report pulled its punches at a time when they really needed to deliver the coup d'gras. Others in Kadima aren't likely to continue with the charade, but that's small potatoes given that Olmert and Livni thoroughly mismanaged the conflict and damaged Israel's national security interests in the process.

So what will Defense Minister Ehud Barak do now? He's hankering to become Prime Minister again, and had promised to quit the government if Olmert didn't first resign in the aftermath of the Winograd Report publication. We'll see if he lives up to his own promises. He clearly wants Olmert out of the way, and is he willing to take down the Olmert government in the process? I'd put that at about 50/50.

If you're Hizbullah, you're probably rejoycing over the report. Why wouldn't you gloat over the failure of your mortal enemy to thoroughly wipe you off the map when the Islamic terrorist group so richly deserves such a treatment? The fact that Hizbullah lost every single tactical encounter and hundreds of its terrorists in the battle with Israel is irrelevant. The perception that they fought Israel to a stalemate is what mattered most. Israel didn't achieve its objectives not because of Hizbullah's successes, but because Israel's leadership failed. Hizbullah will make the mistake of ignoring this at its own peril.

Israel's leadership must learn from this, and the problem is that there's no impetus for that to happen. Olmert remains in power, which is a sad statement on Israeli politics. Note that in the aftermath of the failures to defend Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Israeli government engaged in a bout of self-examination. The Agranat Commission examined the runup to the war, but exonerated Prime Minister Golda Meir of direct responsibility for the failure to prepare for the war. However, she stepped down in 1974 even after her party won elections held in December 1973.

Meir said something that Olmert appears to have forgotten. The Muslims can fight and lose, then come back and fight again. But Israel can only lose once. A stalemate in the latest battle with those who seek Israel's destruction undermines Israel's security going forward.

If you're former Defense Minister Peretz, you're blaming your predecessors for your failings.

Negotiating with those who seek Israel's destruction does the same thing.

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