Israel at War Watch: Kofi Annan – Israel Raid Violates Cease-Fire

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  john Carey

  August 20, 2006 at 12:31 am

  Firing Squad
  By John E. Carey
  August 19, 2006

  My friend Amir Taheri asked, “Was it Tacitus who said, ‘Defeat is an orphan while victory has a thousand fathers’?”

  In fact, that Roman historian had it just about right.

  Argue, if you will, that Israel is the victor in all of this. Meanwhile, we’ll assemble the firing squad.

  Even Saddam Hussein has said he prefers the honor of the firing squad to the other more ignominious forms of death meted out as judgment for conduct unbecoming.

  There are some simple rules of accountability in the U.S. military and in other places in the world. These can be rather ruthless as they enforce strict guidelines of ethics, personal performance and professional achievement.

  The people of Israel must make their own assessment of their leaders in this war. But if the tenants of personal accountability followed by the U.S. military are enforced, there will be some changes at the top of Israel’s leadership team in the weeks ahead.We therefore briefly review some of the players during the last two months or so in Israel.

  Foreign Minister

  “There can no longer be militias and terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah.”These words were spoken by Israel’s Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to der SPIEGEL on July 25, 2006.

  This promise (or assertion?) was not fulfilled.

  Moreover, Ms. Livni was absent from the United Nations in New York while that august body crafted the terms of the cease fire agreement. When she prepared to leave Israel, less than 24 hours before the cease fire was finalized in New York, the Prime Minister sent Mr. Shimon Peres instead of his Foreign Minister.

  Since the war ended, she has been diligently though ineffectively lobbying United Nations diplomats in efforts to get Hezbollah disarmed. That hasn’t happened.

  She has also worked hard to get a real peacekeeping force into the area between Hezbollah and Israel. That hasn’t happened.
  Ms. Livni should most probably be asked to leave the government.

  Defense Minister

  Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz should retire.

  Israel lost 118 Israeli soldiers and 39 civilians in the conflict that began July 12, when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.

  Reservists also complained of lack of essential equipment.

  There were three key objectives of the war:

  –Elimination of Hezbollah’s rockets.

  –Disruption or annihilation of Hezbollah.

  –Return of captured Israeli soldiers.

  None of these objectives were met.

  The people of Israel now have a diminished confidence in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Israel’s enemies are surely emboldened that the IDF is now no longer seen as invincible.Mr. Peretz is already trying to implicate defense chiefs in his downfall. As public criticism of the war’s handling mounted in Israel, the Haaretz daily quoted Defense Minister Amir Peretz Wednesday as saying top military officers did not relay all relevant information about Hezbollah’s arsenal after he took office in May.

  Israeli soldiers are returning from Lebanon with complaints of poor training and equipment.

  And there are other controversies involving Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz but they are of no consequence. The fact that Israel waged a war so unsuccessfully, and flattened much of southern Lebanon in the process, is a responsibility that clearly rests upon his doorstep.

  Chief of Staff

  Senior Israel Defense Forces officers expressed dissatisfaction yesterday with the announcement by Chief of Staff Dan Halutz that he had recently instructed the Field Security Directorate at the General Staff to keep track of their telephone conversations.

  According to the disgruntled officers , the chief of staff’s action “stinks of McCarthyism” and reflects “pressure on the part of the head of the army who feels under siege and is focusing on minor details.”

  Dan Halutz is no Moshe Dayan. He lost this war as much as anyone and he needs now to step aside.

  Prime Minister

  Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, already under fire for his handling of the Lebanon war, is facing a possible probe over a Jerusalem property deal.Olmert and his wife are to be summoned for questioning over the deal by the government’s top watchdog, the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper reported on Thursday.

  But this could all be window dressing.

  Mister Olmert led his nation into war and then lost the war.

  Mr. Olmert’s “on again, off again” handling of the IDF manacled generals in the field. His famous 48 hour air assault cease fire was a terrific failure. By withholding the main thrust of the ground offensive to the Litani River while diplomats dithered in New York, Mr. Olmert handcuffed his generals and needlessly put lives at risk.

  As Shmuel Rosner reminded Israeli readers in the Haaretz newspaper on Thursday, “This is not a Presidency – it’s the constant coalition of the willing, and the weaker the Prime Minister gets, the faster he will be abandoned by his partners.”

  Or, as observer Noah Pollak wrote, “To most Israelis, supporters of Israel, and especially to the IDF soldiers I spoke to on the border over the past few days, the cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah that recently went into effect is viewed as a cruel indignity, a dangerous projection of Israeli weakness and equivocation, and a plucking of defeat from the jaws of victory.”

  The people of Israel, we expect, will come to their own conclusions on Mr. Olmert.

  On The Rise?

  So who may be on the rise in Israel? Perhaps Bibi Netanyahu.Former Prime Minister and hard liner Mr. Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, currently the Opposition Leader, said this week the government needed unity but also needed a careful self-examination concerning the war against Hizbullah terrorists. He criticized the Olmert administration for not declaring an emergency situation at the outset of the war.

  The former prime minister also attacked Prime Minister Olmert for not accomplishing the return of two kidnapped IDF soldiers and the dis-arming of Hizbullah.
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