A BBC Piece I Can Live With

'Blame war' looms for Israel leaders

A new war is about to erupt on Israel's home front; indeed the first skirmishes have already begun. It will be a war of recriminations and blame, but it will also be a struggle to determine the true lessons of the fighting in Lebanon. It is a struggle from which few of Israel's political or military leaders may emerge unbruised.

And it is a struggle that will determine the fate not just of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, but also of his plan to withdraw Israeli settlers from significant parts of the occupied West Bank.

Almost from the outset, the government's conduct of this conflict confused the Israeli public and confounded many of the country's most experienced defence experts.

There was the initial reliance upon air power to deal with the Hezbollah missile threat. Then there was a series of ground incursions a short way into Lebanon, which produced fierce skirmishes but little change to the overall strategic picture.
Then, almost at the same time as the United Nations was putting the final touches to a new Security Council resolution to end the fighting, there was Israel's last-minute push northwards towards the Litani River...

...What exactly did Israel's military chiefs tell their political masters about what could be expected from an air assault against Hezbollah? When, a week or so into the conflict, air power was not halting the missile fire, why was the leadership's learning curve so steep? And why..., when limited ground operations proved equally ineffective was the decision to mount a major offensive taken only a short time before a likely cease-fire?

Then there are questions about the IDF's intelligence.

It seems to have known about most of the modern weapons systems deployed by Hezbollah, with the possible exception of the Iranian-supplied anti-shipping missile that hit an Israeli vessel early on in the conflict. But the IDF did not appear to realise the scale and complexity of Hezbollah's fortifications in southern Lebanon.
To what extent did the IDF seek to adjust its doctrine and tactics to the real challenge facing it?

Any inquiry is bound to examine the performance not just of Mr Olmert himself, but also of other key figures like Defence Minister Amir Peretz, Chief of Staff Dan Halutz and other senior commanders. The way the government was managed and the way the relationship between the military and the civilian leadership was handled is also certain to be a matter of debate...

This, though, is not just a battle over what happened in the recent past. It will be a battle for Mr Olmert's political project for the future - disengagement from more of the West Bank.

This project, according to many well-placed analysts, is the explanation for Israel's massive response to the Hezbollah attack.

With missiles flying into Israel from the Gaza Strip ever since Israeli troops withdrew a year ago, and now with missiles being fired from Lebanon (from which the UN is satisfied Israel withdrew in 2000), Mr Olmert determined that he was fighting for what may be his political legacy.

Without a strong and effective response to the Hezbollah missile threat he would, says Prof Feldman, find it impossible to convince the Israeli public that a further withdrawal would be in Israel's interests...