By Adel Safty, Special to Gulf News - Aug. 27, 2006
Israel`s total war against Lebanon was an extension of its total war against the Palestinians. The latest Israeli strategic plan worked out by former prime minister Ariel Sharon and bequeathed to his successor consisted in freezing the moribund roadmap for peace in the Middle East while pursuing an accelerated plan to expropriate more Palestinian lands and unilaterally set expanded borders of the Jewish state.
The Bush administration supported the Sharon plan, in breach of Washington`s own commitment to the roadmap (New York Times, August 21, 2004).
Sharon`s adviser, Dov Weissglas, described the real intent of the withdrawal from Gaza as "the freezing of the political process. And when you freeze that process you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion about the refugees, the borders and [occupied] Jerusalem". This whole package of the roadmap "has been removed from our agenda indefinitely". (Haaretz, October 8, 2004)
Palestinian resistance to the Sharon Plan, the failure of the campaign to undermine the Hamas government and the emerging willingness of that government to reach a negotiated settlement were creating pressure on the new Israeli government to enter into negotiations with the Palestinians.
Total war against Lebanon aimed, in part, at diverting the world`s attention from the Palestinian conflict and focusing it instead on Hezbollah, Iran and Syria, conveniently presented as the real cause of violence in the Middle East.
Secondly, at a time when more Americans are questioning the strategic value of Israel to American foreign policy, a total war in Lebanon could facilitate the Bush administration`s war plans against Iran and silence Israel`s critics in America.
US investigative reporter Seymour Hersh reported that the Bush administration was, in fact, closely involved in the planning of the Israeli war, months before Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in July.
Thirdly, the elimination of Hezbollah as a military threat to Israel could weaken it politically and strengthen its opponents in the region, while delivering a fearsome warning to its backers in Damascus and Tehran. Crushing Hezbollah would also illustrate to other resistance groups in the region the futility of military resistance to Israel`s awesome power.
Propaganda
The Israelis won the propaganda battle and managed to get the American media and the US public to define the conflict within the analytical frame provided by the Israelis.
But, Washington and Tel Aviv lost the strategic war. Prussian General Karl von Clausewitz`s total war doctrine was not supposed to be an aim in itself. For Clausewitz, war was merely the continuation of policies by other means. The destruction of the enemy`s forces, resources, infrastructures and properties and the killing of civilians were supposed to break the enemy`s will to resist.
A total war that destroyed everything but left the enemy`s will to resist unaffected or, worse still, strengthened, is clearly a failure.
The Israelis have been forthright in admitting failures, notwithstanding Bush`s claims to the contrary. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admitted "shortcomings".
On August 8, the editors of the leading Israeli paper Haarezt unambiguously used the word defeat: "Let there be no doubt … the war as it approaches its end is seen by the region and the world and even by the Israeli public as a stinging defeat with possibly fateful implications."
Repercussions
The failure of total war against Palestine and Lebanon is likely to have significant repercussions.
First, instead of emerging weakened and irrelevant, Hezbollah is emerging as a legendary resistance movement that managed the extraordinary feat of resisting Israel`s devastating total war and neutralising its historic military deterrence. Hezbollah`s credibility is confirmed as the standard bearer of Arab resistance.
Secondly, the political and psychological balance of power in the region is being reshaped. The Arab regimes that acquiesced to the Israeli-American project are diminished. Other regimes, the Islamic movements, and the professional and intellectual associations that preached resistance to Israeli occupation and to American hegemony in the region, are vindicated. Resistance against overwhelming odds is possible after all.
Thirdly, instead of democratised and pro-American Middle East, the Bush administration succeeded in creating a radicalised, resentful and deeply anti-American Middle East. Far from being deterred, the insurgency in Iraq is feeling emboldened. A classified report by the Defence Intelligence Agency confirms the growing difficulties facing the American occupation forces in Iraq. (New York Times, August 17).
Fourthly, the neo-conservatives` plans for a strategic air war against Iranian nuclear facilities, the boastful Israeli claims that if Washington did not strike Iran, Israel would, are likely to be opposed as more wishful thinking than reasoned analysis.
Regrettably, however, the debate in Israel about the failures of the war reflects shortsighted claims that withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 and from Gaza in 2005 did not bring peace; therefore there should be no withdrawal from the West Bank.
A more reasoned analysis should recommend itself to Israeli and American leaders. Total war against Palestine and Lebanon failed to resolve the perennial contradiction of Israeli policy: proclaiming a desire for peace and yet, pursuing a policy of dispossession, occupation, expansionism, regional hegemony and lawless forcible imposition of its will. Israel must choose: either peace of equality or Paxa Hebraica.
- Professor Adel Safty is author of From Camp David to the Gulf, Leadership and Democracy, and the forthcoming book, `The Modern Machiavellians`.
