Israel Matzav

Barak's flight from Lebanon

Caroline Glick points out an interesting item from the weekend editions of Maariv that lead me to think even more that the IDF bears far less responsibility for last summer's debacle than do the politicians:

Over the weekend, Ma'ariv reported protocols of cabinet meetings in the weeks which preceded the 2000 withdrawal where then IDF chief of staff Shaul Mofaz and then IDF OC Northern Command Gabi Ashkenazi begged Barak not to go through with the withdrawal precisely because the Hizbullah buildup and aggression were so predictable.

The withdrawal from south Lebanon was fomented by the Left with the propaganda support of the Israeli media and the financial support of the EU.

Together, they worked to destroy the public consensus regarding the need to protect the North from Hizbullah and Iran. They propagated the lies that unilateral withdrawal would create an "invisible wall of international legitimacy" that would protect Israel from Hizbullah better than the IDF could, and that if Israel withdrew to the international border Hizbullah would abandon jihad and become a regular Lebanese political party.

Caroline's article was written before the commission report was released, and I think she underestimated the commission and the impact of its report. But I think the paragraphs above should be kept at the top of the public agenda. Ehud Barach (whom I used to call Arrogant Ehud on my Matzav email list during the early days of the intifada) wants to be Prime Minister again.

The other important point that Caroline makes about this past summer's war relates to someone else who would be king: Tzipi Feigele Livni.

Israel began the war in arguably the best diplomatic position it had ever enjoyed. The G-8 endorsed Israel's right to win. The US was strongly behind it. Then Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni took the helm and capsized the ship of state.

Livni decided that it would be better for Israel if there were international forces deployed along the border. This was an assumption based on the same "invisible wall of international legitimacy" delusion that had failed to prevent Hizbullah from carrying out the kidnappings and missile attacks that precipitated the war in the first place.

Today, as now, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi has just explained to the government, Hizbullah has rearmed and is reinforcing its forces in south Lebanon to return them to their pre-war strength. This it does under the protective gaze of the international force Livni was so keen to see in action. And due to the Livni-midwifed UNIFIL forces, Israel now risks an international scandal if it takes action against Hizbullah. Indeed, it was only because of some fancy footwork by opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu and former minister Natan Sharansky that Livni didn't get her wish to have the entire cease-fire resolution fall under Article 7 of the UN Charter. Had that occurred it would have increased the already-present risk of any future Israeli move against Hizbullah bringing the UN-mandated international force to the defense of Hizbullah, against Israel.

Read it all.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:07 PM