Israel Matzav

Deja vu all over again in Gaza?

While the government is congratulating itself on its willingness to defend the country after three years of negligence, the fact is that its strategic aim is not to defeat Hamas. This fact was made clear in the summary of the government's decisions reported in the media on Sunday afternoon. The government made clear that the aim of both the diplomatic and military offensives is to pave the way for the "international community" to intervene in Gaza to protect Israel from Palestinian terrorism.

IF THAT sounds familiar, it is because it is. It is the same strategy, and the same strategic goal, that the government adopted during the 2006 war with Hizbullah. After reacting helter skelter to Hizbullah's initial aggression which began the war, Olmert and Livni decided that Israel shouldn't bother trying to defeat Hizbullah. Instead of ordering the IDF to defeat the enemy, they ordered it to put on a sound and light show replete with aerial bombing and some good photo-ops of ground forces raising the flag in Bint Jbail and other villages. The aim of their military extravaganza was to convince the "international community" to deploy forces to Lebanon's borders to protect Israel in place of the IDF.

In defending their strategy to the public both during the war and in its aftermath, Olmert and Livni refused to acknowledge the prohibitive cost of surrendering borders to terror armies. Instead, they spoke darkly of the cost to Israel of controlling its own borders as part of an ongoing "occupation." In Lebanon, Olmert and Livni succeeded in expanding the size of the UNIFIL force deployed along the border. And they presented the expanded force as proof of their strategic genius. But UNIFIL is a disaster.

It has consistently refused to lift a finger to prevent Hizbullah from rearming and reasserting its control over the border area. Rather than contend with Hizbullah, UNIFIL devotes its time to condemning the IAF for conducting surveillance flights over Lebanon. Those flights enable Israel to keep tabs on the Iranian and Syrian weapons shipments to Hizbullah that UNIFIL has refused to prevent.

Under the protective gaze of UNIFIL forces, which Livni and Olmert promised the public would protect Israel from Hizbullah, Hizbullah launched a successful coup against the pro-Western democracy forces in the country in May and gained control over the Lebanese government. And under UNIFIL's protective gaze, the Lebanese army - which has both the US and Russia standing in line to sell it state of the art tanks, fighter jets, helicopters and precision bombs - has actively colluded with Hizbullah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in south Lebanon.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:24 PM