[WCUSP] "From Mania to Depression" by Uri Avnery

[KATHARLOW at aol.com]

>From  Mania to Depression 
by _Uri  Avnery_ (mailto:avnery at actcom.co.il)   
August 17, 2006 
THIRTY  THREE days of war. The longest of our wars since 1949.     
On the  Israeli side: 154 dead - 117 of them soldiers. 3,970 rockets launched 
 against us, 37 civilians dead, more than 422 civilians wounded.   
On the  Lebanese side: about a thousand dead civilians, thousands wounded. An 
 unknown number of Hizbullah fighters dead and wounded.     
More than  a million refugees on both sides.    
So what  has been achieved for this terrible price?     
"GLOOMY,  HUMBLE, despondent," was how the journalist Yossef Werter described 
Ehud  Olmert, a few hours after the cease-fire had come into effect.   
Olmert?  Humble? Is this the same Olmert we know? The same Olmert who thumped 
the  table and shouted: "No more!" Who said: "After the war, the situation 
will  be completely different than before!" Who promised a "New Middle East" as  
a result of the war?    
THE  RESULTS of the war are obvious:    
-  The prisoners, who served as  casus belli (or pretext) for the war, have 
not been released. They will  come back only as a result of an exchange of 
prisoners, exactly as Hassan  Nasrallah proposed before the war.    
-  Hizbullah has remained as  it was. It has not been destroyed, nor 
disarmed, nor even removed from  where it was. Its fighters have proved themselves in 
battle and have even  garnered compliments from Israeli soldiers. Its command 
and communication  structure has continued to function to the end. Its TV 
station is still  broadcasting.    
-  Hassan Nasrallah is alive  and kicking. Persistent attempts to kill him 
failed. His prestige is  sky-high. Everywhere in the Arab world, from  Morocco  
to  Iraq  , songs  are being composed in his honor and his picture adorns the 
walls.   
-  The Lebanese army will be  deployed along the border, side by side with a 
large international force.  That is the only material change that has been 
achieved.     
This will  not replace Hizbullah. Hizbullah will remain in the area, in every 
village  and town. The Israeli army has not succeeded in removing it from one 
 single village. That was simply impossible without permanently removing  the 
population to which it belongs.    
The  Lebanese army and the international force cannot and will not confront  
Hizbullah. Their very presence there depends on Hizbullah's consent. In  
practice, a kind of co-existence of the three forces will come into being,  each 
one knowing that it has to come to terms with the other two.   
Perhaps  the international force will be able to prevent incursions by 
Hizbullah,  such as the one that preceded this war. But it will also have to prevent 
 Israeli actions, such as the reconnaissance flights of our Air Force over  
Lebanon  . That's  why the Israeli army objected, at the beginning, so 
strenuously to the  introduction of this force.   
IN  ISRAEL  , there is  now a general atmosphere of disappointment and 
despondency. From mania to  depression. It's not only that the politicians and the 
generals are firing  accusations at each other, as we foresaw, but the general 
public is also  voicing criticism from every possible angle. The soldiers 
criticize the  conduct of the war, the reserve soldiers gripe about the chaos and 
the  failure of supplies.     
In all  parties, there are new opposition groupings and threats of splits. In 
 Kadima. In Labor. It seems that in Meretz, too, there is a lot of ferment,  
because most of its leaders supported the war dragon almost until the last  
moment, when they caught its tail and pierced it with their little  lance.    
At the  head of the critics are marching--surprise, surprise--the media. The  
entire horde of interviewers and commentators, correspondents and  
presstitutes, who (with very few exceptions) enthused about the war, who  deceived, 
misled, falsified, ignored, duped and lied for the fatherland,  who stifled all 
criticism and branded as traitors all who opposed the  war--they are now running 
ahead of the lynch mob. How predictable, how  ugly. Suddenly they remember 
what we have been saying right from the  beginning of the war.    
This phase  is symbolized by Dan Halutz, the Chief-of-Staff. Only yesterday 
he was the  hero of the masses, it was forbidden to utter a word against him. 
Now he  is being described as a war profiteer. A moment before sending his  
soldiers into battle, he found the time to sell his shares, in expectation  of a 
decline of the stock market. (Let us hope that a moment before the  end he 
found the time to buy them back again.)     
Victory,  as is well known, has many fathers, and failure in war is an 
orphan.   
FROM THE  deluge of accusations and gripes, one slogan stands out, a slogan 
that  must send a cold shiver down the spine of anyone with a good memory: "the 
 politicians did not let the army win."    
Exactly as  I wrote two weeks ago, we see before our very eyes the 
resurrection of the  old cry "they stabbed the army in the back!"     
This is  how it goes: At long last, two days before the end, the land 
offensive  started to roll. Thanks to our heroic soldiers, the men of the reserves,  
it was a dazzling success. And then, when we were on the verge of a great  
victory, the cease-fire came into effect.     
There is  not a single word of truth in this. This operation, which was 
planned and  which the army spent years training for, was not carried out earlier,  
because it was clear that it would not bring any meaningful gains but  would 
be costly in lives. The army would, indeed, have occupied wide  areas, but 
without being able to dislodge the Hizbullah fighters from  them.    
The town  of Bint  Jbeil , for  example, right next to the border, was taken 
by the army three times, and  the Hizbullah fighters remained there to the 
end. If we had occupied 20  towns and villages like this one, the soldiers and 
the tanks would have  been exposed in 20 places to the mortal attacks of the 
guerillas with  their highly effective anti-tank weapons.   
If so, why  was it decided, at the last moment, to carry out this operation 
after  all--well after the UN had already called for an end to hostilities? The 
 horrific answer: it was a cynical--not to say vile--exercise of the failed  
trio. Olmert, Peretz and Halutz wanted to create "a picture of victory,"  as 
was openly stated in the media. On this altar the lives of 33 soldiers  
(including a young woman) were sacrificed.     
The aim  was to photograph the victorious soldiers on the bank of the Litani. 
The  operation could only last 48 hours, when the cease-fire would come into  
force. In spite of the fact that the army used helicopters to land the  
troops, the aim was not attained. At no point did the army reach the  Litani.    
For  comparison: in the first Lebanon  war, that  of Sharon  in 1982,  the 
army crossed the Litani in the first few hours. (The Litani, by the  way, is not 
a real river anymore, but just a shallow creek. Most of its  waters are drawn 
off far from there, in the north. Its last stretch is  about 25 km distant 
from the border, near Metulla the distance is only 4  km.)   
This time,  when the cease-fire took effect, all the units taking part had 
reached  villages on the way to the river. There they became sitting ducks,  
surrounded by Hizbullah fighters, without secure supply lines. From that  moment 
on, the army had only one aim: to get them out of there as quickly  as 
possible, regardless of who might take their place.     
If a  commission of inquiry is set up--as it must be--and investigates all 
the  moves of this war, starting from the way the decision to start it was  
made, it will also have to investigate the decision to start this last  operation. 
The death of 33 soldiers (including the son of the writer David  Grossman, 
who had supported the war) and the pain this caused their  families demand that! 
   
BUT THESE  facts are not yet clear to the general public. The brainwashing by 
the  military commentators and the ex-generals, who dominated the media at 
the  time, has turned the foolish--I would almost say "criminal"--operation  
into a rousing victory parade. The decision of the political leadership to  stop 
it is now being seen by many as an act of defeatist, spineless,  corrupt and 
even treasonous politicians.     
And that  is exactly the new slogan of the fascist Right that is now raising 
its  ugly head.    
After  World War I, in similar circumstances, the legend of the "knife in the 
 back of the victorious army" grew up. Adolf Hitler used it to carry him to  
power--and on to World War II.    
Now, even  before the last fallen soldier has been buried, the incompetent 
generals  are starting to talk shamelessly about "another round," the next war 
that  will surely come "in a month or in a year," God willing. After all, we  
cannot end the matter like this, in failure. Where is our pride?   
THE  ISRAELI public is now in a state of shock and disorientation.  
Accusations--justified and unjustified--are flung around in all  directions, and it 
cannot be foreseen how things will develop.   
Perhaps,  in the end, it is logic that will win. Logic says: what has 
thoroughly  been demonstrated is that there is no military solution. That is true in  
the North. That is also true in the South, where we are confronting a  whole 
people that has nothing to lose anymore. The success of the Lebanese  guerilla 
will encourage the Palestinian guerilla.     
For logic  to win, we must be honest with ourselves: pinpoint the failures,  
investigate their deeper causes, draw the proper conclusions.   
Some  people want to prevent that at any price. President Bush declares  
vociferously that we have won the war. A glorious victory over the Evil  Ones. 
Like his own victory in Iraq  .   
When  a football team is able to choose the referee, it is no surprise if it 
is  declared the winner.  
 
     




 (http://www.strike-the-root.com/cgi-local/birdcast.cgi) 



_Uri  Avnery_ (mailto:avnery at actcom.co.il)  is a peace  activist.  


 (http://www.onestat.com/asp/login.asp?sid=177966)   
(http://www.onestat.com/asp/login.asp?sid=177966)  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/wcusp_wilpf.org/attachments/20060826/ad34854e/attachment-0001.html