It's not too late to say enough - By Yitzhak Laor of Haaretz

[pberq]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/739501.html
It's not too late to say enough
By Yitzhak Laor

<snip>
The current war, then, not only cannot provide a real answer to Israel's problems, but also is being carried out by the same echelon of officers that was defeated in Lebanon, and with whom the accounts for that war have yet to be settled. Books were written, a protest movement arose, an investigative commission about one massacre was conducted, a defense minister who eventually became prime minister was convicted, and even though he is lying unconscious somewhere, his consciousness is apparently serving his pale shadows - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Justice Minister Haim Ramon and Co. - and another generation of impassioned youngsters is growing up around us and screaming over the Internet: "Stick it to them." Afterward, as they sit in the burning vehicles, perhaps in Syria, and the phrase "land mine" returns to the erased dictionary of the past, when they cry out "We want to go home," they won't have the sense to bequeath the recoiling from war to the next generation. That's because on television there still will be the same generals, with the same conception, with the same short and limited range of strategic understanding, and they will win the same enthusiasm from the public that just wants to "stick it to them."

The director of the American Jewish Committee's Israel/Middle East Office, Eran Lerman, is already recommending going to war against Syria. Anyone who is listening to talk about the need to attack Syria (in the name of "strategy") realizes that for those people, "strategy" means enlarging the circle of hostilities, including harming civilians. What Israel's "strategists" have to offer is the destruction of yet another country. Let us set aside the generation that is growing up in front of the television. Let us set aside the horrors that are being carried out in the name of all of us. It is enough to see the destruction of Iraq and its results. The Americans do not intend to live in this region, but we do live here. And did the trigger finger in the North think about the victims in the North, about the fate of the captives? No. This trigger finger thought in terms of "who will stick more to whom." Who can restrain the army? Only Israeli opposition. The heads of the army are even warning of such opposition. That is, it is not yet too late.

[BillZBubb]

1. Sadly a voice in the wilderness that won't get heard.

Much like those of us here who pleaded against the Iraq invasion. The sheeple were to wrapped up in there irrational fear and desire for revenge to listen. We were right then.

This guy is right now. Too bad he won't be heard.

[necso]

2. A new Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon

promises no better than the last one. (There's an observation, perhaps accurate -- perhaps not, that I'll reserve writing of.) And the chances of finding some other force to do the job effectively are probably not good.

So far, this "war" leaves me doubting not only the strategic thinking (especially outcome thinking), but also the military skills and vision, of the Israeli Command -- and the people that enable it.

Of course, this sort of "war" is difficult to fight -- and it must be tempting to go after more conventional targets.

But that'd be madness.

[pberq]

3. something wrong with the entire conception

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/739501.html

. . .However, from the moment two reserve soldiers were abducted on the northern border - in the midst of killing in the Gaza Strip that is being conducted in a way similar to the destruction in Lebanon - the television channels defined the incident on the border as a crisis of the first rank, and generals from the previous war, the one that lasted for 16 years, and the fruits of which we are eating now, were brought respectfully to the studios.

How quickly we have forgotten the long occupation in southern Lebanon, how every entrance of a new major general into the position of GOC Northern Command was accompanied by promises of a comprehensive change in the "strategy." Major generals come and go and the IDF "strategy" has continued to be perceived as an expansion of the "tactics": more people killed and more shells and more strikes against civilians (see the horrors of Gaza). No one imagines that there is something wrong with the entire conception. Does the IDF's responsibility really boil down only to that soldiers have been abducted and killed on their watch (that is, ultimately only the captives and the killed are to blame?). Does the very need to transform a border incident, grave as it might be, into a causus bellum by means of chatter about "the eroded deterrent power" worthy of an accounting?