Who?
Me?!
By
Uri Avnery, 9.8.06
TODAY,
THE war
entered its fifth week. Hard to believe: our mighty army has now been fighting
for 29 days against a "gang" and "terrorist organization",
as the military commanders like to describe them, and the battle has still not
been decided.
Yesterday,
military sources in Israel announced that 400 of the 1200 Hizbullah
"terrorists" have been killed. That's to say, a mere 1200 fighters
have been standing against the tens of thousands of our soldiers, who are
equipped with the most advanced weapons on earth, and hundreds of thousands of
Israeli citizens are still under rocket fire while our soldiers continue to be
killed.
WHO?
ME? Now
everybody already admits that something basic has gone wrong in this war. The
proof: the War of the Generals, that previously started only after the
conclusion of a war, has now become public while the war is still going on.
The
Chief-of-Staff, Dan Halutz, has found the culprit: Udi Adam, the chief of the
Northern Command. He has practically dismissed him in the middle of the battle.
That is the old ploy of the thief shouting "Stop thief!" After all,
it is obvious that the person mainly to blame for the failures of the war is
Halutz himself, with his foolish belief that Hisbullah could be defeated by
aerial bombardment alone.
But
it is not only at the top of the army that mutual accusations are flying
around. The army command accuses the government, which is retaliating in kind.
On
the eve of his downgrading, Udi Adam publicly accused the government of tying
his hands. Meaning: the government is guilty. Ehud Olmert did not remain silent
and declared that the army had not submitted any plans for widening the
campaign. That's to say: if you are incompetent, don't blame me!
To
justify himself, Olmert added a significant sentence: "From the first day
of the war, the government has not refused the army a single request!" In
other words, it is the Chief-of-Staff who makes policy and conducts the war,
while the political leadership just rubber stamps everything that the army "requests".
But
this is a sterile debate, because it ignores the main fact, which is becoming
clearer from day to day: it is altogether impossible to win this war. That's
why nothing is working as planned.
PLAN?
WHAT PLAN?
Years ago the military commentator of Haolam Hazeh, the magazine I was editing
at the time, got fed up with the boast the our army excels in improvisation. "The
ability to improvise," he wrote, "Is just another name for our
inability to plan."
According
to the reports, the Israeli army has been preparing for this war for more than
three years. The last exercise took place a month before the war started and
included the invasion of Lebanon by land forces. It is clear that the command
did not anticipate a campaign that would last for four weeks and more. What the
hell! After all, it was against a small gang of terrorists. This just confirms
the dictum that even the best war plan does not survive the first day of war.
THE
WAR OF THE POOR.
It is quite clear that the army command's wonderful plan did not include the
defense of the rear within rocket range. There was no plan for the solution of
the hundred and one problems emanating from the attack on Hizbullah: from the
protection of the civilian population from thousands of missiles to the
necessary economic arrangements when a third of the country's population is
living under bombardment and is paralysed.
Now
the public is crying out, and soon the ministers and generals will have to try
to find somebody to blame for that, too.
For
this war is being fought on the backs of the weak, who cannot afford to
"evacuate themselves" from the rockets' area. The rich and well-to-do
have got out long ago - in Israel as well as in Lebanon. The poor, the old, the
sick and the handicapped remain in the shelters. They are the main sufferers. But
that does not cause them to oppose the war. On the contrary, they are the most
vociferous group in Israel demanding "to go to the end", "to
smash them", "to wipe them out".
That
is not new, either: the weakest in society always want to feel that they belong
to the strongest nation. Those who have nothing become the biggest patriots. And
they are also the main victims.
Those
who initiated and planned the war cynically flatter the inhabitants of the
North, who are stuck there, calling them "heroes" and lauding their
"wonderful steadfastness".
UNITED
CYNICS.
Now the end of the killing depends on the UN.
David
Ben-Gurion called it contemptuously "UNO-SHMUNO" (UM-SHMUM in
Hebrew). In the 1948 war, he violated its cease-fire resolutions whenever it
suited him (as a soldier I took part in some of these actions). He and all his
successors over the years have violated almost all the UN decisions concerning
us, arguing (not without justification) that the organization was dominated by
an automatic anti-Israeli majority, consisting of the Soviet bloc and Third
World countries.
Since
then, the situation has changed. The Soviet bloc has collapsed and the UN has
become an arm of the US State department. Kofi Annan has become a janitor and
the real boss is the US delegate, John Bolton, a raving neo-con and therefore a
great friend of Israel. He wants the war to go on.
The
name of the American game is: to give the Israeli army more days, and perhaps
more weeks, to go on with the war, to pursue the mirage of victory, while
pretending to make great efforts to stop the war. It seems that Olmert has
promised Bush to win after all, if given time.
The
new proposals of the Beirut government have lit red lights in Jerusalem. The
Lebanese government proposes to deploy 15 thousand Lebanese troops along the
border, declare a cease-fire and get the Israeli troops out of Lebanon. That is
exactly what the Israeli government demanded at the start of the war. But now
it looks like a danger. It could stop the war without an Israeli victory.
Thus
a paradoxical situation has arisen: the Israeli government is rejecting a
proposal that reflects its original war aims, and instead demands the
deployment of an international force, which it objected to strenuously at the
start of the war. That's what happens
when you start a war without clear and achievable aims. Everything gets mixed
up.
GENERALS
AND COMMENTATORS.
I have a proposal to solve all the problems caused by this war: to switch the
generals and the commentators.
The
generals have not excelled in conducting the war. But they and their comrades,
the ex-generals, have proved themselves excellent commentators. They have
crowded everyone else out of the studios, created a national consensus and
silenced all real criticism. (Except one sort of criticism: Why do we not
advance deeper into Lebanon? Why haven't we reached the Litani? Why don't we go
beyond the Litani? Why don't we eradicate the Lebanese villages from the face
of the earth?)
On
the other side, the broadcasts prove that the military commentators know
exactly how to wage the war. They have forceful opinions and plenty of expert
advice. They know when to advance and where, which troops to deploy and what weapons
to use.
So
why not let them conduct the war?
MACHOSTAN.
The battery of generals that appears every evening on all TV channels in order
to give a "briefing" (a.k.a. propaganda) to the nation, are all male.
They bring with them a token woman, a real beauty who bears the title of
"army spokesperson" and serves mostly for diversification. The
commentators on TV are, of course, tough guys, and so are almost all the other
speakers.
The
rule of males is underlined by the fact that the Foreign Ministry is headed by
a woman. Since the foundation of Israel, the Ministry of Defense has been the
realm of he-men, who look with disdain upon the Foreign Office, which is always
considered feeble and effete. Now, too, the Foreign Office is a sickly limb of
the "defense establishment". Tsipi Livni, who once aroused hopes, is
a parrot of the army - as Condoleezza Rice is the parrot of Bush.
War
is, of course, a matter for men. That's how it was from the beginning of the
human race, and perhaps even before. A tribe of baboons, for example, when
faced with danger, automatically adopts a defensive formation: old males, women
and children in the center, young males in a circle around them. There is only
one difference between them und us: their leader is always the wisest and most experienced of the tribe.
The
love of the human male for war - a phenomenon we have had the opportunity to
observe from close up these last few days - is connected not only with this
biological heritage. War assures the total dominance of the males over society.
It also assures the total dominance of the generals over the state.
If
we believed that that would change with a government headed by civilians, we
were obviously wrong. The opposite is true: the civilians who pose as
war-leaders are no better then the generals. A veteran general might even have
learned something from his experience.
I
am going now to say something I did not think I would ever utter: It is quite
possible that we would not have slid into this foolish war if Ariel Sharon were
in charge. Fact: he did not attack Hizbullah after the withdrawal in 2000. One
attempt was enough for him. Which proves again that there is nothing so bad
that something worse cannot be found.
The
lust for war also explains the talking choir of the hundreds of ex-generals,
who think and talk in unison in favor of the war. A cynic would say: what's the
big deal, after all it's the army that gave them their standing in society. They
are important only as long as the conflict between Israel and the Arab world
continues. The conflict guarantees their status. They have no interest
whatsoever in its resolution.
But
the phenomenon is more profound. The army is the crucible for senior officers. It
shapes their world outlook, their attitude and style. Apart from the settlers,
the senior officers' corps - in and out of uniform - is today the only
ideological party in Israel and therefore has a huge influence. It can easily
gobble up a thousand little functionaries like Amir Peretz before breakfast.
This
is why there is no real self-criticism. At the beginning of the fifth week, the
slogans are again: Forwards! To the Litani! Further! Stronger! Deeper!