Ehud Barak defends pullout from Lebanon

While most Knesset members continued to stand united behind Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz, the first voices of criticism were sounded by the Meretz Party on Thursday over the operation the government has undertaken in Lebanon.

Former prime minister Ehud Barak, meanwhile, told Channel 2 that he had been right to order the IDF out of Lebanon in 2000. Many Knesset members have blamed the violence in the North on Barak's decision to withdraw overnight from southern Lebanon six years ago.

"Before we left Lebanon, rockets were fired that could reach Haifa," Barak said. "This is an attempt to test us. We need to look forward, not back. The government needs to act against Hizbullah with full force... The conditions have never been better to act to expel Hizbullah from the Israeli-Lebanese border."

Earlier, during a meeting of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, only Meretz MKs voiced criticism of operation "Just Rewards."

"The government needlessly widened the scope of the war in Lebanon, and this widening could complicate matters for us," said Ran Cohen. "We have to focus on securing the release of the kidnapped soldiers and the re-creation of IDF deterrent force against kidnappings. I don't understand how bombing the airport in Beirut accomplishes these objectives. The defense minister is leading us, in my humble opinion, to the wrong place."

Meretz faction chairman Yossi Beilin backed the military operation but asked Peretz to keep the operation's end objective in mind. "An attack on Hizbullah is justified, but in the end we will have to come to an understanding, including one with Syria," he said.

"Release of prisoners also needs to be one of the outcomes of these understandings," he added.

Meanwhile, right-wing MKs voiced support for the operation and called for harsher responses. Yuval Steinitz (Likud), the former chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, urged the air force to target Lebanese seaports.

Shteinitz said that cutting off Hizbullah from its provisions was the most effective means of teaching Lebanese government officials that they would pay a heavy price for permitting Hizbullah to continue operating in their territory.

MK Effi Eitam (NU-NRP) praised Peretz and said that "it seems that when a defense minister who is a man of peace calls for war, the whole nation is behind him."

If the Israelis hadn't left Gaza and Lebanon and this problem had arisen, world powers would be screaming that the Israelis were oppressing the people of the lands they were occupying and that they deserved it - then they would have started funnelling money to the Palis.

Now, the Israelis can say that they tried everything, including leaving and going home and the other side didn't stop, so now they're going to deal with the problem their way.

---Ehud Barak should have been hung years ago.---

"Mr Barak began his political career in 1995, serving as interior minister in the Rabin cabinet. The move represented a significant change of direction for a man who had lived and breathed the army since his teens.
In his childhood, Mr Barak did not look like someone who would become the most decorated military officer in Israeli history.

He was born Ehud Brog (later adopting the traditional Hebrew name Barak which means "lightning") on a kibbutz in 1942, the son of east European immigrants to Palestine.

At 17, Mr Barak joined the army and began what was to be an illustrious career. His enthusiasm for military life was evident from the start.

Soon after he had completed his training he was assigned to an elite army unit. Before he was 30, he was a commander; Binyamin Netanyahu one of his officers.

Mr Barak was respected for his inventiveness as much as his bravery in action. In 1972, he led a team from the elite force disguised as mechanics which stormed a Belgian airliner that had been hijacked to Israel by Palestinians.

Four years later, he led another undercover mission - this time to Beirut to kill three Palestinians accused of masterminding the murders of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics the previous year. The squad travelled by rubber dinghy to Beirut, and then donned disguises (Mr Barak was dressed as a woman) before seeking out and killing their targets."

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