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Perhaps you could confirm or disprove for me the idea that Israel (under Olmert's advisors) avoided a trap for its tanks. It could have lost a lot more to the Kornet and Saxhorn anti-tank missiles if it had rushed into Lebanon in a blitz as it had in the past.

Perhaps the whole deliberate provocation, the kidnapped soldiers and the rocket bombardment, was aimed to that end--to defeat the IDF armor in horrible killing fields. Israeli intel must have known of the advanced anti-tank weapons in possession of Hezbollah.

I can't confirm or deny since I am not in the Israeli Army. Nor am I Israeli. That said, rushing into an anti-tank ambush maze is always a possibility. The Merk is not the fastest tank in the world and could have vulnerabilities a fast tank, like the M1, avoids.

This is where the "variety" aspect I spoke of comes in. Tanks blundering into ambushes is something the US trains hard to avoid. We use scouts (in vehicles, on foot, and even UAVs) to help locate these ATGM teams and artillery/airstrikes under scout guidance to destroy them. A similar tactic is akin to a prep-fire where the artillery hits specific terrain features where an ambush could occur and then the scouts and infantry are sent in with the tanks providing overwatch. A map recon along with UAV flights could plan this. Look for the choke points and likely spots for an ATGM team and blast the area, then send in the troops to be sure and ensure the site is not used again by the enemy (the last two parts are sometimes forgotten). I'm sure the Israeli Army would have done something similar.

Another tactic for a tank is "if it looks strange, shoot it. If it looks like it could hurt you, shoot it twice". Understand that the tank crew must know where its own forces are for this tactic. The Merk has a 60mm mortar and could drop a few well aimed HE rounds into a tree-line, hill face, etc. If an ATGM fires from a house, drop the house. The terrorists will, of course, state the house was full of children and even dig some up from a graveyard for posing. Israel will never win a PR war with the media actively helping the terrorists and must do the correct thing no matter how much the MSM lies about it. As Bill Keller of the NYT said the media is not "agnostic" on the War on Terror; the MSM sided with the terrorists long ago.

Israels Army Staff, well versed in the destructiveness of ATGMs, should know this and also know methods for defeating even advanced ATGM teams. ATGMs do not work well against artillery accurately falling on them or an infantry platoon firing machine guns into the ATGM bunkers. I don't know if the political leaders were unskilled at war, or surrounded themselves with "victory through air power alone" advisors. But a combined arms (Air/Artillery/Armor/Infantry/Scout) assault with recon teams out with dedicated support could have minimized the ATGM threat. Of course "could have" and "would have" are mute points... Until the Hezzes break the cease-fire again.