A Spirit Of Absolute Folly (Ari Shavit's On The War And Israel's Imperiled National Will Alert)

In the difficult summer of 2006, the State of Israel is declaring in astonishment: They surprised us. They surprised us in a big way. They surprised us with Katyushas and they surprised us with the Al-Fajr rockets and they surprised us with the Zelzal missiles. They surprised us with anti-tank missiles. And they surprised us with the operational skill of the anti-tank squads. They surprised us with the bunkers and the camouflage. They surprised us with the command and monitoring. They surprised us with strategy, fighting ability and a fighting spirit. They surprised us with the astonishing power that a small death-army with low technology and high religious motivation can have.

However, more than they surprised us in Summer 2006 with the strength of Hezbollah, they surprised us this summer with our own weakness. They surprised us with ourselves. They surprised us with the low level of national leadership. They surprised us with scandalous strategic bumbling. They surprised us with the lack of vision, lack of creativity and lack of determination on the part of the senior military command. They surprised us with faulty intelligence and a delusionary logistical network and improper preparedness for war. They surprised us with the fact that the Israeli war machine is not what it once was. While we were celebrating it became rusty.

Generally it is not right to conduct an in-depth investigation of a wartime failure during a war. However, at the end of the most embarrassing year of Israeli defense since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Israeli government is not drawing conclusions. It is not reorganizing the system, there is no evidence of a real learning curve and it is not radiating a new ethos. On the contrary: It is adding another layer of folly onto a previous one. Its slowness to react is dangerous. Its caution is a recipe for disaster. Its attempt to prevent bloodshed is costing a great deal of bloodshed. So that now of all times, just when the forces are moving toward south Lebanon, there is no escaping the question of where we went wrong. It is so that Israel will be able to achieve a last-minute victory and so that the troops will be able to achieve their goals and so the soldiers will be able to return home safely, that we must ask already now: What happened to us? What the hell happened to us?

A simple thing happened: We were drugged by political correctness. The political correctness that has come to dominate Israeli discourse and Israeli awareness in the past generation was totally divorced from the Israeli situation. It did not have the tools to deal with the reality of an existential conflict. It did not have the tools to deal with a reality of an inter-religious and inter-cultural conflict. That is why it focused entirely on the Palestinian issue. It made the baseless assumption that the occupation is the source of evil. It assumed that it is the occupation that is preventing peace and causing unrest and perpetuating the instability.

At the same time, political correctness assumed that Israeli strength is a given. That Israel is insanely strong. Therefore, political correctness disdained any attempt to build and maintain Israeli strength. The defense budget was cut, the values of volunteerism were mocked, the concepts of heroism and fortitude became despicable. Since the Israel Defense Forces was identified as an army of occupation - rather than as an army defending feminists and homo-lesbians from the fanaticism of the Middle East - they had reservations about it, they shook it off and became alienated from it. After all, in the spiritual world of political correctness, power and army have become dirty words.

Any national idea was rejected because of the sanctity of the private sphere. Every cooperative ethos was dismantled in favor of the individual. Power was identified with fascism. Masculinity was publicly condemned. The pursuit of absolute justice was mixed with the pursuit of absolute pleasure and turned the reigning discourse from a discourse of commitment and enlistment to one of protest and pampering.

Another thing happened: We were poisoned with an illusion of normalcy. The State of Israel is fundamentally an abnormal state. Just because it is a Jewish state in an Arab region, and just because it is a Western country in a Muslim region, and just because it is a democratic state in a region of fanaticism and despotism, Israel is in constant tension with its surroundings. On the one hand, because of the situation in which it finds itself, Israel cannot live a life of European normalcy. On the other hand, because of its values and its structure in terms of identity, economics and culture, Israel cannot avoid being a part of European normalcy.

Therefore Israel is in a constant state of basic contradiction. The way to resolve this contradiction is to create a positive anomaly - both ideological and ethical - that will provide an answer to the negative anomaly in which Israel exists. There is no other way: Israel must prepare a defense envelope that will protect its internal environment from the external environment surrounding it. Life in defiance of the environment is an essential part of Israeli existence.

However, in the past generation this cruel insight has dissipated, the delusion has spread that we have overcome our problems and reached a state of tranquility, and that we can live in this place like any other nation. This illusion led to a situation where the positive Israeli anomaly gradually became blurred, and the energies devoted to maintaining the defensive shield that isolates Israel from the region and protects it from this region were drastically reduced. Weakness prevailed. Our willpower was weakened. The bubble so inebriated the Israelis that they didn't bother to surround it with a fortified wall. Therefore, the pressures of the external environment steadily increased - with the terror of 2002 and the Qassams of 2005 and the Katyushas of 2006 - until they penetrated deep inside the Israeli environment. Thus was created the paradox that those who wanted to believe that Israel could be totally normal were the ones who caused it to decline into a chaotic situation of total anomaly and a loss of balance.

Both political correctness and the illusion-of-normalcy spread first and foremost among the Israeli elites. The Israeli public in general has remained for the most part sober and strong. It did not err with illusions of a new Middle East. It did not turn its back on the existential imperative, the defense ethos and the IDF. Even its core values were not destroyed. Therefore, it impressively withstood both the test of terror of 2001-2003 and the test of "fire-on-the-home front" of 2006. It demonstrated an almost British fortitude and continues to do so.

On the other hand, the Israeli elites of the past 20 years have become totally divorced from reality. The capital, the media and the academic world of the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century, have blinded Israel and deprived it of its spirit. Their repeated illusions regarding the historical reality in which the Jewish state finds itself, caused Israel to make a navigational error and to lose its way. Their unending attacks, both direct and indirect, on nationalism, on militarism and on the Zionist narrative have eaten away from the inside at the tree trunk of Israeli existence, and sucked away its life force. While the general public demonstrated sobriety, determination and energy, the elites were a isappointment.

Capital brought the illusion-of-normalcy ad absurdum, and established a crushing social-economic regime here that does not suit the historical situation. The academic world promoted political correctness ad absurdum and conducted a somewhat suicidal spirit of criticism here. And the media combined the two and created a hallucinatory state of mind, which combines unbridled consumerism with false righteousness.

Instead of being constructive elites, in the past generation the Israeli elites have become dismantling elites. Each in its own area, each by its own method, dealt with the deconstruction of the Zionism enterprise. Step by step, the top 1000th percentiles abandoned the existential national effort. They stopped doing reserve duty, they stopped sending their sons to the fighting units. They mocked those officers who warned about unilateral withdrawals. They mocked those officers who warned that the emergency warehouses were emptying out and the enemies were becoming stronger. And they deceived themselves and those around them that Tel Aviv is in fact Manhattan. Money is in fact everything. And thus they bequeathed to young Israelis a legacy of values that makes it very difficult for them to attack even when the attack is fully justified. Because a country that lacks equality, that lacks justice and that lacks faith in the rightness of its path, is a country for which it is very difficult to go on the attack. It is a country for which not many are willing to kill and be killed.

And in the Middle East of the 21st century, a country whose young elites find it difficult to kill and be killed for it is a country on borrowed time. A country that cannot endure. So that what is now being revealed before our eyes, as the smoke of the Katyushas continues to rise from the Lebanese thicket, is not a failure of the IDF but a failure of the elites that turned their back on the IDF. What is being revealed now, when Israel cannot properly protect the lives of its citizens, is not problems of command and problems of tactics, but rather deep-seated problems of a society whose elites have abandoned it. It is not Major General Udi Adam or Brigadier General Gal Hirsch who are the problem, it is the Israeli spirit. A spirit that for far too long has been a spirit of stupidity. A spirit of absolute folly.

Usually, the accusation of folly is directed at battle-hungry generals and warmongering politicians. However, at the end of this war, the accusation of folly will be directed at an entire cadre of Israeli opinion-makers and social leaders who lived in a bubble and caused Israel to live in a bubble. The army will be required to put its house in order and to rebuild, but the true anger will be directed toward the elites who failed. Elites who betrayed the trust of a wise, impressive and strong nation.

However, now it is wartime. The citizens of the north are still in bomb shelters, the soldiers of the regular and standing armies are risking their lives in a war that was not properly planned or properly defined and is being conducted poorly. Therefore, what is needed now is to operate quickly, to operate while in motion, in order to strengthen the spirit of those participating in the battle. What is needed is to create immediately a new discourse that will suit the new situation. Without a new spirit and without a new language there will be no victory in the fighting. Therefore, while the war is raging we must find the spirit and we must find the language that we lost in the years preceding the war.

Israel tried with all its soul and all its might to be Athens. However in this place, in this era, there is no future for an Athens without a speck of Sparta. There is no hope for a society-of-life that does not know how to organize itself to deal with death. Therefore, after decades during which the right and the left and the center took Israeli power for granted and wastefully exploited it, now there is no escaping the need to place the renewed building of Israeli power at the top of the agenda. We are returning to the encounter with our fate; returning to what is decreed by the reality of our lives.

"I'm sorry, but Israel has NOT suffered a defeat. I would agree if somone claimed that they had missed an opportunity, I would agree if some mentioned that they had grossly under achieved, but in no way, shape, manner, or form, did Israel suffer any kind of defeat...other than perhaps a political one....in a military sense the IDF bungled...but still kicked the snot out of the Hezbo's when allowed to go after the terrorists."

I wish I could agree with you. Unfortunately, Aaron Klein's article in WND seems closer to the truth.

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51519

NEWS ANALYSIS
Israel loses Lebanon war
WND Jerusalem bureau chief says Olmert restrained IDF 'at every turn'

Posted: August 14, 2006
12:07 p.m. Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

JERUSALEM – In the coming days, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his government ministers will attempt to persuade Israeli voters and the international community that Israel achieved its political and military objectives during its campaign in Lebanon.

Olmert will likely claim Hezbollah's capabilities have been minimized; a strong, armed force will soon be deployed in south Lebanon capable of contending with Hezbollah; and that the political momentum for a new Middle East settlement is now on Israel's side.

In actuality, these claims couldn't be further from the truth. Israel lost the war in Lebanon on all fronts. This is so largely because Olmert refused to allow the Israeli Defense Forces to do its job.

Days after Hezbollah provoked Israel last month by firing rockets into Jewish towns and by ambushing an Israeli military patrol unit killing 8 soldiers and kidnapping two others, the IDF presented Olmert with several battle plans it says could have devastated Hezbollah within an estimated three weeks.

The plans, drawn up and improved upon over the course of several years, called for an immediate air campaign against Hezbollah strongholds in south Beirut; aerial bombardment of key sections of the Lebanese-Syria border to ensure the kidnapped soldiers were not transported out of the country and to halt Syrian re-supply of arms to Hezbollah; and the deployment of up to 40,000 ground troops to advance immediately to the Latani River – taking up the swath of territory from which most Hezbollah rockets are fired – and from there work their way back to the Israeli border while surrounding and then cleaning out Hezbollah strongholds under heavy aerial cover.

To the dismay of military officials here, Olmert did not approve the plan. He initially allowed only a limited air campaign that focused on some high-profile Hezbollah targets, the Beirut airport and roads that led from Beirut into Syria. But the main smuggling routes between Syria and Lebanon, sites very well known to Israeli intelligence, were essentially off limits to the Israeli Air Force because Olmert didn't want his army operating too close to Syria for fear it would bring Damascus into the conflict.

IDF suffers from lack of troops in Lebanon, insufficient air coverage

When Hezbollah met Israel's air campaign with massive rocket attacks against northern Israeli communities, the IDF again presented Olmert with a plan for a large ground deployment to the Latani River. The Israeli Prime Minister – under heavy pressure to step up operations in response to Hezbollah rocket fire – approved only a smaller ground offensive of up to 8,000 soldiers who were not allowed to advance to the Latani.

The IDF was directed to clean out Hezbollah's bases within about three miles of the Israeli border. Small forces, though, did advance further while isolated special operations were carried out deep inside Lebanon.

Afraid of being accused of using excessive force and firing indiscriminately into population centers – charges leveled at the Jewish state anyway – Olmert limited the IAF to strategic bombings only. The air force was not allowed to clear the way for ground troops to enter.

And so the IDF – with a force one fourth the size it asked for – engaged in heated, often face-to-face combat over the course of weeks with a well-trained, well-armed Hezbollah militia that had planned with Iran for up to six years for this battle.

Israeli soldiers found themselves up against Hezbollah gunmen who fought in civilian clothing and hid behind local civilian populations. Well-orchestrated Hezbollah ambushes took tolls on troop battalions. Iranian-supplied advanced anti-tank missiles proved extremely effective against Israeli combat vehicles.

The IDF suffered in very specific ways on the battlefield because of a lack of enough ground troops.

One example was a battle that began July 25. The Israeli army attempted to strangle Bint Jbail, a town of about 30,000 commonly called the "Hezbollah capital" of south Lebanon. Because there were not enough troops to completely surround the strategic village, Bint Jbail's northern entrance was not sealed off, and, according to army sources, hundreds of Hezbollah fighters were able to infiltrate and join with the already 150 or so gunmen inside. The IDF had to contend with a larger Hezbollah contingent as a result. Nine soldiers were lost in heavy fighting the next day. Another 14 soldiers were killed at Bint Jbail the next two weeks.

On several occasions the past few weeks, while heavy diplomacy looked to be gaining momentum, such as during Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's visits here, the IDF was actually asked by the political echelon to halt most operations and troop advances for up to 36 hours while negotiations ran their course.

Military leaders now charge that some troop battalions, instructed to hold positions outside villages but not to advance, actually became sitting ducks for Hezbollah anti-tank fire, which killed at least 35 Israeli soldiers. After the diplomacy failed, soldiers were ordered to carry on. This piece of information will likely be brought to light by commissions of inquiry already initiated into the performance of the IDF and the culpability of Israel's political leadership.

Hezbollah showed other impressive gains. In what Israel admitted was a major blow to its navy, Hezbollah during the initial fighting hit an Israeli naval ship with an Iranian Silkworm C-802 radar-guided anti-ship cruise missile, killing four soldiers and damaging the warship. It was the first time the missile had been introduced into the battle with Israel. Military officials here said the Israeli ship's radar system was not calibrated to detect the Silkworm, which is equipped with an advanced anti-tracking system.

Olmert turns down 'necessary' military ops

WorldNetDaily was made aware by senior military officials of several meetings in which IDF officials petitioned Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz for a larger ground force and for more heavy aerial cover, or at least for ground troops already in Lebanon to be authorized to reach the Latani River in hopes of cleaning out the villages nearby such as Tyre, from which many rockets are launched into Israel.

The petitions came more frequently as Hezbollah rockets landed further and further south inside Israel.

Tens of thousands of troops were put on standby in northern Israel, but were not allowed to enter Lebanon.

The smaller IDF numbers on the ground in Lebanon carried on, eventually with instructions to create a buffer zone of about 3 miles within which the Hezbollah infrastructure would be entirely wiped out. The zone would do little to stop rocket fire into northern Israel, since most rockets were fired from positions deeper inside south Lebanon.

Officials say the IAF was still restrained from targeting key positions close to the Syrian border in the Bekaa Valley from which intelligence officials say Hezbollah received regular shipments of rockets and other heavy weaponry originating in Iran and transported via Syria. Israel bombed roads in the area a few kilometers from Syria, but many weapons smuggling routes at the border remained intact.

While Syria placed its military on high alert, Olmert told reporters several times Israel had no intention of bringing Damascus into the war.

Last weekend, after Hezbollah rockets killed a record 15 civilians in one day, Olmert's cabinet finally gave the green light for an enormous IDF ground invasion and for an advance to the Latani River.

Many military officials here told me they were elated the IDF would at last be given the freedom to do what it had wanted to do nearly one month ago.

The cabinet, though, left the timing of the new operation to Olmert, who held the advance back until Thursday morning. By Thursday evening, the IDF, which charged ahead from four main fronts, reached the Latani River and even beyond in full force and prepared for an intense battle to overtake the areas used by Hezbollah to fire rockets. The IDF estimated it would need another four to six weeks to successfully wipe out the Hezbollah infrastructure in the areas.

But a day later a cease-fire resolution was adapted. The U.S., perhaps wanting to cut its losses after Israel's month-long poor performance, supported a cessation of military activities in Lebanon.

Hezbollah remains intact, Israel's enemies emboldened

The IDF continued its advance until this morning, beginning to clear out some villages. But not nearly enough gains were made, as was amply demonstrated yesterday when Hezbollah fired over 240 rockets – its largest one-day volley yet – into northern Israel, killing one civilian and wounding at least 26 others.

Now the cease-fire is being implemented. Perhaps it will hold, perhaps it won't. Either way, Hezbollah has won the war. It put up an incredible fight against IDF forces paralyzed by Israel's leadership. The terror group maintains a good deal of its infrastructure in south Lebanon and still has the ability to fire hundreds of rockets per day into Israel.

Even if Israel restarts its larger offensive, Hezbollah still can regain the initiative by carrying out larger escalations, such as firing its long-range Zelzal rockets into Tel Aviv.

Hezbollah is ecstatic about the deployment of "15,000 soldiers" from the Lebanese Army to replace Israeli troops in south Lebanon. The Lebanese Army doesn't have 15,000 standing troops. Aside from a small air force pool, the Army doesn't have a reserve unit from which it can call up large numbers.

The plan, according to Lebanese officials, is to recall Lebanese soldiers who served during the past 5 years, which means many out-of-shape, unprepared ex-soldiers will be charged with protecting the Israeli border. Take into account the sectarian divisions of the split Shiite-Sunni Lebanese Army – with many soldiers sympathetic to Hezbollah's cause – and you have a force that will, at best, do little to contend with Hezbollah, and at worst prompt an internal civil war. Not to mention, the Lebanese Army is poorly armed and ill-equipped.

The cease-fire call for the establishment of a backed-up United Nations force in south Lebanon is also taken as a victory for Hezbollah. The terror group does not believe any international force will be willing to die to defend Israel's borders or that it will have the ability to block the group's re-supply routes between Syria and Lebanon. Hezbollah knows that if the IDF couldn't defeat it, European forces, led by countries opposed to Israel's Lebanon campaign, will be no match.

For Israel, an international force on its borders will impede the ability of the IDF to operate with freedom during any future conflict with Hezbollah.

The Jewish state's credibility took a massive toll when Olmert agreed to the current cease-fire calling for negotiations at a later date for the two soldiers Hezbollah kidnapped. Olmert had repeatedly vowed the war would only stop after Hezbollah returned the abducted Israeli troops, and now the prime minister is ending the war without even vague promises of the soldiers' assured safety or indications they are alive. Hezbollah sees this as a victory.

The cease-fire places the Shebba Farms, territory held by Israel but claimed by Hezbollah, up for future negotiations, granting Hezbollah the ability to claim its fighting brought international legitimacy to its territorial demands.

The cease-fire doesn't place an immediate arms embargo on Hezbollah, but only calls for future talks on stopping weapons transfers to the terror group. This leaves Syria and Iran free to rearm and regroup Hezbollah.

The two state sponsors of Hezbollah, Syria and Iran learned during the last month that they can orchestrate a proxy war against America's Middle East ally at no cost to their regimes. They engineered a tough fight against Israeli forces and came out on top. They will be emboldened to continue their war against Israel and U.S. troops in Iraq at a fevered pitch. Iran smells Western weakness and will forge ahead with its nuclear ambitions.

And terrorists in the West Bank and Gaza are foaming at the mouth. Today, Abu Aziz, second-in-command of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group, told WorldNetDaily that Hezbollah's victory leads him to believe the end of Israel is in sight. He said he realizes now is the time to "attack Israel from all directions."

And so the enemies of the U.S. and Israel are poised for another war. They smell victory, and why shouldn't they? The last month demonstrated that with weak Israeli leadership in place, the Jewish state can be defeated

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