Posted on 08/16/2006 1:53:05 PM PDT by jveritas
Through out the Arab Israeli wars people always set the high expectations that Israel is going to crush its Arabs enemies in matter of weeks if not days as in the case of the June 1967 war, where Israel destroyed the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian armies combined in a span of six days and occupied lands that were twice its size.
In this last war with Hizballah terrorist militia, Israel did not show the world what they used to see before in Israel traditional wars, never the less Israel won this war, but without the public glow of the previous wars, or at least that of the 1967 war. Many political and military analysts in the West jumped to the conclusion that Israel did not win because they were not able to totally eliminate Hizballah, but those analysts failed to recognize that Israel main goal was not the total annihilation of Hizballah, but rather dealing them a very severe blow in South Lebanon and change the dynamic of Southern Lebanon toward Israel favor. From practical point of view, the total annihilation of Hizballah is not feasible because its members can simply abandon their arms and merge back into the population. The type of war that the IDF fought is not a traditional one, where the armies of the enemies are massing in the wide desert of Sinai or on the open area of Golan Heights, and where it is easier for air superiority and swift tanks operations to win the day for Israel, but rather this is a war where the enemy is using civilian population as human shields, hiding in well sophisticated tunnels, operating in small groups of 5, 10, or 20 maximum, which makes it a longer task for the IDF because they have to go and chase the enemy where they hide plus the worry of death to the civilian population where the enemy is sheltering.
So how did Israel win this war?
One needs to make a comparison before July 12th when the war started and where the situation is right now to conclude that Israel have won this war. Before July 12th Hizballah has an absolute control the Southern part of Lebanon extending from the Litani river to the Lebanese-Israeli borders. Hizballah had 1500 to 2000 hard core well trained fighters (terrorists) in this area, with huge amount of light and medium weapons, as well a huge storage of short range Katiucha rockets, and those powerful anti-tanks rockets. From May 2000 when Israel withdrew from Lebanon until July 2006, Hizballah with the help of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards built hundreds of sophisticated undergorund tunnels to be used for defensive and offensive operations, tunnels equipped with highly advanced communications equipments, night visions gears, and storage weapons facilities for different types of weapons. In a month of fighting from July 12th to August 14th, Israel killed approximately 600 Hizballah fighters and injured a similar number. The extremely high casualties among Hizballah fighters is from a force that number around 2000, from military point of view that is the closet thing to annihilation. All Hizballah military infrastructures in Southern Lebanon and South of Beirut (AL Dahiyeh) had been badly damaged and many were totally destroyed. Israel was able to take out at least half of Hizballah katucha missiles and launchers, much higher percentage from their longer range missiles and its launchers. Israel destroyed a lot of Hizballah ammunition depots and confiscated a lot of Hizballah weapons that they abandoned in the battlefields. Israel forced Hizballah leadership to go into hiding in bunkers, and they are still hiding even now after days from the cease fire, and Israel killed a good numbers of Hizballah military commanders, the last one was the commander of Hizballah Special Forces who was killed very shortly before the cease fire started on August 14. In regards to Israel losses, they lost 120 soldiers in a month of fighting, this is the least number of Israeli soldiers killed in any major war that Israel had fought. In fact they lost over 1000 soldiers in 1967 war, over 3000 in 1973 war, and over 700 soldiers in 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
But from the military point of view the worst of all defeats for Hizballah, and that analysts are not taking it considerations, is that Hizballah claimed that Israel cannot enter one inch in Lebanese territories and that they “The Resistance” will destroy the Israeli army at the blue line, that claim was totally destroyed. Israel occupied large part of Southern Lebanon from the the borders all the way to the Litani river, and they did most of the occupation in the last 36 hours of the war. Hizballah main claim that they will not disarm is because Israel occupies the Sheba farms which is a disputed piece of land that may rather belong to Syria and not Lebanon, and Hizballah vowed to keep their arms until they “liberate” Sheba farms. But now after this war, Israel has many more land in Lebanon than the Sheba farms. In other word, Israel can occupy Lebanon anytime they want despite all the rhetoric of Hizballah that they can prevent them from doing so. In fact after the recent occupation by Israel to Southern Lebanon, Hizballah wanted to save face and they claimed that their strategy was not to prevent Israel from occupying land, but rather to let them in and then start resisting them inside and kill them!
On the political front, and despite all the loop holes of UN resolution 1701, it is still a major defeat for Hizballah, and that why they accepted when the war was going on and then they refused it when the cease fire started because it goes against them. In UN resolution 1701 there will be 30000 Lebanese and International troops to take control from the Litani River down to the borders with Israel and this area should be free of Hizballah armed presence. Hizballah never dreamed that he will not be the only armed force controlling the area South of the Litani river, but now they have at a minimum to share it with 30000 others troops, and that there military activity will be much more restricted and much more clandestine no matter what. But a much worse scenario for Hizballah will be that they be forced in one way or another to leave to the North of the Litani river.
On the “Propaganda” front, Hizballah achieved a “victory” but as all propaganda victories, they are short lived, and get demolished when reality set in. What aggravated this Hizballah delusional propaganda victory are the many military and political analysts together with some Israeli politicians who made the wrong assumptions on what Israel goals were in this war, misunderstood the nature of the war, and compare it wrongly to Israel other traditional wars, and that the facts that Israel did not totally annihilate Hizballah, then Israel did not win, or worse they assumed that Israel was defeated because it did not achieve “the impossible” military goals that those analysts and politicians set for Israel. Of course, the Arab media, Syria, Iran, and definitely Hizballah were going to claim victory no matter what were the results. In 1967 war, the most crushing defeat for the Arabs, the Arabs leaders and their media were claiming that they are surrounding Tel Aviv up to the last second of the war, when they finally woke up to their horrible defeat. In the Yom Kippor war of October 1973, Egypt and Syria were able to make some advancement in the beginning of the war, when they kind of surprised the Israeli forces in Sinai and Golan heights, but later in the war, Israel was able to re-group, crushed the Arab armies, and indeed occupied even more land than in 1967. Still both Egypt and Syria consider this 1973 war as a great victory for them, they call it the war of where “The Myth of the Invincible Israeli Army was Destroyed”, and they make October 7th as a national holidays in their countries. Arabs concepts of victory and defeat is totally different from that the world, unless you totally annihilate them, whoever left standing will claim victory. We have seen it in al their wars with Israel and we have seen it with Saddam Hussein after the 1991 Gulf war.
The saddest part in this war, is that the biggest loser was Lebanon and the Lebanese people. In one month of war Lebanon lost 3 billions dollars in infrastructure, and another 7 billions dollars in economy, where the whole summer tourism season is gone. Lebanon has 21 billions dollars annual GDP so a loss of 10 billions dollars is almost 50% of this GDP, it is an economic disaster beyond belief. There are over 12000 homes destroyed in Lebanon, 75 bridges, power stations, and over 800,000 refugees living in miserable conditions. Still the worst thing, is the death of hundred of Lebanese civilians who were use Hizballah terrorists as human shields and the dozens of Israeli civilians killed by Hizballah Katiucha whose only real value is that of terror.
The war with Israel is now over at least for a very long time, despite all the rhetoric and the false propaganda and the knee jerk reactions, Israel dealt a very severe military blow to Hizballah and was able to change the status-co on their Northern borders greatly to their favor by the having Hizballah much less in control of the South of Lebanon a very different situation from when the war started on July 12th.
The greatest fear now is what is going to happen inside Lebanon. Will the Lebanese government and other Lebanese factions take advantage of a greatly weakened Hizballah whose fighting force is very badly damaged and whose leadership is hiding in bunkers to put more pressure on Hizballah to fully disarm and renounce terrorism, or will they subdue to fear and get affected with a fake propaganda win for Hizballah and do not do anything to Hizballah for fear of a civil war or fear that they themselves will be killed by the terror militia. Time will tell, but unfortunately the latter looks more probable.
You are a great American, JV.
The only way to defeat an Islamic enemy, is to crush their belief in Allah.
JV, you're Lebanese, right?
Very well put jveritas. Good job.
Old rule: if the insurgent doesn't lose, he wins.
In a few months, they will be rearmed, replenished and rarin' to go.
And Israel?
Right :)
bttt
Nice article!
great post. some much needed reality
"Israel Won"
Definitely.
Amigo, did you see the Lebanese President on FOX News? He was interviewed by FOX's war correspondent, GEN Shepherd Smith. Any way, the president is sure a Hizbullah butt kisser. I have believed for a long time that many Lebanese, Druze and Christians especially, but Sunnis too, want Hizbollah's power reigned in. What do you think of this backing for Hizbollah by the president and by Michael Aoun (spelling?)?
It's amazing how many people are willing to swallow Hezbollah's "victory" propaganda - hook, line and sinker.
Thanks so much for this, JV. It offers a fresh and thoughtful perspective, and accomplished a key goal: cheering me up!
Thank you. Just telling what I see from my Lebanese experience and background.
Thank You for your thoughtful and concise article.
I, too, feel so badly for the Lebanese people who worked so hard to restore their country only to have it undermined by these terrorists.
What did they win.......and what will the promised $10,000 do for families in the devestated area. NOTHING. Too bad our MSM is praising the efforts of hezbollah. What foolishness. Too bad our own so called right wing talkers are so uninformed.
And you believe that the devestation wrought by the Israeli's is going to be rebuilt in a few months? All the flattened houses, bridges, infrastructure will be rebuilt as tho nothing ever happened? What are you smoking. Think about what you are saying.
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