If it achieved nothing else, Israel's war in Lebanon last summer made one new fan of Israeli democracy – Hassan Nasrallah. The Hezbollah leader praised Israel this week over the Winograd Commission report that blasted the government's functioning during last summer's 34-day war.
''It is worthy of
respect that an investigative commission appointed by Olmert condemns him,'' the terrorist leader said in a Beirut speech. ''Even though they're our enemies, it is worthy of respect that the political forces and the Israeli public act quickly to save their state, entity, army and their existence from the crisis."
The war – in which Hezbollah peppered Israeli cities with rockets and cluster bombs, while Israel warned Lebanese civilians to evacuate towns and villages it planned to bomb – clearly showed the difference between the two sides in times of war. The events of the past year show the stark differences in times of peace as well.
Lebanon was laid waste by the war, its reconstruction from a grueling civil conflict was set back by a decade and its fragile democracy was left teetering on the abyss. Yet Hezbollah is widely considered to have "won" because it wasn't completely eradicated and managed to continue firing rockets into Israel throughout the entire war, though they did little serious damage.
Israel, on the other hand, killed up to half of Hezbollah's fighting force (exact figures are hard to gauge because of the group's secrecy and the difficulty of determining who is a true civilian and who a plainclothed fighter), destroyed virtually all of Hezbollah's long-range missiles, pushed the group back far beyond the border and finally forced the Lebanese government and army to take responsibility for the southern half of their country.
Meanwhile, the Israeli economy hardly skipped a beat; employees of high-tech companies even continued working during the war from bomb shelters that had been outfitted with high-speed Internet. Yet the war is widely perceived in Israel as a disastrous defeat and the country has been tearing itself apart with self-doubt since the cease-fire, its built-in Whine-o-meter long preceding Winograd in registering the public's torment.
The Winograd report examined only the first five days of the conflict, with conclusions on the bulk of the war to be released later this summer. Yet even the initial report paints a distressing picture, with a "leadership" troika of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and military Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz coming off like the Keystone Cops. One trembles to think what the commission will have to say about the handling of the ground offensive that was finally unleashed just days before the cease-fire was implemented, far too late to achieve its objectives but in plenty of time to cost 30+ Israeli soldiers their lives.
Olmert now is living on borrowed time; he will go down in history as one of Israel's worst prime ministers, a sad coda to the career of a talented politician. But that is Israel. In Lebanon and throughout the Arab world, Nasrallah is feted for his "divine victory" even as he cowers like a rat, hiding from the light of day for fear that the Israelis will assassinate him. The war exposed him as a stooge willing to set Lebanon alight in the service of Iranian interests, and regardless of how much rebuilding cash Nasrallah spreads around after his misadventures, I suspect Lebanese won't soon forget who led their country to such a catastrophe.
Yet while Olmert and his team deserve the rebukes being heaped upon them, in one respect the criticism is mistaken. By showing that a guerrilla band can fend off the Israeli army for a month or more, the argument goes, the Lebanon War gravely harmed Israel's deterrence and invites future attacks. In fact, the reality is just the opposite. Nasrallah had boasted that mighty Israel was in fact as weak as a spiderweb, which trembles in the wind and crumbles at the touch. Indeed, the experience of the past decade gave him little reason to think otherwise: A small but steady trickle of military casualties enraged Israeli mothers and ultimately dislodged the army from its southern Lebanese security zone in May 2000, and since then Hezbollah had carried out repeated crossborder attacks with virtual impunity.
And now? Some 4,000 rockets rained on its home front, yet Israel didn't flinch. Despite their shortcomings, the army and government showed they would brave international condemnation as long as necessary to do what needed to be done. Even Nasrallah admitted that had he anticipated such a fierce Israeli response, he never would have started the war – and don't expect him to pick another fight anytime soon. In other words, there may be only one item on the positive side of the war ledger, but it's a big one: deterrence restored.
