Why Israel is Losing this War and Undermining its Deterrent Capability, Which Will Likely Lead to Tragic Miscalculation by its Enemies in the Future

By: Concerned Citizen

By some press accounts, and by most accounts from Israel's strong supporters (whether they be Jewish organizations or Fox Network), Israel is achieving some form of military progress in "dismantling the terrorist infrastructure" of Hezbollah in Lebanon. They would argue that, while Israel is suffering a high psychological price as a result of the indiscriminate and constant bombardment by Hezbollah rockets and missiles of civilians in the northern part of Israel, the Israeli military is showing its supremacy by blasting away from the air at Hezbollah positions, while also illustrating to the Lebanese, mostly through the destruction of their infrastructure, the folly of their ways in permitting Hezbollah to create a mini-terror state in Lebanon, to a greater extent than the PLO did during the late 70's and early 80's. The Lebanese have responded with two arguments: They do their "Mahmoud Abbas routine" of shrugging their shoulders and saying that their military is not powerful enough to take on Hezbollah (incorrect), and saying that any attempt to disarm Hezbollah would likely lead to a new Lebanese civil war (correct -- Hezbollah after all, with a sizable minority of the Lebanese Parliament, stands for the hopes and aspirations of the Lebanese people in much the same way that Hamas does for the Palestinians -- both democratically elected on the platform of the total destruction fo the Jewish state).

Israeli leaders have been somewhat proud of themselves that they have taken a relatively restrained approach (in their opinion, if not in the opinion of the Europeans), attempting to take out targets from the air, trying to be careful not to cause massive civilian casualties. By not sending in ground troops to clean out Hezbollah, the Israeli leadership reasons that they are both limiting Israeli military casualties (in a country where virtually every family has a child or family member in the military), and limiting Lebanese civilian casualties and thereby protecting Israel's global "image" from additional jarring images of suffering Lebanese civilians caught in the crossfire.

In fact, this strategy can have tragic consequences to Israel's long term deterrent capability. Israel is merely drawing a stalemate in this Arab-Israeli battle, but is losing the war.

Put simply, Israel is doing itself enormous harm where it counts -- with the decisionmakers of its enemies. Everyone works by his own calculus, and the calculus that has kept the armistice more often than not for the past 58 years of the Arab-Israeli conflict is as follows:

1. The Israelis want to continue to have a state.
2. The Arabs would prefer that there be no Jewish state.
3. The Arabs would take military action to destroy the Jewish state if they believe that such military action would either be successful in driving the Jews into the sea, or that the prosecuting Arab faction can achieve some political or military objective in attacking Israel, even if they don't drive Israel into the sea. for example, the Yom Kippur war attack by the Egyptians of Israel never had, as a reasonable expectation, the annihilation fo the Jewish state (though the Syrians in the North came closer to that than they would have thought), but the perpetration of a credible military campaign that would allow Egypt to burnish its leadership position in the Arab world and result in some recapture of the Sinai.
4. In taking the military action described in #3 above, the Arabs need not win the battle, just come out of it with relative dignity for facing down the admittedly superior Zionist imperialist army. Going back to the Egypt example, even though the Yom Kippur war ended up with the Egyptian force being militarily defeated and Ariel Sharon standing on the African side of the canal within a leasurely drive of Cairo (with few Egyptian forces between him and that objective), the war was viewed as a victory for Egypt by Egyptians and other Arabs alike even before Israel gave back to the Egyptians the rest of Sinai as part of their peace agreement.
5. Lastly, and here is the rub, the Arabs will not perpetrate a military adventure against the Israelis if they believe the Israelis will show the political and military will and capabilities to turn the war into a rout, which would embarrass the Arab who starts the fight and could cost him power and standing.

In other words, for the Arabs, it is a "victory" to lose by a reasonable point spread, as long as they don't get routed, put up a good fight and bloody the Israelis.

Hamas doctrine expects Israel to cease to exist in the decade of 2020. The stated reason has more to do with their perception of Israel's diminishing will to fight to absolute victory, than with advancements in Arab military capability. While Israel's proseution of this war so far might be viewed by mild mannered Israeli lawyers, diplomats and others as Israel's civilized restraint in its war against the Palestinians and now Hezbollah, Israel's war fighting strategy is viewed by its enemies as weakness and a lack of resolve. In a sense, in the eyes of Islamists, the Small Satan is following the Big Satan down the road of defeat, which is paved by lack of resolve, moral weakness, and fear of caasualties in execution of a just conflict (or alternatively, doubts over the justness of the conflict).

More specificially, In the eyes of the Islamists and, perhaps more importantly, in the eyes of the Arab street and its voters, Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and Lebanon were not the result of Israel's moral or military strength or confidence, but of its moral and military weakness. In Western eyes, this has led to a Hamas and Hezbollah "miscalculation", where they pushed too far with the soldier kidnappings and the rocket attacks, and now Israel is fighting back. But again, remember the Arab calculus -- if they don't lose bad, they win. In this context, this Hamas and Hezbollah inspired war has so far been a victory (as rockets keep landing on Israel, day by day) and this has been a test of Israel's resolve, which it so far is failing, in the enemies' eyes. While blaming Syria and Iran, Israel has been very careful not to threaten action action Syria, no less Iran, in spite of their complicity in this whole thing (BTW, has anyone heard anything discussed internationallly about Iran's nuclear program lately? Boy are they playing the West well!).

More importantly, Israel has tried to combat this war from the air and sea, and has not shown the resolve to clean out the enemy with boots on the ground, which is the only way this can be done (albeit, at the risk of heavy casualites to Israeli military and Lebanese civilians, and the risk of another long term stabilizing presence in Lebanon; this time, becuase of the range of the enemy's weapons, much further north). Ironically, Israeli leaders would be supported in this action by both the US and Israeli public opinion, which has been inculcated over generations that this is the "right way" to deal with the Arabs (Sharon was able to withdraw from Gaza becasue of his calculus that, with his background, the Arabs knew that he would react strongly if they tested him strongly -- unfortunately, Israel is now run by a professional politician/lawyer, and a labor organizer). Israel could be forced to abandon Lebanese ground taken by international pressure but at least Israel's deterrent posture in Arab minds would remain intact. An air attack in Syria or two would also show that type of resolve. In both cases, unfortuantely, Israel's "civilized restraint" in avoiding these actions to date has been very harmful, and it may be too late to have the desired effect in Arab consciousness, which can have long term consequences in further Arab "miscalculations" of Israeli will.

Probably the most that can be hoped for in order to try to re-establish this deterrent value in some Ara minds is for Israeli socieety to go through a deep public soul searching of this issue, culminating in the election of a more resolute, right wing Israeli government with better "deterrence credentials".

I guess what I am saying is that this war has been a strategic disaster for Israel so far, unlike any they have ever fought. Lets just hope that somehow a miracle happens and Iran does not acquire nuclear weapons.

For further reading, see Daniel Pipes', "Israel Shuns Victory".
file:///Users/rob/Desktop/www.danielpipes.org:article:3479.webloc
For further reading, see Daniel Pipes, "Israel Shuns Victory".