Israel is pounding themselves for the outcome of the war with Hizbollah...
The second Lebanon War in fact demonstrated Israel's enormous dependence on the much-disparaged United Nations, as well as on world opinion - an arena we had virtually abandoned to Arab propagandists.
This turnabout mandates a different kind of attitude toward public diplomacy by future Israeli governments. No other country is so dependent on external factors as Israel.
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Over the course of the war soldiers were held back for weeks when they were ready to charge. When they were finally dispatched, they were given unachievable missions in impossible time constraints. Soldiers were sent on daytime missions that should have been carried out only under the cover of darkness. Some died as a result.
My generation has failed our sons. Not because we failed to give them the proper equipment. We failed to provide them and ourselves with proper leadership. At the start of this war I never felt such a lack of confidence in our national and political leadership. At this point in the war - and I suspect it is only half-time - I feel despair.
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And early on, it became clear that aerial bombardment alone could not achieve this, as Olmert and IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz had foolishly hoped. From that point, military planners were unanimous about what was needed: a major ground operation to push Hizbullah's short-range rockets out of range of Israel (according to the army, long-range rockets actually can be dealt with largely from the air). Scarcely a day passed without some senior officer explaining this to the press; not one ever proposed an alternative solution.
YET OLMERT refused to order such an operation. Instead, he approved only small-scale operations near the border - which, incidentally, increased Israel's casualties by effectively negating the IDF's numerical advantage over Hizbullah. Thus we witnessed the incredible sight of Defense Minister Amir Peretz telling the Knesset on August 7 - 26 days after the war began - that "if, within the coming days, the diplomatic process does not reach a conclusion, Israeli forces will carry out the operations necessary to take control of Katyusha rocket launching sites in every location."
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I would argue that any comprehensive inquiry into what went wrong should include economic decision-making - with a focus on two key events: Binyamin Netanyahu's repeated demands for cuts in defense spending; and Stanley Fischer's decision to raise interest rates to 5.5% in July.
What was wrong with these decisions? In a nutshell, everything.
THE FINANCE Ministry and the Bank of Israel both relentlessly pressed for sharp reductions in defense spending. Underpinning their view was the idea that the IDF is an inefficient, wasteful organization.
Every democratic society airs its dirty laundry before the public, in order to make sound decisions for the future. This is a great example of democracy at work...no matter how you feel about the war.
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