Heretics' almanac

To be sure...

In this weekend's On the Media, the opinion editor of Lebanon's Daily Star (Michael Young) made some interesting points:

• The Arab street may be impressed by Hezbollah's fighting spirit and ability, but they're not at all excited about the war Hezbollah started, for no good reason
• They are mindful that if Israel could cause so much destruction on a bad day, how much worse it would be when they get their act together

In other words, as Young leaves implicit and unsaid (because it should go without saying), Arabs actually have good common sense. Not a surprise to me, but probably to many of the pundits, commentators, etc., who think that Israel got the bloody nose and Hezbollah is ascending in the Arab mind.

Who is violating what?

Aftenposten tells its readers that the Israeli commando raid in the Bekaa Valley was the "most serious" breach in the armistice so far. The raid, as far as anyone can tell, was to disrupt a supply of arms to Hezbollah, I'm guessing from Syria.

It seems that Aftenposten's editors haven't actually read the relevant SC resolution, which pretty clearly reads:

– no foreign forces in Lebanon without the consent of its Government;

– no sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its Government;

Now, I'm not the least bit surprised that Hezbollah is using this cease-fire as an opportunity to replenish its arms and solidify its tactical positions in Lebanon. If Syria and Iran are sending weapons to Hezbollah, and Hezbollah is accepting them; then Israel is simply enforcing the terms of the cease-fire, not violating it.

Unless you sincerely believe that the cease-fire really means that Israel should stop defending itself.

A picture can tell a thousand lies

Not surprisingly, there is growing consternation if not outrage about the devastation brought about by Israel's bombing of targets inside Lebanon. Without a doubt, there will be demands that Israel compensates the Lebanese for this destruction, estimated by  Al-Fadl Shalaq, head of the Hizballah Fundraising Committee (Lebanese) Council for Development and Reconstruction at $3.6 billion, a figure Reuters, Aftenposten, eagerly lap up.

Images are flying, of the same Beirut neigborhood, and of internally displaced people sleeping in parking garages.

These image should disturb all of us, but I've learned to be deeply suspicious. When Shalag rhetorically asks what would happen if 25% of all French were displaced in the month of August, he's in fact describing reality - I would estimate at least 25% of all French people displace themselves to go on vacation. And before somebody jumps down my throat, yes, I realize that fleeing a war is different from taking a week with the kids on the beach, or in the mountains. But the mere fact that a large portion of a country moves itself all at once is not as radical as one might first assume - and these people had plenty of notice.

By the same token, as horrible as the rubble is in Haret Hreik and Qana, we simply do not have anything approaching an objective consideration of how widespread the damage is. And I haven't seen a lot of pictures of the area around Kiryat Shemona.

And, of course, nobody is writing up headlines about the economic damage done to Israel - which can be measured not just in terms of destruction, but also the opportunity cost of shutting down Northern Israel and mobilizing several divisions of reserve troops.

What will happen next?

I read UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and nodded in agreement through all of it. The issue isn't whether it's a good resolution (which I think it is), but whether there's a way to enforce it.

In fact, several sources now indicate that it's unraveling even before it started, largely because Hizballah (surprise!) isn't cooperating with the Lebanese government, which isn't surprising if you know anything about the way Hizballah doesn't give a flying fuck about the welfare of the Lebanese people or the sovereignty of the state.

So where does this leave Israel? The resolution allows Israel to perform defensive operations as needed. Setting aside the semantic nuances between "offensive" and "defensive" (one could argue that everything Israel has done in Lebanon is defensive) - at what point can Israel say the ceasefire has been rendered inoperable by Hizballah's actions and resume its plans?

How this war will progress

Every military organization operates on a military doctrine. Israel's doctrine has for many years been based on the scenario of a war:

• On several fronts
• Against one or more Arab regimes with conventional forces
• Against extreme time pressure, since the UN has a tendency to stop all wars when Israel gains the upper hand
• With no buffer against the enemy

The wars against Hizballah and Hamas deviate from this scenario. They are low-intensity conflicts where the enemy uses unconventional tactics and is not accountable in the international community. Israel can only gain a decisive upper hand by inflicting unacceptable civilian casualties.