Mideast crisis--Blog from Jerusalem
Jerusalem/Haifa—Hours after a United Nations-brokered cease-fire went into force Monday morning, stores opened their long-shut doors, traffic lights began operating, and thousands of Israelis in the north of Israel started to come out from the bomb shelters where they hid from Katyushas rockets for five difficult weeks.
The long-awaited cease-fire brought great hope to Israeli citizens and soldiers but also skepticism, and it opened the gates for the flood of criticism toward the Israeli government and military leaders.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, and Chief of Staff Dan Halutz have a lot of answering to do. The war between Hezbollah and the Israeli Army, which was sparked by the capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12th, killed over 1,000 Lebanese, a third of whom were children, and 115 Israeli soldiers and 39 Israeli civilians. It forced over 700,000 Lebanese and 500,000 Israelis to abandon their homes for refuge.
Yet the Israeli soldiers are still missing and Hezbollah was not crushed. In fact, many Israelis still fear that Katyushas could come raining down. As Uri Avnery, an Israeli peace activist and commentator, said, "If a light-weight boxer is fighting a heavy-weight champion and is still standing in the 12th round, the victory is his—whatever the count of points says." Most Israelis, civilians and soldiers, sense that for the first time Israel has lost a war against the Arabs.
So, as the Hezbollah-Israel cease-fire began, the internal political cease-fire ended. Israeli politicians, who had kept their mouths closed and supported the government in the war, now began to open fire. Accusing shots coming from all directions called for an investigation into the war, which both left and right consider a failure. The political right accuses the leadership of waiting too long to attack on the ground and of failing to eliminate the Hezbollah threat. The political left condemns the government for getting involved in a war that it should have known it could not win and that would only cause more deaths than save lives.
The war, which at first brought both Olmert and Peretz higher public ratings, ended with calls for them to step down. An investigation into the failure to realize the war's two goals most likely will be made.
Across the north of the country, some Israelis in Haifa dared go out leisure shopping, while many others stayed indoors or underground, anxious that the cease-fire would not bring the peace they all hoped for.
Hanna Starkmann, the owner of Hotel Erna in Nahariya, remained in her empty hotel—where she lived throughout the war—many hours after the cease-fire began. "You can't know what they [Hezbollah] will do," she said. "Maybe they will breach the cease-fire. I waited 35 days to go outside: I can wait another half-day."
August 10
JERUSALEM--Even as the current war between Israel and Lebanon deepens the divide between Jews and Arabs, Israeli environmentalists are trying to save the Lebanese beaches.
Environmentalists tend to see the world without borders, knowing that polluted air in one country is likely to affect people across the border within a matter of time. They care for the whole environment and not the part only within their borders.
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