The Casualties of War
Olmert's West Bank withdrawal plan is dead, and his own future is in doubt
The cease-fire-which somehow withstood the killing of 11 Hezbollah guerrillas by Israeli troops in the first two days-left Israel in a far weaker position than Olmert had led the country to anticipate. "Israel has chalked up impressive achievements that are unparalleled, perhaps even unprecedented," he declared in the thick of the war. "We can say with certainty that the face of the Middle East has already been changed." He pledged repeatedly not to call off the fighting until Hezbollah was disarmed and displaced in southern Lebanon by a large, "robust" multinational fighting force.
The cease-fire, however, found Hezbollah still well armed in southern Lebanon, with nobody prepared to take away its Iranian-issued weapons. The Lebanese Army, which includes a large proportion of pro-Hezbollah Shiite troops, moved into the south alongside a decidedly unrobust United Nations peacekeepers mission-leaving the potential for more trouble along the border. The cease-fire also left Israel still waiting for the return of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, the two kidnapped soldiers whose unconditional release was first among Olmert's original war goals. Realistically, Israel will only get them back the old-fashioned way-by freeing hundreds of Lebanese prisoners in return.
This wasn't the first time Israel tried to crush Hezbollah militarily and failed; that came in 1982 and ended 18 years later when Israeli troops finally quit Lebanon. Yet, Israel's leaders convinced themselves and the public that what couldn't be accomplished in 18 years could be achieved now in a matter of weeks. They set the bar for victory so high that all Hezbollah had to do to "win" was survive. They created such heady expectations in the public that the war's inconclusive outcome was bound to be an awful disillusionment.
Return of the right? Among the casualties is Israel's latest political path, which Sharon opened with the Gaza disengagement and Olmert hoped to complete with his "consolidation plan" for the West Bank. The path is one of unilateral withdrawal from Arab territories, with security ensured by Israeli military deterrence. It went bad first in Gaza, where fierce fighting was overshadowed by the war in the north, then went worse on the Lebanese border, whose relative quiet during the six years since the Israeli pullout had served as a model for this latest road to peace, or at least peace and quiet.
"The concept of unilateral withdrawal has collapsed, and I don't think I'm expressing the sentiment only of my party colleagues but of nearly everyone in this chamber," right-wing Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu told the Knesset. Indeed, several cabinet ministers and Knesset members from Olmert's Kadima (Forward) party are now coming out publicly against the West Bank consolidation plan. The war has brought former Prime Minister Netanyahu and the political right back in from the cold.
Yet if the war has discredited the consensus around unilateral withdrawal, it wasn't exactly an advertisement for the old consensus around the virtues of military force. Then again, with enemies like Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria, and Iran, Israelis don't find peace negotiations very promising, either. They have the sense that every course they've tried has failed-not because of Israel but because of the Arabs-and now they don't know where else to go. "I saw that all the other ways didn't work, so I believed that unilateral withdrawal would bring peace, but I was wrong. Now I see that no matter how much land we give them, they will always want to destroy us," said Meirav Lev, serving dinner on the patio of her family's home in pastoral Kiryat Tivon, which took many rocket attacks. Lev, 36, an attorney, sat out the war with her three children in her parents' house further south, while her husband, Yaron, was called to reserve duty, though not-"thank God," she said-in Lebanon.
"I hoped that my children would not have to go to the Army when they grow up. But so many soldiers were killed in this war that now I think I should have another baby," said Lev. "I'm sorry to say it, but our country is always going to have to live by the sword."
With Orly Halpern in northern Israel
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