For those who wonder about Israelis who doubt the capacity of our Defense Minister, Amir Peretz, it is worth glancing at a picture that appeared on the front pages of the two most widely read newspapers, Ma'ariv and Yedioth Aharonot.
You can see it at http://myrightword.blogspot.com
It shows him posed to watch a military maneuver on the Golan Heights, alongside the Chief of the General Staff and other military heavies. The problem is, he hasn't taken the lens caps off the binoculars.
Not only does the picture suggest a man out of touch with the most elementary of hardware, but on this occasion he is not likely to learn much about the maneuvers said to be the most extensive in several years, and part of the IDF's effort to prepare better for the next war than it was prepared for the most recent war.
Funny? Sad? Or more likely the good fortune of a photographer who caught the minister in an embarrassing moment, before he realized that he hadn't slipped off the lens caps. It can be exciting to be next to all those generals for a big exercise. Maybe the minister was so afraid to do something wrong that he couldn't do something right for a second or two.
Israeli politics are tough. The minister's competitors in the Labor Party began to ridicule him when he was a possibility for Defense Minister, and have not stopped since he took the job. To be sure, he lacks a military background. This picture will not add to his reputation.
Greater experts than I are still arguing over how badly the IDF did in the recent war in Lebanon, and who was responsible. The general who was the Chief of the General Staff has resigned, and accepted his share of responsibility. No one expects a politician to be so willing to admit failure. Several rivals have announced their candidacy for his job as Labor Party chair. If he loses the party election scheduled for May, as presently expected, he will not last as defense minister. We have heard several times that the Prime Minister is considering dismissing Peretz as defense minister, but he seems reluctant to meddle in the problems of the Labor Party.
Although I never made it above the rank of private in the IDF, I will risk taking on the conventional wisdom about the recent war, and even about Peretz's performance as defense minister.
It appears to me that both Peretz and the Prime Minister, who also lacks professional military expertise, performed within the realm of the reasonable. They went along with the strategy of the chief of the general staff, which was primarily to pound Lebanon from the air. Clearly there were some mistakes in that campaign, and perhaps even more in the ground actions, but there are mistakes in every war. I have seen reports that about one-third of casualties in military operations, of Israel and other armies, are either self-inflicted by misdirected "friendly fire," or due to accidents. Battle is likely to be clumsy, full of panic, and dependent on the actions of an enemy intent on doing as much as possible to frustrate one's own actions. The only heroic war in Israel's record was that of 1967, and that saddled us with the West Bank which in hindsight was less than a optimal accomplishment. The last heroic war of the great armies was World War II, and that killed lots of soldiers and civilians before it was over. Israel agreed to stop the most recent fighting in Lebanon without getting bogged down in anything like the earlier Lebanese war that began in 1982, or the situation of Americans and others in Iraq and Afghanistan.
To me, the Defense Minister, along with the Prime Minister, deserves a bit of credit for the balance of accomplishments and cost. As someone more informed than me once said, war is hell. It should be the wisdom of leaders to keep the costs as low as possible, especially for one's own troops and population, and to keep the war as brief as possible without the continued occupation of hostile people.
If we view the larger picture, rather than the detailed shortcomings, what Israel did in Lebanon might have been just right. It created a lot of damage, much of which is still a long way from being repaired. It killed, injured, and destroyed the property of many Lebanese, mostly in the areas heavily settled by Shiite supporters of Hezbollah. Compared to other wars, there were relatively few Israeli casualties. There were civilian casualties and property damage in the north of Israel due to Hezbollah rocket attacks aimed at civilian targets. The balance sheet shows considerably more damage to Lebanon and the Lebanese than to Israel and Israelis.
If any degree of rationality prevails in Lebanon and other places that like to dream of hurting Israel, the lesson should be clear.
Many express sadness and anger at the loss of Lebanese civilians. Innocent and decent people died on both sides. We should do what we can to avoid war. When pushed to it, however, the balance of loss should be as uneven as possible in order to convince the enemy to think again before starting on another adventure.