The problem is, the world wouldn’t let it happen. Air strikes mean that Hezbollah will hole up in civilian neighborhoods and use their shills in the western media to create first rate propaganda. There will be calls for sanctions, UN brokered interventions, etc…
A ground campaign would be even worse with an actual Israeli invasion of a sovereign nation turning out, well, like the recent Israel-Hezbollah war, turned up to 11.
There’s no way that Israel can fight, or that the world would allow Israel to fight, that would actually deal with Hezbollah.
That being said, I do agree that the history of prisoner, or even worse, corpse-swaps creates a very real incentive for such behavior to continue. Folks like Hezbollah and Hamas may be evil, genocidal racist fucks, but they’re not stupid. They’ve certainly realized by now that kidnapping Israeli soldiers, or stealing Israeli corpses, is just about their best bargaining chip. I suppose it’d be up to Israeli citizens to decide if their government should be engaging in such behavior or not. I’d say not… but then again, I’m not an Israeli and I’ll never have to deal with my children being conscripted . I’d imagine that might change things a bit.
Do you think Hamas would give back Gilad Shalit in exchange for some dead Jihadi terrorists? Fat fucking chance of that ever happening. They’re realists. In that regard they have a huge advantage over Israel, lost in this delusional fog of high ideals and religious principles. Hezbollah at least has a brain in their head. Israel is like a blindfolded boxer.
Every democracy is blinded by a delusional fog of high ideals.
In tactics or over the short term this may indeed prove to be a big disadvantage over the brutal “realistic” dictatorships that confront it - think of how often the Israeli government and military is embarrased by being burdened with a free press and an independant judiciary, always second-guessing their decisions and ready with harsh criticisms - let alone a fractious and unmuzzled public opinion, demanding irrational emotionally and religiously resonant stuff like the return of conscript’s bodies (and I agree it is quite irrational).
However, over the long term these apparent disadvantages are really serious and lasting advantages. They are, in effect, ultimately the reason why Israel is a powerful first-world country and their more dictatorial enemies are reduced to sniping and kidnapping - in that they are the tools by which a powerful and dynamic society are built.
This apparent paradox explains why it is so very difficult for societies to bootstrap themselves out of the typical third world pattern of dictatorial strong men and gangs and create powerful first-world nations - because the tactical advantages of a dictatorial 'realist" strategy usually outweigh the seemingly more theoretical and speculative long-term advantages of creating a true democracy.
Israel won’t continue to exist unless Israelis believe in Israel. Sometimes idealism IS realism. Sometimes the so-called pragmatists are the ones living in fairy-land. What makes a country work, what makes a society work, what makes an army work? Napoleon once said that in war, the moral is the the physical as 10 is to 1. And the same thing is true in peace.
This is such a complex issue that I feel a bit stupid weighing in as a non-Jewish, non-Israeli person. But hell, here goes…
My brother is a former US Army Ranger (and current SF soldier who spends lots of time in bad places), the guys for whom the Ranger Creed is not just a piece of paper. The idea of never leaving a man behind is central to it. However, as a grieving family member, I would beg my government NOT to exchange my brother’s corpse for a living convicted criminal. I think it would only encourage the killing of prisoners.
I suppose part of me would want “something to bury.” But I think it sets a bad precedent and looks like weakness.
This is mostly what I meant, too many beers I suppose. Basically, Israel has a badass military, isn’t afraid to use it in most cases, and I am right…Israel will attack Iran if and when Mossad gains solid intel that Iran is in fact developing a nuclear weapon.
They did it to Saddam in 1980…what makes you think they won’t do it again now, particularly in light of Iranian rhetoric against Israel?
I am NOT saying that I want this or that it should happen…only that it will, and it will be to the detriment of Iran, not Israel.
I think Israel had less of a pussy mentality back in the 80s when they bombed Osirak. Just 13 years prior they had won the Six-Day War and were flush with the mentality of “we don’t care what the rest of the world thinks, we are going to do whatever we need to in order to ensure our security.” After decades of peace talks and negotiations with various combinations of leaders, which all turned out to be quite flawed, I think Israel is much more willing to cave in to the pressure of other countries in the current day.
I don’t know Argent. Just in 2006 they mounted a massive armed assault on Hezbollah over the kidnapping of a few soldiers! And while the Hezbollah side claims a victory in that, I generally disagree with that assessment.
Although, there is some truth in what you say, and the fact that they are a little more willing to negotiate is a good thing, which of course brings us back to the OP…which wasn’t a good thing imo as I think Israel got jobbed in that deal.
I’ve got to be careful what I say here because I don’t want to sound like a warmonger or a maniac, and I’m going to admit that I’m not some kind of tactician or foreign policy expert or even amateur. I’m just a guy with some gut-instinct ideas about stuff, so if what I’m about to say is coming from a somewhat uninformed viewpoint, well, I accept that.
Anyway, you said that the Hezbollah side “claimed victory.” Now, maybe they were victorious, and maybe they weren’t. They certainly did wear Israel down to the point where they had to pull out. Of course, they suffered heavy casualties.
But the thing about Hezbollah and the other terrorist groups is that they seem to be pretty damn good at getting the population to believe whatever they say, through propaganda (and the fact that an uneducated population is very easily convinced lies.) Even if Hezbollah knows that the Lebanon conflict was more of a defeat than a victory, they will spin it as a victory, and the common people will eat it all up. They’ll look beyond the fact that they saw their homes and businesses destroyed, and rejoice that they were able to “defeat” Israel - because Hezbollah told them this is how it is.
I think Israel needs to show the Hezbollah camp that they do not have the upper hand. The only way for them to do this might be to keep attacking them and attacking them to the point where Hezbollah’s followers no longer believe that they are winning, no matter how much propaganda they’re fed.
I agree with the sentiment of your first paragraph, because as far as I can tell, that’s the way it is.
Like Telemark said though, attacking Hezbollah like you describe isn’t really possible without wiping out the civilian population too, because Hezbollah is so deeply rooted in the Lebanese Arab community that it is the Lebanese Arab community.
It would be extremely unpopular (not to mention brutal) of Israel to conduct such a series of attacks, Hezbollah’s propensity for staging attacks against Israel in civilian areas to maximize their own people’s body counts for propaganda reasons notwithstanding.
