Israel's tacticial situation

[HMS_Irruncible]

@Der Trihs

You mean, like luring Israel into blowing up ambulances ? Israel does seem determined to do what it’s enemies want.

shrug. Israel is determined to stop Hezbollah from violating its borders, snatching its citizens, and lobbing rockets into Haifa. It’s unfortunate that Hezbollah is so cavalier about the lives of the civilians they claim to be defending and unfortunate that they seek to profit from their deaths, but that’s just who they are.

Oddly enough, the mirror image of the Israeli attitude. One side uses fake ambulances, the other blows up real ones.

Of course you can’t possibly know that Israel intentionally struck legitimate ambulances; but we do know that extremists intentionally used fake ones in attacks. If Israel did hit a real ambulance by mistake, that is the fault of those who made it impossible to be certain of the difference between a real ambulance and a terrorist shambulance.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@antechinus

It is not my argument. It is a first-hand observation by an independant expert witness of the situation on the ground.

Jan Egeland, the top UN humanitarian offical, observed that the Israeli response was disproportionate to the whole strategic situation. He stated that “Israel is violating humanitarian law”. Thus it is more than simply killing innocent humans, it is doing so in a way where the harm outweighs military advantage.

As far as I can tell, your witness is a professional observer: he has no expertise on military strategy, nor should he. So he has little to say about whether Israel’s response was proportionate to their strategic circumstances.

Whether Israel is following international law to the letter is a separate matter: for that I would like more substantiation for Mr. Egelands’s (plausible) claim.

Please note that I’m trying to weigh evidence here: though the UN official has little to say about proportionality (IMHO), the French Defense minister’s remarks (and, separately, some your other factual claims) bear notice.

---

Milk factories aside, events have moved forward: the possibilities for Israel successfully implementing the The Cecil Doctrine have narrowed considerably: Israel Plans to Occupy Strip Inside Lebanon. Now of course they will only do this until an adequate international force (which does not include Americans) can take its place. Um, and what would be the size of this force? And where will these troops come from? The UN is pretty good at peacekeeping, but it seems to me that taking on a motivated militia will require a heck of a lot more military power than 1000-2000 blue helmets. Not that I know what I’m talking about.

Anyway, the nonetheless useful tit-for-tat analogy is breaking down somewhat: it looks like we’re entering quagmire terrain.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@Sam Stone

You know, every time an Arab country is bombed, there’s a claim that one of the things bombed was a ‘milk factory’. In the first Gulf war, I remember a lot of press about a milk factory being hit - only it turned out of course not to be.

Setting aside the odd vulnerability of milk factories to allied bombs, your claim about the Desert Storm milk factory appears false.

CNN correspondent Peter Arnett alleged that one of the supposed bioweapons facilities by Saddam Hussein in fact produced milk. Baby milk. Colin Powell said, “No way.”
Further reports claimed, “Yes way.” Old wiki article.
US officials continued, “No way, but we can’t prove it: security considerations you know”. Here, reports diverge. One official said the plant was converted in 1990. Another said it was a backup facility. A third said that, no it wasn’t a bioweapons facility, but it made products crucial for bioweapons. All 3 administration officials cited inside information.

Years pass. Finally, “U.N. inspectors and U.S. intelligence concluded that the Abu Ghraib bombing was in error after Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law Hussein Kamel defected in 1995. Kamel said Iraqi biological-agent research was centered at Al Hakam, 60 miles southwest of Baghdad, and three other facilities, not including the baby milk factory.” Cite.

[pantom]

Look, the BS flying about how Lebanon should have disarmed Hizbullah is just that: for the umpteenth time, if the most powerful military in the region, Israel, couldn’t do it, expecting just about the weakest, the Leb army, to do it, is a fantasy and a totally, utterly, ridiculous and unrealistic assertion. Its only utility is as a talking point for justifying the current mess.
The other BS, about Leb complicity in arming Hizbollah, ignores the extremely fractured nature of Leb’s democracy, said democracy having been built, most recently, on the ruins of the last Israeli invasion.
Either you want a peaceful democracy as a neighbor, or you don’t. If you do, you work with it to disarm the nutcases. If you don’t, you don’t.
Israel, obviously, doesn’t want a peaceful democracy as a neighbor. And why should it? If its prosperity was tied to its neighbors, as would happen with any other nation anywhere on the planet, it would make the attempt. But its prosperity is intimately tied up with the US; the CIA World Factbook shows that its principal trading partner is the US, to which more than a third of its exports flow. This has to do both with the backwardness of the economies of the Arab world, and their hostility towards it.
But this is a Catch-22 as well; if things were normal, Lebanon, which is about the same size, and has a population that in the past has shown itself to be extraordinarly entreprenuerial, would be Israel’s foremost trading partner, and easily its closest ally, as well. But things aren’t normal, mostly because Lebanon is considered by Syria to be a part of Syria, and so politics in Lebanon is as distorted by the question of Syria as Israel’s is by the question of survival.
The tragedy of this war is that Lebanon kicked Syria out last year. Simple recognition of that simple fact by Israel at the start of this when Hizbullah attacked them would have averted all of this; the population of Lebanon, the non-Shia part, would have been more than willing to put pressure on Hizbullah to disarm after that unprovoked attack. All it would have taken was a little intelligence, some properly applied pressure, and a small amount of sensitivity to the internal Lebanese political situation, not to mention an awareness of the far larger Iranian threat.
In a few years, Israel will be facing that threat, and it will be facing it with the Hizbullah proxy still massed on its border, because this little war isn’t going to get rid of them. The only thing that will is mass Lebanese popular pressure. And if you think that’s going to happen after this indiscriminate bit of vengeance on the entire population of that nation for the actions of one piece of it, you truly are living in a dream world.

[John_Mace]

@pantom

Look, the BS flying about how Lebanon should have disarmed Hizbullah is just that: for the umpteenth time, if the most powerful military in the region, Israel, couldn’t do it, expecting just about the weakest, the Leb army, to do it, is a fantasy and a totally, utterly, ridiculous and unrealistic assertion. Its only utility is as a talking point for justifying the current mess.

But that’s an absurd comparison. Hezbollah formed decades ago mainly as a response to Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon. Israel withdrew from that territory, giving Hezbollah no legitmate reason to remain armed there-- especiallly as an extra-governmental militia and especially in light of UN resolution 1559. The international community, which passed 1559, is as much to blame for the situation as the Lebanese government, and neither body seems to have made any serious effort to disarm Hizbolah in the 2 years since 1559 was passed. Did the Lebanese government ask for international assistance in disarming this dangerous militia armed to the teeth and completely integrated into the civilian population of Southern Lebanon? Did it do anything at all stop the flow of arms to Hezbollah?

It’s unfortnate that Lebanon is weak and fragile, but Israel can’t put it’s own country at risk to daily bombardment simply because of that fact. The “international community” needs to wake up to the fact that Syria and Iran are actively working to destabilze the Middle East. Israel has no interest in war with any of its neighbors, but it is constantly threatened by them and gets precious little support from Europe or the UN. It’s a tiny country and can’t risk its very survival on the international community’s glacial response to attacks against it.

[pantom]

Well, the international community is what it is.
As for Lebanon, this from the CIA World Factbook’s entry on it explains completely why Hizbullah was still there, not just in full strength, but stronger than it was in 2000, when all this started:

Lebanon has made progress toward rebuilding its political institutions since 1991 and the end of the devastating 15-year civil war. Under the Ta’if Accord - the blueprint for national reconciliation - the Lebanese have established a more equitable political system, particularly by giving Muslims a greater voice in the political process while institutionalizing sectarian divisions in the government. Since the end of the war, the Lebanese have conducted several successful elections, most of the militias have been weakened or disbanded, and the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) have extended central government authority over about two-thirds of the country. Hizballah, a radical Shi’a organization listed by the US State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, retains its weapons. During Lebanon’s civil war, the Arab League legitimized in the Ta’if Accord Syria’s troop deployment, numbering about 16,000 based mainly east of Beirut and in the Bekaa Valley. Damascus justified its continued military presence in Lebanon by citing Beirut’s requests and the failure of the Lebanese Government to implement all of the constitutional reforms in the Ta’if Accord. Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000, however, encouraged some Lebanese groups to demand that Syria withdraw its forces as well. The passage of UNSCR 1559 in early October 2004 - a resolution calling for Syria to withdraw from Lebanon and end its interference in Lebanese affairs - further emboldened Lebanese groups opposed to Syria’s presence in Lebanon. The assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq HARIRI and 20 others in February 2005 led to massive demonstrations in Beirut against the Syrian presence (“the Cedar Revolution”). Syria finally withdrew the remainder of its military forces from Lebanon in April 2005. In May-June 2005, Lebanon held its first legislative elections since the end of the civil war free of foreign interference, handing a two-thirds majority to the bloc led by Saad HARIRI, the slain prime minister’s son.

In short, Lebanon has really only been politically independent for about a year. And yes, it still would have needed a lot of international help to disarm Hizbullah.
As I pointed out elsewhere, the scenario of Hizbullah attacking in this way should not have been an unexpected contingency in Israeli military planning. All of the above should have been, and I’m sure was, common knowledge in Israeli governmental circles. If their only plan, in the light of all this, was to indiscriminately attack and blockade the entire country, that says volumes about their competence. We didn’t even do that in Afghanistan after 9/11; we had the sense to seek out internal allies, to isolate the Taliban from their Pakistani sponsors, and then to destroy their terrorist havens. And we did that after the most destructive attack on our soil since Pearl Harbor.
Indiscriminate vengeance isn’t a policy; it’s a failure.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@pantom

The other BS, about Leb complicity in arming Hizbollah, ignores the extremely fractured nature of Leb’s democracy, said democracy having been built, most recently, on the ruins of the last Israeli invasion.

Nowhere here is a factual denial that the Lebonese government has not actively approved arms shipments to Hizbollah.

It’s one thing not to engage militarily with a powerful militia, or even to have a less than airtight customs policy. It’s quite another to approve, after consultations with the highest parts of the government a convoy of 12 trucks laden with weapons to that militia.

Hey it was a miscalculation: I’m sure that Hizbollah would have been strategically useful under some circumstances. Their attacks on Israel were certainly popular. For the moment, Israel is currently busy shifting these analytic considerations, albeit with some loss of life.

Either you want a peaceful democracy as a neighbor, or you don’t. If you do, you work with it to disarm the nutcases.

Agreed. Such sentiments could far more easily be directed towards the Lebanese and Palestinian governments, however. Let’s not forget that the unilateral withdrawls Israel has taken over the past couple of years, for which they have received only rockets and border incursions.

Of course, whether Israel’s reoccupation will actually enhance her security is a separate matter.

Simple recognition of that simple fact by Israel at the start of this when Hizbullah attacked them would have averted all of this; the population of Lebanon, the non-Shia part, would have been more than willing to put pressure on Hizbullah to disarm after that unprovoked attack. All it would have taken was a little intelligence, some properly applied pressure, and a small amount of sensitivity to the internal Lebanese political situation, not to mention an awareness of the far larger Iranian threat.

This contention is at odds with my understanding of the current situation. Is it wishful thinking, or is there polling data or other evidence to back it up? Just asking.

[pantom]

MM:

See the part in that piece I quoted from the CIA World Factbook about the son of Hariri recieving a two-thirds share of the government. That’s a measure of anti-Syrian sentiment in the country. As far as I can tell (strictly my impression, obviously) that same anti-Syrian, and anti-Hizbullah, because in Lebanese politics, to be anti-Syrian is to be anti-Hizbullah, sentiment was again inflamed by the unprovoked attack on Israel.
Which means said sentiment was ripe to be used, if someone had just been even vaguely interested in using it. It’s frustrating in the extreme to see such a golden opportunity for dismantling this terror organization go by the boards because the temptation to merely take vengeance was given into. Now, Hizbullah can say to the rest of Lebanon, again, that it is the sole protector of the nation against Israeli invasion. And if your mom just got killed by an Israeli bomb, are you going to deny this?
To ask the question is to answer it.

[Measure_for_Measure]

I don’t doubt that Lebanon is enemies with Syria. That doesn’t make them enemies with Hezbollah though.

Look the situation is complicated, and I only read the funny pages. If any other reader is similarly confused, I’d recommend a look at Slate Magazine’s Cheat Sheet: The Middle East Buddy List. It details the relationships of Hamas, Hezbollah, Lebanon and Israel with each other and 9 other mideast players.

There are three categories: “Friends”, “Enemies” and my favorite “It’s Complicated”.

Syria and Lebanon are “Enemies”.

Lebanon and Hezbollah are “Complicated”. Hezbollah has 14 seats in parliament. Their opponents in Lebanon (yes, there are lots) are obviously on the defensive now, given recent military events.

Lebanon and Hamas are friends. Hmmmm.

---

Here are some quotes about the Arab Street and Hezbollah, from the July 16th International Herald Tribune:

Sheik Nasrallah responded, showing just how Hezbollah, with its activist stance against Israel, manages to capture the imagination of an Arab public longing for anybody who will confront Israel and in the process claim a religious mantle that none of the other governments can come close to matching.

and

But some analysts expect Hezbollah to pay a heavy price on the ground once the dust settles. “There is a huge split in the Lebanese street that is hurting Hezbollah’s interests,” said Hazim Amin, a Shiite columnist with the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat. “More than half the street is not happy with what Hezbollah did and that is only going to increase, and they will have to answer to that.”

So maybe half the street liked the fact that Hezbollah was lobbing missiles. Now of course opinions are a little different, but I wanted a quote that preceded much of the current hostilities.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/16/africa/web.0717hezbollah.php

[pantom]

Neat chart.
We’ll have to agree to disagree, however.

[FRDE]

First, I am pro-Israeli, I have supplied software to one of their prominent companies since 1991 - and have got interested in their past and current problems.

In my view, Syria did a sterling job of keeping Lebanon under control, they were thoroughly humiliated by ‘world opinion’.

The current problem is directly related to that marvellous ‘liberation’.

I am curious why Syria helps Hamas and even more Hesbollah, the ruling elite might be Shi’ite, but they are also Ba’athist - Ba’athists are secular. Possibly Syria has a problem with religious fanatics and gives safe conduct to nutters who want to get to Iraq or Lebanon on the basis that it is better to get them as far away as possible (and with the hope that they will get killed).

There is also the cash factor, Hamas and Hisbollah are organized, they have found that providing a degree of welfare gets a lot of support. The cash has to come from somewhere, that is not Syria - it has to be Iran supplying cash and missiles.

Remember in the 1991 Gulf War, arms were entering Iraq via Jordan, highly embarrassing for Jordan, but it is amazing what people will do if a small number of determined and affluent individuals give you a choice of lead or dollars.

The Lebanese ‘government’ is an oxymoron - they don’t govern and their ‘ministers’ are just representatives of factions.

People talk about Israel walking into a ‘trap’

• it is not a ‘trap’ if you know it is there

They had very little choice, retalliation for the ‘kidnapped’ soldiers was essential for morale, I doubt anyone reckons that they are alive.
The real problem was, and is, those long range rockets.

So far nobody in this thread has pointed out that the Israelis bombed South Lebanon with leaflets - telling people to get out.

Some people have pointed out how incredibly low the civilian casualties are.

On the BBC I heard that those ‘water carriers’ were water drills, which look very like truck launched rockets - the word Scud comes to mind. That they were in a non Hezbollah area would be interpreted as an indication that Hezbollah had invaded the area and the locals could do nothing about it.

The UN stuff is ridiculous, the Israelis have long found them about as much use as a chocolate fireguard - I would not be entirely surprized if they intended driving them out, since in the past they have been used as animated sandbags.

The strategy is quite sensible, Israel relies on intelligence to keep an eye on its neighbours antics. First drive out the non-combatants, then entice in the real combatants, lure them forward and pound them out of existence.
Personally I would have used Napalm in the past few days, it leaves fewer photogenic pictures.

It is very possible that a lot of the civilian casualties were actually a form of hostage, anyone with any sense would have got out, those that were staying out of some form of ‘loyalty’ would be hunkered down in the bunkers.

Next we will probably hear of massacres committed by Maronite Christians (and all sorts of other non-Hezbollah types) as Hezbollah tries to establish a second line of ‘defence’.

Interestingly Israel is rather interested in European troops establishing a no-go area.
They probably reckon that French, German and maybe British troops would be a lot more effective - they would resent people using them as sandbags, which would draw Europe right into the mess.

Incidentally Israel enjoys good relations with Russia, and Russia has been seriously misjudged for a long time. It spotted the Islamiscist trend back in 1979, when it moved in to prevent it taking over Afghanistan - when that failed dismally it took the opposite path and pulled back its borders, keeping only the profitable parts.
Russia is going to be very, very rich.

• doubly so as it uses its income stream to finance development of its slightly unstable neighbours’ resources

Iran is not that much of threat, the last time a rogue ME state tried to build a nuclear plant, it was Iraq, and Israel bombed it. With Iran, bombing might not be dramatic enough, a small nuclear accident would leave no traces and would also warn others that it is not sensible playing with things that explode.

Another interesting thing is that the West Bank is remarkably quiet, long ago I was telling my pals that what they should do is build a wall (well walls) and be incredibly nice to one lot, and let the other lot rot.

I am quite sure that most Lebanese are outraged at having their airport closed and the odd attack in their own areas, they probably also resent the lack of a get out route to Syria, on the other hand, I’ll bet that they are also rather hoping that Hezbollah will disappear and that they can get back to their old custom of being the ‘fleshpot’ (oops Paris) of the Middle East.

Sadly, in my view, most conflicts could be nipped in the bud if the UN Peace Forces were the most battle hardened bunch of psychopaths, armed to the teeth, immune from 'uman rites prosecution and with a known penchant for eating the flesh of reporters.

Israel will win this one, they cannot afford to lose.
I just hope that the US (or Russia) cuts Syria out of the loop, Iran is a problem, but I suspect that reversing the flow of arms would have an interesting but destabilizing effect.

Oddly, having written this, my ideas have gelled, Israel would be sensible to request Syria to return as peace keepers, offer them the Golan Heights and some sort of pact against an … Iranian invasion.

[Least_Original_User_Name_Ever]

Who in the middle east isnt armed to the teeth. Only Hezbollah should not be I guess. Do you believe that Lebanon and most muslim countries in the mid east feel threatened by Israel. If not they do now. You can kill Hezbollah by killing all the Lebanese. Maybe that is the olan. Civilians are being killed by Israel every day. Homes ,churches hospitals,just collateral damage.
In ww2 Germany bombed London daily. Did it make them quit. Hell no it gave them more reason to resist. It does not work. Honest negotiations are the only chance. We saturation bombed Viet nam. They quit, nope. It is the depth of thinking our president and the neocons cant shake. Is Iraq getting betterIn the face of incredible force they keep fighting.
It wont work.

[Rune]

So further your example, do you think “honest negotiations” would have made the Nazis quit their blitz and conquests in Poland, France etc. and return home as model citizens?

Hezbollah isn’t a government, so it shouldn’t have an army.

[antechinus]

@Rune

Perhaps that Palestinian terrorists have made a habit of using ambulances, including Red Cross, have something to do with it?
One
Two
Two
Perhaps it’s a complete lie, a la the “Jenin-genocide” which turned out to never having happened. Or the killed boy which started the 2. intifada, which it turned out was killed not by Israeli. etc.
Perhaps it’s just not always so easy to clearly see what’s going on down below on the ground, when you’re high up in an airplane.
Perhaps a mistake. One should expect many such in times of war.

Damn. Now Hezbollah are hiding in UN bunkers.

After bombing a well established UN position for hours, all the while having the UN complain that Israel should stop, they finally got through with a bunker buster bomb killing 4 UN observers.

If only the UN could have got those pesky Hezbollah out of their bunker this wouldnt have happened. :rolleyes:

[antechinus]

This article goes into more detail about the attack on the UN position.

A preliminary UN report said 17 bombardments landed within one kilometre of the post, and 12 artillery rounds hit within 150 metres of the structure - four of them being direct hits.
After this, the post was hit by a precision-guided weapon from an Israeli aircraft.

UN personnel contacted the Israel military 10 times, urging them to stop firing.

[Measure_for_Measure]

Factual clarification:

Neither article by antechinus mentions a “bunker-buster”.

The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert has expressed sorrow and ordered an investigation. Time will tell whether that investigation is pro forma.

[Least_Original_User_Name_Ever]

Everybody in the middle east seems to be armed. They shoot guns in the air to celebrate everything. However Hezbollah should turn theirs in. Make it make sense to them. I dont think I can.
The Natzis were the big military power and chose not to negotiate. Im sure they could have. The Israelis are the big power and they choose not to.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Least Original User Name Ever

The Natzis were the big military power and chose not to negotiate. Im sure they could have. The Israelis are the big power and they choose not to.

You’re determined to Gotwinize these threads, are you?

[FRDE]

The Israelis can handle minor incursions, it is those Katyusha missiles that scare the living daylights out of them.

As a complete diversion, but since people have brought it up, the Siege of Warsaw was quite amazing, the Germans offered the Jews the chance of surrender and promised that they would be treated as prisoners. The Jews gave up, and to their amazement the Germans kept their word.

I would not believe this, but I was told it in 1985 by a Jewish guy who was in the siege and one of the prisoners.

[Caffeine_Cat]

@Least Original User Name Ever

Everybody in the middle east seems to be armed. They shoot guns in the air to celebrate everything. However Hezbollah should turn theirs in. Make it make sense to them. I dont think I can.

But you do realize difference between kalashnikov and katyusha? For example in USA people have a lot of handguns and rifles. But I’m yet to hear about guy keeping truck-mounted multiple artillery rocket launcher in his backyard, unharrased by authorities.