THE Israeli inquiry into its July 2006 attack on the Lebanon has found that it was ‘a large and serious failure’.
It also found that the military and political leadership of Israel was guilty of ‘grave failings in decision-making . . . both on the military and political levels’.
The report said Israel could have taken two courses – a quick, devastating blow against Hezbollah or a sustained ground operation – but failed to decide on either.
It states: ‘The fact Israel went to war before it decided which option to select, and without an exit strategy . . . constituted serious failures, which affected the whole war.’
It adds: ‘As a result, Israel did not stop after its early military achievements, and was dragged into a ground operation only after the political and diplomatic timetable prevented its effective completion.’
The report is highly critical of military commanders, especially in the ground forces.
‘All in all, the IDF failed, especially because of the conduct of the high command and the ground forces, to provide an effective military response to the challenge posed to it by the war in Lebanon.’
The report recommends ‘systematic and profound’ changes in thinking in the political and military leaderships if Israel is to face up to future challenges.
It continued to state that Israel cannot survive without the belief that it has ‘the political and military leadership, military capabilities, and social robustness’ to deter aggressors.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is insisting he will not resign after the report’s findings. His political coalition partner, Ehud Barak, the current defence minister thinks that he must, and is expected to take action to bring the Olmert government down.
It seems that Barak considers it to be intolerable, in the face of Israel’s enemies in the region, that a Prime Minister who presided over a military disaster should be allowed to continue and not be drummed out of office in disgrace.
In fact, the verdict of the tribunal confirms that Israel’s strategic position, is that one serious military defeat will bring the Jewish state to the point of collapse.
It has to be ever victorious if it is to continue to survive. It always has to have overwhelming military superiority, the advantage of surprise and ruthlessly prepared generals and politicians, because it is an unviable state created and sustained by the imperialist powers.
Its great military successes have always been when it was able to assemble overwhelming military forces and launch a surprise attack on an unprepared adversary.
This was the case in the 1967 Six Day War when Israel was able to grab the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, after a massive surprise attack.
When it was itself confronted by organised and prepared forces, such as in the Yom Kippur war, when Egyptian troops crossed the Suez Canal in 1972 and drove the Israeli forces backwards, it barely avoided a historic defeat, and was forced to sign a peace treaty with Egypt.
This was also confirmed in the Lebanese liberation war when Hezbollah drove Israel out of southern Lebanon in the year 2000.
In 2006 Israel was unable to defeat Hezbollah after it had received orders from George Bush to annihilate it. The reason was that Hezbollah had spent six years preparing its positions and troops for an Israeli attack, and even sank an Israeli ship with a missile.
Defeat in the July war, changed the relationship of forces in the Middle East.
This was confirmed by last week’s revolutionary upsurge in Gaza when the masses destroyed the frontier wall to win their freedom from the vicious Israeli-imperialist blockade.
Israel is now on the defensive.
A failure to apply the surgeon’s knife ruthlessly to cut out those political and military leaders responsible for the 2006 defeat, will only serve to further convince the Palestinian and Arab masses that the hour has struck for the establishment of the Palestinian state and that the days of the ‘Jewish’ state and Zionist domination are numbered.
