Past haunts as Olmert moves warily
JERUSALEM -- The ghost of Lebanon-past is stalking the leaders of Israel, according to leading political and military analysts here, who say the specter of Israel's long, fruitless occupation of Lebanese territory has made Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reluctant to do what must be done to end the death and destruction that rain daily on northern Israel.
Former prime minister Ariel Sharon, who mentored and promoted Olmert as his successor , was responsible for the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the beginning of the 18-year occupation of southern portions of the country that followed. It took Sharon nearly two decades to shed the shame.
Now, Israelis from the elites to the streets say his protégé seems almost paralyzed, unwilling to choose between the only two options that political officials and military analysts say he has.
Olmert could call for the major ground invasion that the armed forces have prepared, and that many influential voices are calling for, they said. But this would put him in the shoes of Sharon in 1982, at risk of bogging down in what Israelis call ``ha-botz ha-Levanoni" -- the Lebanese mud.
Or, they say, he could continue the campaign with little change until an internationally imposed cease-fire is in place. But that would run the risk of an unending war of attrition along Israel's northern border with powers devoted to his country's destruction.
Ever since the war broke out July 12, said Shai Feldman, director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University, ``there has been constant tension between the logical military requirements of the situation and the psychological trauma of 1982 -- of getting in and not being able to get out for 18 years."
``As far as the political leadership is concerned, there is a huge wariness about not falling into this trap again," Feldman said. ``This debate at the top is still going on. . . . They have to make a decision. The fact that they have not made a decision is becoming a decision by default."
For Israel to succeed militarily, he and other analysts said, it is essential to have a coherent plan, but the inability to reconcile operational needs with fear of the quagmire has produced an incoherent plan that is preventing the military from finding Hezbollah's weak points and getting the guerrilla organization off balance.
What that means in practical terms is that there are three necessary sectors of operations in Lebanon, and Israel is operating in only two of them, said Giora Eiland, a general who was head of strategic planning for the Israel Defense Forces and also headed the national security council during Hezbollah's buildup in Lebanon. He is now a private citizen.
``The Air Force has attacked in the depth [of Lebanon] and I think is being very effective against longer-range missiles," Eiland said, while in the sector close to the border, the limited numbers of foot soldiers that have been deployed also are performing well.
``The real problem is that we are ineffective because we are operating in these two zones while the third zone" -- in southern Lebanon but north of the border strip -- ``is hardly being impacted at all. Nobody is coping with the short-range missiles fired from that area that are causing the damage and casualties along [the Israeli side of] the border."
The smallest rockets being fired by Hezbollah have ranges of 6 to 8 miles and can be set up and fired very quickly, analysts and former military men note, so establishing 4- or 5-mile-wide security strip along the border is not sufficient .
Eran Lerman, former deputy director of military intelligence, said the decision ``not to go in on the ground in the first two weeks of fighting was quite rational and was broadly supported. The problem began after two weeks, when it became increasingly clear that the short-range Katyushas could not be silenced."
At that point, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and the military command prepared plans for a major ground offensive but, Lerman said, ``Olmert was profoundly reluctant to be positioned as a long-term occupier of a piece of real estate in which we have no interest. . . . A core group in politics and the military is haunted by the fact that we were stuck there for 18 years to no particular purpose."
``It is not just the ghost of Lebanon," he added. ``From the beginning there have been urgings from the Americans -- quite legitimate urgings -- that Israel not bring down" the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora of Lebanon, and with it the Bush administration's claim to be fostering democracy in the Middle East.
Many of the analysts assert that US political calculations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the legacy of the occupation of Lebanon were paving the way to the current conflict long before actual fighting broke out.
In October 2000, when Hezbollah abducted three soldiers in the border area, then-prime minister Ehud Barak ``was going to react very forcefully," said Lerman, who was a senior Israeli military strategist at the time. But the second Palestinian initifadah had just begun, and President Bill Clinton and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt feared a major clash between Israel and Hezbollah could ignite a regional conflict. ``Clinton and Mubarak jumped on Barak and held him down," Lerman said.
During Sharon's years as prime minister, Israeli intelligence reported that thousands of rockets were being supplied to Hezbollah by Iran and Syria. Rockets occasionally were fired across the border, and Israel responded with limited airstrikes -- what Lerman describes as a ``balance of deterrence."
Piece by piece, that balance fell apart. Sharon and hard-line defense minister Shaul Mofaz were replaced by Olmert and Peretz, neither of whom has high-level military experience. The Islamist Hamas organization, which like Hezbollah is sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state, hailed Israel's withdrawal from Gaza as proof of its growing weakness.
Many politicians and analysts say Hezbollah felt there would be little risk in testing the new Israeli leaders.
Both sides were surprised that such a major conflict quickly developed, they say, and both are now angling to establish the best position possible before an anticipated cease-fire. This is why some believe that Olmert will not give the green light for a major offensive and that Nasrallah will not fire missiles on Tel Aviv. Yet. 