Michael Totten is subbing for Instapundit these days, and spreading his panic over Lebanon on that site. He pointed to three articles that say Israel is losing the war: Ralph Peters, Brett Stephens (former editor of the Jerusalem Post), and National Review. The fact that Totten now quotes Aziz Poonawalla, whom I have debated in the past (if that can be the word for it; I debated, he lied and pretended he didn’t) has made whatever credibility Totten had left go out my personal window.
The upshot of the three pieces mentioned (not including Aziz’s, I have absolutely zero respect for his opinion and won’t bother reading it) is that Israel is losing the war because she refuses to fully engage a large-scale ground invasion.
Let me once again state that I am in no way a military analyst. I simply read a lot and then give you my opinion (or not) on what I have read. Tonight, I found several articles in the Israeli press of great interest. First, this one on how long the IDF is prepared to stay in Lebanon.
While the IDF needs until the end of the week to deal Hizbullah a fatal blow, the military is prepared to remain in southern Lebanon for as long as it takes, even several months, until a multinational force takes control of the territory, IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Maj.-Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky told The Jerusalem Post Tuesday.
“The IDF knows how to operate for as long as it takes even if it means remaining in the territory for a long time,” Kaplinsky told the Post during a visit to a military base along the northern border. The general said the IDF was currently working according to an operational plan in which IDF troops would push their way through southern Lebanon until the Litani River, some 40 kilometers from the border with Israel. But if necessary, he said, the IDF was prepared to travel even further northward.
Note that there are now five IDF divisions operating in Lebanon. The Israeli Knesset just okayed a call-up for three more divisions.
Also today, CNN was speculating on whether the IDF intends to catch Hezbullah in a pincer movement by sending ground forces north of the Litani river, and then having them drive south as other ground forces drive Hezbullah north. That’s what this JPost article says:
The IDF, a high-ranking source in the Northern Command said Tuesday, needed at least one more week to clear the area south of the Litani River of Hizbullah guerillas. The troops on the ground, he said, would not spend more than one-to-two days inside the Hizbullah strongholds and would operate at a faster pace than in the past.
“We will sweep through the area in an effort to exterminate the Hizbullah presence in the villages,” the officer said, expressing hope that the objective would be achieved before the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for a cease-fire, expected to happen by the end of the week.
Signifying, however, that the IDF might also try to send troops north of the Litani, IAF fighter jets dropped tens of thousands of leaflets over villages north of the river on Tuesday calling on the residents to flee further north in anticipation of IDF operations in the area.
IRIS Blog points out another JPost article that says the IDF is forming a three-pronged attack that intends to wipe out Hezbullah.
There was also this: A successful insertion of special forces yesterday into a hospital deep inside Hezbullah territory to retrieve Hezbullah members, presumably for a prisoner swap:
After several hours of intense fighting in and around a hospital in the eastern Lebanon town of Baalbek, IDF commando forces on Wednesday morning took a number of Hizbullah officials captive.
Reportedly, an IAF helicopter dropped special forces soldiers at the hospital late Tuesday night. Heavy shooting with Hizbullah operatives on the premises ensued.
After inspecting the identification of everyone in the hospital, the IDF soldiers proceeded to arrest several people described in a CNN report as Hizbullah officials, who were later transported back into Israel. The officials names and positions in the organization were not revealed.
No IDF soldiers were wounded in the operation, an army spokesperson told The Jerusalem Post.
This report is in direct contradiction to Hezbullah reports (naturally) that said the IDF was pinned down and in trouble. But stop a moment and realize: The IDF inserted a group of commandos into enemy territory, who then captured Hezbullah members and brought them back alive—from deep inside the Bekaa Valley. There were no Israeli casualties.
The IDF is warning more villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate.
None of these stories seem to me to be reports of an army about to lose a war. None of them seems to me to be stories about Israel not working to eliminate Hezbullah. Eight divisions are a lot of soldiers to be sending into a ground war that people still think is a bunch of pinpoint invasions.
Once again, I am not a military analyst, and I don’t play one on TV—but I think that Olmert and the IDF are playing to win. The operation has barely begun. It takes time to plan an all-out assault, and the IDF knows they have to utterly defeat Hezbullah, or they will be in the exact same place a few years down the line—or worse, because Iran may have nukes by then.
This is a war that Israel cannot afford to lose. The naysayers, including Totten, are forgetting that. I will withhold judgment until the dust settles. In the meantime, I pray for the safety and victory of the IDF forces, and the swift and utter defeat of the terrorists in Hezbullah.
In the meantime, Chazak v’amatz: Be strong and be brave.
And feel free to take and distribute Sarah’s image.
Of course the IDF is winning, but Hezbollah and most of the rest of the world will spin this as a win by the terrorists. The IDF should do what they feel they need to do regardless of public opinion. You already know the spin that will come at the end of this thing, so don’t fret about it. Hezb,Syria, Iran must all feel some pain from this,that is the victory, and that is what will slow them from doing this again in the near future.
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Politically Israel must dedicate itself to a true propaganda war.
The problem is that the major conveyers of propaganda, the media, aren’t on Israel’s side. They will uncritically report what Hezbollah say while always adding the caveat, “according to…” to Israel’s statements.
Story 1
“Israel killed 25 children in Beirut today.”
Story 2, with balance.
“According to the Israeli military, they killed no children in Beirut today. However, sources say that 25 children were children killed by Israeli airstrikes using US supplied warplanes on a civilian apartment building.”
Remember the millions of Palestinians
killedmurderedmassacred in Jenin?Don’t stop reading Totten, please. He’s a well-spoken, often passionate and only occasionally incoherent voice of the Lebanese cafe set. His analysis, although wrong, is almost a perfect reflection of what liberal Lebanon (note: I’m defining a subset) will and won’t understand.
If and when he comes around to the notion that the Lebanese simply must rid themselves of Hezbollah, even if that means getting their hands dirty, the war will have been won.
Israel has the capability to win. And if they want to, they will win – and I pray to this effect – but since the first Lebanese war, Israel seems to be pulling out or conceding just when it should be striking the fatal blow – like allowing PLO to leave Beirut instead of killing off their trapped leadership one by one, or allowing the entity of PA instead of destroying and doing away with it after nearly 6 years of Intifada.
So I wonder whether Israel has the will. As one of the trackbacks note, Israel isn’t fighting the propaganda war – how is a democracy supposed to sustain a war to the finish if enemy propaganda go unanswered?
That’s easy — bullets trump CNN interviews.
Joel, According to Eason Jordan, bullets threatening CNN trump CNN interviews. Still, I think that Israel scored a propaganda coup when it hacked Al-Manar television to post messages to the Hezballah terrorists that their days were numbered, and when Arab language Israeli broadcasts started reading the real names of known Hezbollah operatives killed. Names are big things in the Arab world; every two-bit thug has at least two or three. However, knowledge the real names is significant.
Let’s hope that those broadcasts get lengthier.
Wish all an easy fast.
Chazak v’amatz!
chsw
Joel, it isn’t Totten I won’t read. I won’t read Poonawalla. I stopped years ago, after many cross-blog debates with him.
He’s a liar and a demagogue. He is the one that spread the lie that Israel was developing a bomb that would kill only Arabs, then jumped up and down and accused me of calling him an anti-Semite when I asked him to cite it or retract it.
As a matter of fact, Aziz is directly responsible for my title of Master of Juvenile Scorn™. It’s because of my spat with Aziz over the fake gene bomb that Tacitus gave me the title.
I finished with Aziz years ago. That Totten uses him as a source for war analysis just makes me think that much less of Totten.
Your post ‘Must Read’ at 12:50pm pretty much sizes up why those have people saying that Israel is ‘losing’ the war, Meryl.
The propaganda of the media and Hezbollah against Israel is using the bombing at Qana as effectively as a smart bomb hitting Zarqawi’s hideout.
Just as was done with the Jenin ‘massacre’, The ‘torture’ of Detainees in Abu Ghraib, the Bunker massacre in the First American/Iraqi War, the ‘Day of the Rangers’ in Mogadishu, the My Lai Massacre, etc…
The military is fond of the word ‘force multiplier’. Well, for the terrorists, propaganda is a force multiplier for them. Though it doesn’t hit the forces on the ground, the real target are the civilians away from the front and the damage is psychological.
This damage is both moral (lil innocent babies dying) and mental (fear that the world will be against them).
This kinda of warfare is VERY effective against democratic nations. That is why certain people say we (as in the Israeli forces and those who support them) are losing.
OTOH, the people of many democratic nations are becoming more and more aware of these tactics and I believe that a turning point for this form of warfare is coming where people will become inured to these distortions.
You Meryl, are impervious to the propaganda. The webpage itself is a testament of that whereby you cut through the media propaganda and reveal the tools of their trade.
In this specific case, all Israel has to do is stand tough and weather it out. There are alot of people rooting for Israel. That is what I believe.
(* As a matter of fact, Aziz is directly responsible for my title of Master of Juvenile Scornâ„¢. *)
I agree that ‘Mistress of Juvenile Scorn’ also doesn’t fit.
However, after seeing your pic for the first time, and the fact that you kinda look like Xena the warrior princess (in the dark, when I’m squinting, behind a wall…), and that you really have mastered the art of Juvenile Scorn, lets combine it all into one title:
‘Meryl, the Warrior Princess of Juvenile Scorn’
How’s them apples, eh? :)
Anonymous above was me.
Well, having read a little Poonwalla, I think I can say he takes up a much-needed space in the blogosphere.
That said, though, there are reasonable people, who are very much pro-Israel and who have good professional credentials — including Ralph Peters — who disagree with Olmert’s decision not to go full-tilt-boogie into Lebanon.
I think they’re missing several things — and, more and more, I’m thinking that I’ve seriously underrated Olmert — but that’s another issue.
for the first time in its history israel has lost a war..hezbollah won its sad 2 say but it is true