Commission Says Israel’s Lebanon War a “Failure”

In the Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah fighters held off the Israeli Defense Forces for over a month in the summer of 2006. In the aftermath of that conflict, the Israeli government turned to retired judge Eliyahu Winograd and four other luminaries to dissect the events of that month. Their final report issued on Wednesday says the nation lost an opportunity and in general failed in its objectives.

Judge Winograd said, “To offer a general summing up, Israel lost an important opportunity. We went to war on our own initiative, it was a long war and it ended without a clear victory in terms of the military objectives. An organization of just a few thousand troops [Hezbollah] managed to hold out against an army that benefited from absolute air supremacy, and major benefits on the technological level.”

The Commission lays much of the blame on the IDF itself, “The ground operation did not reduce the Katyusha fire, nor did it achieve significant accomplishments . . . . There was also a serious delay in preparing for a wide-scale ground operation, reducing Israel's options . . . . The way in which the ground operation was conducted raises the hardest questions.” To cushion the blow, the judge did praise the courage of the troops and the unspecified successes of the Air Force and Navy.

The governing coalition led by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of the Kadima Party is likely to pull though, but there is pressure on Defense Minister and Labour leader Ehud Barak to honor his pledge to “end its [Labour’s] partnership with Olmert and work to establish a new government in the current Knesset, or alternatively, to set a date for elections.” The Israeli media are reporting he will hold a press conference on Sunday to explain why he’s staying in the coalition.

The Commission did, however, note that Israel lost something very important in the war, something it may not get back. As the Commission wrote, “Israel cannot survive in this region, and cannot live in it in peace or at least non-war, unless people in Israel itself and in its surroundings believe that Israel has the political and military leadership, military capabilities, and social robustness that will allow her to deter those of its neighbors who wish to harm her, and to prevent them -- if necessary through the use of military force -- from achieving their goal.” The myth of invincibility is gone.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

Kensington Review Home