Olmert in reflective moment during visit to school in Kiryat Sh’mona on first anniversary of Lebanon war. What’s he thinking? “Great achievements? Did I really say that? What a con artist!” (photo: Sebastian Scheiner/AP)Only a prime minister with a 2% approval rating could call a war almost universally acknowledged in Israel as a disaster–a great success. Yesterday, which marked the first anniversary of the Lebanon war, found Olmert in the north trying desperately once more to rewrite history, memory and reality:
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared Thursday during a tour of Israel’s northern border that the war he launched against Hezbollah guerrillas a year ago was a success that made Israel safer…
Flouting the widely accepted view that the 34-day conflict with Hezbollah was a failure, Olmert said Israel is better off today than it was at the outset of fighting on July 12, 2006…
“We had in this war great achievements,” Olmert said near a road that was hit by one of the nearly 4,000 rockets that Hezbollah fired into Israel last summer. “We also had not a few weaknesses and failures that we are trying to deal with … to fix, to deploy, to renovate and to strengthen.”
While I agree with Olmert that the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon has been a success and that the border is safer than it has been in the past, the question is did Israel need to lose 119 of its soldiers and 43 civilians to create such a climate? Could the UN peacekeeping force have been created with a little less carnage and a little more political leadership and foresightedness?? The answer of course is yes. There is no rule saying a nation must conduct a disastrous war before it can find a modus vivendi with its enemies.
That begs the question–is the northern border really safe? Now, it is. But will it always be so? How easy might it be for another kidnapping or similar provocative incident to thrust both Israel and Hezbollah right back where they were on July 12, 2006? We can say with certainty that the main reason there is quiet in the north is because it is in Hezbollah and Syria’s interest for there to be. The moment this is no longer the case is the moment all hell could break loose once again.
As for Olmert’s statement that Israel is better off today than when the war started–he’s got to be kidding. Hezbollah proved that a relatively small insurgent force could hold the vaunted IDF to a military stalemate. The IDF never freed its kidnapped soldiers and it never crushed Hezbollah–all of which were key national priorities of the war. Hezbollah has rebuilt its armaments and forces to prewar strength. Further, the IDF has never been able to stop Qassam attacks from Gaza. For all this Israel is better off??
If it wasn’t such a dark thought, I’d have to laugh at the “great achievements” Olmert touts. What were they? Perhaps the 1,000 Lebanese civilian dead or the Lebanese national infrastructure in ruins? Or the nation in political turmoil? Perhaps the great achievement was his current 2% approval rating? Or the Winograd Report which called him to task for “severe failures” of leadership during the war?
The only hopeful sign is that amongst all this delusional speechifying Olmert continued to make peaceful overtures to Assad of Syria. Why he doesn’t turn those overtures into concrete action and real negotiations I do not know. If he did so, then I would say all of Olmert’s devastating failures will have been offset by at least one positive achievement. But that’s a big “if” and I’ll have to wait to see if he realizes it.
Olmert is a politician in the middle east. This variety of species is particularly inclined towards spouting stuff that is just not true.
One thing you left out Richard is that Hezbollah now claims to have 20,000 missles including some now capable of hitting Tel Aviv. And her I believed the UN when they said they were keeping arms from coming into Lebanon from Syria.
Well, apparently the Israeli economy is booming, they have mostly rebuilt the north, and they got over 1,000 of “them”, so in terms of success they’ve hit a trifecta!
Great plan.
Palestinian statehood within a year
By Jerome M. Segal
Today, there is no Palestinian entity to which Israel can safely hand over the territories. Moreover, while the West Bank remains under occupation, Fatah will not engage in effective security cooperation. Were it to do so, it would be seen as ?the police of the occupation,? and its delegitimization would be terminal.
There is, however, a way to foster the emergence of a Palestinian partner. The key is to make security performance part of the process of ending the occupation, rather than a precondition for negotiations. Here is how:
1. Israel immediately opens negotiations on territorial and security issues with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, as head of the PLO. The negotiations include the future of both Gaza and the West Bank. Neither Jerusalem nor refugees are negotiated at this point. Except for Jerusalem, agreement would be sought on permanent borders (not interim borders as in the optional phase II of the “road map”) and there would be mutual recognition by the two states. The agreement would be more than a hudna, but less than end-of-claims. In conducting negotiations, as president of all Palestinians, Abbas would consult with anyone he chose to, including Hamas leaders.
2. Upon reaching agreement with Israel on permanent borders and security arrangements, Abbas submits the treaty to a referendum. He requests that Hamas permit such a referendum in Gaza as well, under the supervision of the Palestinian Elections Commission and international observers. Hamas has previously said it would respect a referendum on a PLO-negotiated agreement, but if it refuses, the referendum is held in the West Bank alone. Because the agreement does not deal with refugees, the referendum is not open to members of the Palestinian diaspora.
3. If approved in a referendum, the treaty is deemed by Israel and the PLO as “ratified,” and performance-based implementation begins:
? Israel recognizes the State of Palestine as the de jure sovereign of Gaza and the agreed-upon West Bank and swapped territory. Israel immediately withdraws its military forces from that portion of the West Bank where Palestine is most able to function as a state (that is, where it can exercise a monopoly of force). This would include the Jericho area and the border with Jordan.
? Israel begins dismantling settlements in all areas under Palestinian de jure sovereignty. Both sides undertake confidence-building measures, including prisoner releases, improved freedom of movement, and an end to incitement.
? Concurrent with Israeli military withdrawal and the assumption of de facto sovereignty over the initial area, the State of Palestine is established, explicitly based on the 1988 Declaration of Independence. The PLO designates a broadly based interim government, pending future elections, including members of Hamas, but only if they accept the ratified treaty as the law of the land.
? Palestine seeks international recognition and admission to the United Nations.
? Once the State of Palestine is established, the Palestinian Authority is dissolved. The new state exercises sovereignty where Israel has withdrawn; where Israel has not yet withdrawn, it serves as the administrative authority; and it claims sovereignty over Gaza, where Hamas continues to hold actual power. Provided that there are no attacks on Israel from Gaza, Israel would treat Gaza with benign neglect.
? As the new state demonstrates its ability to function as a sovereign, Israel extends its withdrawal of forces. This demonstration of capacity to actually exercise sovereignty is the necessary precondition for further withdrawal. This means disbanding all non-state militias and disarming or integrating into the state forces all individuals presently bearing weapons. Essentially, the state would be calling on Palestinians to accept it as the sovereign. If cooperation is not forthcoming, it could use other methods. In order for this process to be credible to Palestinians, a third party (such as the United States or the Quartet) serves as the “court of appeal” should Israel and Palestine disagree over whether the state has sufficient control to trigger Israeli withdrawal.
? Once Israel has fully withdrawn from all of the agreed-upon West Bank areas, Palestine will seek Hamas’ acceptance of its sovereignty over Gaza as well. If this is actually accomplished on the ground, Israel, in accord with the security provisions of the treaty, will lift the air, land and sea blockade of Gaza. Provided it accepts the treaty as binding, Hamas will be offered the opportunity to function as a political party, without any armed wing, and to participate in new elections. With Israel offering to lift the blockade of Gaza, it is likely that Hamas will accept these terms for re- establishing Palestinian unity, under the authority of the new state. If Hamas rejects this offer and retains military control of Gaza, the status quo would continue, awaiting evolution prompted by the Gazans themselves.
4. Negotiations over Jerusalem and refugees would be conducted on a state-to-state basis. They would begin immediately after the first elections in the State of Palestine, to be held shortly after Israel completes its withdrawal from the agreed-upon West Bank territory. Resolution of those issues would satisfy, in the Palestinian dimension, the requirements of the Arab Peace Initiative for normalization of relations of the Arab states with Israel, and for an end-of-claims agreement between Israelis and Palestinians.
Jerome M. Segal is director of the Peace Consultancy Project at the University of Maryland’s Center for International and Security Studies
and to think all that is required to stop this madness of mutual destruction is allowing the palestinians their part of the middle east, whether its a one state solution or a two state solution there must be a solution which allows these people sovereignty. we cant even call it inhumanity anymore, it is very human to be savage.
whos got more rockets? who can kill more people? who can tell better lies?