Dr. Aaron Lerner IMRA Date: 22 March, 2007

The good news from Israel is that the IDF - from the top down - has taken the experience last summer in Lebanon quite seriously and is scrambling to apply the lessons of that war. The Israeli economy is also performing so well - and in turn generating so much tax revenue - that implementation won’t require either a devastating slash in social-welfare spending or a crippling show down between the Ministry of Defense and the Treasury over the current early retirement provisions for non-combat IDF personnel.

The bad news is that while the military has been putting its house in order (including the resignations of the top three people associated with the failures of the Lebanon war) the same cannot be said for the government.

The Olmert-Livni team isn’t in the same book - let alone the same page as the IDF.

We have a number of dangerous developments on the civilian side:

The Olmert-Livni team sees its survival as inextricably linked to the asserted efficacy of UN Security Resolution 1701. After all, if 1701 is insufficient that means that the ostensibly crowning achievement of the operation was not realized (neutralization of the Hizbullah threat) - an achievement that is supposed to have also justified the costly last minute push in Lebanon.

As a result, the Olmert-Livni team prefers to understate problems with implementation of 1701 rather than champion Israel’s interests in the matter.

The post-Lebanon war Olmert-Livni team also appears to be even less able to come up with a coherent response to developments in the Gaza Strip than it was before the war.

To make matters worse, there is a movement by withdrawal supporters to embrace and exploit an exaggerated and simplistic take on limitations to Israel’s interim abilities in order to promote what has been their single minded policy recommendation for over a generation: withdraw.

Many years ago withdrawal supporters contended that withdrawal would actually bring peace. When reality rendered that argument farcical, withdrawal supporters turned to the “demographic argument” only to find that the underlying demographic data simply couldn’t justify a hasty retreat. Now withdrawal is being presented simply as a way to buy time during a period of vulnerability.

This last development is possibly the most dangerous one for Israel:

It could mean a “land for piece of paper” Golan deal just as it could be used to justify half baked withdrawal arrangements in the West Bank.

But isn’t the argument that Israel should indeed withdraw in order to buy time for the IDF fundamentally correct?

Hardly.

The argument relies on a misinterpretation of the nature and significance of the situation during the IDF’s “rebuilding window”.

Its not that Israel would not be victorious in a conflict today - but rather that the cost of that victory would be greater for both sides.

Greater for Israel due to higher casualties in a conflict during the “rebuilding window” and greater for the Arabs because Israel could not afford the luxury of taking certain measures that might reduce enemy losses.

But those higher casualties, nonetheless, are dwarfed for the losses Israel would bear in a post withdrawal conflict.

The “out of the frying pan and into the fire” policy recommendation of withdrawal proponents is hardly a viable solution.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 25th, 2007 and is filed under opinion. You can leave a response.