US Pressure Prompts Delay of Offensive
Excerpt;
“Troops were already rolling late Wednesday when they were ordered to halt. It appears heavy US pressure delayed the offensive to allow diplomacy to run its course. A senior minister said Wednesday that Israel might delay the expansion for 2-3 days for that purpose.”
Analysis: Olmert Loads the Gun but Doesn’t Fire It , By Herb Keinon and Yaakov Katz (Jerusalem Post)
Excerpts;
The security cabinet, in dramatic, swashbuckler style, decided to finally unsheathe its large sword Wednesday, but also to keep it poised high in the air – not yet stabbing – until further notice.
And therein lies the rub.
The communique issued after the six-hour security cabinet meeting stated that the forum decided to approve plans to expand the operation presented by the IDF. But in the very next paragraph it stated that the security cabinet empowered Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz to decide when to begin the operation.
This decision – when to send tens of thousands of troops northward to the Litani – will be dependent on decisions made in Beirut, Paris and New York, not just in Jerusalem. Lebanon could yet be spared the full fury of the IDF force, Israel signaled Wednesday, if it accepted the basic principles of the original US-French cease-fire draft drawn up on Saturday. That draft called for an IDF withdrawal from South Lebanon only after an international force moved in to replace the withdrawing Israeli soldiers and keep Hezbollah from moving back in.
Only after Lebanon and the Arab world rejected this draft did the government decide – a full month after the war began – to significantly widen the campaign. And now it will wait to see how Lebanon and the Arab world react to the newest threat before deciding when to actually implement it.
In other words, the gun is loaded, and Israel is giving the international community time to pressure the Lebanese government into making the “right move” so that it won’t have to be fired.
A push to the Litani, senior officials stressed Wednesday, is the only way to stop the Katyusha rocket attacks. With no serious diplomatic movement in the works, the time could best be used to press forward to try and deal a heavy blow to Hezbollah – one that would knock out its diplomatic power and allow for the creation of a new diplomatic order in Lebanon.
On the tactical level, the lack of progress in the villages of southern Lebanon is also not good for the IDF. Sitting static in the villages, senior officers said, was what was causing the large number of IDF casualties over the past week.
Leadership, in War and Diplomacy, By Uri Dan (Jerusalem Post)
Excerpts;
This is the first war waged by Israel during which at least part of the cabinet is talking as if it hopes an imposed cease-fire agreement will end the war.
But the writing – in blood and fire – is on the wall. Our national future hangs in the balance. It is entirely possible we will not get another chance to defend ourselves.
I pray that my pessimism is mistaken.
In every previous war Israel did its best to fight up to the last moment, up to the cease-fires that were forced on it. That is what David Ben-Gurion did in the War of Independence; what Moshe Dayan as chief of staff did in the Sinai Campaign of 1956; and what Yitzhak Rabin as chief of staff and Dayan as minister of defense did in 1967.
The purpose of cease-fire agreements dictated by the superpowers was usually to rob Israel of its achievements in war before the enemy could be totally defeated.
I SAW this happening again on the sixth day of the first week of the first war in Lebanon – in June 1982. I flew, together with Ariel Sharon, from Lebanon (I was serving as his media adviser at the time) to a meeting at prime minister Menachem Begin’s residence, where his ministers had gathered. Ronald Reagan demanded had demanded an immediate cease-fire, since the IDF had almost reached the gates of Beirut.
For the next nine weeks Sharon and Begin waged both the war and the diplomacy, until the goals of Operation Peace for Galilee were achieved – a halt to Katyusha fire on Galilee, the shattering of the PLO reign of terror in Lebanon, and the expulsion of Yasser Arafat from Beirut.
Perhaps now Begin’s and Sharon’s political opponents may be willing to appreciate the leadership displayed by these two men, who refused to agree to a cease-fire until the IDF had finished what it came to do in Lebanon.
How pathetic, in comparison, that today some cabinet ministers appear like beggars on the street – pledging that they will allow the IDF to advance north to the Litani River, “only if no diplomatic solution can be found.”
It is clear to anyone with eyes in his head that the politicians giving the IDF its orders are at least two or three sizes smaller than the kind of leadership needed to wage this war until a decisive outcome is reached. Many people fear, with some apparent justification, that the politicians may not be giving the IDF the right orders.
NEVER SINCE 1948 have the majority of Jews in Israel and abroad been so united on the need to win. Never has there been a president like George W. Bush, so willing to give support to Israel in its existential war.
It is doubtful if Israel will again be able to mobilize all its soldiers and its home-front to fight – at any price – a war if, in its blindness, our Left drags the Jewish state to a new 21st-century Masada.
Commentary;
Is Olmert’s holding fire due to perceived US pressure? The term perceived US pressure? Real Leaders stand to pressure as was indicated by Uri Dan’s review of events of the Lebanon War of June, 1982. Or did Secretary of State Rice give Olmert cover, as is indicated by columnist Aluf Benn of Haaretz who writes;
In the end, his salvation came from Condoleezza Rice. The U.S. Secretary of State called to inform the cabinet of expected progress in talks over a UN resolution which have so far been unfruitful. Livni had earlier conditioned her support for the proposal on a “timeout” to pursue a diplomatic resolution first before going ahead with the operation. As a result of Rice’s news, Olmert and Livni managed to convince Peretz that the operation should be postponed for at least 48 hours.
Olmert’s moment of truth has been postponed, at least until Friday.
This author’s opinion is that Benn probably is right on the bullseye.
A large-scale ground war lays convergence to rest once and for all in the public consensus. And Olmert, with all of his previous boasts, spins and ridculousness has rendered his credibility, that of his “government” and his Kadima Party NULL and VOID. MB