As the Zeitgeist turns: War, Winograd and What next

Toward the middle of the Second Lebanon War, I walked into my local greengrocer and found the proprietor in the middle of a shouting match with one of the guys in the neighbourhood. My greengrocer is a bit of an anomaly – he's a Mizrachi (Jews with ethnic roots in the Middle East) who is a committed Meretz voter. His eyes light up when he talks about “Yossi” (Sarid, the retired former leader of Meretz, a left-wing party with a mostly Ashkenazi constituency), and they darken when he talks about social injustice, poverty and the occupation. He always adds a couple of apples to my bag after he weighs it, he usually knocks a few shekels off the total price when I purchase a lot of things, and he never fails to smile and call me “sweety” when I enter his little shop. That day, he and the neighbourhood guy were arguing about whether or not the army should have attacked Lebanon in response to Hezbollah's 12 July cross-border attack. “You don't bomb a whole country because some terrorists captured two soldiers!” he roared. “That's collective punishment and it's not right!” “But they're bombing us! It's not the first time they kidnapped soldiers and we have to protect our country!” the other guy yelled back. The greengrocer appealed to me: “Am I right or not?!” he asked rhetorically. “Oh no,” I said. “I'm not getting involved in this one. I just came in for some lettuce and cucumbers.”

My greengrocer was an anomaly in more than his deviation from ethnic voting patterns. During the first week of last summer's war, polls showed that 80 to 90 percent of the Israeli public supported the military response to Hezbollah's cross-border attack of 12 July. That was the week I interviewed several prominent figures from the moderate left – people who write and demonstrate against the occupation, social critics, and a woman who during the 1990's spearheaded the grassroots movement to withdraw the Israeli army from southern Lebanon – and all of them said they supported the decision to go to war. One or two criticized the nature of the response (the civilian casualties in Lebanon), but none opposed the invasion of ground troops. Pretty much the only people who expressed loud opposition to the war from the beginning were the usual suspects – the Arab citizens of Israel, the extreme Left and the anarchists. With the exception of a couple of columnists for Haaretz newspaper and Hebrew portals like Nana and Walla, the media's reporting was pretty gung ho on the war, too. Along with reports about battles in Lebanon and rocket attacks in the north, Yedioth and Maariv were full of sentimental articles about mothers of soldiers who cooked huge pots of couscous and went up to the front to feed the hungry boys, or about wealthy ex-pat Israeli businessmen who abandoned their lucrative businesses in Hong Kong or Singapore and flew back to Israel to join their reserve units and fight Hezbollah.

I did know a few Israeli reporters who thought going to war was a mistake – not because they were pacifists or leftists, but because they were pragmatists who knew well the complex reality behind the received narrative of Bad Guys v. Good Guys. But they were the kind of reporters who are paid to report just the facts, ma'am, and to keep their opinions to themselves. I don't know Ofer Shelach (a political and military commentator for Channel 10) or Yoav Limor (military correspondent for Channel 1), but after reading their book Prisoners in Lebanon: The truth behind the Second Lebanon War (Hebrew only) I suspect they were less-than-optimistic from the beginning about the IDF's chances of routing Hezbollah.

The cover of Prisoners of Lebanon.

According to this review the book explains in horrifying detail the many reasons the war was a disaster. I was particularly interested in Chapter 15, which explains factually that the army was severely weakened as a result of the occupation. Instead of training to fight wars it was, particularly since the second Intifada began in 2000, engaged primarily in asymmetric battles against poorly armed militants, or in controlling the civilian population of Gaza and the West Bank. As a result, proper training for a real war was neglected. Of course the war was badly bungled on a tactical level, and this too is detailed in the book. As are the mistakes that were made due to hubris.

Of course, few people knew these things last summer. All they knew was that the Hezbollah raid was an unprovoked act of aggression – certainly not the first since the IDF withdrew in 2000 – and that the northern border must be protected once and for all. But the war did not accomplish any of the goals set out by Olmert: the captive soldiers were not recovered, and the Hezbollah was not routed. In other words, failure.

On Monday afternoon, when the Interim Winograd Report was finally released, I was sitting in a cafe with a veteran Israeli reporter who has known Ehud Olmert for more than 20 years. After describing the prime minister as a “scumbag,” he told me with absolute certainty that, as someone who has been covering Olmert since he was mayor of Jerusalem, he knew he would never resign. Never.

The Hebrew version of the report is 150 pages, but there's a summary in English of the main points here.

Excerpt from the report (my emphasis added):

“12. Let us start with the Prime Minister.

a.
The Prime Minister bears supreme and comprehensive responsibility for
the decisions of 'his' government and the operations of the army. His
responsibility for the failures in the initial decisions concerning the
war stem from both his position and from his behavior, as he initiated
and led the decisions which were taken.

b. The Prime Minister
made up his mind hastily, despite the fact that no detailed military
plan was submitted to him and without asking for one. Also, his
decision was made without close study of the complex features of the
Lebanon front or of the military, political and diplomatic options
available to Israel. He made his decision without systematic
consultation with others, especially outside the IDF, despite not
having experience in external-political and military affairs. In
addition, he did not adequately consider political and professional
reservations presented to him before the fateful decisions of July 12th.

* * *

Four hours after the report was released, Olmert, whose popularity rating was already hovering around a brutal 3 percent for several weeks, addressed the nation on a live television broadcast. He declared that he had no intention of resigning. The people objected most strongly to this statement.

On Thursday night, between 100,000 (police estimate) and 200,000 (organizers' estimate) Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square to call for Olmert's resignation. Rinat observed that she hadn't seen so many foreign reporters covering an event since Sharon's stroke in January 2006. Neither had I. But most of the demonstrators – and most of the speakers – seemed to think that if we had had a different prime minister during the war, we could have “won.” I'm not so sure that's accurate. I'm sure that few people read the whole report, but the bits that were excerpted in the media focused more on the committee's conclusion that Olmert didn't have a good plan to win the war, and much less on the part about him not having explored diplomatic options – in other words, that it might have been possible to avoid war altogether.

Also, most people seem to be ignoring the rather plentiful evidence pointing to the fact that the ground was laid for the failure of that war long before Olmert took office. For example, Aharon Ze'evi Farkash, who headed military intelligence until January 2006, told Yedioth on Monday that he warned former PM Ariel Sharon of a high risk of kidnappings on the northern border six months before the war, and that Sharon – who certainly had plenty of military experience – brushed his concerns aside. When I tagged along with Michael Totten on his April 2006 trip to the northern border, a young IDF captain told us very soberly that we really shouldn't be there, because “everything could explode at any moment.” It's worth going back to read Michael's report to see that there's no way the army could have been unaware that Hezbollah was preparing to attack. And it's simply not credible to contend that the army didn't report what it saw in front of its eyes – a massive buildup of Hezbollah military force on the border – to the prime minister.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no Olmert fan. I just don't see any point in his resigning, because he's no more of a liar and a pathological narcissist than pretty much every other prominent Israeli politician (there are few less prominent politicians that I like and respect, but they're too principled and uncharismatic to go far in the shark-infested waters of high-profile politics). And besides, who would replace Olmert? The leader of the opposition, Bibi Netanyahu? Surely not!

A lot of people called Thursday's demonstration a great example of democracy in action. I saw it as a populist event without much purpose beyond the immediate goal of getting rid of the government. Finally, an issue that Left and Right could agree on! Everyone wanted Olmert out, everyone loved their country, let's forget that we usually disagree vehemently on the most fundamental issues affecting the state and go for a big group hug. I would be much more impressed if 200,000 people showed up to protest the fact that one-third of Israeli children live in poverty, or to support the striking university students who are expected to pay higher tuition whilst working for a living, after serving three years in the army, even as academic institutions are starved of funds.

I don't know what the solutions are to Israel's problems. There are lots of people who know much more about these matters than I, and they get paid to look for creative solutions. I do know that I get nervous when analysis and thought invested in long term consequences are suspended in favour of outpourings of uncritical emotion. I felt the same way during the war, when the few people who dared to say that maybe we should think before acting, or that maybe war was not the right course of action, were condemned as stupid at best or traitors (Hebrew link) at worst. I just don't think that the best evidence of democracy is found in mass demonstrations. After all, Hezbollah staged some pretty impressive demonstrations in Beirut a few months ago, and they're not exactly rah-rah on democracy. I think a well-functioning democracy is best evidenced in intelligent voting and tolerance for diverse opinions – even when those opinions deviate from mainstream views.

P.S. Daniel Levy wrote an excellent piece on the Winograd Report, here.

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“I did know a few Israeli reporters who thought going to war was a mistake – not because they were pacifists or leftists, but because they were pragmatists who knew well the complex reality behind the received narrative of Bad Guys v. Good Guys.”
Hezbollah is a genocidal, anti-Semitic organization whose goal is to establish a totalitarian Islamic state and subvert any democracy in Lebanon.
They're the bad guys, no matter what Israel's mistakes during the war or its domestic distribution of wealth.

1. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
David, I don't have anything good to say about Hezbollah. I do, however, question the Israeli leadership's methods of dealing with Hezbollah.

2. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Lisa,
Even if the hatred for Olmert and Peretz misses the point, and even if people are primarily unhappy because Israel didn't achieve a convincing victory in the war, isn't there something good to be said about citizens expecting their leaders to take responsibility? If there had been no reaction by the public at large to the Winograd report, I know I would have been reading complaints about Israelis' apathy in Ha'aretz the next day.
Also, it strikes me that a failure to discern

“the complex reality behind the received narrative of Bad Guys v. Good Guys”

was really not the problem here.

3. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Amos, your first point is well taken. If there had been no demonstration then accusations of apathy would have been justified. Still, I think it's important to look at why and how this issue brought the people to the streets, and to ask what they really want to accomplish.
I'm not so sure about the second point, although it's true that I did not expand the Good Guy V. Bad Guy paragraph sufficiently. I suspect that quite a lot of readers will focus on that paragraph and gloss over the rest of the piece. We'll see…

4. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Lisa,
I wouldn´t say the war was a *complete* failure.
1.
Hizbullah were either unable – because the IAF destroyed them -, or unwilling – because they feared the consequences – to fire their long-range rockets.
2.
They were also completely unable to fire rockets in barrages. Had they been able to do this the casualties and chaos in Israel would have been infinitely greater with blast effects multiplied and the emergency services under immense pressure.
3.
Referring to the first two points; while the limits of airpower were definitely shown, its capabilities were too. There wasn’t a hint of a challenge to Israel’s dominance in this area.
4.
No conceivable Israeli government is going to let Hizbullah back to the dominant position on the northern border that it enjoyed before the war.
All that said, it’s obvious that many aspects of ground operations were seriously misjudged and that many lives were thrown away for no good reason. Even here though it should be remembered that Hizbullah possessed a critical technological advantage; shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons with two stage warheads capable of defeating the Merkava´s armour.
So the wake up call about Hizbullah and what it means has been received, albeit late and at a terrible price in blood.
And remember we have been here before. The IDF did very badly on a number of occasions in the immediate post-1948 period, Sharon nearly came unstuck at the Mitla pass in 1956, then there was Karameh in 1968, the war of Attrition didn’t exactly go all Israel’s way and the Yom Kippur War was a walk in the park by comparison to what happened last year. The IDF hasn’t always been invincible and won every conflict without breaking sweat and Israel’s Arab enemies have often fought well. The Six Day War was an exceptional event.
So we should try to keep a balanced view of this. The war was a failure because a lot of lives were needlessly lost but let’s not get carried away with the wailing and gnashing of teeth.
PS. Olmert, if he has a scrap of honour, should go.
PPS. Isn´t it ironic, to quote a compatriot of yours Lisa, that Nasrallah is gleefully quoting from the Winograd report. Too many layers of irony to unravel here for sure. And I wonder when we are going to have the Leabanese Winograd report….

5. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Just a couple of comments about your points, from someone who lived (and still lives) in Haifa during the war:
2. I'm not sure how many katyushas would qualify as a barrage, but very rarely, if ever, was there just a single katyusha at a time fired on Haifa. Many times I would count the sounds of five, six, seven, even 12 missiles falling.
4. I was in the far north in March, and I could see a Hezbollah flag close to the Lebanese border.

6. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
In the case of unguided rockets the best way to fire them is line up as many as you can together in the same place and launch them at the same target at the same time. By doing this you make up for the fact that each individual rocket is unguided, you multiply the blast effect and you overwhelm the emergency services. If your target is a city you will kill dozens of people in one go, no problem at all. HB were never able to do this.
I wasn´t at all trying to make light of the suffering of Israelis in the north during war last year but it could easily have been very much worse.

7. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
This type of rocket is by definition terror weapons; unless you fire them at troop concentrations, they can cause more noise than damage. Even for traffic interdiction, they do a lousy job compared to artillery shells.
I was however surprised at the extent of damage that some of them caused; when we were bombed with similar devices, we had much less damage per impact than what I saw on TV. Even accounting for modifications and TV sensationalism, this was surprising.
A great blog, BTW. Thanks for the links to the Winograd report and the excellent articles. There is still hope for a nation that can be that lucid about its misdeeds/mistakes; we Lebanese tend to shy away from mirrors.

8. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Hi Jeha -
Thanks so much for the thoughtful comment and the kind words. I'm really glad you stopped by – it's great to see you here.

9. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
I just don't see the relevance. The decision to go to war in the way that the government did may have been a mistake, but this mistake did not arise from a view of this being a conflict between good and evil. The justification for the air operations came first from the abduction of the soldiers and then from the fact that missiles were raining on Haifa. These constituted reason enough to respond militarily. What is obvious now is that a) the aims of this military response presented by both the political and military spheres were completely fantastical, and that b) different means (some diplomatic, some military) might have been more effective and would definitely have led to less destruction (of Israeli soldiers' lives, Israeli society, and the Lebanese people).
I am not sure what you think would have been a more legitimate reason for the protests in Tel Aviv. Maybe Israelis should have flocked to the square with the message that “war is evil.”
A non-sequitur: When I read the German and French press, I see repeated assertions to the effect that Israel has to learn that “war is not the way.” The funny thing is that this is the mantra that the Europeans have been promoting for the past half-century (no doubt with good reason, given their own experiences), regardless of the conflict involved. But is this really the lesson of the Lebanon war that Israel should draw?

10. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Okay Amos, here is the point I was alluding to with the good v. evil reference: the government – and, to a large extent, the media – “sold” the war to the public as a war for Israel's existence. Hezbollah is a fascist, theocratic movement that might dream about destroying Israel, but the fact is that it does not have the power to do so. However, they do have the power to make the lives of people living in the north very difficult. As you probably know, Hezbollah attacked Israel several times between the 2000 withdrawal and last summer's war. Three soldiers were kidnapped and killed in 2000; Al Ghajar was attacked in November 2005; and Kiryat Shmona was bombarded by Katyushas on several occasions. The media reported on those events but did not focus on them. Meanwhile, the IAF regularly flew over Lebanese territory and broke the sound barrier, and Raviv Druker told Miki Haimovitz during a wartime broadcast that Hezbollah militants were snatched by Israeli elite commando units on more than one occasion; the prisoners were held in Israeli jails as “Prisoners X.” But besides that one mention, I never saw those incidents reported in the Israeli media.
So in other words, there was a kind of under-reported cat-and-mouse game being played on both sides of the northern border for several years. The 12 July raid was not the first Hezbollah incursion, so why didn't Israel go to war before that? They certainly had a cassus belli on many occasions. I don't know the answer to that question, but I suspect that it had something to do with tactical, political and geopolitical considerations. The 12 July incident was certainly a cassus belli, but the question I'm interested in is why it was the catalyst for a war that time, when all the previous incidents were not. Again, I don't know the answer. But the fact is that Israel did go to war, and the war had to be sold to the people – who responded with great courage, in my opinion – and it was sold in very simplistic, emotional terms that were based on partial truths: we are the victims of an act of unprovoked aggression – true; we are battling for our existence – false; they want to push us into the sea – sure, but they can't; there's no way to negotiate with those people – maybe, but did you try?
Israel's army is still the strongest in the Middle East and I suppose there will be wars in the future, although I hope I am wrong. I hate war but I know it is sometimes unavoidable. I just think it was not smart to go to war with Hezbollah last summer, for lots of different political and tactical reasons that would take too much time and space to outline here.
As for the German and French press – well, if they want to delude themselves then let them. I've heard plenty of foreign reporters based in Israel talk utterly uninformed, agenda-driven nonsense after a couple of drinks and I just can't work myself into a lather about them anymore. They're not going to change. Israel is under a microscope, but the microscope is out of focus. That's partly Israel's fault, but I'm the last one to dismiss the influence of flawed reporting. I just don't know what to do about it. I certainly won't censor myself in order to be some sort of unofficial ministry of information for the European press.
Sure, it'd be great if 200,000 people massed on Rabin Square to proclaim that war is evil. It'd be great if people would demonstrate in Beirut, Damascus, Amman and Cairo with the same message. But the point of my post is not to express some kind of anodyne, sloppy sentiment. I'm not saying that war is never the way (although I wish it were not); I'm saying that it wasn't smart this time. And that is one of the lessons Israel should draw, I think.
I hope you didn't suggest the “war is evil” demonstration in Kikar Rabin as some kind rhetorical, sardonic debating tactic. Given your really intelligent posts at Kishkushim, that would be pretty disappointing.

11. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Okay, I see what you're saying now. I guess the difference between this particular abduction and the one at Ghajar was that the former succeeded, and that it came on the heels of the capture of Shalit in the south. But, as you point out, the Israeli response to the successful October 2000 abduction, which also occurred after the withdrawal from Lebanon, was nowhere near the same. And you're right about the reporting at the time. I just didn't see the demonization as much as the feeding of unrealistic expectations. But I accept your point now – thanks for explaining.
I agree with you, of course, that Israel would have been better off responding differently. All the points you make are right on.
No, I was trying to make it clear that I was NOT trying to compare your post to what I had been reading in the Sueddeutsche and Le Monde. It was a non sequitur about different interpretations of these protests in the foreign press.

12. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Thanks, Amos. I'm glad you pushed me to clarify my point; it needed to be done.

13. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Lisa-
A sidenote on your issues with media coverage of the war…
In March, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government – hardly a “right wing” think tank – issued a report about media coverage of the Lebanon war. The report concluded that the media “partnered” with Hezbollah.
You can find the report by doing a search in Google news for Harvard + Hezbollah.
I know it won't change anything, but its interesting that note that the report has received no coverage here in america. On the contrary, the Walt-Mersheimer report on how the Zionist lobby controls everything, got covered in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, etc.
On the actual war:
I recently went to a joint Israel-American event in New York. There has been no proof of life of the kidnapped Israeli soldiers. Does Israel hold Hezbollah terrorists in prisons without saying whether or not they are alive or where they are? What are their motivations for capturing them? Were Hezbollah terrorists mounting attacks on the border, or was Israel just crossing over and snapping them up? I'm curious. I ask that without sarcasm – just to get a better understanding.
Also, “breaking the sound barrier” over Lebanon…was that in response to the missile build up and rocket fire? Some journalists in America, arguing for Israeli restraint, mentioned that Israel had done this. It seems like a pretty tame reaction when rockets are regularly falling in your back yard, and responding by kidnapping soldiers and showering Haifa with missiles strikes me as a bit extreme. Again, maybe I'm wrong.
I think that part of the problem here – for some of us across the ocean, anyway – is that we were subjected to a barrage of media coverage in the American press that painted Hezbollah as a benign militia and social services organization that is somehow the same as Israeli society. Moral equivalence was the rule of the day, not the exception.

14. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
David, thank you so much for the information about the Harvard study on media coverage of the Lebanon war. I found it and read it with great attention. It is a great study: clear, lucid and well sourced. You are right that it will never receive the same attention accorded to the Walt Mearsheimer report – unless some journalist with high credibility takes the trouble to write an article or column about it.
As for your questions, please be aware that I am only repeating what I have been told. The sources are very credible, but this is second-hand information so I cannot take responsibility for its veracity:
1. As far as I have heard from Israeli human rights lawyers, the Hezbollah prisoners are held in the same jails as Palestinian political prisoners. However, unlike the Palestinian prisoners they do not have contact with their families or the Red Cross.
2. I don't know what the motivations for abducting them are. They're certainly not choirboys, but as far as I have understood it is not easy to tease out a cause-and-effect – i.e., I don't know if they were abducted in response to something they did, or as a preventative measure. As I wrote before, there was a cat-and-mouse game played by both sides.
3. As for the IAF flyovers across the Blue Line: sometimes they are in response to a Hezbollah violation of the Blue Line, and sometimes they are just a warning / reminder. However, Lebanese who are not Hezbollah supporters are affected by the sonic booms (I don't know if you've ever experienced them, but they're pretty scary) so I think they may be counter-productive in the sense that they anger Lebanese who might otherwise be more inclined to sympathize with Israel's position vis a vis the Hezbollah. Sure, sonic booms are scary but not dangerous, whereas Katyushas are both scary and dangerous. But from a pragmatic perspective, I don't think Israel is achieving any positive goals with the flyovers. They're not scaring Hezbollah, but they are angering Lebanese who do not support Hezbollah.
I did read a few articles in the American media that presented Hezbollah as a benign social movement. There is some truth to that: just as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt gained support because it provided free health care and subsidized food to the poor, and Shas offered free all-day kindergartens with free lunch to gain support amongst the religious-Sephardic sector in Israel, so does Hezbollah offer social services that the Lebanese government does not provide. But of course that is not all they do. I also read a pretty laughable article that claimed Hezbollah doesn't fight amongst civilians in Salon (link). It is indeed very unfortunate that some people who consider themselves leftists are so blindly and reflexively anti-Israel, they are willing to spin tall tales and support a racist, sexist, violent theocratic organization simply because it is also anti-Israel.

15. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Lisa:
Thanks for taking the time to expand on your thoughts.
Many of your conclusions are at variance with my own; I just wanted to try and get a more rounded view of the situation. I really think that from an intellectual standpoint, much of the methods of war are “unproductive” and will cause resentment amongst innocent people. I don't know if that means they are unjustified, however.
I'm also still wondering if Israel gives “Proof of Life” of Hezbollah prisoners. I'm assuming they do, given that the Human Rights Groups know about them in the first place. The lack of outrage by the international community at the fact that Hezbollah and Hamas hasn't done so is really disgraceful.
I spoke to a leading Middle East journalist who writes for the New Yorker . He was straightforward in his conviction that the press overemphasizes the “public services” aspect of Hezbollah. He has written about them in depth, and has often spoken out against this whitewashing.

16. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
“When I read the German and French press, I see repeated assertions to the effect that Israel has to learn that “war is not the way.”
If the French and German press are indeed saying this I wonder what they imagine their armed forces are up to Afghanistan (both of them) and all over west and central Africa (the French)

17. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Lisa, I read your blog for a very long time. Im so sorry that over the time you understand less and less the Israeli society. I know that I say this without bringing arguments, unfortunetly my english is not to a point where I can argue in it. I have the feeling that you becomed a standard Tel avivian caffe sitting type of reporter, with very clear and simple political views that were crafted in west bank restaurants. On this issue that you write here, you are absolutly wrong and time will tell why, not me. Some time ago I thought you have some understanding of the israeli society, as I said before, now I think that you dont understand whats going on here at all. Sorry…
P.S. Im not an orange type, if this what you think, just an average israeli

18. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Lior, if labeling me a cafe type makes you feel better about disagreeing with me, that is certainly your prerogative. However, you really need to bring some counter-arguments to the discussion table if you want me to take you seriously. You can write in Hebrew if you don't feel comfortable expressing yourself in English.
As for what I do and what I see in my work, rest assured that very little of it is inside West Bank restaurants. I do not write about the vast majority of my experiences- mostly because I don't think feel like dealing with the reactions of readers who have never seen or experienced those things.
Also, most of my friends are ordinary Israelis – you know, the kind who have three kids, a mortgage on a small apartment, a job in high tech and a car they get through company leasing. They do not seem to think that I understand them any less than I did four years ago.

19. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Lisa:
I would hope you are a bit of a cafe type, since I want to know all the cool cafes to hang out and drink and argue politics and listen to music when I come to Tel-Aviv, and you are an unofficial authority of us diaspora zionists on many issues – politics and leasure.

20. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
“[...] ordinary Israelis – you know, the kind who have three kids, a mortgage on a small apartment, a job in high tech and a car they get through company leasing”
Question: I know you'll find many dudes fitting this image, avoda be-high-tech, isha ve mashkanta, but is that really an accurate image of the ordinary Israeli ? If I think of the people living in the Negev localities, the north, the Jordan valley, most places outside “ha-merkaz” or Matam in Haifa, I kinda doubt it …
Moku Yobi

21. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Hi MY -
The definition of 'normal' or 'average' is always problematic. However, every country has its average type – like the Japanese 'sararyman' and the large majority of Israelis do live in the centre of the country.

22. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
It's not only “dudes” who fit this image. In my family, I'm the one with the hi-tech job and the leasing car.
If you put the hi-tech part aside, if you go to the periphery, you'll see similar images. The cafes might not be as trendy, the apartments might not be as desirable, but you're still going to see people hanging around their local town centers, hitting their local eateries, griping about their mortgages. The details might be different, but the subjects are often the same.

23. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
In the same way the Japanese salaryman is a visible, but not at all representative of the majority of Japanese, I believe the same holds for the hi-tech Tel-Aviv dude or lady in Israel with a leased car. Do your grocer, the guy selling tomatoes in the shuk-hakarmel or the young guy in the pitsutsya next door have a leased car ? Are there more of the small shop worker guys and ladies or more of the hi-tech type ? In your environment ? In the whole country ?

24. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Love this post. Maybe because I am by nature something of a contrarian and don't tend to subscribe to group emotions. The herd is the herd, it will do whatever it does, pity.

25. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Lisoosh, I think we are going to have a lot to talk about when you visit Israel. Can't wait to meet you.

26. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Hope to hang with you too, although it looks as though my trip is going to be delayed for a number of reasons.
One thought which crossed my mind – Hizbollah appeared to carry out their raid in part to embarass the Lebanese government – a kind of low level coup. It could be that Israels extreme reaction and the backlash among many in Lebanon against Hizbollah because of this may prove to be the catalyst for something better. You never know.

27. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
“I saw it as a populist event without much purpose beyond the immediate goal of getting rid of the government.”
What on earth is the matter with that? It seems to me to the highest exercise of democracy for the people to take to the streets to get rid of a government they hate.

28. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Hi Rob, nice to see you again; I was wondering what happened to you.
I don't think that taking to the streets in order to get rid of a government is necessarily an exercise in democracy. A reported million Hezbollah supporters demonstrated in Beirut to call for a toppling of the Siniora government, and Hezbollah is not exactly a democratic movement.
That said, I have no problem with Israelis demonstrating to express disapproval of the government. I just don't like populist slogans like “failures, go home” – which is in fact the new Likud slogan, although most of the demonstrators probably didn't know that. I also have a problem with the fact that the demonstrators didn't offer any constructive message – like who should replace Olmert, for example. If you're planning to gut an ugly house, it is wise to have a renovation plan before you take a sledgehammer to the walls. One of the Winograd Committee's findings was that the government entered the war without taking time to think and consider long term consequences. I fear that the demonstrators did much the same thing – not in the fact of their demonstrating, but in the way they demonstrated.

29. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
These are excellent points you make, Lisa.
You could also include the demonstrations in Turkey. I know this is not a popular thing to say, as ostensibly these people are protesting for “secularism” – but they are subverting the democratic process and aiding security organs in pressuring elected officials.
I think when/if Bibi ends up winning elections, a lot of people in the center and on the left will think back to what people like Lisa were saying.
And still I say, there has to be accountability. It is not acceptable for Olmert to continue business as usual.

30. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Amos,
Why the scare quotes around “secularism”? What is it that you imagine the people were demonstrating for? And how were they subverting the democratic process by participating in a demonstration behind the banner of “Neither Sharia, nor coup d'etat.” ?

31. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
I thought about those quotation marks, and maybe I shouldn't have put them around the word.
I didn't know that there were banners that were also protesting against the threat of a coup d'etat.
I was impressed by the size of the demonstrations, but I am still ambivalent about the whole thing. I definitely don't want Turkey to go any more Islamist than it is now, but Erdogan & co. have been following the law. The candidates for the presidency should be decided by elected officials and ultimately through the ballot box, not through the threat of force by the army. But maybe this is simply not realistic – I know there have been times when democracies had to protect the viability of democratic institutions using un-democratic means.

32. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
What Eamonn said. I agree that Hizbollah mustering a million has the credibility of Kim Jong Il doing the same, but spontaneous outbreaks of 'people power' has got rid of despots before (Soeharto in Indonesia, Marcos in The Philippines). There's nothing governments fear more than angry people on the march, and that's how it should be.
Lisa, this was a thoughtful and thought-provoking post but for once I am struggling to agree with you.

33. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
There is a very interesting and thought-provoking opinion piece about the Turkish demonstrations in today's IHT. It's called The Real Threat is Secular Fundamentalism, and it lends support to Amos's point.
Also, while it's true that people power has succeeded in getting rid of despots, it's also true that it has simply resulted in the exchange of one despot for another: e.g., Khomeini for the Shah, or Lenin for the Czar Nicholas. I do think that Olmert needs to know the people are fed up, and I have participated in lots of demonstrations. I just disagree with the contention that demonstrations are evidence of a well-functioning democracy, and I further don't think this particular demonstration had a constructive message.
Anyway, Rob, it's totally cool that you don't agree with me – even though, as Amos pointed out, I made some excellent points.
I just don't understand what you disagree with me about!

34. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Lisa,
The article you cite is, how I shall put this… a tad one-sided.
1.
“Moreover, the secular elite holds itself responsible for preventing religion from flourishing;”
So it does this by making religious education mandatory at school, paying for the training of imams and later their salaries?
2.
“Noting that Western democracies give their citizens the very religious freedoms Turkey has denied its own”
The author fails to cite any instance where the religious freedom of Muslims is suppressed. He does say that the secular elite want to ban “…ban visible signs of observance such as the head scarf.” Well maybe some do but as things stand it’s only banned in state institutions such as schools, universities and government offices. Far from restricting the rights of Muslims to practice their religion it could well be argued that the secular state has coddled the Muslim majority at the expense of Christians, Alawite Muslims and other minorities.
3.
“Since 1950, almost every election has been won by center-right parties, which have advocated relative religious freedom”
Again, there is a clear implication that the rights of Muslims to practice their religion in Turkey have been restricted or denied by the state. This is simply risible.
4.
“Noting that Western democracies give their citizens the very religious freedoms Turkey has denied its own,”
Again, no examples are given of how Turkey has denied religious freedom to any of citizens.
I could give further examples of this article’s tendentiousness but I don’t want to take over the whole blog…
In Turkey many decent, democratically-minded people think Islam should play a larger role in the political life of the state and think it should serve as a reference point for the framing of legislation on social and cultural questions. Many equally decent and democratically-minded people think that Islam already has enough or too much influence in the life of the nation and don’t want to see it advancing any further. Nearly everyone in Turkey is a Muslim, – including the secularists – so this is a debate among Muslims about the relationship between their religion and the state.
The nation is divided. This article is a caricature of a very complex reality.

35. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Eamonn – Wow. That was quite a response! I didn't know your erudition extended to Turkish history and culture as well. The last time I took a serious look at Turkey was back in the days of Tacu Ciller, so you're definitely way out of my league. I think your points are all great and important, but you and I definitely drew different messages from the article.
For me, the most important point is that religious repression nearly always backfires. If a well-educated Muslim woman cannot get a government job in Turkey because she wears a hijab, for example, that is bound to create resentment. I also think it's not very demoratic to allow the army to take over governing if a religious party wins the elections.
On the other hand, of course, a government led by fundamentalists is not desirable either. I just think that fundamentalism is more likely to flourish when religious tolerance is limited.
The whole situation presents a bit of a conundrum. I agree that the author of the article was biased, but I don't think his points are totally without merit.

36. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
“For me, the most important point is that religious repression nearly always backfires. “
Could you give me an example of the repression of Sunni Islam by the state in Turkey?
“If a well-educated Muslim woman cannot get a government job in Turkey because she wears a hijab, for example, that is bound to create resentment. “
Probably. Does that count as *repression* though? She can take it off as she enters the office and put it on as she leaves it. It’s certainly a restriction on her freedom but all sorts of restrictions are placed on people’s freedoms by democratic governments – and private employers – all the time. To give an example, it looks like some of the privileges enjoyed by hesder yeshiva recruits in the army are about to be abolished by the IDF. Would you say that amounted to the repression of Judaism by the IDF and the state of Israel?
A further weakness of this argument is that it implicitly negates the status of “Muslim” to women who don’t wear the headscarf.
“I also think it's not very democratic to allow the army to take over governing if a religious party wins the elections. “
Me neither and nothing I have said here could be taken to mean otherwise.

37. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Eamonn -
You misunderstand me. I didn't think or imply that you approved of the army taking over the government. My point was that if the army regards itself as the protector of Turkish secularism, to the point of stepping in to overturn a democratically elected government that happens to be headed by a religious Muslim, it would be subverting the democratic process.
I do not believe that a Muslim woman's religiosity is defined by whether or not she covers her head, any more than I believe the same holds true for observant Jewish women. I have women friends who are observant Muslims or Jews and do not cover their hair. However, many religious Muslims and Jews do consider hair covering an essential part of their religion. They won't allow themselves to be seen bareheaded by anyone outside their immediate family. I don't actually agree with that practice, but as long as it's their choice I respect their decision. From a pragmatic perspective, I don't think it's a big deal to allow Muslim women who do feel a head covering is essential to wear it to work at a government job. Telling her she cannot have a job because she wears a scarf on her head, even though she is otherwise qualified, and despite the fact that by exposing her hair in front of strangers she would be violating what she perceives as an essential article of faith, seems very problematic to me.
The hesder yeshiva students are not being forced to violate their religious beliefs in order to serve in the IDF. Army food is kosher, they can pray three times a day and study in their free time. Full time yeshiva study at government expense is a privilege, not a right, and it has nothing to do with religious observance.
I was not referring to past incidents of Sunni oppression by the Turkish government. I am concerned about what may happen in the future if Gul is disqualified from taking office because of his religious beliefs alone. I don't know enough about him to take a position on whether or not his religious beliefs would affect the way he governs. If that is the case, then the Turks have a problem. If it's not, then the army is trying to subvert the democratic process.

38. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Wow! What a post!
One of your best

39. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
The problem was that once Olmert decided to go to war he was unwilling to bring the war to its necessary conclusion. He was unwilling to us the means it takes to bring the war to its necessary conclusion.
In the age of so called “smart bombs” too many people think that war can be refined. It can't. It will always be cruelty. And what so called leaders like Olmert needs to understand is that the crueler the better for the quicker it would be over.
I believe it is immoral to refine war as it just extends the suffering and leads unnecessary deaths on your side and during war that should be your main consideration. It is the ultimate sin as a public leader to put your own troops in additional danger just so you may prevent a few deaths on the enemy side of the line.
The initial decision to go to war itself was sound. After all, if your people are killed or captured there needs to be a massive response. Not a proportional support as many were calling for at the time but a disproportional response to discourage the enemy from attacking again, both by disabling the capacity as well as the will. All that a so called proportional response does is stirs up a hornet nest and makes the enemy even more determined to attack the next time.
Did you know that two thousand years ago a Roman citizen could walk across the face of the known world free of the fear of molestation? He could walk across the earth unharmed, cloaked only in the words ‘Civis Romanis’ I am a Roman citizen.
So great was the retribution of Rome, universally understood as certain, should any harm befall even one of its citizens.

40. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
“Did you know that two thousand years ago a Roman citizen…”
Thank you President Bartlett.
I tend to agree that the principle of Military Operations Less Than War is flawed – that such approaches rarely accomplish any of their short term goals, and usually make the long term situation worse. I also think a kumbaya, can't we all just get along worldview is rather naive. However, in the situation last summer, I tend to agree with Lisa that diplomacy was neglected. There was much talk (at least here in the US) about Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and Jordan supporting Israeli military action; I think it is likely that Lebanon's government would have been on board for isolating Hizbollah. That would have left Hizbollah pretty well surrounded in south Lebanon, and it would have left many diplomatic options (arm Lebanon's elected government and conduct a reasonable military incursion into the south from all directions; negotiate a disarmament/withdraw for Hizbollah) Many of those options would have had a positive result.
But I think Lisa's main point was about mass hysteria/group-think. In my mind, a fundamental basis of democracy is that people are free to take civil steps to overthrow or weaken that democracy. As Thomas Jefferson said: “If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.” I'm not sure that arguments about whether a mass protest is democratic, or whether democratic means to accomplish undemocratic goals is really democratic, is particularly valuable – democracy is not a religion and I don't know that treating it as the pinnacle of good helps. But that was only part of Lisa's argument. I think her main point – that people should actually think through what they are doing and what they want, and consider the consequences of success and failure – is spot on. And her “reason” is a good one to combat errors of opinion.

41. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
I believe a “Sherman” approach would have achieved the necessary objectives. The problem wasn't with the war it was with how the war was fought.
War is Hell. You can not refine it. Too many politicians today believe you can. And that is when you get into trouble.
In regards to public support during the war, well that is appropriate. Once your country is at war, as a citizen you need to support that war. I mean, what's the alternative? You want to see your troops lose? You want to see your soldiers die? No, once the war has begun you need to support it with all your heart and soul. That's not group-think. That's patriotism.
The problem I saw during the war was that too many Israeli journalists (not Lisa) put their careers over their patriotism. I will never forget this one photo that was taken of an Israeli girl drawing messages on a bomb. Now I saw nothing wrong with it. I saw it an act of defiance that reminded me of WWII pilots writing messages to Adolph and Co on the bombs they were going to drop on Germany. But it was not perceived that way within Israel and outside it and it made me wonder if the Israeli who took the photo knew it was going to harm the war effort. It shows why during war time such photos need be first run by a government screener before being published.

42. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Hey Alex -
You have left so many comments along this theme of blind patriotism and you know I don't agree with you. I don't know any journalists or photojournalists who chose their career over their country's safety. The problem with the photo you cite was not that it was taken, but how it was interpreted. The censorship you suggest is not acceptable in a democracy, nor should it be.
You are very welcome to comment here, but please try to contribute to the discussion with some new and constructive points.
Thanks,
Lisa

43. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
It was exactly that kind of censorship that the Allied countries practiced during World War II and given the situation it was perfectly acceptable to the democracies practicing it.

44. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
It is one thing to be supportive of the troops, and I agree that we should, as the soldiers aren't the ones responsible for the decision to go to war in the first place. This doesn't mean that one has to support the war itself. This is an important difference.

45. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
If there is a distinction to be made between “supporting the troops” and “supporting the war itself” it’s a distinction without a difference. After all, when all is said and done how can you support the troops yet at the same time want to see them defeated on the battlefield? How can you support the troops yet at the same time want to see their mission fail?
I am an American. And during the 1990s I was against our involvement in the Balkans War. I didn’t see any US interests that were involved in that conflict (which is the ONLY reason US troops should ever be forced to fight). I didn’t understand why we had chosen sides in what was at its heart a civil war. Atrocities were being committed on all sides of the conflict and I didn’t see what made the Serbians any different than the other players in the conflict who were committing atrocities just as bad as the Serbians were.
But in the end, I was stuck. I mean the decision had been made. The only way that troops would be removed would be if the war wasn’t going well for us. The only way that troops would be removed would be if we were losing the lives of too many of our soldiers.
Would that really be what I wanted? These soldiers were friends, relatives, neighbors, fellow Americans. Would I really want the deaths and injury of these people just because I personally happen not to agree with this course of action?
And defeat would have meant a lost of national prestige which has very real effects. Defeat emboldens all those who might want to harm us, defeat encourages enemies and could lead them to attack our national interests. Our enemies will see our abandonment of the fight as a sign of weakness and weakness could be seen as an opportunity to attack. That is what happened when we abandoned Somalia in 1993 (another case where our national interests weren’t involved so troops shouldn’t have been sent in the first place). The Islamofascists including bin Laden saw our disengagement from Somalia as a sign that we would yield at the first sign of US casualties. This encouraged him to attack our embassies in Africa and in the end to attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001.
So, no, in practical terms, you can’t support the troops without supporting the war. You might personally feel the war is ill-advised and you can publicly express that before the decision is made to go to war and after the conflict is over. But when there are troops on the ground regardless of your personal feelings you must support the war for during that time an appearance of national unity is very important, and any opposition at home encourages the enemy abroad, strengthening their will to fight, resulting in the deaths of more of your troops.

46. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Liza, please tell me how this “support the troops but not the war” stance would play out in regards to your behavior during the war?
I honestly can't see how you could oppose a war without hurting the troops fighting it.

47. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Lisa, thanks for the excellent post. As always, I find your blog informative and unbiased.
I haven't visited you site in a while; still wondering about the laptop saga!

48. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
” That day, he and the neighbourhood guy were arguing about whether or not the army should have attacked Lebanon in response to Hezbollah's 12 July cross-border attack. 'You don't bomb a whole country because some terrorists captured two soldiers!” he roared. “That's collective punishment and it's not right!' ”
It has nothing to do with “punishment”. It has to do with ensuring that such incidences don't happen again. You do that by both destroying their capacity to harm, but perhaps even more importantly by letting them know, as well as anyone else out there who might be thinking of harming your country and its citizens that if they do so retribution will be massive, immediate and certain. The retribution must be disproportional as “tit for tat” only encourages the enemy and strengthen the enemy's resolve.
Clinton played “tit for tat” with bin Laden in the 1990s and it just led to 9-11.
No, it's not about revenge or punishment. It is about prevention. It is about making 'Civis Israelis' be a cloak of protection instead of a target.

49. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm
“I do know that I get nervous when analysis and thought invested in long term consequences are suspended in favour of outpourings of uncritical emotion.”
Actually, for once I'm not sure I agree with your view of the masses at the rally. Almost everyone I talked to who went is no less worried than you about who will replace Olmert, and was very torn about whether or not to go for exactly this reason. But some of us feel that we must put a stop to the sense that politicians can act with total impunity, and there will be no price to pay. I think for many of us the only little shred of hope left is not in who will be the next prime minister, or the one after that, but in maybe slowly changing the political culture here, over the course of decades (if Israel survives that long), and reminding future generations of politicians that they serve at the pleasure of the people, not the other way around. I agree that this is a slim hope, but I think at least some portion of the people at the rally, far from being short-sighted and unaware of the consequences should Olmert resign, were actually trying to be far more far-sighted than is customary around here, and to look beyond all the horrible current alternatives in the next few years to a larger vision for this country's future.

50. Anonymous
on December 31st, 1969 at 6:59 pm