As anti-terror operations in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip draw to a close, Israel is teaching its terrorist antagonists some lessons, but if recent media reports are to be believed, they are not the lessons most would have hoped for.

According to Israel’s largest newspaper (and Egyptian newspapers before that), Jerusalem is prepared to release up to 800 jailed terrorists in return for the freedom of IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit. This after weeks of clandestine negotiations, despite Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s public declarations that Israel would not negotiate with terrorists or succumb to blackmail.

Similarly, rumors are rife of a possible prisoner exchange with Hizb’allah.

Interestingly, both of these prisoner swaps, if indeed they are in the works, would take place after major Israeli military operations sparked by the abductions. Israel could have agreed to and conducted an exchange without going to war in Gaza and Lebanon.

It would seem to defeat justification of going to war (to create a future deterrent) if Israel anyway intends to give the terrorists what they wanted in the first place. And it certainly signals to both Hamas and Hizb’allah that future kidnappings will be worthwhile.

Israel is apparently operating under the misguided assumption that the terrorists will view future kidnappings as too costly because of the men they lost during this summer’s fighting. What Jerusalem for some reason fails to grasp, even after all this time, is that the numbers of men lost in the fighting or gained in the subsequent prisoner swaps are unimportant to the terrorists. What matters is the precedent, the damage to Israel’s morale, and the further deterioration of Israel’s image in the region as a power not to be tempted.

Israel’s failures in its month-long war with Hizb’allah continue to mount. As the fighting came to a sudden halt under a UN-imposed ceasefire, it was clear that Hizb’allah had not suffered a crushing blow, was still capable of firing missiles into Israel, and would not release two abducted IDF soldiers.

But, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared, at least Israel had created the conditions for forcing the removal of Hizb’allah as a fighting force from southern Lebanon and its eventual disarmament by the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers.

Unsurprisingly, Israel has now admitted that those achievements were nothing but smoke and mirrors. According to The Jerusalem Post, Israel’s current leadership has resigned itself to the fact that Hizb’allah can’t and won’t be disarmed by Beirut or the UN, and that its deep roots in southern Lebanon make its removal from the area impossible.

Israel’s new focus: making sure an arms embargo on Hizb’allah is fully implemented so that the group cannot replenish its arsenal of long-range offensive weapons.

As it becomes increasingly clear that Lebanon and the UN are not going to use armed force to prevent Syrian shipments to Hizb’allah, it is only a matter of time before that achievement, too, falls by the wayside.

The governing Conservatives in Canada displayed outstanding clarity this week when an opposition lawmaker cited Hizb’allah’s “political wing” as justification for treating with the group’s leadership.

Said Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj:

“Hizb’allah has a political wing. They have members of Parliament. They have two cabinet ministers. You want to encourage politicians in this military organization so that the centre of gravity shifts to them.”

The response from Conservative MP Jason Kennedy was right on:

“There was another political party in the past which had democratic support, which provided social services, which played an important role in the political life of its country in Germany in the 1930s, which was also dedicated to violence against the Jewish people.

“The world was wrong to negotiate with that party then, and it would be wrong to negotiate with Hizb’allah today.”

Fortunately that understanding is, for now, also keeping the world from insisting that Israel negotiate with the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. Shame that Bush Sr. and Clinton did not have such clarity when they accepted Yasser Arafat as a national leader and world diplomat, and strong-armed Israel into talks with the “political arm” of his PLO.

It would seem natural that the more powerful of two opposing forces would dominate the cycle of escalation in any conflict between the two. But Israel’s just-ended war with Hizb’allah - fought in a world of up-to-the-minute newscasts and political considerations - has discredited that theory.

Every new Israeli move in the war was immediately met by a Hizb’allah escalation - Haifa was hit for the first time; then Tiberias; then the Jezreel Valley; then Hadera. And just the threat of escalating the conflict by launching long-range missiles at Tel Aviv is certain to have affected Israel’s decision making.

To one degree or another, Hizb’allah’s escalation capabilities helped to shape the way Israel fought this war. Hizb’allah effectively employed strategic deterrence against Israel.

Israel must turn this situation around if it is to have any chance of scoring a decisive victory in the next round. Israel, not Hizb’allah, must dominate the escalation cycle.

Failing to take this lesson to heart will only further whet the Islamic world’s appetite for Israel’s demise, which more and more voices are saying is just around the corner after the debacle in Lebanon.

There is a lot of whining going on about those poor Lebanese civilians whose lives Israel shattered for no apparent reason (if the mainstream media is to be believed). This excellent editorial helps to put the whole situation in perspective.

I want to just post a few of the points here, though you really should read the whole thing.

The author makes the point most of the media is ignoring as it shows the scenes of “wanton Israeli destruction” - that is if the Lebanese, or any nation for that matter, allow a major terrorist organization to set itself up as a virtual army and then attack a neighboring state, there can be no claims of ignorance, surprise or innocense when the aggrieved come roaring back with their own military response.

But, he goes on, the media is purposely ignoring this aspect of the conflict, purposely ignoring the cause and only looking at the effect, knowing full well that scenes of pitiful Lebanese families will cause most to forget about everything but the Israeli bombs that created this situation. He uses this analogy to illustrate:

Seeing television snippets of wounded or dead Lebanese with people sitting on the ground crying and calling them all “innocent civilians” is the same as looking at a photograph of the armpit of Christie Brinkley and saying, “Here is the photo of a supermodel. Isn’t she beautiful?”

The armpit picture is only a part of the story. When human beings see babies or mothers hurting, no matter what, we feel the pain. If we saw baby pictures of Charles Manson, we would want to cuddle him.

The bottom line for the Lebanese:

You sleep with dogs, you wake up with fleas. You sleep with missiles, you wake up dead.

The world has entrusted the success of a ceasefire, the basis for peace and stability between Israel and Lebanon, to the Hizb’allah terrorist organization. No one should have to explain why this is a bad idea, especially after a similar decision to put regional stability in the hands of Yasser Arafat and his PLO failed so miserably.

Everyone recognizes that the conditions for a future flare-up will exist until Hizb’allah disarms, and UN Security Council Resolution 1701 seems to acknowledge that. But it seems the terror group has been left to decide for itself whether or not to lay down its arms and allow peace to prevail.

No one - not international peacekeepers and not the Lebanese army - wants to actually confront Hizb’allah militarily in order to make sure it disarms.

Hizb’allah says its disarmament is an internal Lebanese issue, and so the government of Fuad Siniora tried to hold a government meeting on the matter Monday morning. But Hizb’allah refused to even discuss laying down its arms, and, unsurprisingly, Siniora immediately folded and called off the meeting. Will that be the end of the charade? Will the international community view that as a legitimate attempt to implement UN resolutions regarding Hizb’allah’s arms, and simply throw up its hands in defeat?

There is one force willing to do the job, but apparently the world will not countenance having Israel actually defeat an Arab Muslim entity.

Reading through UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and Caroline Glick’s pointed analysis of it leaves little room for doubt that Israel did not obtain victory in this fight.

The shame of it is that victory could probably have been obtained quite easily. Or at least far more easily than in Israel’s previous wars. Continue reading »

Make no mistake about it, as things currently stand, Israel has lost its war with Hizb’allah. Despite Defense Minister Amir Peretz’s ludicrous announcement Sunday that Israel has won the war, not one single stated military objective has been met.

Two Israeli soldiers are still in captivity, Hizb’allah is demonstrating once again today that it is still very capable of pounding northern Israel, and IDF troops and armor are being taken out in worrying numbers by a well-armed and highly-trained enemy.

Some in Israel will point to the terms of the UN-imposed ceasefire, which calls for Hizb’allah to withdraw north of the Litani River, as an achievement. But who is naive enough to believe the terrorists will really withdraw? Or that a sympathetic French-led force and the Shi’ite-dominated Lebanese army will actually enforce that stipulation?

No. Israel has lost. And Hizb’allah knows it. More concerning, the wider Muslim world knows it.

For decades Israel’s deterrence was based on the Arabs’ belief that the IDF was simply too powerful to be beaten. But this conflict, which saw a small band of terrorists use easily-obtained anti-tank missiles to inflict crushing losses on a mighty military machine, has ended that myth.

Israel, so long as it fights by the world’s rules, can be beat. That lesson will not be lost on the Arabs and Iranians the next time they decide to pick a fight. And it won’t be long before they do.

Senior Israeli lawmaker Ephraim Sneh, a prominent figure in defense circles, made the assessment this week that Israel will inevitably have to fight Iran sometime in the near future.

But the Jerusalem Post Thursday made the observation that Israel is already fighting Iran, and Lebanon is the battlefield.

Hizb’allah is in effect a brigade of Iranian commandoes, Tehran’s vanguard forces in its quest to see Israel, in the words of President Ahmadinejad, “wiped off the map.” That fact makes Israel’s need to deal Hizb’allah a decisive defeat all the more pressing.

For Israel to not emerge victorious in this fight will signal victory for Hizb’allah, regardless of how many terrorists are killed, and provide Iran with encouragement and valuable information on how future battles against the Jewish state should be conducted.

The Lebanese government, in what news agencies described as an “extraordinary” event, decided unanimously Monday to deploy up to 15,000 troops in southern Lebanon, provided Israel withdraw its forces first. That decision is also certain to cause excitement in Washington and the capitals of Europe, as well as the halls of the UN. Continue reading »