We are disappointed in the result of the Hezbollah war. We wanted a full and unambiguous victory over Hezbollah. We wanted to destroy them once and for all. But that was an unachievable wish from its inception. Hezbollah, a well trained, supplied and financed military force, hiding among the civilian population, can not be completely destroyed without immense civilian casualties. The Iraqi situation illustrates this fact. In addition, Israel does not have a free hand to achieve its goals; it is only one of the major players in the very complex web of the Middle East. Unfortunately, Israel was not fully prepared for this complex situation. The government over estimated the Israeli Defense Force, IDF, capabilities and underestimated Hezbollas’.

Allow me to make some observations that may be based more on reality and less on emotions.

Let’s first look at some positive elements of the war:

For the first time Israel responded with significant power to Hezbollah’s attacks.

Hezbollah’s power has been considerably reduced.

Many Lebanese are frustrated by Hezbollah/Iran/Syria’s control of their Lebanese destiny.

Hezbollah leader Nasrallah apologized for their attack to reduce hatred towards his group.

Israel learned a very important lesson that airpower alone is insufficient.

This mini war will force the IDF to improve its planning, operations, training, supply and tanks.

Despite propaganda, the Arab world knows that Israel is willing to risk a lot to secure itself.

Most Israeli civilians supported a more aggressive war. Most “on- the- fence” Israelis are now better aware of the evil character of the enemy.

In its quest for nuclear weapons Iran can not use Hezbollah effectively to threaten Israel, as they had planned.

Israelis, the government and IDF lost their false sense of superiority and have a better understanding of the enemy’s capabilities and willingness to destroy and kill as many Israelis as possible.

It is now beyond a shadow of a doubt that much of the West is unmistakably anti Israeli/anti-Semitic. There is considerable increase support of Israel by many Jews in the Diaspora, and 75% of the American public.

Israeli civilians deaths and injured were relatively small despite 4,200 rockets since civilian shelters were very effective, and only one quarter of the rockets hit build up areas.  

Negative elements:

The lost of life of 53 Israeli civilians and 115 soldiers, 250 severely wounded, and 2,000 lightly wounded, substantial lost of property and psychological impacts on the Israeli side.

The unavoidable lost of life and property of innocent civilians on the Lebanese side.

Arabs lost some of the fear of the invincibility of the IDF.

The Palestinians will try to imitate the rocket attacks of Hezbollah.

The UN and Lebanese forces are likely to support Hezbollah and make it more difficult to fight it.

Cost of war six billion dollars; not including Israel expenses to help rebuild the North.

The 20% of the Israeli population below poverty line may see a reduction in government support.

Useless finger pointing and disturbances of civic life by Israelis themselves. A review of the war should take place but anger should be directed towards the ENEMY – HEZBOLLAH and Iran!

The IDF was not well prepared for fighting Hezbollah. This, I believe, was mainly the failing of Sharon and the previous Chief of Staff- Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon. Effective preparations should have been done on their watch. True, the Ulmert government did not act decisively and did not give the freedom to the IDF to amass the needed forces for a more powerful ground attack. But, we must thank Ulmert that he took the initiative to respond forcibly to this Hezbollah attack, and did not wait, as Sharon and Yaalon did, until Hezbollah was better fortified and better supplied in the future. Therefore, let’s not jump on everyone with condemnations- I am not a supporter of the current government but I believe that the current Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, previously Commander of the Air Force, believed that airpower alone would lead to quick success. Or else he was forced to use mainly airpower by the government which wanted to limit the use of ground forces and the many casualties associated with them. We can not out guess the government and claim it was wrong when we are not privileged to its knowledge and do not carry the responsibilities it does.

Let’s concentrate on the IDF preparedness.

I believe that militarily: 1. a country should never put most of its eggs in one basket, 2. that it should never underestimate its enemy. 3. it must be deeply aware that it never fully grasps what it does not know, i.e. - acknowledge that it knows only some of the facts. These are critical principles. I believe that Israel failed on these three counts.

1. Most of its eggs in one basket--the Israeli Air Force- IAF:

The Air Force performed well and achieved most of its missions in Lebanon effectively with minimal casualties. It was very constrained because Hezbollah used civilian cover, but despite that the IAF effectively destroyed the long range missiles that could have reached Tel Aviv. It also destroyed almost as effectively the medium range missiles that reached Haifa. But it was unable to destroy the majority of the Katyusha rockets (which are inaccurate and short range) because they are small (about 5 ft), and easy to hide and use. Also, it could not eradicate sufficient Hezbollah positions; they were well entrenched in many wide
spread bunkers. And you can not destroy from the air a few people shooting quickly small Katyusha rockets and hiding among civilians supporters.

However, funds going to the IDF reduce funds to other services to a significant level. A strong air force with advanced fighters is a must to win wars between nations, but not so to fight terrorism. It seems that for the last two decades the IDF put most of its eggs in one basket- the Israeli Air Force, and within the air force, into advanced ighters. The pride of the IDF is the F-16 I  fighters, (I - Israeli version), that has a lot of Israeli advance electronics and counter measures. Advanced fighter aircrafts like the F-16 I are designed for dog fights and for precision attacks against distant targets, such as Iran, and are not as effective against terrorists. It  seems that the allocation to the IAF led to reduce capabilities in other services below acceptable levels. (Details at end).

The IDF realizes that all its nine air force bases can become unoperational (the facilities are underground, but the runways have to be exposed) by surprised missile attacks that it could not retaliate to nuclear attack. Iran has that attack capability. Therefore, for several years the IDF has been developing alternatives, such as nuclear- carrying submarines that are less vulnerable to surprise attacks. Three German made diesel submarines are in operation and two more were ordered two weeks ago from the same sources.

2. Never underestimate the enemy:

There is a tendency to think that the Arabs are not too smart and are just emotional. That is a gross misunderstanding as was demonstrated in the 1973 war, in this Lebanon war, and the sophisticated way Iran is handling its nuclear program, both on the ground and politically. The IDF acknowledged that it was surprised and not prepared for the quantity and high level of sophisticated equipment Iran supplied Hezbollah. Also, Israel was not prepared to deal effectively with the known fact that Hezbollah spread its forces among civilians and was dug in across wide areas in well prepared and hard to destroy bunkers.

Despite the previous use of powerful anti tank mines some of the tanks did not have sufficiently robust underbelly and were destroyed by large mines. Israel did not allocate sufficient funds to upgrade or replace older Merkava tanks.

3. Acknowledge that the IDF knows only some of the facts and is unaware of its level of ignorance. That is: do not be too sure of yourself.

The enemy may pull some serious surprises and you should put extra power in reserve.

I read that the Israeli weapons to obliterate deep bunkers did not achieve their goals. The US offered to sell it some of its own several years ago and was rejected since the IDF believed theirs are superior. It was not the case. Israel is acquiring them now and modifying its planes to carry these US weapons.

Is it possible that the most advanced Israeli Navy ship was not tuned to hear the Iranian anti-ship missile, and its crew was celebrating Shabat together while on duty? If so, it is inexcusable. Again, lack of preparedness, lack of awareness. Other mistakes in this war could be attributed to over confidence, and thus lack of preparedness of even some basic things. Military supplies to some reserve units were inadequate, also their training not up to date. It is likely that the IDF put its money mostly on airpower, neglecting ground services.

On another critical issue, because Israel is surrounded by active enemies, I wonder to what extent the prime minister or the minister of defense of Israel must have substantial military experience, such as Sharon, Barak and Rabin had. It may not be necessarily so; Rabin, in my judgment, made the most crucial mistake by his lack of follow up on the Oslo peace accord. The signing of it was not as bad as allowing Arafat to have a free hand to agitate and educate a full generation of Palestinians to hate Israel to their cores. A situation still continuing in all Palestinian areas.

Also, Ehud Barak outstanding military experience did not prevent him from mistakenly offering Arafat everything but the kitchen sink because Barak believed he singularly, without even discussing it with his stuff, had the answer.

Golda Meir made the mistake of rejecting a preemptive attack prior to the 1973 war. She was threatened by Kissinger not to do so but that decision resulted in a devastating war to Israel. So it is a hard call. But I believe a highly experienced military commander must be at a top political level of the Israeli government, in a very influential position, such as Dayan’s in 1967. There is no substitute for direct and substantial military experience. A political leaser can not intellectually grasp the enormity of a military campaign that may determine the future of the country. It seems to me that the Ulmert government did not have any one with substantial battle experience in its rank.

There are no clear or simple solutions to Hezbollah at present, and the situation is fluid. However, the most critical danger, without a doubt, is still the Iranian nuclear weapons and their desire to use them against Israel.

Matania

9-06

For analysis by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs of the rocket attacks go to: http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief006-10.htm

* Israel military budget is about 11 billion dollar a year, 9% of a GDP. This necessary expenditure is one of the highest percentages of military expenditures in the world (US is 3.5%). A major portion goes to the acquisition, supply, repair and maintenance of the excellent Air Force.

Military funds are in short supply.

The price of the F-16 I is around $50 million for the basic airplane, double or triple it to include  avionics, supplies and support, then multiply this by over 100 aircrafts, the total is many billion dollars.

Several key factors led to committing so much to fighter planes: the firm belief that airpower is the most crucial military weapons, an aura associated with airpower, and especially fighters aircrafts, availability of advanced fighter planes from the US, and US military grants. For many
years the majority of the IDF  military budget went to create the fourth largest Air Force in the world, after the US, Russia, and China. Airpower is extremely effective and important but also very expensive. The US grants Israel two billion dollars a year in military assistance, 20% of its military budget. But this money must be spent almost fully to buy US systems. For decades Israel purchased its military aircraft from the US partially because this is the only military equipment Israel could not produce effectively itself. The combination of these facts induced Israel to allocate much of its IDF budget to the Air Force. May be budget changes are needed.