| Talkback | |
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Title: | "holds a mirror to Israel`s leadership | |||
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| Name: | Joseph . E | | |||
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| City: | Givatayim | State: | Israel | | |
| that reflects a very harsh image." Bibi also approved every decsion at every step of the Second Lebanon War . So Said Kapoo Olmert yesterday from the Kenesset podium addressing the Winograd final report . ------THE WINOGRAD Committee properly noted the government`s failure to define what it was doing in Lebanon. But it did not explain why the government failed. The source of the government`s failure in Lebanon 18 months ago and of its failure in Gaza today is its political commitment to the strategy of unilateral withdrawal from territory. Olmert`s Kadima Party and Barak`s Labor Party both have embraced this strategy. It is the centerpiece of their governing rationale.------ The unilateral withdrawal strategy is predicated on a two main assumptions. First, it assumes that it is the presence of Israelis in a hostile or disputed area which causes terrorists to act. If Israel retreats, the terrorists will melt away. Second, the unilateral withdrawal strategy assumes that Israel`s interest in defeating terrorists is not unique. In the minds of Israel`s leaders, all nations share Israel`s goal of protecting its sovereign territory and its citizenry from attack. Consequently, the unilateral withdrawal strategy assumes that if Israel withdraws from a terror-infested area like Gaza or southern Lebanon, another authority - be it Egypt or Fatah or the European Union in Gaza, or the Lebanese army or UNIFIL forces in Lebanon - will take over where it left off and fight the terrorists for it. During the war in Lebanon and since Israel withdrew from Gaza, ------the guiding assumptions of the unilateral withdrawal strategy have proven false. But Israel`s leaders have refused to acknowledge reality. Rather they claim that it is reality, not their policy, that is mistaken. Their daily search for new silver bullets is a manifestation of their denial of reality.------ A telling episode touched on in the Winograd Committee`s final report drives this point home. After meeting with the American negotiating team on July 28, 2006, Peretz held a consultation with his security brass. According to the report, (p. 129), "At the outset of the meeting, the defense minister expressed his bad feeling in the aftermath of the meeting with the American team. This came after he was made to understand that a multi-national force would not enter an area [of south Lebanon] that the IDF hadn`t first `cleansed` of Hizbullah forces." Peretz could not countenance the fact that no one will take action to defend Israel that Israel itself refuses to take. And so he didn`t. And neither did Olmert or Livni. Throughout the war, Israel`s goal was for an international force to be set up to fight Hizbullah for Israel. And low and behold, UNIFIL refuses to fight. And still today, the government refuses to recognize that suing for an international force then was a mistake. Indeed they are repeating it in Gaza. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1201523805712&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull Israel Leadership must overcome the mind-conditioning of years that taught -- to put it more baldly than did their peace conditioning --that it was better to have her own children murdered than kill an Arab child. |
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