Conservatives, especially neoconservatives, (and even some
pro-Israeli moderates and liberals), admire Israel�s use of muscular tactics to
safeguard its security. Many conservatives also admire Robert E. Lee�s
aggressive, offense-oriented tactical victories in the U.S. Civil War. But like
Lee, who ultimately lost the war, the Israelis are exhibiting enormous
strategic ineptitude.
Lee, using the Napoleonic tactics of the offense, won many
brilliant victories by attacking the superior forces of the Union Army. But Lee
lost sight of the most basic strategic factor. Although he inflicted many Union
losses, such aggressive tactics also caused his own casualty rates to be very
high. Lee simply ran out of men before the larger Union Army did. When the
Union eventually installed a general opposite Lee who was competent in both
strategy and tactics�Ulysses S. Grant�the North took advantage of superior
troop numbers to grind down Lee�s rebel forces. Grant often lost tactically on
the battlefield, but relentlessly advanced toward Richmond, the capital of the
Confederacy, using attrition to destroy Lee�s army.
Like Lee, the Israelis are winning the battle
tactically�destroying fighters and projectiles of Hezbollah and Hamas. In
Lebanon, they may even succeed in backing Hezbollah away from the
Israeli-Lebanese border and establishing a buffer zone patrolled by the weak
Lebanese army and some sort of multinational force. But the Israeli offensives
in Lebanon and Gaza will destroy neither Hezbollah nor Hamas, nor the
motivation for violence that underlies these groups. Because the Israeli public
still remembers the 18-year quagmire that resulted from Israel�s 1982 invasion of
Lebanon, Israel probably will not again launch the full ground invasion of
Lebanon needed to finally crush Hezbollah. Israeli air strikes alone cannot
kill all Hezbollah fighters and destroy all of their weapons and
infrastructure. Similarly, since the Israelis just withdrew their forces from
Gaza, it is unlikely that they would permanently reoccupy it in order to fully
eradicate Hamas. In fact, Israel�s grossly disproportionate collective
punishment of Lebanon and Gaza for the killing and capturing of a few Israeli
soldiers will only fuel the anti-Israel fire in both places and the larger Arab
world. When hatred has been stoked, lost fighters and weapons can be
replaced�and rather easily.
The aggressive Israeli policy of an offensive �defense�
created the threat from these groups in the first place. When Israel invaded
Lebanon in 1982 to get rid of the Palestinian group Fatah, its invasion and
occupation of southern Lebanon ultimately led to the radicalization of parts of
Lebanon�s Shi�ite community and the creation of Hezbollah. In Palestine, Israel
originally supported Hamas as a counterweight to Fatah. As Israel�s continued
occupation began to radicalize the Palestinians and Fatah�s corruption became
exposed, Hamas gained support. Today, it runs the Palestinian Authority.
Strategically, Israel�s disproportionate use of military
force will not wipe out these groups or the support that they receive from
their respective populations. Only a comprehensive negotiated, not unilateral,
Middle East settlement�in which Israel gives back all of the occupied
territories in exchange for peace and normal relations with its Arab
neighbors�will choke off popular support for these radical groups. Instead of
futilely trying to drain the swamp of terrorists militarily, Israel should
concentrate on draining their motivation for violence using political means.
Although the Americans have run into a quagmire in Iraq,
they finally realize, at least theoretically, that they can�t defeat the Iraqi
insurgency through military means. They are attempting to negotiate their way
out, but it may be too late. (The Sunni insurgents deliberately attacked the
Shi�a in order to start a sectarian civil war, which is now raging.)
Unfortunately, the Israelis are even further behind the slow Americans in
coming to terms with reality. They still fail to realize that military
solutions, as well as unilateral political actions, are not the answer to
guerrilla war and terrorism. A comprehensive negotiated �land for peace�
settlement is the only way to make support for Hezbollah and Hamas evaporate.
The more Israel pounds Lebanon and Gaza with its own acts of terrorism, the
less likely a negotiated settlement�and an end to terrorism by Hezbollah and
Hamas�becomes.
Ivan
Eland is a Senior Fellow at The Independent Institute, Director of the
Institute�s Center on
Peace & Liberty, and author of the books The Empire
Has No Clothes, and Putting
�Defense� Back into U.S. Defense Policy.