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Elliot Chodoff is a political and military analyst, and a founder of Hamartzim Educational Services. Chodoff's analysis of the Mideast "situation" is available through the .
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By Elliot Chodoff
July 23, 2006
Israel has finally decided that enough is enough, and that Hizbullah must be removed from the military equation. Unfortunately, the decision has come six years too late, and the IDF troops who will be called upon to do the job will face a well-trained and equipped force that has had years to dig in and prepare for the Israeli offensive.
As the IDF mobilizes reserve units and moves ground forces north to the Lebanese border in preparation for the inevitable large-scale ground offensive against Hizbullah, a debate has begun in Israel over the wisdom or folly of the IDF withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000. For some 15 years prior to that date, the IDF had maintained a security zone (we preferred to call it an "insecurity zone") in South Lebanon for the express purpose of keeping terrorists away from Israel's northern border. Suffering a steady stream of some two dozen casualties a year, the decision was made by then-prime minister Ehud Barak to pull out of Lebanon and return all IDF forces to the international border. This move was supposed to end the conflict so that no more Israeli troops would be killed in Lebanon. Instead, the result has been the escalating crisis and conflict that has led to the brink of war.
The debate over the May 2000 withdrawal is misplaced. The real failure in Israeli policy was not in pulling out of Lebanon but the gross mismanagement of events following the withdrawal. While in the security zone IDF troops were facing Hizbullah, based in outposts that had become the targets of almost daily attacks by terrorists. IDF losses combined with a bunker mentality led to the outpost line becoming more of a liability than a security asset. The correct decision was made and the outposts were evacuated, but the nature of the withdrawal and its aftermath could provide sufficient material for a "how not to do it" volume on military and political ineptitude.
While the IDF was based in Lebanon, it was allied with a South Lebanese militia, the South Lebanese Army (SLA). Made up of Lebanese villagers who had a personal interest in not permitting terrorists to rule their villages, the SLA was trained, supplied and supported by Israel. When the Barak Government decided to pull out, instead of reiterating its support for the SLA and declaring its intention to continue Israel's traditional alliance with it, the order was given to disarm the militia and leave its members to their fate at the hands of Hizbullah. The result was the collapse of the SLA and the flight of some 8,000 of its members and their families into Israel when the IDF withdrew.
There were two overriding ramifications of the abandonment of the SLA: the villagers of South Lebanon wisely decided to no longer trust Israel, and Hizbullah moved into that area with no opposition, neither from Israel nor from the local population. The stage was set for Hizbullah aggression.
To make matters worse, the Barak government ordered that all IDF operations, land, sea and air, stop at the Israeli-Lebanese border. All reconnaissance activity was halted; no incursions to disrupt Hizbullah activity. Even the repeated attacks by Hizbullah on IDF and Israeli civilian targets elicited lukewarm responses from Israel especially after the IDF found itself tied down in fighting terrorists in the West Bank and Gaza. (see "Ignoring the North," Mideast: On Target Archives, February 8, 2002) Lebanon was too far away, and across the border.
During the past six years, Hizbullah, with the active assistance of Syria and Iran, has been preparing for war. Although Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah did not want it to erupt now, (see "Nasrallah's Miscalculation", Mideast: On Target Archives, July 15, 2006) his forces were fully prepared to fight it nonetheless. Armed with some 15,000 rockets, some of which can reach Tel Aviv, and having spent years preparing the ground in anticipation of this battle, Hizbullah is, on the tactical level, a force to be reckoned with. We have no doubt that the IDF will succeed in is mission and achieve its object ives, but unfortunately the troops on the ground will be forced to pay the price for six years of Israeli leaders' complacency and neglect of the situation north of the border.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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