By Reuven Koret
August 10, 2006
Israel should immediately lay down its arms and march back to the border. It need not even wait for the United Nations to pass a resolution. The result will be the same, only faster, if Israel's forces withdraw unilaterally, in one night, as we did in May 2000. Why wait an extra day, to be sitting ducks in enemy territory, to lose soldiers, for nothing?
As they did then, Hezbollah may shoot at us as we run away, or claim the vehicles, weapons, equipment, and tefilin bags our soldiers leave behind in their haste to flee back behind the border. As we did in 2000, we will run back home in the middle of the night.
In broad daylight, they will celebrate on our abandoned tanks, give exultant victory speeches in their villages. The world's media will show it all, the wanton destruction we wreacked, for nothing. They will show the human suffering we inflicted, for nothing. And the media will speak about how the great Israeli Defense Forces have been defeated by a few thousand terrorists and guerillas. And our soldiers who lost their lives, or were maimed for life, and their loving families, will have lost the light in their worlds -- for nothing.
Our brave soldiers -- they who risked their lives for our country, for nothing -- will be compelled to flee, shamefully, with tails between their legs, ordered home by their master, our tough-talking Defense Minister, and his preening, smirking, cigar-smoking boss, our Prime Minister. Today, Ehud Olmert said, with a straight face, that if the watered-down and wholly inadequate UN resolution is not to our liking, we will "take our gloves off." Indeed.
The beleaguered citizens of the north -- those who were not killed or maimed -- may briefly leave their shelters and see their shattered homes, ruined businesses, burnt forests and know that their suffering was ... for nothing.
We have lost the battle, and we might as well admit it. We may as well show it to the world, bend over and take it "like a man."
We have not recovered our kidnapped soldiers. We did not stop the rockets on our cities. Even if we damaged the enemy, and reduced its arsenal, the enemy will be quickly reinforced and its arsenal replenished. We will be protected not only by the glorious Lebanese Army, by the new improved UNIFIL and by the formidable French. They will no doubt do the job of protecting the citizens of Israel that the IDF could not. Right.
It should not come as a surprise to anyone that we lost. As I said when this all began, we are led by losers.
We will never win, we will never succeed, if led by such "leaders." Their leadership will only lead to greater losses. Better to find out sooner than later, before the losses multiply.
Those who led us to defeat in battle must now face the tough questions, and bitter consequences. The sooner the better. As the cannons fall silent, they must be confronted by the questions of the press, the politicians, the commissions, perhaps even the trials -- not an easy fate. They too must bend over and take it "like men."
They must be shamed and humiliated so they will never dare presume to lead again. So they do not have the "momentum" to revise and spin this fiasco into and additional withdrawals. So they will go back home to their lives as highly paid shysters and megaphone-carrying union leaders and never dare show their declare-victory-and-run-home faces in public again. (Would that Israeli society worked that way! The legacy of Shimon Peres mocks us.)
Israel lost this battle because of them. Israel lost much prestige, and much deterrent power becomes of them. Israel became perceived as a paper tiger. Israel lost a golden opportunity to take care of its enemies, to strengthen and support its allies. Israel failed its friends, its soldiers, its citizens. Because of them.
But make no mistake: Israel has not lost the war. We still have a chance to "throw the bums out" and find leaders worthy of its soldiers and its citizens. We must lose the losers, and find winners. We must find and elect the Jewish leadership worthy of our nation. We must learn to live up to the eternal Name of Israel.
We are fighting the same enemy as the rest of the world. That enemy aims to send rockets at innocent civilians to maximize murder. That enemy aims to blow airplanes out of the sky and uses passenger jets as rockets to plunge into buildings. We have long known that. The world is only now learning it.
Israel is charged, and we pride ourselves, with being "a light unto the nations." Our destiny is to lead by example. Our destiny is to lead that war. Perhaps our calling is to find the courage, and the leaders, to set nations -- the axis of evil bent on our utter destruction -- alight.
In the present battle Israel, led by losers, finds itself the victim, impaled on a cross of international hypocrisy. It seems to be our assigned fate that we must suffer and die before we can be resurrected.
In the next battle, led by leaders worthy of the Name, may Israel learn again -- choose again! -- to be a victor. Like our brave soldiers and citizens, a tough but virtuous winner in a weak and wicked world.
Perhaps even its savior.
Views expressed by the author do not
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