Israeli Military Concludes that "Serious Errors" Were Made in 2006 War with Hezbollah
"Serious errors" characterized the 34-day Israeli face off with Hezbollah in July-August 2006, according to the Israeli Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz.
The Shiite militia Hezbollah is designated as a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and other countries. The month-long war began when Israel responded to Hezbollah's kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers with heavy bombardment in Lebanon's south. The brief war was by any calculation extremely damaging: estimates differ, but over 1,200 Lebanese were killed (there is dispute over how many of these were civilians, and how many were Hezbollah fighters), and around 150 Israelis (soldiers and about 40 civilians) were killed. Over half a million civilians were displaced from their homes in southern Lebanon, and any Israelis left their homes, fearing attack, during the hostilities.
By "errors," Halutz means a failure to choose an effective tactic that would counter the thousands of Katyusha rockets Hezbollah fired over the Israeli border. Instead, a broader and more powerful attack that included bombing the Beirut airport and other key state infrastructures helped escalate, rather than resolve, the military conflict.
The expansion of the conflict produced broad anger among the Lebanese and widened its symbolic power in ways that ultimately helped, rather than hurt, Hezbollah. According to Halutz, the Israeli army also faced some internal resistance "on moral grounds" to attacking Lebanese villages.
Even in short retrospect, it's possible to see how the Israel-Hezbollah war of last July reflects broader trends in international conflict between states and non-state groups, and possibly the end of conventional war as we know it. Overwhelming force not only fails in such situations, it tends to backfire. In the case of Israel and Hezbollah, Israel's massive force produced widespread repugnance among non-Shiite Lebanese, and helped raise the war's stakes, as well as Hezbollah's international profile. At the same time, the ethical tenor of the times, and perhaps the knowledge that some media is always watching, will make soldiers continue to resist engaging civilians in military conflict—so simply ordering an army to invade villages is out too.
I'm by nature an optimist, so I can't help seeing this state of affairs as an opportunity for our century to rethink cross-border conflict, and continue the search for political, social and less violent approaches to its resolution. We'll probably have to rethink what "resolution" means as well, since decisive wins will inevitably elude all combatants, as both Israel and Hezbollah have discovered.