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Now Bush Is the Only One Who Sees Clear Victory for the Israelis
Published on Wednesday, August 30, 2006 by the Minneapolis Star Tribune (Minnesota)
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Now Bush Is the Only One Who Sees Clear Victory for the Israelis
Militarily and politically, Israel lost a lot by fighting this war on behalf of a U.S. Middle East fancy.
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by Ahmed Tharwat
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| After more than a month of fighting in Lebanon, Israelis realized that the military approach that worked for them for decades was now inept and costly in dealing with Hezbollah. Under international pressure, the Israeli war machine was forced to stop and sign a cease-fire.Before the ink was dry, President Bush the decider once again declared mission accomplished. "Hezbollah lost the war," he assured everyone. At least this time he was wearing his civilian clothes.But what about this assurance from a president who does not confuse himself with facts? In 2003 he declared the Iraq mission accomplished, and celebrated in the comfort of his neoconservative cheerleaders and the Fox News propaganda machine. Three years later, we are still asking for more troops to quell the full-fledged civil war in Iraq.Now Bush is the only one who sees a clear victory for the Israelis. The Israeli Knesset is launching an investigation to find out what went wrong with this war, and Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu is asking for the resignation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who admits the deficiencies of the whole military operation.Since the Jewish state was formed, Israel fought and won half a dozen wars against organized Arab armies under corrupt leaders. This is the first war that Israel arguably lost, militarily and politically. As Reuven Pedatzur wrote in Israel's Ha'aretz, "This is not a mere military defeat. This is a strategic failure whose far-reaching implications are still not clear. And like the boxer who took the blow, we are still lying dazed on the ground, trying to understand what happened to us."This is also the first war that the Israelis fought where their national security was not really threatened. Despite all the hoopla over the Katyusha rockets' threat to Israel, only several dozen Israeli civilians were killed by the month's random rocket launches, as opposed to more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians killed by Israel's American-made smart bombs. This war was fought on behalf the Bush administration's grand new Middle East fancy, and not on behalf of the Israeli people.Now Israel is once again mired in southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah is becoming the new model of the Arab nationalistic resistance movement and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is becoming the Arab street's new Che Guevara ... but with a turban. Mission accomplished, take 2.
Ahmed Tharwat is host of the Arab-American show "Belahdan," which airs Sundays at 10:30 p.m. on Twin Cities Public Television (Ch. 17). ©2006 Star Tribune.
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