MONDAY AUGUST 14, 8:00 PMShalom from Jerusalem,
Residents of northern Israel and southern Lebanon are breathing a huge sigh of relief this evening as the UN-mandated ceasefire has mostly held so far today. However Israeli military analysts continue to warn that the military timeout that ended nearly five weeks of intense warfare may be very short lived indeed, as the multi-religious Lebanese government is finally forced to deal with a monumental problem it failed to confront when IDF forces left southern Lebanon six years ago—the illegal rule of a rogue militia over the southern third and east of its country, founded and sustained by two countries far larger and more powerful than tiny Lebanon, Syria and Iran.
Expectations that the estimated 70,000 man Lebanese army, with its substantial Shiite component estimated to be around 40%, will actually be able, or even willing, to take on the militant Hizbullah militia are fairly low here in Jerusalem, even with the promised help of a beefed up UN force. That foreign “peacekeeping” soldiers will feel secure enough to even move into the area south of the Litani River as IDF forces pull back is widely questioned here, given how Hizbullah succeeded in intimidating other UN forces in the past. Therefore many analysts expect that after a brief lull in the fighting, which will unfortunately allow Hizbullah fighters to rest and regroup, the conflict will begin again, including more rocket attacks upon northern Israel. This possibility was hinted at by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert during a Knesset speech today, who pointed out that even though Hizbullah had been “dealt a harsh blow” by the IDF, the 34 day war was really only one chapter in the much greater struggle to resist Iran’s openly stated goal to annihilate the world’s only Jewish state. He also acknowledged that there had been “shortcomings” in the way the government handled the conflict, which many Israeli opposition politicians consider an understatement.
The likelihood of further fighting was also acknowledged by opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu, who told his Knesset colleagues that the time had not yet arrived to publicly question the government’s handling of the war, which took the lives of 115 IDF soldiers (seven of them only yesterday), along with over 40 civilians, and seriously wounded over 1,000 Israeli soldiers and civilians. Still, the Likud leader did note that the government’s main self-declared goals of crushing the Shiite militia, killing its populist leader, and stopping the possibility of future Hizbullah rocket attacks upon Israeli civilian centers had apparently not been achieved. In fact, some military analysts speaking on Israel radio stations and quoted in national newspapers say the IDF failure to halt daily rocket barrages upon many Israeli cities and towns, including the third largest urban center, Haifa, could embolden Syria and Iran to launch their own massive missile attacks upon Israel in the not too distant future. This possibility becomes all the more ominous given that Syria is known to possess a large chemical weapons capability, while Iran continues to develop its nuclear program.
Some security analysts say they expect Syria to become directly involved in any second round of fighting. They noted that around 30 Syrian tanks moved into the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights in the past two days—the first time they have done so since the end of the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Although this may only be a defensive move, it is said to be very significant nonetheless. Reports in the Haaretz newspaper today say that dozens of Syrian trucks are positioned just across the international border with Lebanon, loaded with fresh arms supplies for Syria’s proxy Hizbullah fighters, probably including more rockets that can strike Israeli territory. Other reports say hundreds of Iranian “volunteers” (which are thought to be mostly highly trained elite Republican Guard soldiers and commanders) are waiting to cross the border as well.
As everyone waits to see if and when the conflict may resume, Israeli attention is also focused tonight on the deteriorating condition of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said to be slipping towards death by his doctors. As I noted last month, his passing is expected to bring many world leaders to Jerusalem for a state funeral—which will hopefully not take place in the midst of renewed fighting in Lebanon. However it is entirely possible that Syria and Iran might see such a gathering of mainly Western leaders as an opportunity to cause further trouble in the north, reinforcing their contention before Arab audiences that Israel is a foreign, Western implant that must be uprooted from the mainly Muslim Middle East.
I will be giving an assessment of the Israel-Hizbullah war today on the Moody Broadcasting network’s “Prime Time America” program, heard on several hundred radio stations throughout the United States. The interview will air at 6:00 PM EST, which is 3:00 PM PST, or 21:00 GMT. If the program is not broadcast in your area, you can listen at that time via the internet by going to www.mbn.org
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DAVID DOLAN is a Jerusalem-based author and journalist who has lived in Israel since 1980. His new DVD, titled “FOR ZIONS’S SAKE—REPORTING FROM THE LAND OF THE BIBLE,” is now available on both PAL and NTCS versions. Details are posted at his web site, www.ddolan.com