Israel: wedded to war?

Far from learning the lessons of past conflict, the country's military seem ever more willing to resort to brute

Ben White
For Israel, the aftermath of the 2006 Lebanon war was all about
questions. What mistakes were made, and who made them? What could be
done to restore the Israeli military's "deterrence" after a widely
perceived defeat? In general, what lessons could be learned from the
confrontation with Hizbullah in order that next time, there would be
no question of failure?Unfortunately, it seems that entirely the wrong kinds of conclusions
are being reached, at least in the military hierarchy and among the
policy shaping thinktanks. On Friday, Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper
published comments made by Israeli general Gadi Eisenkot, head of
the army's northern command. Eisenkot took the opportunity to share
the principles shaping plans for a future war.

The general promised "disproportionate" force to destroy entire
villages identified as sources of Hizbullah rocket fire, the
reasoning being that they are "not civilian villages" but
rather "military bases" – the kind of reasoning that can land you in
a war crimes tribunal.

Eisenkot pointed to how Israel levelled the Dahiya neighbourhood of
Beirut in 2006 and confirmed that this would be the fate of "every
village from which Israel is fired on". In case there was any doubt,
he added: "This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has
been approved."

The frank promise of "disproportionate" force will be chilling for
the Lebanese, who even last time round were subjected to
indiscriminate attack, the targeted destruction of civilian
infrastructure, and carpet cluster-bombing. But what Ha'aretz dubbed
the "Dahiya Doctrine" received enthusiastic support in some
quarters, such as veteran Israeli TV and print journalist Yaron
London.

London seemed highly pleased with Eisenkot's determination
to "destroy Lebanon", undeterred "by the protests of the 'world'".
London, while looking forward to Israel "pulverising" some "160
Shi'ite villages" made the implications of Eisenkot's thinking
clear: "In practical terms, the Palestinians in Gaza are all Khaled
Mashaal, the Lebanese are all Nasrallah, and the Iranians are all
Ahmadinejad." The meaning of "practical terms" did not need
repeating.

The Ha'aretz report also described how similar conclusions were
being reached in reports by military-academic institutions. One such
paper, published by the Institute of National Security Studies
(INSS) at Tel Aviv University, and unambiguously
titled "Disproportionate Force", details the author's (reserve
Colonel Gabriel Siboni) understanding of the lessons of 2006:

With an outbreak of hostilities, the IDF will need to act
immediately, decisively, and with force that is disproportionate to
the enemy's actions and the threat it poses. Such a response aims at
inflicting damage and meting out punishment to an extent that will
demand long and expensive reconstruction processes.

Siboni urges the Israeli military to strike disproportionately
at "the enemy's weak points", and only afterwards to go after the
missile launchers themselves. Devastating "economic
interests", "centres of civilian powers", and "state infrastructure"
will "create a lasting memory among Syrian and Lebanese decision
makers" and thus increase "Israeli deterrence" and tie up "enemy"
resources in reconstruction.

A further new INSS publication by a former head of the National
Security Council, urges Israel to guarantee that next time around,
the Lebanese army and civilian infrastructure "will be destroyed".
Or as the author pithily puts it, "People won't be going to the
beach in Beirut while Haifa residents are in shelters".

This determination to "create a lasting memory" in the minds of the
Syrian and Lebanese is reminiscent of previous Israeli declarations
of intent. In 2003, the IDF's chief of staff, Lieutenant General
Moshe Ya'alon, said that the war being waged in the occupied
territories would "sear deep into the consciousness of Palestinians
that they are a defeated people".

In 2006 in fact, the likes of Dr Reuven Erlich, head of the
Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre at the Centre for
Special Studies in Tel Aviv, also recommended "searing" into
the "Lebanese consciousness" the "steep price they will pay for
provoking and harassing us".

Using brute force to "sear" certain truths into the consciousness of
Arabs of varying descriptions has a certain heritage in Israeli and
Zionist thought, going all the way back to Jabotinsky's theory of
the "iron wall". In the 1920s he wrote candidly that "every
indigenous people will resist alien settlers as long as they see any
hope of ridding themselves of the danger of foreign settlement". The
need then was for an "iron wall" of force to bring the Palestinians
to the point of giving up "all hope".

While the brutal logic of settler-colonial domination has been a
guiding principle for Israeli military strategists through the
decades, it has been complemented by the racist "anthropological"
cliche that the "Arabs only understand force". Interestingly, such
tropes are now commonplace in US military discourse, as the Pentagon
is also now in the position of directly occupying a Middle East
country and facing resistance.

Thus it seems Israel is learning entirely the wrong lessons from the
2006 conflict. Wrong, of course, from a moral point of view (though
that only seems to enter the picture in terms of an anticipated
international backlash). The conclusion could also be seen as flawed
from the perspective of the kind of response it could invite.
Fundamentally though, these pledges of disproportionate devastation
show that the Israeli military leadership suffers from tunnel-vision
policymaking, wedded to the idea that Israel will gain acceptance in
the Middle East through force of arms.