Then They Ceased Fire

The cease fire in Lebanon seems to be effective, at least for now. That's the good news.

Not all details of the UN cease fire resolution (1701) are still alive; e.g. disarming of Hizbullah seems to be off the agenda. France is reluctant to assume the leading role in the multinational force intended earlier, at least not until clearer rules of engagement are in place.

Meanwhile the regular army of Lebanon has been moving beyond the Litani river up to the international border, as the Israeli army (Tzahal) withdrew beyond. Let me correct here a general impression that the Lebanese army never invaded the State of Israel. The 11th batallion of the Oded brigade, in which I served (three months later), suffered substantial casualties when that army suddenly attacked at Malkiah (south of where Kiryat Shmonah is now) just a few days after the Israeli independence proclamation. They were dislodged with more heavy casualties of units of the Palmakh. Besides that, the Lebanese army did not fight the Israeli one (as far as I know).

In Israel the battle of interpretation is heating up. Who is to take the blame for what is generally considered to have been a failure. There is still a residual attempt to proclaim victory, especially at the supra-Israeli (George W. Bush) level, and steps to make it appear so should be expected to follow. Not only have none of the original objectives been achieved, notably the release of the abducted soldiers; what is viewed as far worse is the loss of Israel's overwhelming military deterrance power. That could encourage hostile armies like the Syrian (if they also miscalculate) to try for their own victory. Again far worse in many Israeli eyes is the loss of utility value to U.S. strategists.

Hizbullah will be viewed as the victor in the Muslim world and, at least in the short run, within Lebanon and elsewhere, including Israel. Many returning Israeli soldiers have expressed respect for their fighting spirit. They are now already busy handing out generous cash payments to people whose homes have been destroyed; which should help prevent later accusations that their provocation caused the Israeli response and destruction of their homes. Surely to the dismay of (at least) leaders of other Lebanese factions, Hassan Nasrollah, Hizbullah's leader, is widely hailed as the new Nasser, even the new Salah ad Din; with his image everywhere in the otherwise pretty strictly monotheistic Moslem world.

Since I wrote the above about the effectiveness of the cease fire, the first violation by an Israeli commando operation near Baalbek was condemned by the UN's Kofi Annan, and called justified by the Israeli government. If you hoped that the negotiations for the exchange of prisoners may provide an opportunity for a start of wider real peace talks, all the Israeli talk of how it has to be done better next time is not good news. There evidently are also more voices of wisdom (courage) calling for an end to ever more useless and ruinous military victories and some victory for peaceful resolution. But any changes in political leadership and direction are likely to be toward the more militarist ultraright. Netanyahu already reemerged during the fighting. The best hope may be that George W. Bush will decide on a change of course in this, and he likes to stay it.

Uri Avneri has condemned what I had termed "the stupid slaughter" between adoption of UN Resolution 1707 and effectiveness (end of preceding posting) in more severe terms: "a cynical - not to say vile - exercise". This old early pioneer in standing up to the abandonment (or betrayal) of what the Hebrew state was supposed to be about is no longer a lone prominent voice crying in a wilderness; but it clearly still requires courage.

Kharra b-Lebanon II

Maybe it finally hit the fan.
There may be no point now going into such detail on my experience in all the other places that many heard of for the first time during the current Lebanon mess as I did for Haifa in the last posting. I was still surprised at the lack of basic geographic and historical knowledge of even people reporting the news on television, although I could understand much of it in retrospect. It first struck me early on in the fighting when an evidently intelligent woman at a news network reported on "a town called Tyre", as though that might be some recently incorporated town. As, indeed, is Nahariya, properly identified as a resort town, hit by Hizbollah rockets. Then, maybe the same day, Haifa was identified as a resort town; rather than an important port (and) industrial city. Some of my amusement at that was obviously a result of my specific familiarity with those places, but an unusual degrees of historical ignorance by native born Americans was evident even before many had removed History from their required school curricula.

I have had no involvement with any of the previous invasions / incursions into Lebanon except outrage, especially at the 1982 one by Sharon. Yet I was one of the first Jewish soldiers coming from Palestine to enter Lebanon (Moshe Dayan was earlier and lost his eye there). We were sent there to help in ensuring the new independence of a Lebanese state (especially to help ensure an Allied victory over the fascist axis). Yossel and I took the train from Haifa north. There may have been a stop in Nahariya with its few thousand inhabitants then. We certainly knew of it because that's where members of Kibbutz Hazorea used to spend their vacations with fellow Yeckes. Some time after the border station (Ras en Nakurah), came a substantial station; Sour (I believe) the signs said. Recalling my gymnasium French (who had controlled Lebanon between the two world wars) and other things I had learned, I knew this was Tzur, the (Ashkenaz) Hebrew version of Tyre, one of the most ancient, and long one of the most important, cities in the world. Along with Sidon (Saida) and (then) lesser Phoenician cities (e.g. Berytos - Beirut), it controlled shipping throughout the Mediterranean 3000 years ago, establishing colonies, like Carthage; and, judging by the book of Kings, apparently helping greatly in the building of the Jerusalem Temple; due to the friendly relation between Solomon, King of Israel, and kHiram of Tyre.

A few years later I did get to Nahariya. That was in another army and another war; fought ostensibly to carry out a U.N. resolution for the partition of Palestine into two independent states. You may want to take that as evidence that the State of Israel, the only one actually proclaimed then, was never really a Zionist one, since I was far from the only non-Zionist to participate in its founding; while the ultraright "New Zionist" terrorist outfits opposed the U.N. resolution along with the Palestinian Arab leadership. But that would upset both its enemies, who like to refer to it as the "Zionist entity"; as well as its current leaders who find it useful to pretend that their version represents the spirit of the founders who were clearly led by the (Old) Zionists.

We had just succeeded with "Operation kHiram" during which the "Arab Liberation Army" of Fawzi al Kawukji, apparently a Syrian, who had spent the World War years in Berlin, was routed from the Upper Galilee and fled to Lebanon in one of the last actions of the war. I was in the 9th ("Oded") Brigade, and had been one of the first dozen or so soldiers into Tarshiha; where I witnessed some unpleasant things I thought Jews don't do (but nothing even approaching the sort of things that have become public since; e.g. in Eli Wiesel's autobiography). When it was all over, a truck with as many of us as could fit in took off for Nahariya to celebrate.

Among other places I have been to and mentioned now are Kfar Gileadi, "a town called Tiberias" and Afula, but as I add this to the posting, the time has come for the cease fire ordered by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 to become effective. In the (tentative) hope that it will be heeded better than the earlier decision mentioned, and that the stupid slaughter since its passage, designed almost overtly to help cover some general's ass, will really end, I shall end this, so I can watch the news.