George Monbiot: The failure of the attack on Lebanon has left the Israeli people less secure, but it has done nothing to dent the generals' power
... s it possible, as some have claimed, that Israel is pursuing a territorial claim?
The Israeli columnist Tanya Reinhart reminds us that David Ben-Gurion, the founder of the state of Israel, believed that its borders should be "natural": the Jordan river in the east, the Suez canal and Sharm el-Sheikh in the south-west and south, and the Litani river (20 miles inside Lebanon) in the north. In his book The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World, the historian Avi Shlaim describes Ben-Gurion's "fantastic plan" for annexing southern Lebanon and turning the rest of the country into a Maronite Christian state. In 1956 he explained this scheme to the British and French at the secret talks in Sevres that launched the Suez invasion. His chief of staff, Moshe Dayan, planned to sponsor a Lebanese officer who would "declare himself the saviour of the Maronite population", then "enter Lebanon, occupy the necessary territory, and create a Christian regime that will ally itself with Israel. The territory from the Litani southward will be totally annexed to Israel, and everything will fall into place."
There are plenty of articles on the internet - including Reinhart's - suggesting that this ambition has been revived. I don't believe it.
The evidence I presented last week suggests that the soldiers planning this assault envisaged an operation lasting for three weeks. They would storm into Lebanon, eliminate Hizbullah and storm out again. Since the attack began, Israel has been pressing for someone else - the "multinational force" - to patrol southern Lebanon on its behalf. Though the government is incapable of learning from 1996, it still seems to remember the lesson of May 2000, when the Israeli armed forces discovered that an occupation of southern Lebanon was impossible to sustain. I have not been able to find any evidence that Ben-Gurion's successors contemplated annexation. Even Ariel Sharon, who engineered Menachem Begin's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, envisaged not a land-grab but the establishment of a puppet government and the destruction of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, in the hope that the West Bank - not southern Lebanon - could be incorporated into Israel. This is not an attempt to seize more territory.
But you cannot read any account of Israeli politics without being struck by the extraordinary domination of the generals. We are familiar with military dictatorships. But Israel is unique in being a military democracy. An electoral system much fairer than our own repeatedly places the country in the hands of warriors, and sometimes (I am thinking of Yitzhak Shamir and Sharon) war criminals. Even when civilians are elected, they are pushed around by the generals. To sustain their position, the warrior chiefs seek to ensure that Israel is constantly on the verge of war. As Moshe Dayan observed, military retaliation is a "life drug". Avi Shlaim summarises Dayan's argument thus: "First, (retaliation) obliged the Arab governments to take drastic measures to protect their borders. Second, and this was the essence, it enabled the Israeli government to maintain a high degree of tension in the country and in the army."
The warriors in Israel have almost always been empowered by armed action. (Even while planning the biggest political disaster in Israeli history - Suez - Ben-Gurion was able to depose his peace-seeking foreign minister, Moshe Sharett.) Their interests are best served by escalation, however inappropriate. After the latest attack on Lebanon began, the generals demanded to intensify it. At the cabinet meeting of July 27, when it had already become clear that the assault was turning into a strategic and political disaster, they insisted that they be allowed to mount a full-scale ground offensive.
Who loses from this war? The people of Lebanon and northern Israel, of course, and maybe - one day - the rest of us. The civilians in the Israeli government, perhaps including Ehud Olmert. But not Hizbullah, who are now proclaimed as heroes in Muslim nations across the Middle East. Not Bush or Blair, for whom every attack by terrorists - even those motivated by opposition to their policies - is a further vindication of their war on terror. And not the Israel Defence Forces. Faced with emboldened enemies, they can demand more resources and greater powers. The generals did not intend to lose, but even this disaster has done them no harm. It has made the Israeli people less secure, and therefore more inclined to vote for those who promise to defend them.
The Israeli columnist Tanya Reinhart reminds us that David Ben-Gurion, the founder of the state of Israel, believed that its borders should be "natural": the Jordan river in the east, the Suez canal and Sharm el-Sheikh in the south-west and south, and the Litani river (20 miles inside Lebanon) in the north. In his book The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World, the historian Avi Shlaim describes Ben-Gurion's "fantastic plan" for annexing southern Lebanon and turning the rest of the country into a Maronite Christian state. In 1956 he explained this scheme to the British and French at the secret talks in Sevres that launched the Suez invasion. His chief of staff, Moshe Dayan, planned to sponsor a Lebanese officer who would "declare himself the saviour of the Maronite population", then "enter Lebanon, occupy the necessary territory, and create a Christian regime that will ally itself with Israel. The territory from the Litani southward will be totally annexed to Israel, and everything will fall into place."
There are plenty of articles on the internet - including Reinhart's - suggesting that this ambition has been revived. I don't believe it.
The evidence I presented last week suggests that the soldiers planning this assault envisaged an operation lasting for three weeks. They would storm into Lebanon, eliminate Hizbullah and storm out again. Since the attack began, Israel has been pressing for someone else - the "multinational force" - to patrol southern Lebanon on its behalf. Though the government is incapable of learning from 1996, it still seems to remember the lesson of May 2000, when the Israeli armed forces discovered that an occupation of southern Lebanon was impossible to sustain. I have not been able to find any evidence that Ben-Gurion's successors contemplated annexation. Even Ariel Sharon, who engineered Menachem Begin's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, envisaged not a land-grab but the establishment of a puppet government and the destruction of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, in the hope that the West Bank - not southern Lebanon - could be incorporated into Israel. This is not an attempt to seize more territory.
But you cannot read any account of Israeli politics without being struck by the extraordinary domination of the generals. We are familiar with military dictatorships. But Israel is unique in being a military democracy. An electoral system much fairer than our own repeatedly places the country in the hands of warriors, and sometimes (I am thinking of Yitzhak Shamir and Sharon) war criminals. Even when civilians are elected, they are pushed around by the generals. To sustain their position, the warrior chiefs seek to ensure that Israel is constantly on the verge of war. As Moshe Dayan observed, military retaliation is a "life drug". Avi Shlaim summarises Dayan's argument thus: "First, (retaliation) obliged the Arab governments to take drastic measures to protect their borders. Second, and this was the essence, it enabled the Israeli government to maintain a high degree of tension in the country and in the army."
The warriors in Israel have almost always been empowered by armed action. (Even while planning the biggest political disaster in Israeli history - Suez - Ben-Gurion was able to depose his peace-seeking foreign minister, Moshe Sharett.) Their interests are best served by escalation, however inappropriate. After the latest attack on Lebanon began, the generals demanded to intensify it. At the cabinet meeting of July 27, when it had already become clear that the assault was turning into a strategic and political disaster, they insisted that they be allowed to mount a full-scale ground offensive.
Who loses from this war? The people of Lebanon and northern Israel, of course, and maybe - one day - the rest of us. The civilians in the Israeli government, perhaps including Ehud Olmert. But not Hizbullah, who are now proclaimed as heroes in Muslim nations across the Middle East. Not Bush or Blair, for whom every attack by terrorists - even those motivated by opposition to their policies - is a further vindication of their war on terror. And not the Israel Defence Forces. Faced with emboldened enemies, they can demand more resources and greater powers. The generals did not intend to lose, but even this disaster has done them no harm. It has made the Israeli people less secure, and therefore more inclined to vote for those who promise to defend them.