It must be tough having a "hawkish liberal Jewish perspective", and suffering agonies of indecision as to whether you loathe Clinton more than you do Israel's neighbours, or the other way round.

And surely Netanyahu is too busy glorifying Israeli terrorism at the King David Hotel to exploit the present loss of Israeli lives; though I don't imagine he'll hesitate to make political capital out of it soon. What a pity he didn't take that job in Berlusconi's government: they deserve each other.

Rob, once again you put words in my mouth for cheap thrills, in that "look ma, ain't I clever!" way of yours. (This is a 50-something with grown kids, folks!) But that's ok, because when I respond patiently and even-temperedly, you look like a jerk.

I voted for Clinton. I still think he was basically a good president. I think his Achilles heel in foreign policy was wanting to be approved of, and so too with Olmert. Of course I wouldn't compare him with Israel's neighbors.

Netanyahu would prosecute the war more like Sharon than like Olmert. I've laid out why that would be a good idea. If Olmert decides to go on the offensive again, good.

Yes I wish Berlusconi was still around.

Question for you: under all the snarky cliches, what do you think ought to be done here? Can you say, using your own words with an awareness of the facts?

I don't really have a magic bullet, no. I can turn on my 20/20 hindsight and say that probably the mistake you'd want to send back a time machine to correct was agreeing to earlier prisoner exchanges with Hezbollah. You do it once and they will always expect to be able to do it again. Closer to the present, I am amazed that the IDF got so careless it allowed its soldiers to be captured. I know their unit put up a brave and costly fight, but I would have expected after Gilad Shalit's kidnapping that all units near the borders would have been sitting with the safety catches off. And I am genuinely surprised that the normally highly effective Israeli intelligence clearly underestimated Hezbollah's firepower.

I think Olmert has learned the first lesson of war, which is not to reinforce failure. (AKA when you're in a hole, stop digging.) Neither Olmert nor Netanyahu is one-tenth the military leader that Sharon was (I may deplore the use to which he put his skills, but I don't deny his possession of them), but it appears that Olmert is at least listening to his military advisors rather than his political ones.

What does Israel want by way of a solution? First, its own troops out of Lebanon; second, Hezbollah driven back out of missile range of Israel. And probably not much beyond that, rhetoric apart. The two kidnapped soldiers most likely died in the first Israeli airstrike; if Hezbollah are happy to use civilians to shield their arms stores, why would they not put their prisoners where they'd be the first to die at Israeli hands?

It's difficult to see any way of achieving those goals without some kind of peacekeeping force, though whether or not it's from the UN seems comparatively unimportant. UNIFIL worked well enough in the early days of its deployment, but nobody envisaged it would still be there twenty years on. I'm sure most people had forgotten it WAS still there, so it's hardly surprising it had fallen asleep at the wheel. Maybe including some of the smaller Arab nations would work (Oman, maybe, or Kuwait?) Think of them as human shields if you prefer, but it would help to defcklt criticism of the peacekeepers as US/Israeli stooges. We need a proper DMZ along the Israeli/Lebanese border, being patrolled by guys with guns with real bullets. (And air and sea support.) And what's also needed is to get somebody onside who can bring Hezbollah into line, and make sure they stay out of it. That's only going to be Syria. (As GWB put it, get Syria to tell Hezbollah to stop doing that shit.) Tell Syria that if they will co-operate with whatever force is put in place, they get the Golan Heights back. If not, they get permanently annexed. And also that while Israel will pull back out of Gaza when conditions permit (which is pretty much whenever it wants) it will make no moves whatever to pull out of the West Bank until it's satisfied that its Lebanese border is secure and that there will be no more rockets across it. Then go ahead and start peace talks with Abbas. Make it plain you want to start disengaging. (I read somewhere, maybe Ha'aretz, that some Israelis think the reason for the "disproportionate" response in Lebanon was to soften up domestic public opinion ready for some more movement on disengagement without Olmert's looking a total wimp. The writer didn't think it was clever either.) Get everything agreed and arranged, but make it absolutely clear that not a single settlement or soldier will go until there has been, oh, let's say a year of zero activity on the Lebanese border. Then you'll have a few million impatient Palestinians screaming at Hezbollah if they mess about. Nothing wrong with playing them off against each other, and if there is
something more than broken promises on offer, it's likely to be very effective.

While there is worldwide condemnation of Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank and Golan Heights (actually most people have probably forgotten the GH altogether) there isn't, outside the Arab world, much sympathy at all with the notion of trying to destroy Israel. Once Israel was out of the OT and out of Golan, then for most people in the West Israel would go back to being the good guys. Laugh all you like, but I can remember how much popular support Israel had in Britain during the 1967 and 1973 wars, before the occupation had dragged on and on, and before the Lebanese invasion. It was the PLO and the PFLP who were the bad guys then.

Things I haven't a clue about: how to swing round Arab opinion (though getting out of Palestine will pull the rug from under the more moderate Israel-bashers there too). Jerusalem. It's hard to see how that gets sorted out, except by displeasing everyone equally (i.e. pushing all the Palestinians AND ISraelis out and making it some kind of international protectorate. Heck, give it to China or Venezuela or someone to manage. I seem to remember Britain was supposed to guarantee access to the religious sites after Israel was established, and it certainly wasn't supposed to be anyone's capital.

And now I've restored peace in the Middle East, I'm off to stop global warming and find a cure for AIDS.

If Olmert's government does not turn things around quickly, then Israel will be seen to have lost its will, the IDF's aura of invicibility will indeed be shattered and the future will be increasingly grim for Israel. In effect, Hezbollah will have given like-minded entities around the region a road map for confronting Israel. If the Muslim Brotherhood ever gains power in Egypt, a real possibility some day, they will use a Sunni variant of the same tactics and I cannot see how Israel could survive being surrounded by such foes.

I pray to God that some one responsible in Jerusalem wakes up and makes the hard decision to prosecute this war to win, or the future of Israel--and the Free World--will have suffered a serious setback.

Rob, sounds good to me (are we actually agreeing on something???), but I don't trust Syria with the Golan. It makes Israel too vulnerable, Syria is a big country, they don't need it.

Also Hizbullah really needs to be ground into the dust permanently otherwise they won't "stay out of it." Their whole raison d'etre is to invade Israel from Lebanon.

"disproportionate" response in Lebanon was to soften up domestic public opinion ready for some more movement on disengagement without Olmert's looking a total wimp. The writer didn't think it was clever either.)"

Abbas is a figurehead and there's nobody to make peace with, but that's another issue. I wish Jordan would just take the West Bank back. But they want Israel to have the headache instead of them.

"I can remember how much popular support Israel had in Britain during the 1967 and 1973 wars, before the occupation had dragged on and on, and before the Lebanese invasion. It was the PLO and the PFLP who were the bad guys then."

Yes, it was the genius of the Arab bloc to make Israel the bad guy by refusing to take their territories back with reasonable terms. The "3 Nos" of Khartoum. And then encouraging terrorism and disrupting civil life in the territories so Israel couldn't reasonably consider turning them loose.

The "settlements" are a red-herring BTW.

"getting out of Palestine will pull the rug from under the more moderate Israel-bashers there too"

And as long as Palestine is a terrorist mafialand with no rule of law it isn't safe to get out. It will be a repeat of Gaza. Some serious nation-building has to happen first, but there is no initiative for it other than what Israel did during the occupation, which didn't take. It was a horrible mistake to bring Arafat back, but I suspect that was not Israel's idea. Bureaucrats from the land of Oslo idolozed Arafat like other Euros. Israel's occupation raised the standard of living tremendously in the West Bank, until 1994, then it all went to hell. A classic case of the colonial occupier really helping the occupied, then when they rule themselves they end up being exploited by criminals. Story of most of Africa.

(It doesn't have to be that way, but it requires helping the new nation with the transition, like what we are trying to do in Iraq. Which I am sure you think is botched, but we actually did some things right and some of them worked. Palestine would have the same challenge of neighboring states trying to capsize the effort. Which they do now anyway.)

"make it absolutely clear that not a single settlement or soldier will go until there has been, oh, let's say a year of zero activity on the Lebanese border. Then you'll have a few million impatient Palestinians screaming at Hezbollah if they mess about."

You would think. You would also think Gazans wouldn't burn down buildings and greenhouses left for them. The problem with Palestine is that the normal educated peaceful people are not in charge, and the thugs and the UN and Euros have a stake in keeping it dependent on handouts and volatile. Reconstructing Palestine is doable if all the meddlers stay out, but it won't happen. It's like a democratic Iraq, it's too threatening to the neighborhood.

(I ate at a Middle east restaurant once that offered a syrah from the Bekaa valley, it was pretty good.)

welp, I think both y'all are morons. What needs to be done, is Olmert needs to stop listening to his liberal israeli arab defence minister, Peretz, and take it to Hezbollah. For g-d's sake, look at what their terrorists organizations name actually means! Olmert needs to think long and hard what Sharon would do, in throwing 100k + troops into Lebanon and destroying the lebanese infasctructure, get the christians and Druze involved and attack all Hezbollahs point of attacks, whether civillians are in the area or not. You must fight like your enemy, no convention laws apply in a war such as this. Hezbollah has no regard for life, Israel needs to protect it's life and citizens country wide. If need be , drop a nuke on lebanon and end this thing quickly, stop dabbling around and destroy Hezbollah they are a weak, dumb, a-rabic terrorist group that hasen't a clue how to fight a real war, and Israel shall not shatter it's image just to appease all in limiting deaths of civilians, get to the point, and finish these shmucks off!

*

How Olmert could turn things around

In fact here and here I claim they have already been turned.

Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he [it is] that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Deu 31:6

I am a "right wing extremist settler" who doesn't trust Olmert a far as I could throw him - but I am much more worried about Halutz than about Olmert.

The higher echelons of the army are steeped in Oslo-era navel-gazing about how we are oppressors who have to apologize for defending ourselves and bend over backwards to restrict civilian casualties.

The army's activities in both Gaza and Lebanon have been accompanied by a steady stream of self-effacing, ass-covering statements from army spokespeople about how "we have no intention of occupying land" etc. The old Oslo mentality, which is by now entrenched in the higher levels of IDF command.

Several Israeli commentators connected the recent incident in Bint Jebail to the similar hit taken by Israel in Jenin - again our soldiers were exposed to needless danger because of a higher-echelon policy of overweening humanitarian concern for our enemies.

In contrast, Olmert is a wily politician with the moral sensitivities of a shark. My guess is that he may see some things more clearly than Halutz and knock-kneed, neutered coffee-klatch in the army's higher levels.

It is highly likely that Olmert's refusal to move to ground invasion is, in fact, the correct policy - continued bombardment with bunker busters may be the more effective way to take out Hezbollah's fire power. Although it may cause more "innocent" lives to be lost, it will spare Israeli soldiers - which is not just important for obvious human reasons, but also to conserve the Israeli populace's collective will and fighting spirit.

There is no indication that a ground offensive would end the shelling of Israel more quickly than the aerial campaign now under way.

Sadly, I have come to trust the survival instincts of this conniving rat of a politician more than the strategic hand-wringing of the IDF's top brass.

"(are we actually agreeing on something?)"

Sometimes these things just happen....

I'm not sure you're completely right, but them I'm quite sure I'm not completely right either.

"Reconstructing Palestine is doable if all the meddlers stay out"

Undeniably true, though what happens when you stay out and they go and elect the wrong government? I'm not just meaning the current Hamas one: what happens when you leave them to themselves and they spontaneously do things that are unpalatable to Israel, or the US, or Jordan for that matter? Ain't gonna happen, not totally at any rate, though I agree that a more hand-off approach would be good.

"..the UN and Euros have a stake in keepng it dependent on handouts and volatile."

It's possible you're right about the UN, but every European I know (and most of the governments) wish the whole of Palestine (along with Israel, Lebanon and everything from the Mediterranean to just East of Kashmir) would just vanish into a hole in the ground. The last thing they want is to spend money on handouts (which is why the EU were glad of the excuse to stop paying the PA when Hamas got elected).

"The problem with Palestine is that the normal educated peaceful people are not in charge"

You know, we say that about the United States too......

all i have to say about what is going on, is this is great. What happened in Qana is exactly what America and Israel wants. What the outcry shows is that a majority of the rest of the world is anti semetic which only proves more and more what Israel is doing is the prudent thing. Yes it was awful "civilians" died if that is what they were. But in those arab countries kids become terrorists at age 5 or 6 and woman are followers. I doubt most of them were truly free of blood, therefore death was their dignified right. Israel is in the right here and thank the lord there is a country with sense in America that stands up and allows israel to defend herself. Olmert and the IDF brass is somewhat spinless but i am thankful they have finally decided to send in a sizeable ground force to clear out the threat of Hezbollah, by the end of September, Hezbollah will be no more, god willing and also at the same time hopefully gaza will be contained and hamas will be debilitated. We need Sharon back, if only that could happen. I still stand by my theory, nukes could should and will be the answer.

Kevin, is that a parody of every lefty stereotype of Israel supporters? You aren't serious are you?

Judith, I am dead serious. No it ain't no stereotype and may all leftists die, I am a right wing nut, who udnerstands war must be the answer in some situations, look at the civil war, look at how communism was brought down, facism, slavery, etc, now war is the answer here, bust out the nukes