Dec 31, 2008 1:06 PM

Has Israel Learned From the Hezbollah War?

Everyone is comparing the fight in Gaza with Israel’s 2006 war against Hezbollah. But I just chatted with an informed observer, who sees some key differences. One lesson [Prime Minister Ehud Olmert] clearly has learned is expectation management. At the start of the 2006 war, he pledged to cripple Hezbollah’s military capabilities in southern Lebanon, […]

Everyone is comparing the fight in Gaza with Israel's 2006 war against Hezbollah. But I just chatted with an informed observer, who sees some key differences.

One lesson [Prime Minister Ehud Olmert] clearly has learned is expectation management. At the start of the 2006 war, he pledged to cripple Hezbollah's military capabilities in southern Lebanon, to force the group to give back some captured Israeli soldiers, and to prevent Hezbollah from rebuilding its arsenal. That was never realistic. This time around, he's being more measured, talking about simply restoring some sense of normalcy to sourthern Israel - though the decision to reject a 48 hour ceasefire makes you wonder if he's again getting seduced by the concept of total victory.

In terms of how the operation is conducted, the two major takeaways from [the] Winograd [Commission, which examined the Israeli efforts in '06] were that: (a) even though it took a month for the ground invasion to heat up, the rapid escalation of the
[aerial] bombardment in the first three days set into motion a chain of escalation that actually made an eventual ground invasion almost mathematically inevitable; (b) even though general staff documents anticipated this exact effect, Olmert [and the rest of the leadership]
refused to take those into account by calling up and training reserves during the month-long window they had to prepare for the ground invasion.

This time, the pattern of escalation in the first few days has been similar. [But there are key differences.] We're seeing the same gradual increase of strike range into Israel – but, as far as I can tell, a lower rate of fire, and a lower Israeli casualty rate. (A lot of this has to do with differences between Hamas and Hezbollah, and between northern and southern Israeli geography, of course. All it takes is one missile to hit a crowded building in Ashdod, or Ashkelon, or Beersheva - like the rail depot that was hit in Haifa in 2006 - and we'll be looking at this whole thing differently.)In general, though, Gaza just doesn't have the defensive depth or the cover that southern Lebanon has; it's tougher to hide in a place that's a cross between a beach, a desert and a slum than it is to hide in the mountains. And Hamas doesn't seem to have the same arsenal that Hezbollah does. That means that it may actually be possible to achieve some sort of desired outcome with a limited bombardment campaign – as long as that desired outcome is kept modest enough. In conclusion, then, the greatest threat facing Olmert is scope creep. Me, I'm still trying to adjust to the sixty-degree temperature difference between the Virgin Islands and New York. So forgive me if I haven't quite wrapped my head around this latest Gaza war. But after reading a whole bunch of articles, I'm still not sure I can tell you what the Israeli government wants out of this war – or what Hamas is looking to do, for that matter. Sure, I can think of lots of good, short-term reasons why the Israelis and Hamas would want to throw down now. But what does each side hope to gain, in the long run, with such a fight? What are the Israelis, and Hamas, trying to achieve – other than a fleeting advantage over their rival?

Laura Rozen takes a tentative stab at those questions. She quotes an Israeli commentator, who says Jerusalem doesn't really have a long-term objective. The operation is simply about "forcing Hamas to agree to a cease-fire on terms that Israel is willing to meet... Not occupation and not toppling. The moment that Hamas agrees to a cease-fire, the operation is supposed to end." (But tell that to the
Israeli Interior Minister, who says there is "no room for a cease-fire.") Then Rozen talks to an Arab-American analyst who says Hamas most definitely does have a far-reaching goal: destabilizing Egypt and other moderate Arab states. (And yet we have Palestinian militants cheering for the Israelis to smash Hamas.)

To confuse matters even further, this long-range war, of rockets and guided-bombs, may soon become a block-by-block, house-by-house fight, Stratfor predicts.

Israel’s Channel 10 television issued a report Tuesday, citing Israeli military intelligence assessments that the air offensive in the Gaza Strip had destroyed one-third of Hamas’ rocket arsenal (or 1,000 out of 3,000 rockets), including several hundred long-range rockets capable of reaching deep inside Israel. Considering how difficult it is to gauge exactly how many rockets have actually been taken out when they are now lying in heaps of rubble, the accuracy of the report is highly dubious. But the image presented is sobering. While Hamas forces were caught somewhat by surprise, they lost only one-third of their highly mobile forces. The rest remain in play and are likely beyond the reach of anything but a sustained ground assault. While the veracity of the report is impossible to confirm in a time of war, Tuesday’s rocket barrage is a big sign that Israel’s air campaign failed to achieve decisive results in its first days.
Israel now has to shift to a less desirable strategy. On Tuesday evening, the defense minister asked the Cabinet to add 2,520 more reservists to the 7,000 called up in recent days. Israel appears to be preparing for a protracted ground assault on Gaza —- hostile territory it has no desire to occupy, and where Hamas is preparing to conduct a war of attrition against a casualty-averse army. The Israelis have attempted this strategy a
number of times before, to little avail. The decisive results the Israelis had hoped to achieve with an air campaign will be that much harder to achieve in a ground war, but that is precisely where the situation seems to be heading.

Perhaps things will clarify, after the new year. I'm signing off until then. Peace on Earth...

[Photo: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa / Reuters]

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