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In Criticism of a War, Hints of a New Israel
by Roger Cohen
- The five-member Winograd Commission, led by a retired judge, Eliyahu Winograd, did not confine its criticism to a rash prime minister, a bungling defense minister with no knowledge of military matters, and a now departed chief of staff of flawed "professionalism, responsibility and judgment."
- Rather, it extended its damning judgment to Israel itself, sketching a portrait of a society grown complacent, unprepared for wars, ready only for "low intensity asymmetrical conflicts," deluded into thinking it possesses sufficient deterrents, and uncoordinated at the highest levels of government.
- This study in disorientation reflects a profound disconnect: between an Israel that over almost six decades has not managed to deliver itself from the threat to its existence and an Israel of sweeping highways, high-tech corporations, gleaming high-rises and all the trappings of a stable, modern country.
- Such accountability is central to Israel's enduring vigor. As the commission said, "One of Israeli society's greatest sources of strength is its being free, open and creative." To watch, in the Middle East, a commission excoriating the prime minister who appointed it is bracing and should be instructive.
- How about a Saudi commission on how 15 of its citizens came to be among the 9/11 hijackers? Or a Lebanese commission on how Hezbollah has been able to operate as a quasi-independent armed entity within the state? Or an Iranian commission on how the hopes of its 1979 revolution led only to another form of dictatorship?
- When those commissions convene, the Middle East will move forward. (New York Times)
We Were Abandoned
by Sima Kadmon
- According to the interim report's conclusions, we are not talking about mere failures. We are talking about this country's continued existence being a true miracle.
- Self-reflection should be undertaken by all of us - because we are talking not only about people who failed. The entire system failed. The conception failed. Our security doctrine failed. The assumption that Israel will not initiate a war failed. The faith in our ability to win every war has been shattered. (Ynet News)
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The Conspicuously Absent Issue
by Ze'ev Schiff
- While the Winograd Committee report is only partial, some important issues are missing and others are not dealt with sufficiently.
- One issue that is conspicuously absent is the way the conflict on the Palestinian front affected the Second Lebanon War - a subject the committee did not address at all. The confrontation with the Palestinians has been going on for years, and generations of Israel Defense Forces soldiers focused on it, as if it were Israel's major struggle and all future battles would be modeled on it. This kind of thinking negatively affected the army's performance in Lebanon.
- The report deals superficially with Israel's power of deterrence against Hizbullah. This is a critical issue that needs to be addressed in the committee's concluding report. After all, the committee undertook to explore the processes that caused the war to develop as it did, and deterrence is one of the chief components of Israeli strategy.
- We are not talking about ordinary deterrence, of the kind employed vis-a- vis Arab countries or standard armies. We are talking about deterrence of a different kind, against a terrorist and guerrilla organization that has no country. (Ha'aretz)
The Failure that Forces Something Better
by Jonathan Freedland
- Israel is shaking from the shock of the Winograd Report, but it should also allow itself a pang of pride in the Winograd process. Handpicked by Olmert himself, Winograd and his team were nobody's patsies: instead they dared to speak uncomfortable truth to arrogant power.
- Israel's boast that it is the only democracy in the Middle East is often met with a snort. But this exercise has shown that - at least within its own borders - Israel is capable of a democratic accountability entirely absent in its region. Imagine for a moment a panel of Syrian wise men or Egyptian elders delivering a similar message to Bashar Assad or Hosni Mubarak. They could expect to receive not plaudits, as Winograd has, but at best a lengthy spell in prison.
- That, and the possibility that the Winograd report will shock the Israeli political and military establishment, even Israeli society itself, into a desperately needed shakeup is the crumb of comfort. (Guardian-UK)
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