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hira iftikhar rana · #42 Thursday, August 24, 2006

The shock of stalemate

Ikram Sehgal

For the first time in its entire history since 1948, Israel walked away from the battlefield without scoring an outright and convincing victory, and in effect what it was left facing is a stalemate. Israel has never fought a war with numerical superiority, this time the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) fought to a standstill by a force far less in numbers. Totally dominant in weapons and munitions on the ground, Israel's Airforce ruled the skies unhindered, over 10,000 sorties delivering tons of ordnance in the form of precision-guided bombs, and smart missiles along with heavy stuff like "daisy-cutters", etc. 155 mm self-propelled guns constantly pounded Hizbollah positions, with direct tank fire on Hizbollah strong points from Merkawa tanks (MKs 1 & 2 with the regular 105 mm gun and MK 3 with the smooth barrel 120 mm gun). This tremendous concentrated firepower was followed by waves of mechanised infantry, buy they could not dislodge dedicated Hizbollah fighters. This failure shattered a myth built up carefully over the years that the Arabs could not stand up to Israel's military might. The IDF did achieve, through a UN resolution a buffer zone of sorts, UNIFIL and the Lebanese Army moved in between Israel's border and the Litani River in South Lebanon to enforce the ceasefire. One doubts the Hizbollah will allow themselves to be disarmed.

The "Haganah" was created in 1921 to protect settlements (Kibbutzam). The "Irgun" faction led by Menachem Begin, who later became PM, separated to focus on terrorism. Haganah helped British forces put down the great Arab uprising from 1936 to 1939. The Jewish Brigade formed by the British during World War 2 fought in Italy, ultimately about 30,000 Palestinian Jews took part in the war on different fronts. These combat hardened cadres returned to increase the Haganah field strength, its "strike" companies were called the "Palmach". From 1945 to 1948, Haganah drew in soldiers as well as young displaced refugees from Europe (my friend, artilleryman Col David Yarkony joined as an 18-year-old). The Haganah became the IDF at the birth of Israel in May 1948, all other militias were banned. After a brief struggle between the Haganah and the Irgun, the latter was also absorbed into the IDF. Fighting both conventional battles and as unconventional forces, the IDF succeeded in 1948 in defeating the Egyptian and Jordanian Armies, superior both in numbers and weaponry. This was possible only because of the combat experience and motivation inherent in the IDF. The Arab cause was not helped by the excesses of many small Arab irregulars indulging indiscriminately in murder, arson and loot.

By 1956, the first of the three all-out short wars till 1973 meant that the IDF had become a lean, mean, fighting machine, the hard core being the motivated and hardened veterans of the Second World War and of 1948. This value-added combat experience is vitally necessary for any fighting army (as opposed to a peacetime army where other standards apply). The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 was well executed, yet it relied heavily on support from the Maronites in the Lebanese Army and the Phalangist Militia. The Sabra and Chatilla massacres took place while the IDF stood by, one feels this marked the start of a downslide, the steady rot to IDF's aura of invincibility peaking in South Lebanon this summer.

Hizbollah absorbed tremendous attrition without breaking and it soon became clear that the IDF's forte "close quarter battle" (CQB), the acid test for any army, had been lost over the years. A village called Bint Jbail, only one to two kilometres from the border was repeatedly taken by the Israelis but could not be held. With things going haywire the IDF Chief, Lt Gen Dan Halutz, an air force officer sent his army deputy, Lt.-Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky, to oversee (not replace) Northern Commander Lt.-Gen Udi Adam. This amounted to a vote of no-confidence against the field commander, bad for the morale of soldiers fighting in the field. A tactical land battle on that scale should only be fought by army officers, from the combat arms, infantry, armour or artillery. A preponderance of Air Force generals in the Command HQs cannot run a land war.

With 50 plus burnt-out armoured vehicles being towed back, at least 200 Israeli dead must have been the minimum count, with multiple more having battlefield injuries. That is a high price to pay for claiming 400-450 Hizbollah dead, mostly by bombs and artillery shells. The Hizbollah suffered grievous losses in key combat commanders and experienced personnel but those who took part in the fighting, a hard-core of 4000-5000, will emerge as battle-inoculated hardened cadres who can be fleshed out by the 10,000 personnel "in reserve" in no time at all. Shaikh Hassan Nasrallah has been careful in going easy on the rhetoric even though he was quick to claim victory. One supposes if you have not lost to Israel, you have won.

Hizbollah used a combination of classic guerrilla tactics, both in urban areas and elsewhere, using the broken ground of (mountains and fields) to good advantage. Armed mainly with AK-47s, anti-tank missiles (AT-3 Sagger, AT-4 Spigot, AT-5 Spandrel and the more modern AT-13 Memis and AT-14 Kornet), and new heavier, more effective rocket- propelled grenades (RPGs), along with anti-tank landmines and hand grenades, the Hizbollah copied the Viet Cong in operating in small groups relying heavily on tunnels to offset their inferior numbers weapons. Over 5,000 Katyusha rockets were fired on northern Israel, extending from Haifa to Nahariya. The longer range Fajr rockets with ranges of 45 km and more were not used, neither were Zelzal -1 & 2 (rockets) and Zelzal 3 (missiles) with longer ranges (beyond Tel Aviv).

While IDF chief Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz did not break the law, when he off-loaded shares in the stock market three hours after two soldiers were kidnapped by Hizbollah, he did break a moral covenant. Along with battlefield blunders, this will probably cost him his job. He is best known for his callous comment that he made when asked how he felt about bombing civilians during the "war of attrition" in 1970-71. His reply was that he felt "only a slight bump on the wing" when he released the bomb. The first principle of selecting battle leaders is that you do not appoint a man without good combat experience. Those who have not heard a shot being fired in anger cover their inferiority complex (to combat-hardened soldiers) by resorting to bluster. There are many in this world who fight "battles" in their imagination, or with their mouth. The five-member commission appointed to investigate Israel's first military debacle in its history, will certainly find many shortcomings.

South Lebanon circa 2006 has ended the 50-year psychological domination that Israel had built up on its Second World War and 1948 veterans. It will search for every opportunity to re-assert its "myth of invincibility", since this is a matter of life and death for Israel as a nation. The ceasefire will not hold, if anything the failure for the Hizbollah to disarm will be used as "casus belli" by Israel. This time around the war will be carefully planned and meticulously executed by the Israelis, the Hizbollah are not likely to sit on their laurels. Expect another war in the future.