Transcending Tragedies and Statistics

Lest I be accused of only looking at right-wing sources about the current war with Lebanon I decided to take a look at Daniel Drezner's website. He indeed posted an open thread in reaction to the situation, including some sources he happened to agree with. Take a look.

One of the points in the article cited is that Israel overreacted in interpreting the kidnapping of its two soldiers as an act of war. That the lives of just two people is not worth the mass military action and collateral action, likely to follow. The article seems to be missing, or perhaps willfully ignoring several points.

The first point is the point of principle. Sure, good old Josef Stalin did say that the death of one person is a tragedy, and the death of a million is a statistic. But in the situation Israel is facing today, it's about much more than just the numbers. It doesn't matter how many people have been killed, wounded, or abducted. What's much more importnat is that SOMEBODY has been killed, wounded, or abducted. That Israel's sovereignty was compromised, and that Israel's citizens don't feel protected. And if it means putting the entire forces out to find one single person so be it, *especially* considering that the single person is a member of the IDF himself. The citizens are expected to rise up and serve in the forces, to defend their country.

In return, their country has to show that every single citizen does matter, that Israel won't allow anyone to compromise its security. You think I sound cavalier, sitting here, when I'm not serving anywhere, and when no one in my family has (so far!) been called up to seach for that one or two soldiers? Well, guess what. I'm sitting right here, in my room. *I* am not the one giving out orders. I'm not the one calling up forces. I'm not in a position to make any decisions at all, much less tell the Israeli government what to do! On the contrary, all the decisions have already been made - and I'm only trying to interpret them. So, yes, there's that issue of principle, which, I think, is very important for sustaining morale and running a successful country.

However, obviously there are other considerations, besides "principles", for why it does make sense for Israel to pursue a wide-scale operation in Lebanon. And that consideration is a very pragmatic one. The article pooh-poohs the idea of calling a kidnapping of two an "act of war". However, the reality is quite different. The reality is that the abduction the article dismisses is taken out of context, and that context is a series of attacks. The two kidnapped soldiers are the unfortunate casualties of those attacks, but the significance of those attacks is not limited to the disappearance of the two men, or even the injuries and the deaths of several others. These attacks were intended to provoke a certain type of reaction. And had that reaction not occurred, they would have continued until, well, until it did. You see, finding those two soldiers was insufficient. It would mean only dealing with the effect of Hizbullah's evildoings. But to deal with the cause IDF would need to

1) Destroy the rocket fields, threatening Israel's immediate security (as proven by today's series of unrestrained attacks)

2) Deal with Hizbullah and the local militias themselves, since apparently Lebanon itself is unable/unwilling to dismantle the militias and disarm Hizbullah.

3) Undermine the local support for terrorism - and that support exists, and is widespread in the south, as illustrated by crowds of civilians cheering the kidnappings and exchanging candy in the streets. Lebanon is in the state of war with Israel. There's never been a peace treaty. But Israel has withdrawn from the country six years ago, and cease-fire would have been a reasonable expectation under such conditions, don't you think? Hizbullah's actions in the light of the recent developments in Gaza demonstrate all too clearly that the organization has no interest in letting old bygones be bygones and leaving Israel alone.

It is absurd to expect that Israel would ONLY search for the abducted soldiers, without dealing with the kidnappers. One cannot be accomplished without the other. Hizbullah is not one isolated terrorist cell; it's also a political party, which has control over the entire south region and which manages to terrorize other Lebanese into submission.

As for collateral damage... it's going to be very unfortunate, but it's the problem of the Lebanese government, which failed to rein in Hizbullah. Israel bears responsibility to the security of its own citizens first, and everyone else ONLY after that has been accomplished. As for how reasonable it is to send in a large number of troops into the country from the strategic point of view, that's obviously not up to me to judge. I'm sure there's a military advantage to that, if the democratically elected Israeli administration has approved of such a measure.

Assertively,
Irina