What Were They Thinking?!

When I heard over the week-end that Israel had agreed to a UN brokered cease-fire in its war with Hezboallah I couldn't believe it. The first thought in my mind was, what were they thinking?! It's been almost two days since the guns fell silent and the Katyushas stopped falling and I'm worried that Israel only bought Hezbuallah time to regroup in order to fight again.

After declaring that the destruction of Hezboallah was it's goal, I can't believe that Israel really agreed to stop fighting short of that objective. Surely the Israelis knew that stopping the war short of Hezboallah's total destruction would give that organization the chance to claim victory, which it has done. Don't the Israelis realize that the feeling of having defeated the mighty IDF will only embolden Hezboallah and all other terrorist groups that live for Israel's death?

And what on earth could've convinced the Israelis to trust their very survival, not just their security, to the UN and the Lebanese army? As part of the cease-fire deal, the UN and the Lebanese army are supposed to secure south Lebanon and disarm Hezboallah. But wasn't the UN and the Lebanese government supposed to have done just that after Israel pulled out of south Lebanon in 2000? Instead, the Hez was given six years to get tons of weapons from Iran and turn south Lebanon into a guerilla base. So, if the UN and the Lebanese government were unwilling or unable to disarm Hezboallah in 2000 what makes anybody with a brain think they're willing and able to do it now? Hezboallah has already said it won't disarm. So unless the UN and the Lebanese government are prepared to wage war on the Hez, I don't see how the cease-fire deal can last.

On "The O'Reilly Factor" last night Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the UN, tried to explain this unlikely turn of events and reassure the audience that it wasn't a victory for Hezboallah. He wasn't convincing. He kept insisting that Hezboallah's fighting capacity had been badly degraded, as if repeating it made it so and, more ominously, he kept using the word "hope" a lot as in, "I hope the UN and Lebanese army can disarm Hezboallah."* When your survival is at stake, hope won't cut it.

When Israel launched this war on Hezboallah in response to it's killing of eight of her soldiers and the kidnapping of two others (whom she hasn't gotten back), I thought she was really committed to destroying Hezboallah once and for all. I was wrong. Instead of wiping out her enemy, Israel has caved to world opinion, political correctness and, apparently, her own aversion to waging a real boots-on-the-ground-failure-is-not-an-option war. In the name of peace, the Israelis have chosen to sign their own death certificate, for that is what this cease-fire really is. Again, all I can say is, What were they thinking?!

*A paraphrase, not a direct quote.