A reply on Re: [Marxism] Israel Is Losing This War (Wall Street Journal)

[dwalters@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

Gary, thank you for your comments.

I'm not sure I disagree with you in the long term. The issue, however, is that
people are reading into the *immediate* realization by the IDF that they will
not be able to crush or disarm the Hezbollah into 'Israel is losing'. In long
run, politically, this is obviously a loose-loose situation for Zionism. They
can't look good coming out of this even IF they crushed Hezbollah. But I'm not
really talking about that, I'm talking about the situation on the ground and
terror being placed upon the people of Lebanon by the IDF.


I accept the charge that I'm  thinking in an undialectical manner. One could say
that the 'amazing' military victory over the incompetent armies of Egypt, Jordan
and Syria in 1967 only sowed the seeds of 'defeat' at the hands of the Egyptians
in 1973, where Sadat's army actually lost the war but by winning the initial
battle completely embarrassed Israel and then continuing along, created the
situation we are in today. But then it becomes overly 'dialectically
determinist' :).

The general assumptions that "Israel is losing" is, IMO, still, incorrect. Not
winning, sure, as Marvin stressed, "the book is still out on that one". There
is a tendency to look at, for example, the death of the 9 IDF paratroopers
during the initial invasion as a 'defeat' for the IDF. I understand Arab pride,
and am 100% with them on that. Even in Israel, it was morally devastating for
the Israelis who like to stress their faux-sadness over every IDF member
killed. But militarily it was *extremely minor* and of no military consequence.
What WAS important, sometimes overlooked, is that the IDF *failed* in their
objective that day and when they withdrew they had little to show for it.

What I don't like is when ever a tactical victory is scored by the good guys
(the Arabs in this case) it somehow registers as "the bad guys are losing". I
think it's much too early too tell. As I stated in my earlier post, the
Zionists will see victory if they can get *their* security zone established,
hatred or lack of moral standing being of a secondary consideration for them.

David




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