By Ed Koch
Jewish World Review
Last week, while the U.N. Security Council was discussing, and ultimately adopting, its ceasefire resolution regarding the war in Lebanon, I was depressed. After four weeks of war between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel had not delivered a knockout blow and Hezbollah had acquitted itself well, something that no other Arab military force — whether Egyptian, Jordanian, Syrian, or Palestinian — has been able to do.
Israel had dazzled the world by its victories in the five previous wars waged against it by the Arabs. Now, forced by the murder and kidnapping of its soldiers into war with Hezbollah, a terrorist organization that has held Lebanon hostage, the Israeli Defense Forces appeared bogged down, seemingly unable to advance to the Litani River, the defense line that Israel had announced as its objective. They finally reached it immediately before the cease-fire went into effect on August 13th.
It now appears that the Israeli military was hindered by Prime Minister Olmert's decision to rely overwhelmingly on the Israeli air force and to commit a relatively small number of troops, about 10,000, to the ground battle, so as to limit casualties. This is the same error made by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld when he ignored his military advisors and invaded Iraq with insufficient troops.
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