My friend Yossi Klein HaLevi yesterday wrote that we are all 'brokenhearted,' at the victory that we handed Hizbullah, at the mealy mouthed PM and FM and DM and COS who made it possible, and at the state of our country.
He's wrong.
We're not broken-hearted. We're outraged. We are seething with anger and frustration at the arrogant, defeatist and cognitively egocentric character of our putative leaders.
Reserve soldiers don't want to go home, but to finish the war. People who spent over a month in shelters are willing to stay there until Hizbullah is destroyed. Why? Because they understand what Olmert and Co. don't. This is a war for our existence. We are not tired of fighting, since e are fighting for our very lives. Our instincts are healthy. Jews, you see, have an incredible ability to survive.
Olmert is tired...of winning. So he handed us a defeat.
You can feel the groundswell under your feet. The government's transparent attempts to blame Bibi for the defeat will speed his way back to the premiership.
Please God, the inner rot that characterizes this government (and the 'tired elites') will sweep it away and allow the healthy instincts of the Jews of Israel to come through.
During the disengagement the IDF opened its purse strings wide. What Shoshi Greenfeld said at the hesped for her brother was 100% true. Then, the army had budgets for everything. Ask anyone who wroked the back-office at the IDf during that period of time. Anything and everything was approved. Yet in Lebanon soldiers went for days without food. I personally know a 35 year old reservist who fought for over 4 hours without water.
ReplyDeleteKlein Halevi supported disenagegment - along with his fellow "fake" neo-conservatives at the Shalem Center. Now they regret it. Don't worry the next time around either they'll support it - or they'll be out of a job. The left won't allow a place like the Shalem Center to remain neo-conservative for too long.
I once saw a shameful display as the Shalem Center's president, on a panel that was composed mostly of leftists, tried desperately to convince them that he was not, in fact, a rightist at all. He begged them not to be "blinded by my headgear", i.e., his kippah.
ReplyDeleteI once thought the Center was a great idea, a place where conservative ideas could take root in Israel. No longer. They hire one leftist after another, and their increasingly silly journal is sponsored by The New Republic, hardly a voice of conservatism.
As for HaLevi, he took a tried and tested route to being feted by the elites, namely, turning on Meir Kahane. It's the one reason he became famous, and it's shameful. Seems he's in the right place.
Dr. Woolf, you're on fire this week. Keep it up for as long as it's needed.
I think you are wrong. Olmert has saved us from hundreds of soldiers getting killed. I was there!
ReplyDelete1) The army had no idea what it was doing, and it took some time for Olmert to realize that;
2) Even if the army would have "won" this war, the end resuly would have been the same. As soon as we would leave Lebanon the Hizbullah would have rebuilt its abilities.
Jeff,
ReplyDeleteYou hit the spot-bullseye.