Israel Hurt by Focus On World Opinion

Many have spoken of asymmetrical warfare, but how about asymmetrical diplomacy? Israel's current leadership is turning more and more to what it calls the "international community" for help, while its enemies, who care little for world institutions, dictate the terms of the war.

With Israelis increasingly disappointed in Prime Minister Olmert's inability to address the Kassam rocket attacks, his government announced yesterday after its weekly meeting that it would target top terrorist leaders in Gaza — and redouble its efforts to explain its actions to the world.

But to succeed in reducing or ending the attacks from Gaza — and deter Hezbollah from restarting similar attacks in the north — the Israeli leadership must worry more about honing the country's military tools than about public opinion at home or abroad.

The country's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, determined early on that while Israel needed the backing of world powers, there were limits to his willingness to take international sensibilities into account. He coined a derisive term that might be translated to New York English as "U.N. schmuen."

Thirty years ago, Menachem Begin turned that sensibility into policy soon after his party, the Likud, captured the leadership for the first time in the country's history. His destruction in 1981 of the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq was roundly condemned in Israel and abroad as a reckless unilateral act — only to be praised 20 years later.

But instead of their elders' ideology and zeal, Israel's current leaders have mastered sophisticated polling tools to get into power. As it has in domestic politics, public relations has become their principal governing instrument — and is used in determining defense policies and diplomacy.

In its extraordinary exposé of the 2006 campaign Israel now calls the "Second Lebanon War," the government-appointed Winograd Commission zeroed in on the minutiae of governmental and military decision-making on July 12, 2006. On that day, Hezbollah fighters infiltrated Israel, killed 11 soldiers, and kidnapped Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, who are still being held today.

Mr. Olmert correctly determined that this brazen encroachment on Israel's sovereignty was enough to merit action to force a dramatic change to a status quo in which the heavily armed Hezbollah was deployed on Israel's northern border in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

"The international community understands that Israel is about to strike," Mr. Olmert said at a meeting with top security officials, according to the commission, led by a retired judge, Eliyahu Winograd. However, Mr. Olmert then immediately voiced his concern that such acts as attacking Lebanon's power stations would "turn the international community against us."

"It is clear that international pressure will arrive, and that it will arrive sooner than we think," Defense Minister Amir Peretz said on that first day of the war. In his assessment, the army would be pushed to end its campaign after two weeks.

That is no way to plan a military campaign. As it turned out, the war ended after 33 days. The self-appointed leaders of the "international community," such as Secretary-General Annan, indeed called on Israel to halt the campaign immediately. But only once Israel signaled that it had, alas, exhausted all its military options did those that count — America, Britain, and France — exert any real pressure. Israel then turned to the U.N. Security Council to establish an international force to ensure that Hezbollah respected the council's resolutions.

No one now expects the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon to succeed where Israel failed. After suffering considerable damage last summer, Hezbollah and its masters in Tehran and Damascus may use more discretion before utilizing the heavy weaponry the terrorist group has reacquired under UNIFIL's nose since the war. But make no mistake: This arsenal is aimed at one target only, and it will be used against Israel at the discretion of Hezbollah, Iran, or Syria — not through a U.N. resolution.

According to press reports, Israel is now considering establishing a U.N. force to monitor Gaza's southern border for weapons smuggling.

The Israeli government should order its capable military to find better solutions to these challenges instead of hoping that some elusive "international community" will solve its security issues. As for world opinion, it might not like Jewish power, but it will always back a winner.