The Empty Boots

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As we were preparing last night to write an editorial on the rapidly escalating war in the Middle East, Elliott Banfield’s latest cartoon — “The Empty Boots” — came in over the wire. It appears on the opposite page, reminding us how much we have missed the ability to pick up the phone and call Ariel Sharon and hear his analysis of the order of battle. We recognize there are many, including many of our friends, who disagreed with disengagement. But one of the noteworthy features about the fighting that has erupted in Lebanon is how unified the Israelis themselves are as tanks rumble back into Lebanon, warplanes wheel over the Beirut airport, and heavy artillery heralds a new war.

This point was made for us by our contributing editor, David Twersky, an indefatigable soldier in the cause of peace. He has been in Haifa for the American Jewish Congress, escorting a group of visiting Muslim musicians on the first trip that any group carrying their country’s passports has made to Israel. When we reached him, he was at a seaside café, looking at a beach that normally would have had 100,000 or so people enjoying the sand, sun, and Mediterranean but which was almost empty. Overhead, military helicopters shuttled to and from the front, while the airwaves brought in the latest threats from Hezbollah to shell the city.

No one was caviling about the government’s response, even as Israel was mounting an air and naval blockade of their northern neighbor. It is widely understood now in Israel that this is another of its fights for survival. The enemy attacks that precipitated this engagement were not on settler outposts the legitimacy of which is disputed by the doves and by other countries. The attacks — organized and funded from Iran and Syria — were made across Israel’s 1967 borders. This, everyone in Israel understands, is not a moment to be debating things; even those who had denigrated Ariel Sharon for the invasion of Lebanon and called for Prime Minister Barak to pull out, even they are of one mind about the necessity of going in.

All understand that we could – it’s not certain, but possible — be in the early stages of a much wider conflict. It’s why we keep thinking of Ariel Sharon. We have no lack of regard for Prime Minister Olmert. But one of the reasons so many reposed confident in Mr. Sharon was his fluency in war — its maps, its equipment, its limitations, its capabilities, its possibilities. No doubt that is why Israelis elected him and why they gave the party he created, Kadima, a mandate to form a new government even after Mr. Sharon himself was debilitated by a stroke.

Israel’s enemies are divided. Lebanon is riven with factions — Christians, Druze, Shiites, Sunnis. Syria’s regime, as Nibras Kazimi reminded us in a column the other day, is an Alawite minority facing a restive Sunni surge. Iran, not an Arab country, has a Shiite leadership is in the position of funding, in Hamas, a Sunni Arab movement. Israel has long had its own divisions, between hawk and dove, religious and secular. But the government in Jerusalem, unlike the ones at Damascus or Tehran, was established by a free election. Its people are together now, fighting for their country, while their enemies fight for a dictator’s regime.

In respect of the war aims, the first day and a half of the fighting suggest that they are not going to be about simply the return of captured soldiers. This is more likely to emerge as a war to defeat the threat of Hezbollah, a proxy of Iran and Syria and a partner in the current coalition in Lebanon. The early action suggests, though much is still murky, that Israel is in the process of sealing off Lebaon for this purpose. It is hard to imagine that this can be anything other than the minimal aim of the government in Jerusalem, one that dovetails perfectly with America’s own interests in the region.

One of the remarkable features of America’s own relationship with Israel during the last five or so years is the bond that obtained between Messrs. Sharon and Bush. The future American president had gained his first tour of the battleground from the Israeli general. The younger leader was more than an apt student. When Mr. Bush gained the American presidency and the war struck our own shores, he began put establish certain principles — we will take the war to our enemies so as to prevent it from coming to our shores — that fit well with the lessons learned from Mr. Sharon. They are no doubt among the principles Israel will be operating on in the coming days.


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