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| <<BREAKING>> Hezbollah vows to carry out more abductions of IDF troops By Army Radio Tags: IDF, Imad Mugniyah, Hezbollah Hezbollah will
| Helmut
User ID: 428134
7/19/2008 9:13 AM
Report abusive post | <<BREAKING>> Hezbollah vows to carry out more abductions of IDF troops By Army Radio Tags: IDF, Imad Mugniyah, Hezbollah Hezbollah will
| Quote |
Hezbollah vows to carry out more abductions of IDF troops
By Army Radio
Tags: IDF, Imad Mugniyah, Hezbollah
Hezbollah will make more attempts to kidnap Israel Defense Forces soldiers, according to statements made Saturday the deputy head of the Lebanese Shi'ite militia, Sheikh Naim Kassam.
According to an Army Radio report Saturday, Kassam made the statement during an interview with a Qatari newspaper, in which he said that Hezbollah is in a state of war with Israel, which "continues to infiltrate the skies of Lebanon and poses a serious threat."
Kassam added that Hezbollah is still obligated to revenge the killing of former senior Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mugniyah, who perished in a car bombing in Damascus in February.
[link to haaretz.com]
I dont exactly understand, I thought the relation would become better after the prisonerreleases? Can someone explain? Sometimes media is very confusing.
Ich bin der Helmut und habe jetzt ein post gemacht. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 470428
7/19/2008 9:19 AM | | Re: <<BREAKING>> Hezbollah vows to carry out more abductions of IDF troops By Army Radio Tags: IDF, Imad Mugniyah, Hezbollah Hezbollah will | Quote |
The Danger of "Counting Coup" in the Middle East
The prisoner exchange between Israel and Hezbollah is widely considered a terrible defeat for Israel and another great victory for Hezbollah, much as the summer war of 2006 is widely considered a victory for Hezbollah and a disastrous defeat for Israel. This opinion is shared almost universally across the board.
Paul Hinderaker expresses the predominant sentiment on the right:
As expected, the return of the murderer Kuntar was greeted in Lebanon with elation and celebration. Hezbollah and its Lebanese suporters plainly viewed the swap as a victory, and to a degree it was.
...
I'm far from an expert on Lebanon. However, it seems to me that Israel's failure to defeat Hezbollah during the war two years ago shifted the balance of power in Lebanon to the point that leaders like Sinora and Jumblatt feel constrained to follow Hezbollah's line in matters like this one and many others. If so, and after today's spectacle, Pollak seems correct to question whether it makes sense for the U.S. to consider Lebanon an ally in any meaningful sense.
Meanwhile, the man who brought Israel both the botched war and the one-sided prisoner swap, the corrupt Ehud Olmert, remains in power in Israel.
Lazar, at the Augean Stables, summarized:
Prisoner Swap Bolsters Hizbullah, Endangers IDF Soldiers
The prisoner exchange has been completed, and Hizbullah has not missed the opportunity. They are proclaiming victory in the Second Lebanon War, since they carried out the initial ambush with the goal of kidnapping soldiers to gain the release of Samir Kuntar. The Hizbullah commander in Southern Lebanon, Nabil Kaouk, said,
“The signatures of Olmert and Peres on the swap means official confirmation of the defeat and failure of the July aggression in the face of the will of the resistance.”
This achievement is just what Hizbullah needed- facing domestic pressure after their violent clashes with pro-government forces, they now have justification for remaining an independent militia inside Lebanon.
Perhaps Naomi Ragen expressed it best, and inadvertently got to the heart of the matter, when she described the day as a Day of infamy:
When it comes to immoral, to release Kuntar to a hero’s welcome and the opportunity to murder others is on the top of the scale.
My government, the Israeli government, arranged this. They let it happen. They oversaw it and implemented it. I am deeply ashamed to be an Israeli today. And I’m not very proud of being a Jew either, if this is how a Jewish country behaves. To lead the world in ever more despicable acts of appeasement is nothing to be proud of. The torch we always carried, the “light unto the nations” has been blown out by the hot-air of our politicians.
I will not post the various Arab media reactions; suffice it to say that they almost universally rejoice at the great victory over the hated Jews.
As Israel is shamed, so the jubilant Hezbollah is honored. The narrative of the Summer War and the prisoner swap is clearly being reported and experienced through the Honor-Shame dynamic of the Arab world. This presents significant dangers of miscalculation.
Grandmasta at Arab Media Shack is rapidly becoming an indispensable read. He peruses the Arabic media and offers translation and commentary; of note, he "takes no sides in the Arab-Israeli conflict." First, his translation in full:
Be Careful What You Wish For
Al-Quds Al-Arabi’s lead op-ed, “Lessons from the Prisoner Exchange,” analyzes yesterday’s Israeli-Hezbollah prisoner exchange. Al-Quds is a major London-based newspaper, which is intellectually independent from any Arab regime, so, in general, its views are consistent with popular opinion in the Middle East.
Grandmasta has alot to say about this story, so he will “translate” and not “summarize” the article. Readers can assume that the following conveys all the article’s ideas and in the order they were presented.
Translation
The Prisoner exchange revealed two important realities. The first is Israel’s weakness and inability to impose its will on its adversaries. The second is the marginalization of the official Palestinian Authorities and the PLO. It was quite interesting the difference in how the day’s events were received in Israel and Lebanon. Whereas Israel was in a state of mourning, the atmosphere in Lebanon was festive, and its top politicians, greeted the released prisoners at the airport.
Perhaps the most important development here is Hezbullah’s emergence as a regional power capable of challenging the Israeli army which previously won “all of its wars” with the traditional Arab regimes. Its only defeats were at the hands of Hezbullah in 2000 and 2006. Another point that deserves emphasis is Hezbullah’s skillful management of the hostage negotiations. The Israeli government was kept in the dark about the kidnapped soldiers fate (dead or alive) until the deal was imminent. This is a unique experience which should be studied by other Palestinian Resistance Groups (HAMAS) which are in similar situations.
It is certain that Hamas has learned alot from Hezbullah, socially, politically and military, which explains Hamas’s ability to keep Shalat hidden in Gaza, a very small area geographically, and prevent the Israelis from seizing him despite having a strong security presence in the Strip. All of this is tarnishing Israel’s reputation as its power is tested for the first time at the hands off Resistance movements who are not aligned with official Arab governments.
In contrast to Hamas and Hezbullah, what explains the pathetic fate of the PLO and PA? Its marginalization can be primarily traced to its close relationship to the Arab regimes that cater to Washington’s regional ambitions.
The prisoner exchange is HB’s third victory (after 2000 and 2006). Israel should understand that times are changing, but not in their favor, but to the advantage of the Arab peoples. “He who gets the last laugh laughs the most.”
He then points out that the great victory for Hezbollah is something less than a triumph:
1) Be Careful What You Wish For: There is an almost unanimous belief in the Middle East, as illustrated in the Quds piece, that Hezbullah was the clear “victor” of the 2006 war. But it seems this idea is mostly based on sentiments, and not on serious analysis of the strategic military realities.
The rest of his commentary is well worth reading and I suggest you do so for an informed understanding of various important aspects of this deal; for my purposes, I would emphasize Grandmasta's first point, that the great victory for Hezbollah is based on sentiment and not serious analysis.
In their own ways Naomi Ragen and Grandmasta understand that all these events, the kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers, the war that followed, and the prisoner swap were nothing more than Hezbollah "counting coup." Hezbollah gained "face" or Honor and Israel lost face. Hezbollah does not now, and will not for the forseeable future, represent a strategic menace to Israel. If all parties understood the meaning of the events in these terms, future miscalculation would be minimized. Unfortunately, there is little evidence that this understanding is widespread.
Honor-Shame cultures can be successful. Japan is probably the most successful Honor-Shame culture. What makes them successful is that Shame is not merely something to be avoided at all costs but Shame also serves as a cultural "Signal Affect*." In other words, when there is an episode in Japan which is shameful, the person responsible for the events publicly takes responsibility. The episode then becomes an opportunity for learning, for exploring how the episode came about, what errors were made, and what can be done to avoid such episodes in the future. In Arab culture, perhaps because of their tribal nature, there is no analogous adoption of responsibility. Shame must be avoided at such costs that shameful episodes are not only denied as shameful but elevated into triumphs regardless of how disastrous they turned out to be. In Japan, a murderer of a 4 year old child, even if done to protect some notion of Japanese Honor, would be considered a monster; in the Arab world he is a hero.
As a result, there is too often very little learning that takes place within the Arab world. Since no one is ever responsible for disasters, avoiding future disasters brought about by the same people with their same faulty logic and planning, are inevitable. In a culture which uses Shame as a Signal Affect, learning can take place. In the same way, Israel, as a Guilt based culture, uses Guilt as a Signal Affect and there has been a great deal learned by the IDF since the Summer War.
[Of note, the current Israeli government, as opposed to the IDF, seems to be operating in much the same way as an Honor-Shame dynamic; the refusal of the Olmert government to take full responsibility for their errors in the Summer War has contributed to their errors in making the prisoner swap. When no one is responsible for errors, little learning can take place.]
Worse, too often Arabs believe their own bombast and puff themselves up to a dangerous size in their own minds. If the HISH alliance believes their own press clippings and their own self aggrandizing statements, they would conclude that Israel is weak, ready to be destroyed, and that they have found the way to do it. They would fail to recognize that Israel has been constrained by many different factors from using their full might, not least that they have not yet felt in existential danger. The threat to attack Iran's nuclear program emerges explicitly from the fact that Israel does see an Iranian nuclear weapon as an existential risk.
During the Cold War the greatest risk was always that we would misunderstand each other and miscalculate and that a nuclear exchange would come about unintentionally. In the Middle East, it has been the case that wars have broken out because the Arabs were intent on gaining back their Honor, lost with the establishment of the state of Israel. As long as wars, since the 1973 war, are not existential affairs for Israel, limited war is possible. Unfortunately, the build-up of missiles in the region and the Iranian nuclear program suggest that the next war may well be for the very existence of the state of Israel, in which case it would all too easy for Hezbollah and their Iranian patrons to miscalculate Israel's resolve.
* A Signal Affect is an uncomfortable feeling that alerts the executive apparatus of the mind that a thought, impulse, or action would be threatening to the psychological health of the individual. It allows the person to recognize prior to the act that he may be placing himself in psychological danger and can thus modify his behavior. A person contemplating an indiscretion might be signaled by his guilt that such an act would be unwise; alternatively he may be signaled by shame that should he be caught it would be disastrous. In both cases the Signal Affect may help him avoid temptation. After the fact, Signal Affects can inform the person's executive apparatus of the poor outcome of the lapse in judgement so that exploration of the causes can be performed and repitition avoided. Alas, on the negative side of things, Signal Affects often fail to deter us from doing what we want even when we know it is unwise. |
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