Israelis question their own aggressive policy
Lebanon-Israel, Politics, 8/14/2006

With a truce in effect between Lebanon and Israel, following a major aggression by Israel on Lebanon dislocating a quarter of Lebanon's population, in what is being seen as a policy and military failure to Israel, Haaretz said "Today's extraordinary Knesset session could be the start of a new period in Israeli politics."

"Over the last few days, the public and political consensus has started to crack, the political arena is staring to warm up and is expected to reach boiling point as public protests begin to spread," the Israeli newspaper said.

Among the questions being faced by the Israeli leadership: -- why the military was not able to prevent Hizbullah from pummeling the country with rockets until the day before the ceasefire came into effect; -- why the state failed to provide adequate support for residents of the north who bore the brunt of more than 4,000 Hizbullah rockets; -- what exactly Israel achieved in a month-long war that sparked world outrage as more than 1,100 Lebanese were killed, most of them civilians.

The head of military intelligence admitted Sunday that the Lebanese resistance group had not been defeated.

"Hizbullah is weakened but has not been defeated," Amos Yadlin told the cabinet as it debated the UN-brokered ceasefire.

A total of 117 soldiers and 41 civilians have been killed, hundreds of thousands forced to flee their homes, and a cost of more than a billion dollars to the economy.

"In another few weeks, a million people will ask: What was this all about? Why did they lose their homes? Thousands of reservists will ask the same questions. To say nothing of the bereaved families," Haaretz said.

Meanwhile, the second daily of the occupied territories under Israeli regime, Maariv, said: "This morning, when the ceasefire goes into effect, we can begin the countdown to the next war in Lebanon." "The fact that the next war is perceived as possible testifies more than anything else that the war which is ending today, officially at least, did not achieve its objectives," it said.

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