Tag: military

Interesting story in the WaPo on Israeli soldiers’ perception of Hizbullah:

“You really can’t underestimate the Hezbollah,” said Tyler, 20, a member of the army’s Nahal Brigade. “They are the masters of the field. They know the area better than us. They know where to hide and when to move. They always know where we are.”

It’s shock-full of quotes like the one above that make Hizbullah soldiers sound like an army of Rambos. There’s a myth of invincibility being created that’s going to live way beyond this war and that probably gives an exaggerated view of what Hizbullah is capable of, which is really not that much — it’s just that the Israelis have not fought such a competent guerrilla group before.

Hassan Nasrallah has called for avoiding civilian targets on both sides:

BEIRUT: Hizbullah’s leader offered Thursday to stop pounding Israel’s “northern settlements” if the Jewish state refrained from bombarding Lebanon’s “cities and civilians.” Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah also issued a warning, however, in a televised speech: “Let my words be clear, any attack on Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, will result in Hizbullah bombarding the Zionist entity’s capital, Tel Aviv.”

In an almost immediate response aired on Israeli public television, a senior military official said Israel would destroy all of Lebanon’s infrastructure if Tel Aviv were hit.

“We are ready to keep the whole thing restricted to a military fight with the Israeli Army,” Nasrallah said, “on the ground, fighters to fighters.”

I’m not sure how to interpret this except as an attempt to make Israel look bad and reinforce its image of an army that targets civilians, since Hizbullah would be in fact probably unwilling to fight a direct “battlefield” war rather than a guerrilla one, which it has proved relatively effective at doing. Anyway, the rest of the article is interesting — and I’m surprised to see the Daily Star describe Hizbullah as “the resistance.”

The always excellent Anthony Shadid writes of Hizbullah’s doctrine and tactics:

Three weeks into its war with Israel, Hezbollah has retained its presence in southern Lebanon, often the sole authority in devastated towns along the Israeli border. The militia is elusive, with few logistics, little hierarchy and less visibility. Even residents often say they don’t know how the militiamen operate or are organized. Communication is by walkie-talkie, always in code, and sometimes messages are delivered by motorcycle. Weapons seem to be already in place across a terrain that fighters say they know intimately.

“On the ground, face to face, we’re better fighters than the Israelis,” said Hajj Abu Mohammed, a bearded, 44-year-old militiaman in the small village of Srifa, whose walkie-talkie crackled and cellphone rang with a Hezbollah anthem.

Israel has claimed to have destroyed Hezbollah’s infrastructure in a 22-day campaign that has driven hundreds of thousands of civilians from their homes and wrecked village after village along valleys sometimes charred by fires.

Hezbollah admits to having suffered losses, but in the fighting so far, it has demonstrated its detailed planning since the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, ending an 18-year occupation. Fighters appear to exercise a great deal of autonomy, a flexibility evident along the region’s back roads: ammunition loaded in cars, trucks in camouflage, rocket launchers tucked in banana plantations.

Analysts say the militia could probably hold out a month without serious resupply. Fighters and supporters suggest that time is their advantage in a war that most suspect won’t have a conclusive end. In conversations in southern Lebanon, the militia’s supporters seem most adamant in trying to deprive either Israel or the United States of political gains from the military campaign.

“We’ll never submit to oppression, whatever the force applied, whatever the time it takes,” one of the group gathered in Jwayya said Tuesday. “You won’t find any difference between 21 days and 121 days. The difference is solely a matter of time.”

Just the read the whole thing. Meanwhile in Israel (whose overwhelming power may have made it delusional as well as utterly amoral):

Despite the number of attacks yesterday, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said Hizbullah had been disarmed “to a large degree”. “The infrastructure of Hizbullah has been entirely destroyed,” he said.

I think I know who to believe. Besides, Hizbullah fighters would probably continue fighting Israeli occupiers with their bare hands if they have to.

Click to download PDF version.

One of Israel’s main justifications behind its aggressive bombing of civilian targets in Lebanon has been the claim that Hizbollah is “hiding among civilians.” The Israelis’ lies, as noted before, resembles the the US army’s rubbish about “VC communitiesâ€� during the Vietnam War–rubbish that was used to justify bombing entire villages back to the stone age, and the use of Agent Orange.
Kay sent me this article from Salon.com debunking this Israeli myth

The “hiding among civilians” myth
Israel claims it’s justified in bombing civilians because Hezbollah mingles with them. In fact, the militant group doesn’t trust its civilians and stays as far away from them as possible.
By Mitch Prothero

Continue reading Hiding among civilians… really?