Maybe the Knesset Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee’s report on the Lebanon war, published Monday, will signal the beginning of the revolution. Maybe those who have not yet hit the streets will do so now. Not because the report did not address the political leadership, but rather, because it did not say what the public has been expecting to hear for a year and five months now: Who’s responsible?
The Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee’s report, regardless of how professional, comprehensive, and serious it may be, did not answer this question the way it should have been answered a year and five months after the war. Most details that appear in the report are already known. Some of them have been discussed endlessly in soldiers’ testimonials, IDF debriefings, books written after the war, and even in newspaper articles. Beyond the details, we are painfully familiar with the failure and are aware of the terrible casualty toll.
The army honestly “earned” every word of criticism directed at it – in this report and in others. The declaration that this war was a collection of local operations lacking punch, narrow in scope, and with no common objective is accurate. The same is true for the statements regarding the paralysis and weakness that overcame the senior military command, and the blindness, hesitation, and flawed perceptions that characterized its conduct.
Yet this is not what the reserve soldiers came to hear, the same soldiers who rose from their seats in the back row when the report was presented; the ones who asked why they should be reporting for the next war.
Clear, incisive statement missing
Committee Chairman Tzachi Hanegbi may be right to claim that the report includes harsh criticism over the government’s conduct. The government was the one that decided to embark on a war right away. It was also involved in the battle plans and approved them. The government was the one that rejected the proposal to call up reserve troops earlier, and later decided to embark on a ground operation when it was too late.
All of that is indeed there. What’s missing is the one clear, incisive statement that leaves no room for doubt: Who’s responsible?
There was not even one thing which the army requested and we failed to approve, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said, more than once, as he prepared his alibi. Yet how is it possible that following these statements, Olmert disappeared from the report?
We expressed substantial criticism, but we didn’t mention any names, said Hanegbi. And besides, he added, we were a party to this too. The prime minister appeared before the Committee during the war and was praised, even by the opposition.
This may be true. Perhaps expecting more than this from a political body was naïve. Perhaps it was naïve to expect more from a Committee that comprises people who were in the government only yesterday. Yet if that is the case, then there is no point in expecting answers from any committee – neither this one, nor Winograd’s final report. This means that all that remains is to go to the town square. Because this is the only thing left.