He is a pacifist

The army is supposed to operate under the threats at hand. Since the Palestinian intifedeh began in 2000 the threat at hand was the terrorist infrastructure in the territories which was erected with the help of OSLO and the Israeli left. In order to correct that error the army trained and operated effectively to decrease the terrorist elements radically. The disengagement from Gaza is a whole new ballgame that we will need to deal with in the near future as well. The Lebanon fiasco was an error that started with Barak and contrinued with Sharon. The Army WAS perpared for Lebanon but the amateurs in government decided that they know better and did not implement the prepped war plans. Try you agenda driven articles somewhere else!

It reminds me on problems that Japan Imperialistic Forces had in China before WW2... Also facts like: "Governing over the hundreds of thousands residing in the new territories that were occupied", and: "Soldiers whose time was dedicated to defending one radical settlement or another and screening miserable Palestinians at some remote roadblock ..." is on a good point to show is it maybe something other wrong in Israel attitude to Palestinian/Arab relations. Just to say: Israel problem is not in IDF. I wouldn't say the answer because "God chosen" and "Thruth knowing" participants would probabbly tell me to shout up. But... I feel safer than any of you as long I am out of US oil ways and radical nationalism.

So now we are left to fight them and police them. That or let people get killed in TA and Jerusalem (and occasionally Haifa as well). Oslo is more to blame than the 6 day war. We not only encouraged them to fight against us, we actually gave them the weapons and money to fight a terror war against us.

Now Rabin (who brought us Olso), Peres (who is trying destroy Israel with his close friends Arafat-Abbas), Sharon (totally corrupt with his son and Weisglass), Olmert (gifts, gifts, gifts), Peretz (nothing) are not responcible. Preventing terrorists getting into Jerusalem, Haifa, Tel Aviv is responcible for everything.

perhaps we can and should learn from the 'war' in Lebanon. Dayan told the US that they would lose the war to the Vietcong and when asked why he replied 'you are bombing from 30,000 feet and they are in the sewers’. Israel did better in Lebanon than the US did in Vietnam. The IDF operated openly and Hezbullah operated from under women's skirts. BTW - every Arab country believes that Hezbullah was defeated - Big Time Hezbullah gained NOTHING and lost a lot. Israel sustained damage (deaths during the ‘war’ were similar to road deaths) but life is pretty much back to normal and Hezbullah is under attack from Iran and politicians in Lebanon. Lebanese troops (and a stepped up UNIFIL) are on the border for the first time in 20 years.

regurgetating same old same old: its all the settlers fault....bla bla bla..try having an original idea in yo head and remember that it was RABIN and LABOR who started and encouraged those very same settlements. U r a shmok-even if u r supposedly an "intellectual".

"When there's a ballet class at one of the settlements, I need to dispatch an IDF company to guard it." And eliminating all those naughty settlers and their ballet classes from Gaza solved what problems exactly?

When is Israel going to stop paying the price for coddling the settlers' expansionist ambitions? When is the far right going to stop indulging its fantasies and instead work for the good of the State of Israel instead of its own ego?