Ehud made outrageous remarks to the arab press as to how hezbollah is scared to death and he would go to war again with his plan. He is out of touch with reality. All the facts say otherwise. Not only that, Israel has not improved its shelter program, or have ready an anti-kassem system. IDf has not created anti terror balanced israeli version of kassem missile program, and has not really figured out an asymmetric attack plan on hezbollah though Ashkenazi has improved training and organisation. So Olmert, this rag, crook and moron is allowed by this government of barak and livni to continue.Its like letting a pyromaniac play with matches. You are letting his buffoon wildly offer israeli assets to the enemies for a false peace and to save his rear end from ilelgal double billing, accepting cash from talansky and favoring messer's clients. You are all a bunch of morons. Olmert is not solely to blame. His wife aliza is to blame as well for forcing this weak man to adopt her views and pushing them on the israeli public which doesn't want them. They don't want oslo, they don't want withdrawal because it doesn't work- period.Olmert has to go to jail for his sins which are grave.What comes around goes around and it cannot be that God will punish Olmert. While he has taught cowardice to his sons who live in exile, and he has tried to turn israel into a pathetic coward, it cannot be that god will not punish this pathetic coward.

the iranian nuclear plant , it is also training for an all out war against all its enemies in the region including , lebanon syria iran and whoever else wants to wage a war against it , and this war will be a total distruction for all of israels enemies , i dont think over 300 f15s and f16s are training only to hit the iranian nuclear base , this mission needs no more than 5 f16s and it will be finished and to the point . olmert knows what he is doing , just give a little more time and he will blast the enemies with an iron fist that will take them years and years until they wake up from it ...

It was evident two weeks into the war. And, I'm being generous about the two weeks. As soon as I saw no mobilization of reservists, as soon as I realized that there would be no land invasion, as soon as it became apparent that we would not attack Syria, I knew the war was lost. The ceasefire & resolution 1701 were only confirmations of the ineptness of our gov't. & the fact that we lost. Everything since then is just an insult to any sane person's intelligence. A war which should have vastly improved our strategic position was turned into a fiasco & a major defeat. And we continue this losing streak in Gaza, in our phoney peace talks with Abbas, in the illusory peace talks with Syria, & in the obvious inability of our political system to remove those responsible. So, my question to you, Mr Sofer, is where have YOU been for two years?

This is about our entire leadership (quite a misnomer) - Livni played a major role in our "diplomatic defeat" - she's even less capable than Olmert. You don't even mention the retard who was DM at the time - good old Amir Peretz with his covered binoculars. The country's problem is Kadima, Labour, & Shas, a collection of third-rate political hacks & parasites, inept, incompetent, & self-serving.

Well if you read the talkbacks 2 years ago certainly most readers understood that 1701 was nothing more than a face saving measure that would accomplish nothing and that another war was a virtual certainty.

"and I watched as this horn made war with israel and prevailed against them" Nazrallah is a proxy for Benedict.Benedict is the horn.Olmert is his flunky(along with Peres) Good news? The old horn has only about 6 more months left to bother us.

How Catholic of Sofer! Let's continue to beat up on ourselves "we lost the war! we lost the war!" There. Feel better? Well I don't. Nobody won the last war. Both sides lost. Israelis tend to forget the facts: 1. Hezbollah started the war 2. Israel responded, and the majority supported the government and the armed forces. 3. We didn't get what we wanted, but we beat the crap out of Hezbollah trying to. 4. Hezbollah ate crow. Instead of a brilliant cross border snatch, they got 2 Israelis and over 1000 dead Lebanese and billions of dollars in damage. Islamic extremists being Islamic extremists, they called this their "brilliant victory" over the Zionists. 5. Israel ate crow. Instead of getting the kidnapped soldiers back, we ended up with hundreds killed and wounded, and discovered the military and the government both screwed up. Did we lose the war? No. Did Hezbollah win the war? No. Absolutists who prefer to avoid dealing in the myriad of complex issues love to boil things down to a simple sentence. But this is the muddle east, and a one line in-depth analysis simply doesn't exist (other than concluding the muddled east is a complex mess that requires a lot of work).

the result of the battle was a draw which is a political victory for terror--the war is now at least 60 years ongoing and still not lost or won.

Based on the stated goals of the Israeli government (at the beginning of the fighting), Israel did not win its battle against Hezbollah in 2006. It can be compared to the battle of Kursk ( the largest tank battle in history) during WWII in which the nazis attempted to destroy the Russian salient at Kursk. Despite inflicting many more losses on the Russians, the German nazis realized that they could not achieve their goals and broke off the battle. During 2006, Israel could have won if they had a plan that would have allowed them to fulfill their objectives. Unfortunately, they were led by a chief of staff that did not fully understand the type of battle that Israel had to fight, a defense minister with no military experience, and a Prime Minister who previously had declared himself tired of winning. It seems as if they decided to fight the war to minimize casualties and instead caused needless deaths and suffering from troops and civilians. Basically, this group of incompetents had no plan to win the battle and refused to call for a national unity government that would have brought in people who understood the nature of the fighting in Lebanon. Woefully unprepared, the IDF had poor logistical support, did not have a plan to coordinate infantry, armor, and air power, and sacrificed so many brave IDF soldiers If Sharon had still been Prime Minister or if Bibi had been Prime Minister, the outcome would have been far different.

I know that you were being generous in your two week assessment (as you stated) but the loss was immediately recognizable in the first week, when Israel put the war on hold for a week to allow everyone and his brother to run up north. At that point it was clear that Israel was not taking the war seriously and was harming its deterrence, severely. As Hillel put it, 'all the rest is commentary.'

But you wouldn't have guessed anything was going wrong by the press reports, by TV news here in Israel, by military analysts, or by any of our politicians. By the second week, when it was clear things were not going the way one would expect, no one in the media was saying a thing. By the time of the ceasefire, it was evident that this was a fiasco & still our idiot media said nothing. And, since that time, as we sit & watch Hezbollah re-build & re-arm, as we sit & watch them take over Lebanon, as we make insane deals for dead hostages, our inept politicians repeat a load of BS & our tuchas-kissing media go along with it. This didn't start with Olmert & his band of incompetents. This has been going on since Ehud Barak, that military genius, fled S. Lebanon, abandonned our S. Lebanese allies, & left a power vacuum that Hezbollah filled. And it continued as we watched for years the arms build-up by Hezbollah. And, all that time, our moron politicians & equally vacant media basically ignored the whole thing. If I knew Hezbollah was acquiring thousands of missiles & building bunkers while I was still living in an Arab country with a controlled media, then how could the Israeli "experts" miss it? The whole thing just freaks me out -

The very fact that an article with this title gets published on ynetnews today is symptomatically not Jewish: we meant to choose life! (Deut. 30:15-20)

You captured the essence of the situation. The problem of the media's refusal to see beyond their noses is a problem that is also present in the US. In Israel, the media is left and will not print anything that may be helpful to Netanyahu and Likud. The Winograd commission's refusal to call for Olmert's resignation because of the Lebanese travesty was based on their refusal to give an opening to Netanyahu. In addition, the media thoroughly demonizes the settler movement as fanatics and unworthy of protection. That demonization allowed the brutal expulsion of the Gaza Jewish community and the resultant Hamas take-over and rain of rockets on the Negev communities. Most of the major news sources, including newspapers and broadcast media are also leftist. They omit news that is unfavorable to their view of the world and were mainly responsible for Obama's primary victory over Hillary Clinton. The media mocked their former darling, Bill Clinton, because he had the nerve to attack their savior and sat on information, such as the Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers story. Fortunately, in the US., we have the internet, Fox News, and talk radio to present other viewpoints and to report on news that is ignored by the mainstream media.

The 'success' of a jewish enclave in the ME was/ is unsustainable without US active financial/military support. The US/Israel has been out maneuvered by some brilliant ME strategists. Lured into quagmire Iraq and the strangulation of the US economy in a classic pincer movement. Israel/US has two choices 1. Support the Arabs moderates who view Israel's expansionism and the refusal of Israel to accept at least King Abdullah peace offer as a downright insult that makes them look emasculated and sees Iran as the new defender of the long suffering Palestinians. 2. Attack Iran while these same moderates stand by their practiced dogma 'enemy of my enemy..' and pick up the pieces when Iran retaliates like a whiplash. A lose lose situation for Israel no less.

israel won the war, but lost the peace. un resolution 1701 provided the basis for hezbollah's reconstruction, and unifil provided the cover. by not challenging the one-sided behaviour of the french unifil troops (who literally provided anti-aircraft defences for hezbollah) and not exposing the massive smuggling of missiles from syria, israel lost the truce, and will likely be forced to start all over again.

The Six Day War was won with no US jets. Not only does the US control the weapons use, they make sure you are inferior. US aid is .06% of Israel's GDP. The only ones who can't survive with out it are the corrupt politicians. A tiny country like Israel, surrounded by western schooled nazis, needs the best weapons. WAKE UP!

The day after the war I knew that Hizbullah won, AND that the Olmert regime allowed !! it to happen. And I am NO military tactician. The IDF had every opportunity to decimate Hizbullah. HOWEVER, victory was NOT the strategic objective. The objective was always to insert foreign forces into the equation. This IS the part that most people don't understand.

This is because we did the job half-heartedly. Another day or two, Nasarallah would have left Lebanon or killed.

they are left-wing, anti-Zionist, anti-Western moral narcissists pining for exile. If everyone in the country suddenly realized, deep in their gut, that we are actually at WAR, they would all be rounded up in a matter of hours.

Its unpopular to say so, but hizbullah took a drubbing. No, we didn't realize our ultimate goals and we quit before we did lasting good - and I agree that's not a win - but our dear friends north of the border got their noses bloodied, and while they were able to declare a PR victory of sorts, they lost critical men and munitions, and had some serious setbacks they did not anticipate that hurts their overall stature. At the same time we learned we had weaknesses to remedy and have actively set about doing that. Nasrallah knows that, and he'll have to think long and hard about whether he really wants a round two. The hollow army of two years ago is retraining and retooling and is starting to look like a real fighting force again. At the same time, while hizbullah has some nifty new rockets, their overall fighting force is in a much weaker position logistically and politically than it was. That alone is a positive outcome. As a result "we didn't win" is a deceptive whine that doesn't take the broader picture and long-term results into play. We learned our lesson and find ourselves stronger while over time nasrrallah's position has become less secure. So, what didn't we win - the media war? The pride war? The IDF must win hands down in the tactical victories in the short-term while ignoring long term strategic and logistical realities war? This is one of the biggest problems we have: we're interested in battles rather than wars. Israelis are brilliant tactical thinkers, but most Israelis are weak strategic and logistical thinkers at best. Or at least, our media minds haven't grasped those realms of accomplishment while our generals, based on their behavior, do get it. Its not all in how things appeared at the end of our last little dust-up, nor are popular perceptions of the event relevant. The only thing that matters are strategic realities once the dust is settled. In that realm we came out ahead. It wasn't a decisive victory, but we gained more from a little embarrassment than nasrallah did from an ephemeral PR win. That's a win. So quit whining, go home, and whisper sweet nothings to your wife. They'll be more meaningful than what you wrote here.

Following the last war in Lebanon, Israel will have to draw certain major lessons to ensure its long-term strategic survival. What is needed now, immediately and urgently, are thoughtful and coherent guidelines concerning national defense, deterrence, targeting and even preemption (anticipatory self-defense). It is no longer adequate for Israel (more or less capably) to merely stumble from one war to the next without an appropriate “master plan” for direction. Armed with such a framework of expanded conceptual understanding, the Jewish state could quickly begin to deduce pertinent tactics and policy options to match particular situations and crises. In the near-term, of course, the need of both nuclear war avoidance and counter-WMD terrorism. The war against Hizbullah does not concern Israel only, as explained at: http://xrl.us/bi3hn

Some people think you won. Given the bigger issues in the region, moving the battle down the road so that your economy wasn't tanked and your fabulous technology development has gone on was a benefit to Israel. There is plenty of time for the bigger battle. The part I didn't like was the interference of the U.S. in the tactical process. (We were in Israel in summer '06 when it started.)

I also didn't like Israel having a labor leader as defense minister in summer '06. You've fixed that. Ehud Barak has a backbone and excellent military experience. He's (you've) tried all the things the lefties wanted and are moving forward from there to do what is best for Israel's protection. Iron dome is going to make a splash soon (since they tested the short range part recently).

Israel reached its pinnacle of power and influence a couple of years ago when the President of the USA gave in to all the Zionists demands. YOu can't better that; so it follows that it will all be downhill from now onwards. Get ready, 1967 borders here we come.