... was a COLOSSAL blunder of strategic proportion. you can forget about "international legitimacy"... that and 50 cents will get you a bus ride somewhere. The main issue was that Barak's precipitous withdrawal - by leaving the impression that it was done due to pressure from Hizbollah and at no cost to them - deeply wounded Israel's deterrence... The erosion of deterrence led directly to the kidnapping/ killing of Goldwasser & other IDF soldiers in 2006. At a minimum, the withdrawal should have been slow, deliberate - and accompanied by flattening Hizbollah HQ in Beirut. That way a dramatic message would have been delivered to the enemy... leaving them no ability to claim victory. Barak totally blew it... one of the worst strategic decisions in Israel's modern history. From the way he opens his analysis, perhaps Gen. Eiland participated in that decision.... ?

macy is always a very bad sign (when Israel is concerned) In the next war we could start thinking about winning, for a change...

This is exactly the wrong approach - and the same mistake that Israel repeats: in the second war, Lebanon, whose majority denounce Hizbullah was beaten and weakened while the party emerged strong and victorious. Most likely, Israel would commit the same deadly blunder again! It is timely for you to realize you would be fighting Iran in Lebanon where its government is suffering helplessly.

While everything above may be true, there is one more thing that Israel doesn't consider but should - the safety of Jews around the world. Last year's war in Gaza saw antisemitic attacks rise globally to ridiculous levels. Sure it may not be the same as the home front receiving rockets, but then again Diaspora Jews don't have the IDF to protect them. While this is obviously something the IDF brass don't need to think of, it is a factor for the state to consider and therefore any future war needs swift and fast victory. Israel needs to stop thinking about what the international community is saying and worry more about Jewish communities safety abroad during War.

Quite simply, if Barak had not withdrawn Israeli support for the South Lebanese Army, Hizbullah would not today have 100,000 powerful rockets in South Lebanon. And now Eiland thinks that Israel's only escape from that dreadful mistake is to threaten to destroy the whole Lebanese state when Hizbullah destroys much of Israel. He praises the withdrawal because it saved, he says, 25 Israeli lives a year. And he has not registered that the cost of the withdrawal threatens to be tens of thousands of deaths in the mutual destruction of Israel and Lebanon. Like Syria these last four years.

palestine did not exist it is a roman name given to the area of jews and arabs in the .the muslem sect started long after the hebrew by thousands of years. NO ISRAELI IN 1948 EXPELLED ARABS NASSER ADVISED ALL ARABS TO LEAVE BEFORE ARAB TANKS DROVE THE JEWS INTO THE SEA.

The tar pit ME. Was it never made clear in the past to the Lebanese groups that you would inevitably strike & cripple the length of the Lebanese state if they continued to fail to neutralize the Hez crew? I find that rather hard to believe.

The Story of Hamas executions of up to 100 Informers after this last Gaza War only scratches the surface There were hundreds of not thousands of messages sent out from Gaza to reveal Launchers so that this mad destruction on both sides would stop Multiply THAT 20 times over in Lebanon by patriots and nationalist who want Hezbollah OUT and DESTROYED and you get the sense of just how vulnerable this Hezbollah soft squidgy underbelly is going to be

Eiland says that Israel has "to state in advance how and against who it will be waged". We have already done that, several times (easy to find and check through Google). Why is Eiland pretending that he doesn´t know about all the warnings and statements we have seen and heard during the last years?

If Israel goes into Lebanon, performs some military operations and than foolishly leaves; there will be no long term accomplishment. Israel needs to permanently change the status quo in Lebanon. The only way to do that is to permanently retake our South Lebanon Security Zone. We need to recognize the fact that Israeli retreat is the root cause of virtually all Israel's serious problems. And we need to reverse the madness.

Those who say "the world won't let us do it" are right. in case of Lebanon destruction, the arab/muslim/oil countries will pressure Europe and US to use a heavy hand against us, while doing nothing against Hezballah beyond empty condemnations. As a result all the above will demand, pending retaliations, a quick peace agreement with whoever gets their fancies (Hamas, PLO ...) to stop the "palestinian suffering" and to put an end to their plight. The well oiled media machine will start to inundate the world with pictures of some "green helmet" rushing babies out of ruins. As a result the world will hate us some more. As if it was not already too much. Lebanon is held hostage by Hezballah/Syria/Iran. You don't expect the victim to impose anything on their kidnapper. The "arab world" (their rulers) won't suffer very much over Lebanon, they don't seem to cry a lot over Iraq or Syria. They got business there? They have so much oil or gaz money that they don't even know where to put it. The only consequence of destroying Lebanon will be to give them one more excuse to blame, boycott, hate and kill us. Let's instead threaten them to destroy enough of their military in Syria in order to allow ISIS, al Nusra and other islamic werewolves to threaten shia and alawis territory. Nobody will be able to accuse us of destroying, ravaging etc etc etc a sovereign country. Shia and Alawis are way more scared of ISIS than of us. Because they know very well that, beyond their propaganda, we are not animals, we take care of prisoners, we don't skin or torch people alive. So let's ISIS take the blame and let's keep for once out of the center stage. The "more bombs" approach is not our best interest when there are animals on the loose as ISIS.

While Israel could indeed invade Lebanon and bomb the heck out of Lebanon resulting in the deaths of lots of Lebanese humans, Israel will ALSO have to pay a very high cost. In addition to all the Israelis that will die in any invasion, there will be tens of thousands of Israelis that will die because of all the missiles that will hit Israel. And just as Israel can destroy infrastructure, so can Lebanon destroy most of Israel's infrastructure, destroying the Israeli economy in the process. And once Israel retreats back across the border under extreme international pressure, who will help rebuild Israel? By the time Israel retreats, it is very probable that not even the USA will send a dime to Israel. The HARSH REALITY is Israel has reached the limits of its military power just like the USA has and the cost of going any further is higher than Israel can pay.

Let me start off by saying i dont support hezbollah attacking israel. But targetting state infrastructure and state targets is wrong in every way. This will only strengthen hezbollah militarily and politically. Hezbollah benefits the most in this scenario as it will gain more followers who previously hated hezbollah, more reason to refuse to disarm as the govt has been requesting and more reason to rearm heavily, and weakening the state will weaken its ability to confront hezbollah and provide for the south lebanese shiites without the need for iranian money. The lebanese government has never supported attacking israel and has been trying very hard to disarm hezbollah. Even hezbollas allies are urging them to use their weapons for defensive purposes only. Lebanon never participated in the arab wars. They even tried to dismantle hezbollahs private fibre optic network but could not because hezbollah saw this as an act of war and threatened the lebanese government. They also tried to fire hezbollah operatives who were monitoring airport activities and hezbollah pushed back. The government has accused them for evading taxes at the lebanese port and they push back.etc.The lebanese government is in no position to want war with anyone and are completely innocent. The reason why hezbollah is part of lebanese government is because they have a lot of shiite support because hezbollah freed south lebanon and provides the shiites with financial assistance. Wouldnt it be great if the lebanese govt could defend its country adequately and provide financial assistance to all citizens...hezbollah would be of no use....and this can happen with a strong state, not a demolished and weak state

will only strengthen Hezbullah. You need to hit Hezbullah at their power-base which is the Shia villages. Destroy the villages and drive their population into Syria and Hezbullah are finished. In the meantime we should be bleeding them in Syria on a daily basis. Their units are sitting ducks there and can be targeted quietly in the middle of the Syrian mayhem.

Like many countries in the ME, Lebanon is ruled by a minority. Shi'a are actually a majority in the population, but are marginalized in the government because of the way France set it up to begin with. In a fair democracy, Hezbollah would be running the government. As a result of minority rule, the government is very weak.BUT please note that neither the Lebanese government nor the Hezbollah leadership wants war with Israel. In fact it is Israeli leadership that wants war with Lebanon because in their delusions they think it will make the eventual war on Iran by Israel easier. As I noted above, any wars that Israel starts these days just weaken Israel even more and will be very costly to Israel in terms of deaths and destruction of the infrastructure and economy. Israel has no superiority in warfare any more.

#15. There would be costs involved in Israel permanently retaking our South Lebanon Security Zone. However, the result is huge permanent gains. Israel would be forever free of terrorist infiltration, rockets and terrorist threats. Israel was INFINITELY better off before our mad retreat from Lebanon. Israeli retreats are the disease. Retaking our abandoned lands is the cure.

They will not send the Lebanese Donkeys to war now. They need them to keep Assad alive. All Israel needs to do is add fuel to the fire. IS threat has the mullahs occupied. They are also stretched all the way to Yemen. It will be suicide to open another front for the Hezzis now. IS has been blessing in teh disguise for Israel so far. We need to get them closer to the Turkish border in order to scare the mullahs mroe.

I find it interesting how, even after 10,000 years of recorded history, people like poster #19 still vastly underestimate the COST of war either out of pure hubris or shear stupidity. I also notice that most of the people advocating war may flee to avoid death or could be the last to die. NONE of them volunteer to be the first to die. I have spent much more time in hot combat zones than I ever wanted and pretty much every person I know that has been that close to death values life a whole lot more than war. Then there is the REALITY that Israel can never kill its way to peace, but MUST negotiate. Again 10,000 years of human history PROVES this.

Hezbollah are in trouble, Nassrallah himself even admitted they are at their weakest position since 1982. If Assad falls they will retreat into their Lebanon heartlands and try to recover politically & militarily. If Hezbollah loose and ISIS march into Lebanon then next target for sure will be Jerusalem. Right now the threat for Israel in the north probably comes from the Golan rather than Lebanon if the Syrian troops loose the Syrian side of the Golan Israel could be dragged into this war.

Yes, the french had a part in giving the catholics most government power but lebanon's power sharing system was based on a 1932 population/religious sect census. Seats in parliament were divided on a 6-to-5 ratio of christians to muslims, until 1990 when the ratio changed to 5-to-5. Firstly, I do not see how the shiites, who constitute 27% of the population (according to estimates), are a majority. Secondly, Hezb (who hold 12/128 seats) and their many allies (which includes christians, druze, and other shiite parties) have the majority of parliament seats (68/128) while the opposition has 58/128. So Hezb is part of the leading coalition.And I think their power is much greater than the mere 12 seats they have. Best Regards,