I can see that you can choose to be realistic when it suits you, and you choose not to be when it suits you rhetoric. Of course, you’re hoping against hope. How much support you think your Hezb can count on in Arab countries after its mask has been uncovered?

http://www.14march.org/news-details.php?nid=MTc5OTI5

Not to mention May 7 in Beirut and all that happened in Iraq.

But then David (in # 13) had it right on the money with HN’s “rhetorical strategy of confident re-assurance”

So, to you as long as you can win through rhetoric you’re actually winning. Good luck!!!

Yes, but when your an anti-Israel, pro-Baathist American professor who is most likely tenured for life, and living the good life, who really cares about the Syrian people?

Does the phrase “let them eat cake” mean anything to you?;)

Although you agree with Prof.Josh’s observations, I think the difference is that this depresses Prof. Josh but not you.

The “resistance” thought it could hassle Israel with missiles without paying a price. Israel was able to break this equation and make the price unbearable for the “resistance”. The equation is now exactly as Landis says: You shoot missiles at us, we Gaza you, meaning that we target the infrastructure of your host country and cripple your economy severely.

Why does Syria support the “resistance”? Because it wants the Golan back. The Syrians believed that if Hizballah and Hamas harassed Israel enough, the Israelis would have no choice but to deal with them. However, as Landis points out, the northern border of Israel has never been more quiet since 2006. The whole raison d’etre of the “resistance” from the Syrian point of view has vanished. If it is not pressuring Israel in any way, what is it good for? If the Israeli borders are quiet anyway, why would Israel need to make any concessions to Syria?

As for Hizballah itself, imagine what would happen if for an additional 5 years, the situation remains as it has. The Lebanese will look at the situation and ask themselves: Since the Hizballah are not resisting Israel in any way, what is their excuse for keeping their weapons? Hizballah’s rhetoric already seems very empty since they did nothing to help the Palestinians during the Gaza offensive. Why was that? Either they didn’t want to, or they can’t. Either case undermines what they are saying.

As for deterring Israel from attacking Lebanon, I really fail to see the logic of that at all. In 2000 Israel left Lebanon. If Israel has long term plans regarding occupying Lebanon, why did it leave in 2000? Israel was losing on average 10 soldiers per year there. Yet Israel deemed that even that was too much relative to the benefits of staying. There is ZERO support in Israel for any war except for self defense. Just look at the reaction in Israel to the first Lebanon war. Don’t forget, the Israeli army is a conscript army, nobody wants to fight and risk death unless it is essential to the safety of his family and country. In short, Hizballah is not deterring Israel, because Israel has no plans to attack Lebanon even if Lebanon were completely demilitarized.

What Hizballah is doing is endangering Lebanon. Alas, only after the next war what I am saying will sink in.

Regard

http://www.14march.org/news-details.php?nid=MTc5NjE3

If you feel that strongly about my comments, then enlighten us with your response. That is why we participate in this post, I presume.

I am sure Mr. Landis is quite capable of defending his own thoughts, as he should and indeed will, in a rational to-the-point manner, once he finishes the conference in Boston.

Regards

I’m almost certain ‘Mr.’ Landis will pop in sometime and serve you the real whip.

As a start here’s one whip in English ethics for you. You do not say Regards to some one(s) you do not know or haven’t met. Formalities dictate that you should stick to the use of Sincerely until circumstances warrant the use of such more ‘intimate’ terms. So go back to English 101 and take the course again. You have missed on quite few important things that you need to learn.

He starts his assertions by stating that “It is hard to believe Hizbullah is really as confident as they make out” without providing us with the methodology that led him to believe that Hizbullah is weak. Did he not read/hear of the numerous reports, by both Israeli and Western intelligence, monitoring the ever-increasing Hizb arsenal both in quantity and quality. Now, one might say that this is part of an elaborate ‘psy-op’. If he were to at least mention this, in passing even, one would have viewed his ‘analysis’ with a bit more credibility. He then goes on to advice the resistance that it “has to do something” before it is too late. Is he sure that it is not doing something? It could be that the resistance is doing what Landis doesn’t like, or he actually doesn’t see what the resistance is doing. In the same paragraph Landis committed a potentially dangerous omission by taking Iran out of what he considers the resistance camp. Again, does Mr. Landis know something that we and most of the world do not with relation to the stance of Iran vis-a-vis Israel, Lebanon/Hizbullah, Syria and Hamas! The absolute gem however arrives in the same paragraph when the writer states that “Israel has won”, only to water it down by qualifying his statement by providing an time frame for his observation. Landis then goes on, in the fashion of Aristotle before his students in the hills of Athens (with all due respect to the philosopher), by posing a question and answering it himself. Unfortunately, his justifications for the victory of Israel appear a mishmash of omissions, half truths and outright untruths. “Israel defied Obama”, over the two-state solution he opined. That may or may not be the case, but let us consider the statement to be true to the best of Landis’s knowledge; how, I ask, does this represent a ‘victory’ for Israel? Apart from Syria and to a lesser extent Iran (I will bring Tehran into the equation even if Mr. Landis doesn’t wish to do so himself) playing diplomacy, as states usually do, neither Hizbullah nor Hamas do actually care that much whether Netanyahu scores more points than Obama or the other way round. They are on the record in no uncertain terms that they believe USA not to be an honest broker. Indeed Nassralah doesn’t miss an opportunity to say exactly that. He even goes further by declaring that the Obama Administration is engaging in a charade to pull the proverbial wool over the resistance’s eyes.

“By bombing Hizbullah hard and bombing Hamas hard Israel has mapped out a policy.” Mr. Landis, when in the history of the ME conflict did Israel not bomb its adversaries hard? What is the new policy that Israel actually mapped out post 2006 in Lebanon and 2008 in Gaza? The way I see it is that the resistance, especially in Lebanon was the one that dictated a new policy that deterred Israel from bombing hard at will, by carrying the destruction into its enemy’s territory, for the first time in the State of Israel’s 60+ history. The difference seems to me is the visible change in Israel’s behaviour not the other way round.
“No Western power complained when Israel smashed Gaza, nor have they complained since”. Are you for real, Mr. Landis! We mortals have heard of the wide scale and sometimes vociferous international condemnation of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which culminated in the Goldstone Report.

I read between the lines of your last paragraph that Israel is quite happy with the current status quo being the way it is, especially in south Lebanon because “No Hizbullah attack in over 3 years…”. You went on to surmise that if the situation prevails then Israelis would not have to make concessions for peace, neither will the West pressure them to do so. What is new, Mr. Landis in the holly alliance of Israel and the West regarding a peaceful and just solution for the Palestinian problem?

Contrary to your summation, I believe that 2006 especially has imposed a new set of game rules in regionally and internationally; call it the balance of terror strategy if you will. Israel has learned that now it can be hurt by its enemies, unlike in the recent past. Israel has tried mass bombardment to no avail. I believe that putting the so-called Dahieh Doctrine into practice in Lebanon, and I think that is what you are referring to, in any future conflict would hurt Israel’s inside much more than it will Lebanon’s. I am certain Israeli planners and strategists are looking at this very closely as they look for a way by which they can regain the deterrent element they have lost in Lebanon. If there will be another flare-up in hostilities it will be because someone in Israel got impatient or was ill advised that Hizbullah could be defeated. Indeed the Israeli army that we knew would have not accepted that its reputation be damaged, and Israel would have reacted immediately to redress the balance. The fact that it didn’t is that the price will be extremely high and perhaps existential even.

You end you speculative piece the way you started it by alluding again to what you deem is Hizbullah’s endeavours to camouflage its weakness by talking tough; again, quite a dangerous assessment.

To end, I would like to draw attention to the terminology permeating the short piece, which is quite indicative of the mind set of Mr. Landis:
- The term Resistance placed between quotation marks. A reflection of doubt on the writer’s part, perhaps!
- The “Gaza Solution”, as if Mr. Landis want us to believe and be content with disproportionate fire-power and targeting of civilians and civilian compounds, including UN facilities no less, is a viable solution that ought to be pursued since it provided Israel with its Landis-deemed victory;
- “will be Gaza’ed”, so insensitive and barbaric a coined term that makes it hard to respond to in any civilised manner!

Regards