ISRAEL'S LEBANON WAR OF 2006:
A NEW HISTORICAL TWIST

"Pleiku's are like streetcars, one is always coming along".

[McGeorge Bundy. reflecting on the Viet Cong attack which allowed the United States to launch Operation 'Rolling Thunder' in 1965, which began the American escalation of the Vietnam War]. Conveyed orally to the author in Graduate School.

As the reader's of this online journal know, I was a harsh critic of Israel's Lebanon War of 2006. However, my criticism was more directed to the performance and manner in which Israel waged that war, rather than per se, the morality or rationale of the war. It now appears that to a considerable extent, that the war, from the Israeli perspective was pre-planned, in the McGeorge Bundy sense of the term. Which of course begs the question both about Israeli military incompetence, and, the American willingness and motivation to both back up the Israeli military action, and, the whys of that. Except of course, it would now appear possible that by the Spring of 2006, the Bush Regime saw a possibility of destroying Hezbollah, as a prelude to an attack on Persia? The latter is of course merely speculative on my part. I would like however to present to my readers the article concerning the revelations from Tel Aviv, that has appeared in the London newspaper, the Independent. So, please read and learn:

Olmert 'planned Lebanon war before soldiers' kidnap'

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem Published: 09 March 2007

"Ehud Olmert's decision to go to war in Lebanon in response to abductions of soldiers was taken as early as March 2006, according to a leak of his evidence to the commission investigating the war.

The report means that the military strategy was decided more than three months before it was triggered by Hizbollah's abductions of two soldiers on Israel's northern border in July. Israeli officials said this was broadly in line with what the Prime Minister has already told the cabinet.

Mr Olmert partly used his appearance two weeks ago before the Winograd Commission to defend himself against charges that the government stumbled unprepared into the five-week war.

But the report will fuel claims by some international critics of the operation that Israel, and perhaps the US, had for some time decided in favour of a military confrontation with the Lebanese group.

The report, in Haaretz, also suggests that Mr Olmert was told in May that Lebanon was ready to enforce UN resolution 1559, which prescribed the disarming of Hizbollah in return for withdrawal from Shaba Farms, the border zone occupied by Israel which is projected as a casus belli by Hizbollah, but which is also claimed by Syria. It says he passed the message to President Bush, Tony Blair and President Jacques Chirac.

According to the paper, Mr Olmert told the commission that he had held a series of meetings after becoming Prime Minister and had decided that in the event of abductions there should be air attacks, accompanied by a limited ground operation. He told the military that he wanted to decide ahead of any such event rather than make a snap decision at the time.

He also defended the much criticised expansion of the ground invasion in the last 48 hours of the war after the UN had agreed on a ceasefire-an operation, which cost the lives of 33 Israeli soldiers. He said the objective had been to influence the draft UN resolution, which he regarded as too unfavourable to Israel". www.independent.co.uk.