We Missed a Chance in the War of 2006
Local Editor
Source: "Channel 2, Ronny Daniel"
"The Second Lebanon War began as a dangerous incident occurred on the borders, and the outcomes and continuity of this incident led to deterioration, whereby a battle took place; however, it wasn't identified as war, and this is one of the problems.
I think that in that stage, there was a basic need for this military operation, the definition of which I view as controversial - like I said before. Everyone who forgot this should remember it: in the same stage, Hizbullah actually maintained its presence along the Fence, and whoever walked on the old northern route could see Hizbullah above. The institution (Hizbullah) sought to run things along the northern borders as it liked, kidnapping soldiers in the Shebaa Farms and then on the borderline 105. This had to be stopped, and upon this concept, it was right to conduct a big, wide-scale war.
Now it became doubtful whether it was right to proceed with this operation as they did. In general, this War was eventually a chance missed, for there was a real chance to deliver a much tougher coup to Hizbullah than we had been planning. And Hizbullah received a tough coup. In fact, the Prime Minister "Ehud Olmert" gave "Israel" and its military enough time to perform the mission, but time wasn't managed successfully in the battle field.
They hesitated whether they could conduct a wide-scale land operation
The Military was a bit uneasy and kind of unknowledgeable and not harmonized with its plans. The air forces performed a different and unique operation in the distant region on the first or second day of the War, but actually there was a terrible confusion by the borderline, and they hesitated whether they could conduct a wide-scale land operation. But they should have done that.
They were hesitant during the precautionary recruitment. Thus, regarding the military concept reveals that this entire battle was very vague. I could not accept the lack that the emergency-depots units suffered or all of these fussy allegations. Hizbullah did not have a lot of arms, and definitely it did not have many drill days. Simply, this battle was not conducted as it should, especially in the region close to the borders; there, a painful failure existed, and it resulted in grave soldier casualties and missing a big chance.
Soldiers prepared to defend citizens
While I was in the south, I was occupied with the information concerning an ambush and two apparently kidnapped soldiers. Also, we were occupied with the kidnap of Gilad Shalit. Well, this didn't happen upon a big war rather than clashes. They would shoot fire here and there, the civilians in Avivim would run away, and it would rains Katyusha rockets.
This was not a fort, but, unfortunately, a series of unbalanced and not purposeful clashes. It is sorrowful that fighters of the Paratroopers Brigade were killed near Kfar Giladi Cemetery and that civilians were killed in the airport parking lot. What is stunning about this War is that the "Israeli" community got uneasy upon the soldiers' casualties more than upon the civilians' casualties. Generally, the news on the casualties of the train-station workers did not receive much attention. Eventually we were confused, for there were specialized troops to fight and defend civilians. There exists no solution; this is the reality that we live.
A part of the media conduct and its reformations was embodied in Operation Cast Lead (The Gaza War). We even counted the matter psychologically, and hereupon the Military learned to work with us the right way; it is true that the Military was not directly uncovered because a part of the things was going to be confidential. "If you conduct a good war, the media is going to be good. But - away from compliments - if you conduct a bad one, the media is not going to get updated with what is going on."
From now on, all wars must be understood; I must always have cameras; there is no solution. Whether in Gaza, Lebanon, or any "Israeli" land, nothing makes it worthy of struggle; we have to know how to exploit this and how to live with this situation. It seems to me that Operation Cast Lead was a situation when the Military dealt with the media the right way. Even the media almost got what it wanted although it always wishes for more."
