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FOR THEM, NOW IT IS THE GOLAN TIME
“Mossad fell into the trap of siding with the Lebanese Christian Phalange and being drawn into
the first Lebanon war “
This assessment by Haaretz is rejected; Oren has it wrong on this one.
General Sharon and the Mossad under Hoffi’s command had it right, not wrong; they had all vision and courage when the Israeli Army supported militarily the
Christians Phalanges of Lebanon.
Lebanon’s first war was a missed opportunity, it came within the context if won, it would have prevented all of Israel latest military failures in the region.
There
were some political and tactical mistakes from both camps, in the first Lebanon war, committed during the years of cooperation between the two, but the strategic in-depth cooperation between the Christians &
Israel was right. Israel should not have stopped its cooperation with the Phalanges
Fundamentalist Islam was 6 feet under, battling on the defensive, from one grave to another.
It is not until the
Israeli decided the abandon the Christian Lebanese, opting for “diplomacy & politics”, trying to cut regional deals at the expenses of Lebanon instead of a instigating a confrontational policy against Islamic
terrorism, that got them at the end where they are today, the 40,000 missiles raining on Haifa, putting Tel Aviv under range of Hezbollah fire.
Retreat after retreat, accommodation after accommodation didn’t
bring any peace to Israel , it only created an Islamic embolden and few disastrous wars for Israel . The humiliating unilateral retreat of Israel in 2000 from Lebanon in the middle of the night by Ehud Barak, a
strategic regional mistake that precipitated the fiasco of the 2006 war, and the Gaza debacle in 2009.
One of Israel greatest intelligence weakness the Lebanese witnessed through the last decades of Israel
involvement over the region, was Israel lack of vision and assessment , mismanaging Lebanon’s affairs within a successful military strategy to help the friendly Lebanese and give them what they need win the war
against fundamentalism.
Israel instead gave up Lebanon , with high hope of imaginary deals with Syria at a time Syria and Iran didn’t, at the contrary, they gained & reinforced a dangerous ground and
momentum in Lebanon .
Fool is who believed that Syria , Hezbollah and Iran were going to stop at Lebanon international border with Israel , once Israel retreat from Lebanon under any circumstance.
This
is an open war with an enemy that sees no end limit, no rules of engagement respected in a battlefield.
Despites its political mistakes, Lebanon’s first war was absorbing lots of pressure away from Israel’s
back, and the West, embattling the Islamists against Lebanon’s Christian paramilitaries.
The Christian Phalanges were the West very first line of defense in the Levant against Islamic Terrorism, by abandoning
them; Israel abandoned itself to the mercy of the devil in the region.
We, Lebanese believe the biggest trap Israel ’s Leadership fell in is when they gave in to this school of thought.
They decided to
replace confrontation & strength by weakness and withdrawals, forgetting the Islamic challenges of the region focusing their whole attention by playing internal Israeli politics, known as “the politics of
Israeli withdrawals” “ necessary for peace, as seen by the vision of the Left”. What are the results of that policy? Look at Hezbollah , Syria & Iran today:
This simply “finished” Israel in the Middle East .
Israel's 'angel of destruction' is gambling on Iran
Amir Oren
Haaretz
The Persian Gulf has been a trip wire for Israeli intelligence chiefs for years. Military intelligence experts have been proven wrong and even disgraced, for example, because of their assessments
prior to and following the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War. Their predictions, in briefings before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, were undermined by the Iranians who initially did
not collapse in the face of Saddam Hussein's onslaught, and in the end made do with a bad situation and signed a cease-fire agreement. Then came the failed assessments during the 1991 and 2003 Gulf wars.
This month the "Gulf curse" hit Meir Dagan, who recently had his tenure as director of the Mossad espionage service, extended to an eighth year - who made a belittling remark about the intensity
and significance of the protests against the regime in Tehran .
In gaining yet another year, Dagan matches the achievement of Maj. Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Hofi, who
headed the Mossad from 1974 to 1982; only Isser Harel served for a longer period. However, Dagan is no reincarnation of Hofi, whose style of management was centralist, but who was friendly
and modest. Dagan, known for his off-color comments, exercises his power quite brutally, enjoying the fact that other senior officials in the government establishment are reluctant to confront him. In
intelligence terms this is a great advantage: He is apparently the only one who has learned to grasp, based on first-hand knowledge, how the minds of Middle Eastern dictators work.
Dagan, who will retire when he is 65, on December 31, 2010, as the second-oldest Mossad chief
(the eldest being his immediate predecessor, Ephraim Halevy), has sufficient stamina to wage battles on two fronts. The first is within Mossad, against his subordinates, who always lose because
the prime minister, their boss' superior, does not intervene on their behalf. This has been the case with all the prime ministers under whom Dagan has served: Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert and
Benjamin Netanyahu. The second front involves the realm presided over by the defense minister, and sometimes includes the chief of staff and the head of Military Intelligence, with whom Dagan likes to quarrel.
Earlier this month, in a rare show of fraternity, Dagan shared the podium at an event sponsored by the National Defense College (NDC) with MI chief Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin and the director of the
Shin Bet security service, Yuval Diskin. The three accepted an invitation by Brig. Gen. (res.) Amnon Sofrin, former head of research for the Prime Minister's Office, and founder of the Israel
Defense Forces' combat intelligence corps, to address NDC students. In such a situation, it is usually better for Yadlin to avoid sitting in the middle, with his ribs exposed to his neighbors'
elbows. However, this time the three went out of their way to be agreeable.
Counting the minutes
Now that it's clear Dagan will retire and that his successor will only be selected more than a year
from now - a decision that prompted his deputy to resign last week - curiosity in the intelligence community today is focusing on more imminent decisions, such as the appointments of the next MI
chief and the next head of the Shin Bet (who will take over on May 15, 2010). Within the Shin Bet there are three candidates to succeed Diskin, who is counting the minutes until he leaves: two
deputies whom he appointed, and the most talented candidate of all, even if Diskin who is not hot on him - G., head of the southern district, who is going abroad in August for advanced studies and
will wait in the wings.
After IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Defense Minister Ehud Barak finally agree, with the
prime minister's consent, on who should succeed Yadlin at MI, he will be the first to retire from the pinnacle of the intelligence community, most likely in the coming months. Meanwhile, the term of the
head of MI's research division, Brig. Gen. Yossi Baidatz, has been extended for a fifth year, until next summer. The leading candidate to replace him is Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, who has served air force
intelligence and MI's research division.
Another recent senior appointment in the army's intelligence branch is that of Col. Herzi Halevy as
head of its operations division. As commander of the 35th Paratroops Brigade during Operation Cast Lead, Halevy sought to promote the importance of immediate transmission of intelligence from
the "producer" to the "consumer": i.e., from the combat commander who is engaging the enemy in
the field, to intelligence staff. When assuming his new post, Halevy will replace - for the third time, in different positions - Brig. Gen. Nitsan Alon, his predecessor as deputy commander of the elite
Sayeret Matkal reconnaissance unit.
Meir Dagan came a long way to reach his current position. Danny Yatom first met him at the IDF
induction center in the summer of 1963, when both reported for compulsory service. Yatom intended to volunteer for the Paratroops until he ran into an acquaintance at the center, who
suggested he try to get into what was then the new and rather mysterious Sayeret Matkal. While waiting to be interviewed near the unit's hut, Yatom watched a tanned, skinny teenager who pulled
out a pocket knife and deftly threw it at the surrounding tree trunks; it was Meir Huberman, later Dagan. Watching his performance, Yatom was sure the reconnaissance unit would not forgo his
services. The selectors were not as impressed, however: Yatom was accepted, Dagan was not. At that time, neither man could imagine that years later, they would reach the rank of major general
and be appointed, each in his turn, to head Israel 's Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, otherwise known as Mossad.
Two weeks ago, when the Netanyahu government bestowed another year upon Dagan - a decision begrudgingly accepted by Ehud Barak - he had a right to feel victorious. Whoever did not want him
in Sayeret Matkal got him as long-standing director of Mossad with all the attendant glory. For his part, Yatom, a loyal member of Barak's circle but also a target of insults there, wrested his
appointment as Mossad chief from then-prime minister Shimon Peres, who was ostensibly honoring a previous agreement between Yatom and Yitzhak Rabin. However, Yatom was compelled to
resign from Mossad after two short, bad years, while Dagan has developed a reputation there as someone who has masterminded many deeds and tricks, rebuilt the institution from the ruins left by
his predecessor, Halevy, and has been an "angel of destruction" in disrupting the machinations of Israel 's enemies.
Like Barak, Yatom and others, Dagan was a commando officer (in the Rimon reconnaissance unit in Gaza , rather than Sayeret Matkal). He moved over to the Armored Corps, commanded a
battalion, a brigade and a division. Dagan, like Barak, was Sharon 's protege. In the last two years of Dan Shomron's tenure as chief of staff, Dagan was a brigadier general, the head of the
operations division - and as such, directly under Barak, who was deputy chief of staff - and Operations Directorate chief. The friction between him and Barak peaked during the 1991 Gulf
War, after which Barak was appointed chief of staff, and planned to promote his friends from Sayeret Matkal, Amiram Levin, Nehemiah Tamari and Uzi Dayan (Yatom was already a major
general), at the expense of Dagan and others. Under pressure from defense minister Moshe Arens, Barak was forced to keep a promise to promote Dagan, but did not assign him to a significant post.
Dagan won a partial revenge after leaving the IDF, when he managed the 2001 election campaign of Sharon, who beat Barak.
A year and a half later Dagan was brought to Mossad and since then he has not stopped looking for trees at which to hurl his knife. He did not become powerful because of his assessment
capabilities; sometimes he was proven right and sometimes he was mistaken. The main criteria for his job include the ability to gather information, to produce vital intelligence and to carry out
operations. There is a worrying precedent, however. During Hofi's final year, Mossad fell into the trap of siding with the Lebanese Christian Phalange and being drawn into the first Lebanon war.
Dagan's desire for an eighth year - as some think - because of his anticipation of developments connected with Iran , is a gamble that could end badly.
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