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Staat Israël op het punt Hizballah aan te vallen?
Woensdag, 7 November, 2007
De Israëlische militairen beveiligen de poort bij de grensovergang van Rosh Hanikra tussen Israël en Libanon 15 Oktober, 2007. Gil Cohen Magen/Reuters Legt Israël de grond voor preventieve luchtstakingen tegenover doelstellingen die behoren tot de militante Shi' ite groep Hizballah in Libanon? De spanningen hebben langs de grens Libanon-Israël in recente dagen gebouwd. Het Israëlische leger was vorige week met militaire oefeningen op grote schaal in noordelijk Israël, dicht bij de grens met Libanon bezig, dat in praktijk de lessen brengt die van 34 dagoorlog van vorig jaar tegen Hizballah worden geleerd. De oefeningen vonden plaats terzelfdertijd als de Israëlische stralen een groeiend aantal onechte luchtaanvallen en overvliegen in Libanees luchtruim leidden. De Israëlische vliegtuigen vliegen in Libanees luchtruim op een dichtbijgelegen dagelijkse basis, maar vorige week Libanees leger de luchtafweereenheden voor het eerst bij de stralen sinds het eind van de oorlog in brand staken. Hizballah, ook, wordt gemeld om tijdens het weekend zijn grootste ooit militaire manoeuvres in Zuid-Libanon uitgevoerd te hebben. Volgens een rapportMaandag in Libanon Al-Akhbar de krant, de driedaagse oefening van Hizballah was een reactie op de eigen manoeuvres van het Israëlische leger en was bedoeld, volgens geciteerde bronnen Hizballah, „om de vijand van het ondernemen van om het even welke verdere Libanese avonturen af te schrikken.“ Het begeleiden van al dit verhoogde activiteit is een vlaag van rapporten in de Israëlische media over het herbewapenen van Hizballah, met eisen geweest dat de' ite groep Shi vandaag raketten bezit die Tel Aviv kunnen slaan. Vorige week, rapporteren de Verenigde Naties over Libanon gedragen informatie die door Israël wordt verstrekt dat zogenaamde Hizballah zwaarder dan voorafgaand aan de oorlog van 2006, met honderden lange-afstands raketten en drie keer zo vele anti-ship cruiseraketten werd bewapend. „Israël heeft verklaard dat de aard en het aantal wapens in de controle van Hizballah een strategische bedreiging voor zijn veiligheid en de veiligheid van zijn burgers vormen,“ het bovengenoemde rapport. En bij een recente paneelbespreking in Washington, de uitgaande afgevaardigdeleider van personeel van het Israëlische leger openlijk over de behoefte sprak om een preventieve staking tegenover doelstellingen Hizballah in Libanon in de toekomst ooit te lanceren. De leiding van Hizballah minimaliseert het perspectief op het vernieuwde vechten met Israël. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hizballah’s secretary-general, said in a speech last week that “these maneuvers and mock air raids and these Israeli drum beats, threats and browbeats which we hear from time to time do not affect us at all.” “Today, we are stronger [than last year] in terms of will, determination, faith, morals, finances, brains, measures, presence in the field and preparations for the confrontation. Nothing intimidates us,” he said. Israel has been looking to restore its threat of deterrence, which was damaged by the inconclusive results of the 2006 war. The mysterious Israeli air strike in September against a suspected nuclear facility in northern Syria is seen as part of a renewed assertiveness. But could Hizballah also be in the Israeli military’s sights? Last month, this reporter sat on a panel to discuss Hizballah at a conference hosted by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The other panelist was Major General Moshe Kaplinsky, the outgoing deputy chief of staff of the Israeli army. Before discussing Israel’s role, Kaplinsky offered up a series of recommendations that he believed would help neutralize and ultimately disarm Hizballah. They included strengthening the Lebanese army and expanding the mandate of the 13,300-strong United Nations peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, to areas beyond the south Lebanon border strip. UNIFIL, he said, should mount patrols in Hizballah’s new stronghold in mountains north of the Litani river, the limit of UNIFIL’s area of operations. He added that UNIFIL must deploy along the border with Syria to check the flow of weapons smuggled into Lebanon by Hizballah. However, there is little chance of Kaplinsky’s wishes being fulfilled, analysts say. UNIFIL is under threat from groups inspired by Al-Qaeda ? six members of the Spanish battalion were killed in June in a car bomb attack ? and the peacekeeping force has no wish to make new enemies by deploying along the border with Syria and inside Hizballah’s military areas. Given those realities, perhaps it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise that Kaplinsky also declared that Israel should preemptively attack Hizballah targets in Lebanon, such as new positions and arms convoys crossing the border from Syria. “I approve preemptive strikes against Hizballah. We have to find the exact time. This is one of the lessons I learned from before,” he said. Kaplinsky has many years’ experience fighting Israel’s enemies in Lebanon, from 1982 when the Israeli army invaded to drive out the Palestine Liberation Organization then dominating south Lebanon. In the early 1990s he commanded the elite Golani Brigade at a time when Hizballah was evolving into a formidable guerrilla fighting force dedicated to ousting the Israeli army from its occupation zone in south Lebanon. Hizballah’s resistance campaign led to an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000. Hizballah units moved in to the vacuum and five months later kidnapped three Israeli soldiers from the Shebaa Farms, an Israeli-occupied mountainside running along Lebanon’s southeast border over which Lebanon claims sovereignty. Kaplinsky and other senior Israeli officers urged then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to order a swift and punishing response to deter future attacks. Barak, however, refrained from a heavy retaliation, apparently worried about being sucked back into the Lebanese quagmire just five months after leaving it. That restraint encouraged Hizballah over the next six years to build up an impressive military infrastructure of secret bunkers and rocket firing positions in the hills and valleys of south Lebanon, which was put to good use in last year’s war. Kaplinsky and other Israeli commanders say they cannot afford to repeat the same mistake. Although Hizballah appears to have rearmed substantially, Kaplinsky believed the organization is not yet ready for another round with Israel because of its internal political battles with the U.S.-backed Lebanese government. That suggests Israel has a window of opportunity to attack Hizballah’s military assets at little cost. Whether Israel launches preemptive raids or not, analysts agree that a second round between Israel and Hizballah is inevitable. And Kaplinsky was confident that Israel would prevail against Hizballah in that event. “I believe that the next round will take us less time, [we will] send [into Lebanon] more quickly our ground forces. We will have to take control of the area for some weeks, some months… to [disarm] Hizballah,” he said. Hardly encouraging words for the war-weary residents of south Lebanon. The original version of this story misstated the month in which an Israeli air strike against a suspected nuclear facility in Syria occurred. It occurred in September. Have Your Say: Is Israel About to Attack Hizballah? Please read our posting guidelines before posting. Alternatively you can discuss this report here. Related News
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