Ma’arav is an Israeli arts collective with a subversive bent that I stumbled onto at Flickr. (Some digging will uncover a photo from the daughter of my one of my father’s oldest friends — Nina Jawitz). The words on the poster translate to the aphorism: An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. What caught my eye is the reworking of a classic kibbutz poster that was influenced (more so in the 1930s) by socialist realism propaganda, which was not surprising given that one of the oldest kibbutzim in Israel Degania split over support for Stalin in the 1920s. This article has a pretty good overview of the role that the poster played in the Zionist movement, and incorporates this image below:
Turning from art to politics, this week’s Economist has a great article on the impact on the Lebanon campaign on the Israeli political landscape. When I first picked up the Economist 18 years ago I was shocked by what I perceived to be anti-semitic undertones in its Israel reporting, but found it to be an excellent source of news and analysis based on solid reporting. Reading this report and their ongoing coverage, the magazine has proven to be the most fair and level-headed of any other news source.
It strikes me that Israel is having another crisis of leadership, with the left now in a state of disarray thanks in part to Amir Peretz playing way out of his league. The article downplays his prospects, but if this creates an opportunity for the hack par excellence Bibi Netanyahu (whose brother died in the Entebbe raid and whose father is a world-class scholar of the Spanish Inquisition) to assume leadership, further disaster awaits.
AFTER a month of fighting that cost it 116 soldiers and 43 civilian lives,Israel has little to show for it. Although it has destroyed a lot of Hizbullah’s long-range missiles and killed a claimed 530 of its fighters, Israel has not obviously weakened Hizbullah, nor beaten it back to the Litani River, nor got back the two soldiers whose capture started it all. Few Israelis believe the Lebanese army and an expanded UN force will keep Hizbullah out of the south, much less disarm it or block its weapons supply from Syria. Although most Israelis still think they were right to go to war, many fear that sooner or later there will have to be another round. No sooner had the ceasefire taken effect than the patriotic fog of war was cleared by a cold blast of recriminations. Returning troops—in particular reservists, who unlike young active-duty conscripts have few compunctions about mouthing off—are griping about poor preparation, substandard equipment, missing supplies, constantly-changing orders given with too little notice. As for those left in Lebanon, a decision to make a last-ditch push for the Litani in the two days before the ceasefire took effect means some units are dangerously spread out, forbidden to move or fire unless threatened, and thus sitting ducks if Hizbullah decides to attack them.
And everybody is blaming everybody else. The general in charge of the campaign, Udi Adam, blamed the politicians for holding back the army for several days and then ordering the final push. The prime minister’s office says the defence minister, Amir Peretz, and the army were the ones who insisted on it. Eitan Cabel, a legislator close to Mr Peretz, accuses the chief of staff, Dan Halutz, of creating expectations that the air force alone could destroy Hizbullah in the beginning. Other generals think that he should have ordered a call-up of reserves right away.
A former senior officer criticises General Halutz as having the narrow tactical mentality of the pilot he once was. General Halutz impugned General Adam by naming another general to oversee him late in the campaign. Analysts complain that military intelligence knew too little of Hizbullah’s weapons and bunkers. Army types condemn ministers for cutting the defence budget. Reuven Pedatzur, a commentator on defence issues, excoriates the generals for misusing a budget that actually grew from 2002 to 2005. Current ministers snipe at former ministers for not spending enough money on shelters and emergency supplies in the north. Local politicians in the north censure the government for not helping out more while the residents accuse local officials of abandoning them.
One clear failure was the inability to understand how the Lebanese would feel about being attacked. Current and former army officers say that there was a hope that the first few days of air strikes would focus domestic anger on Hizbullah and force it to back down. Instead, the anger was focused on Israel, which responded by ratcheting up its campaign step by step.
But an even more basic mistake may have been to mismanage expectations. “Nobody thought the army would stop the rocket fire,” says Yaron Shavit, a reserve tank colonel who was called up to the war. “It was supposed to create a situation that would allow the politicians to reach a political deal. But it wasn’t understood how to explain this to the public.”
Similarly, Dov Tamari, a former head of the army’s theoretical-research institute, argues that since their massive victory over three Arab armies in 1967, Israelis have been seduced by the belief that fighting a war can eliminate a threat. Instead, he says, they should be prepared for a “continuum of wars” until the politicians—on both sides—are ready for peace talks. The war’s silver lining, he thinks, could be its political impact on Lebanon. Though not defeated, Hizbullah will be wary of provoking another attack. Hassan Nasrallah, its leader, has new-found responsibilities and Fouad Siniora, Lebanon’s prime minister, has a new-found stature in the fragile system of governance. “That is the war’s positive effect, though maybe it was not the intended one, nor even the one being presented,” Mr Tamari says.
The political impact on Israel, however, is to provoke a sense of political drift. Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, was elected on his plan to remove some Israeli settlements from the West Bank; but after Lebanon (and Gaza, where weeks of military operations have killed 200 Palestinians but failed either to release a kidnapped soldier or to stop the firing of rockets into Israel), he is seen as unable to guarantee Israel’s security if he does. Yet his party, Kadima, is a fragile, recent creation with no ideology besides the plan. And with the fighting over, criminal investigations into two Kadima ministers have shot back into the headlines.
The left, on the other hand, is in tatters. Mr Peretz, leader of the Labour party, Kadima’s coalition partner, now looks foolish to have accepted the defence portfolio; he has quickly been typecast as a puppet of the army. Opinion polls show him drawing even more blame for the shortcomings of the conduct of the war than Mr Olmert. The more left-wing Meretz party split over the war and could collapse altogether. On the right, Binyamin Netanyahu, leader of Likud, might make a comeback. But after Lebanon and Gaza, his alternative to Mr Olmert’s plan, which is to hold on to the West Bank and be tougher on Palestinian militants, does not look much more attractive. Pundits expect an early election; but if there is one, nobody now looks like a clear winner.
Noodnik 
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