Retreat? Flight!

By Uri Dan, Jerusalem Post, 1.6.00

(June 1) - The psychological distance between Jerusalem 1967 and Jerusalem 2000 is the distance between the IDF fighters who liberated Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, and the IDF soldiers who were forced to flee from Hizbullah in southern Lebanon last week.

Make no mistake - today's IDF fighters are no less, and perhaps more, brave and daring than those who liberated the Old City and the Western Wall 33 years ago. The difference is that then they had a professional, apolitical military leadership that ordered them to advance and liberate Jerusalem, even at the cost of heavy casualties to the paratroops at Ammunition Hill.

On this occasion, the IDF's high command ordered its brave Golani fighters, who had defeated the Hizbullah on the battle field, to abandon their positions and run, just so there would be casualties.

Thus, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Shaul Mofaz, OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, and the division commanders under them presented the Hizbullah - on a silver platter - with the first real victory the Arabs have achieved in the last 50 years.

Don't get me wrong. I am very happy that IDF soldiers got out in one piece, unharmed. However, when the issue in question is a military one, there is a difference between retreat and flight.

Do you remember how in 1967 we mocked the Egyptian soldiers who left their boots behind in Sinai when they fled? Do you remember the pictures of King Hussein with the secret intelligence files left by the Arab Legion officers when they abandoned their offices in the Old City? We felt victorious then, didn't we?

Therefore, we must understand the sense of victory felt by the entire Arab world, including the Palestinians, when they saw how Hizbullah terrorists stole heavy army trucks left behind on the other side of the fence , under the noses of IDF soldiers paralyzed by their orders; how they tore the Israeli flags there to pieces, and how they tried on the IDF uniform trousers left in the laundry.

There is also, of course, the question of the secret electronic equipment and weapons abandoned by the IDF in Hatzbaiya and Marjayoun - the same weapons which helped Golani and other troops defeat the Hizbullah on one of the cruelest battle fields Israel has ever known.

Mofaz, Ashkenazi and the divisional commanders in charge, how did you manage to transform these Israeli fighters into walk-on players in a performance of ducks running away under the cover of darkness? Even worse, you throw sand in people's eyes, maintaining that "everything went according to plan."

Was the treacherous abandonment of thousands of SLA troops, with their heavy arms, also "according to plan?" Did you receive a specific order (and if so, from whom?) to pull the wool over their eyes until - according to them -the last possible moment, deluding them into believing that you would coordinate the retreat with them?

Mofaz and his generals, who tried to blur the impression of disgrace appearing on the TV screen with pompous speeches and declarations, must answer for their failure to state inquiry committee. The IDF has retreated from the battlefield in the past, from 1948 to the Lebanon War, and there have also been political withdrawals from Sinai, the Arava, and the West Bank in return for agreements. However, there has never been situation in which the IDF abandoned positions and ran away, when its commanders lied and called it "a planned withdrawal". How will these officers act if, God forbid, an unplanned war breaks out, contrary to their delusions? Will they wave a white flag?

It is no wonder that, in the eyes of Hizbullah's Nasrallah, Israel now appears to be "as strong as a spider, despite its atomic bomb and air force." Far worse is the encouraging picture projected by the IDF flight to all Israel's enemies, from the Palestinians to the regular Arab armies.

We are now being informed that the fence will pass not only near Metulla and Manara, but also perhaps between Abu Dis and Azariya and the capital in Jerusalem when Ehud Barak hands over these towns to the Palestinians. What will happen tomorrow when a hundred thousand Palestinians, together with the armed troops of the Tanzim, the Fatah, and Arafat's "police," decide to march from there to the Old City, or the Temple Mount? Will Mofaz and Israel Police Insp.-Gen. Yehuda Wilk once again tell us that they were prepared for the worst-case scenario, as when the armed Hizbullah, together with Lebanese citizens, started marching towards Taybeh and Hatzbaiya?

This great danger has already reached the gates of Jerusalem in 2000, prior to the new siege. The government is bringing about this situation with its own hands, just as it brought the enemy to the windows of Metulla and Misgav Am.

Mofaz cannot avoid his responsibility for the abandonment of southern Lebanon by the excellent Golani combat troops last week. To both run away and present this flight as an achievement is behavior for an Arab army - not the IDF.

The time will come when the IDF soldiers, who regularly demonstrate their prowess on the battlefield, will be given a general staff they deserve, comprised of commanders who show professionalism and self-sacrifice.