Fifteen years ago last Sunday, Israel announced its unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon, ending an eighteen-year war. The move emboldened Israel’s enemy, Hizballah, and provided a model for terrorists throughout the region, writes Mitch Ginsburg:
At the time [of the withdrawal] there seemed to be a problem—that the war was killing more Israelis than it was saving, roughly two-dozen soldiers per year on average—and it seemed that the problem could be solved by retreating. . . .
Yossi Kuperwasser . . . was, in May 2000, the chief intelligence officer of the IDF central command. Hizballah’s ability to oust Israel from Lebanon, he said, was “wind in the sails” of the Palestinian militant groups in the West Bank, which, four months later, launched the bloody second intifada.
Palestinians, he said, would tell him often that two-dozen dead soldiers a year for several years in a row was an attainable goal for the Palestinian groups if it proved sufficient to pry Israel off certain parcels of land. He said he would always tell his Palestinian peers that there was a big difference between the West Bank—the land of the Bible, . . . in which Israel had built civilian settlements—and Lebanon, which was neither settled nor part of the promised land.
Today Hizballah is considered by many to be the strongest non-state actor in the world. It has upward of 100,000 rockets in its possession and veto power in Lebanon’s national government. Would it have reached this position without an Israeli withdrawal? Would the second Lebanon war [in 2006] have been necessary?
Read more on Times of Israel: http://www.timesofisrael.com/why-israels-retreat-from-lebanon-marked-the-birth-of-todays-middle-east/