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William Arkin will soon be publishing a book about the Israeli-Hezbollah war of last summer. According to the New York Times. the book will be “critical” of Israel.

A study of the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah war commissioned by the United States Air Force and to be published this month concludes that Israel’s use of air power was of diminishing value as the fight dragged on because it was used without enough discrimination.Although the war was widely criticized in Israel and abroad for relying too heavily on the air force, the study argues that air power remains the most flexible tool in fighting groups like Hezbollah, because ground forces alone could not have achieved Israel’s aims. Israel’s error, the study concludes, was insufficient discernment in its airstrikes.

By bombing too many targets of questionable importance for its aims, and not explaining why it bombed what it did, Israel lost the war for public opinion, according to the author of the study, William M. Arkin, an expert in assessing bomb damage. “Israel bombed too much and bombed the wrong targets, falling back upon cookie-cutter conventional targeting in attacking traditional military objects,” Mr. Arkin wrote. “Individual elements of each target group might have been justified, but Israel also undertook an intentionally punishing and destructive air campaign against the people and government of Lebanon.”

(h/t Backspin)

Steven Erlanger, the Times’s Israel correspondent who wrote the review, doesn’t explain to what degree Mr. Arkin changed his mind. Last year, after touring Lebanon, Arkin wrote:

Israel may have made a grave error in attacking Hezbollah as it did, it may have used the wrong weapons and hit the wrong targets, it may have completely misread the enemy, it may have made its security worse for years to come.But the fact that one can drive a short distance from Dresden-like south Beirut and return to modern life itself should signal that this is something very different: Israeli bombers did not fly over Beirut and unleash loads of bombs. Each individual building was the quarry; the intent was there, and the technology existed, to spare the rest.

(See also here.)

I would argue that the review should have been called “Book Faults Some Aspects of Israeli Air War in Lebanon” (emphasis mine.)

I’m wondering how critical Arkin was of Israel. If his columns from last year are any indication, he wasn’t critical that Israel struck back against Hezbollah. He wasn’t critical of Israel’s use of airpower either. (Even Erlanger’s review says that.)

Clearly the title of the review wasn’t accurate. I suspect that Erlanger’s reading of the book wasn’t entirely accurate either, unless Arkin changed his views significantly from last year.

UPDATE: More via memeorandum.

OpFor looks at Arkin’s record (as more than an “expert in assessing bomb damage”) and wonders why the Air Force would trust his analysis. LGF provides links to more background.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The Ann Coulter/Donnie Deutsch kerfuffle has elicited a lot of comment in the JBlogosphere, with the battle lines seeming to mostly depend on the political leanings of the specific blogger. Right-leaning Jews tended to defend her, saying that her comments were simply a statement of her beliefs which coincides with that of many Christians. Left-leaning Jews tended to label her anti-semitic. At least one crossed party lines but then came back (although his viewpoint seems to be far more nuanced than most.)

While it appears that her “replacement theology” is not necessarily universal Christian thinking, I think we can safely make the assumption that she was espousing a set of personal beliefs that many other Christians share. For a Jew who is secure in his/her beliefs, this should not pose a problem – everyone who has a belief system, by definition, thinks that others are wrong.

Her comments were not anti-semitic by any means, but they were offensive.

Jews who grow up as a minority in a largely Christian nation often must fend off unwelcome but well-meaning attempts by Christians to embrace their beliefs, and, yes, to become “perfected.” This can be considered a minor annoyance or a major offense, depending on the temperament of the receiving party, but in no case are these considered welcome. Religion is a personal thing and when others feel it is their right to try to enlighten you, they are by definition causing offense on some level. The fact that most religions condone proselytizing is no excuse for actually proselytizing in a multi-religious society – as with one’s fist, the right to swing it ends at my face. Most Christians know this. Coulter cannot be unaware that while her beliefs are not offensive, describing them to a mass audience is offensive to Jewish listeners.

Coulter is a very intelligent woman. Unfortunately, as with most loudmouthed pundits, intelligence does not equal wisdom, and Coulter is far from wise.

(This is all separate from the disgusting way some people have seized on this as a sort of proof of conservative bigotry. And such opportunism is not only relegated to the Left.)

cross-posted at Elder of Ziyon 

Earlier this week came the news that a bipartisan group of 8 former government officials were urging the Bush administration to include talks with Syria and Hamas. Joe Klein calls the effort “creative.” The letter (cited here via The Washington Note) includes:

• We commend the administration for its decision to invite Syria to the conference; it should be followed by genuine engagement. 

A breakthrough on this track could profoundly alter the regional landscape. At a minimum, the conference should launch Israeli-Syrian talks under international auspices.

• As to Hamas, we believe that a genuine dialogue with the organization is far preferable to its isolation; it could be conducted, for example, by the UN and Quartet Middle East envoys.

Promoting a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza would be a good starting point.

 

Well, maybe Hamas and Syria don’t want dialogue.

Consider the news today:

Hamas’ top leaders in Gaza and Syria warned the moderate Palestinian president Friday not to “fall into the trap” of an upcoming U.S.-sponsored peace conference with Israel.

Ismail Haniyeh, who was deposed as Palestinian prime minister after Hamas violently seized Gaza in June, urged President Mahmoud Abbas to mend his rift with the Islamic militant group and criticized him for planning to attend the peace conference next month. 

“Don’t fall into the trap of the coming conference. Don’t make new compromises on Jerusalem, on our sovereignty,” Haniyeh said, speaking to thousands of cheering supporters for the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday.

 

and Assad?

Adding to the pessimism already surrounding the upcoming summit, Syrian President Bashar Assad announced on Thursday that his country would not participate in November’s conference in Annapolis, the Jerusalem Post reported.Assad said the conference would not answer any of his demands, his biggest being that Israel hand over the Golan Heights, a strategically vital plateau that Israel won in the 1967 war.

 

How can you engage parties who don’t wish to be engaged?

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.