This Sunday, the third anniversary of the start of the Second Lebanon War, former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz warned, “Hizbullah today has more rockets with a greater range than it had before the war,” adding that the war was "a missed opportunity in which we could have achieved much more.”
On July 12th, 2006, Hizbullah launched a rocket and mortar attack on Israeli military posts and communities near the Lebanese border. The bombardment was allegedly meant to cover up for a surprise attack on two IDF hummers patrolling the border. Three soldiers were killed, two wounded, and two others kidnapped that day, which marked the start of a 34-day offensive which claimed the lives of 165 Israelis and 1,191 Lebanese.
Then-IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz claimed at a three-year retrospective conference that the war left Israel safer. Halutz resigned from his post in the aftermath of the war under heavy criticism of his performance and the IDF.
“Hizbullah took a heavy blow,” Halutz claimed. “Their rocket system was destroyed and their logistical backbone uprooted. Lebanese army troops now patrol south Lebanon along with UNIFIL troops.”
Halutz blamed current Defense Minister Ehud Barak for leading to the war’s outbreak, however. Barak, as Prime Minister in 2000, ordered IDF forces to unilaterally withdraw from a security zone in South Lebanon.
“The unilateral withdrawal itself was the right move,” Halutz said Sunday. “The problem was the policy of inaction pursued afterwards which saw little reaction [by Barak] to terrorism on the border. Hizubullah learned from that and kept on pushing farther and farther.”
The IDF deputy Chief of Staff, Halutz second-in-command Moshe Kaplinski, had a different view of the war. “The upper echelons of the IDF failed on several levels during the war,” he said. “We did not do enough, and those in charge now need to learn from our mistakes.”
“We could have done things to shorten the 34-day war,” Kaplinski said. On the other hand, he said that Israel is ready if it ever has to fight with Hizbullah again. “If we need to go to the Third Lebanon War, the results will be different,” he promised.
Former Chief of the National Security Council Giora Eiland blamed former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for failing to provide clear goals in both the Second Lebanon War and this past January's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.
“When we embarked on Operation Cast Lead, it wasn’t clear what we were trying to achieve,” he said. “If we go back to [the Second Lebanon War], also, there was no attempt to define clear goals for the offensive.”
Last Wednesday, on the Hebrew date the war broke out, the 16th of Tammuz, the IDF held a memorial service for its victims. Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger pointed out while speaking at the service that the war broke out only one day before the 17th of Tammuz, a Jewish day of national mourning for the destroyed Holy Temples.