With Guns Silent, Wartime Unity Unravels in Israel (NYT)

[laststeamtrain]

With Guns Silent, Wartime Unity Unravels in Israel Amid Fierce Criticism of War Effort
By GREG MYRE

JERUSALEM, Aug. 17 — In a country where raucous debate is the norm, Israelis set aside differences during war. They even have an expression for it: “Quiet. We’re shooting.”

But the guns have gone silent, the debate has resumed and the wartime unity has shattered.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and the military’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, are all facing fierce, even vitriolic criticism in a country accustomed to swift and decisive battlefield triumphs against Arab enemies.

“Because everyone served in the army, every Israeli thinks he’s a generalissimo,” said Shlomo Avineri, a political science professor at Hebrew University. “The achievements were less than expected, and the price was too high.”

He added: “From the beginning we should have set more modest goals. A lot of this agonizing is self-inflicted.”

A sizable number of Israelis have challenged the claims of their leaders that Israel won the war against Hezbollah.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/18/world/middleeast/18israel.html?ei=5088&en=bf978575313559ec&ex=1313553600&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

[Palladin]

1. Reservists: Officers stopped us from attending anti-war protest

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/752120.html
<snip>"..160 infantry reserve soldiers are accusing their commanders of preventing them from participating in a demonstration against the war in Lebanon, which they called a "debacle." The soldiers said they had been used as "sitting ducks."
<snip>"...They wanted to protest not only the army's moves in Lebanon but the decisions of their commanders, whom they accuse of sending them needlessly to their death.

"They sent us into a village they knew 15 Hezbollah fighters were holed up in at mid-day, we were like sitting ducks, it was total insanity. Two of our comrades were killed because of that. We are being used as though we were in the Chinese army, where it doesn't matter how many are killed," he said."