Thousands gather in Beirut to celebrate Halutz resignation

[bemildred]

Thousands of Lebanese gathered in Beirut on Wednesday to celebrate the resignation of Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Dan Halutz by setting off fireworks and shooting in the air.

Lebanese opposition supporters in Beirut, who have been camped outside Prime Minister Fuad Siniora's office for over a month calling on his government to resign, staged the event.

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A Lebanese parliamentary member on behalf of Hezbollah told Al-Manar television that "the war ended as Sheikh Nasrallah said: It was a holy and strategic victory. Halutz is the first victim of the victory."

In Gaza, Hamas parliamentary member Mushir al-Misri said Halutz's resignation, combined with the police investigation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, "proves the Zionist entity is weak" and should encourage Palestinians to "carry on the resistance and Jihad."

Haaretz

[oberliner]

1. What do you think is the significance of his resignation?

Do you think it will lead to further resignations?

[bemildred]

2. It is hard to be specific.

One would hope for some introspection and reform within the Israeli military. I would not say the odds on that are good though; but what little chance Israel has as a long term project demands that the IDF reform itself and become accountable to the political leadership. The USA today is an excellent example of where the "cowboy mentality" leads.

Certainly this will encourage Israel's enemies, but at some point you have to put such considerations aside and clean house, you don't keep gross incompetents in power because of how it would look if you fired them.

I would hope for Olmert and Peretz to go, a new government seems called for, and if Israelis are too witless to choose someone better, so be it. I think that much is likely, perhaps soon, like within the year. I would expect these things to be spread out so as to reduce the level of alarm among the citizenry.

But time makes fools of us all, and there are much bigger things afoot than Israeli political squabbles and failures, and there is every reason to expect that those bigger things will impact these problems in ways that I have no idea how to predict.

If it helps any, I don't think it's necessarily all bad. Israel could become a normal state, even.

[Fredda Weinberg]

3. Feh. Moshe Dayan resigned as well

If you don't understand the culture, your speculation has no predictive value.

[bemildred]

4. Speculation generally is speculative.

I didn't write the OP, my opinions are in post #2. I do think comparing Halutz with Dayan is an insult to Dayan.

[Fredda Weinberg]

5. Do you remember the Yom Kippur war?

I am old enough to remember '67 as well. So don't lecture me about Dayan - I was an elected official of Hashomer Hatzair, the American zionist youth movement.

[bemildred]

6. It was not I that started to lecture you.

And yes, I remember 1967, and I read a good deal too. I am sorry if all this upsets you, but it isn't my fault.

[Fredda Weinberg]

9. Upset? I'm amused

And I have fond memories of Rabbi Rund, who was my advisor during the election.

So, if you remember '67, do you recall the fear of the first days of the war? Dayan was no hero then. PR made the legend, but that came later.

It took a long time to prove the point, but '73 was the pivotal year. Labor collapsed and it was the beginning of the Likud, or as I like to call it, the Israeli GOP. Oil became a blunt political bargaining tool and new threats emerged.

So we adapt. Israelis resign ... it's what they do. The behavior is only remarkable because of the region.

Dayan was a product of that region - and I've learned not to judge from my personal experience. Insult his memory? To the contrary, he demonstrated the best of his breeding.

[bemildred]

10. Good, I'm glad you are not upset.

Could I ask who it was that you thought was speculating in your post #3?

Why do you think what I said in post #4 about Dayan & Halutz is lecturing? I thought I was just expressing an opinion

I was in California then, so I knew of it, but was not afraid of anything at the time, it didn't mean much to me then.

Is it correct then that you consider Halutz as good a military leader as Dayan, or something like that? Was he not so hot in your opinion?

What point was proved in '73?

I don't see anything remarkable in some military leaders resigning or being removed, I mean it's common enough, but of course it makes a big political stink.

What is it you don't judge from your personal experience?

Who (did or did not) insult whose memory, and how?

Who demonstrated the best of his breeding?

I really don't know what you are trying to say, and I'd like to figure it out.

[bemildred]

7. Reservists, refuseniks and evacuees united in glee / A brief moment of triumph

The reservist protesters, the military refuseniks of Yesh Gvul and the Gush Katif evacuees enjoyed a rare moment of joint triumph yesterday, over Dan Halutz's resignation.

"I am a happier civilian and reserve soldier," says Lior Dinmez, one of the heads of the reservists' protest.

"We breathe a sigh of relief," says Yishai Menuhin, one of the leaders of the Yesh Gvul movement against serving in the army.

Eran Sternberg, formerly spokesman of the Gush Katif settlements, also expressed joy over the resignation of Halutz, whom he called "the deportation chief of staff."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/814806.html

[Tom Joad]

8. From Gush Shalom, Israeli peace organization, statement on resignation of mass murderer

Here follows the translation of Wednesday's Gush Shalom press release



Dan Halutz, shooting himself in the wing

Press release, 17/01/07


On the day when Dan Halutz entered upon his career as Army Chief
of Staff, activists of Gush Shalom and Yesh Gvul stood protesting
outside. We flew across the Defence Ministry walls little paper
airplanes bearing quotations from Halutz’s infamous interview,
where he stated that he was sleeping well at night after his
pilots had killed fifteen civilians, nine of them children, in a
single minute of dropping a bomb on Gaza, and that he felt nothing
but “a slight tremor in the wing, as the bomb departs”. Two
years have passed, in which Dan Halutz was directly responsible
for shedding the blood of thousands – Israelis, Palestinians and
Lebanese.* The arrogant man who had no feeling at the death of
Palestinian civilians also led his own soldiers into an
unnecessary, cruel war, hastily and without preparation, and ended
with a shameful fiasco for which he is today paying the price. Dan
Halutz has today been thrown out of the job which he should never
have gotten, and we do not feel even a slight tremor in the wing.
Halutz’s successor would do well to remember that even the
commander of the most powerful army in the Middle East is far from
being almighty.

By coincidence or not, the day of Halutz’s resignation is also
the day that the military authorities withdrew their intention to
add yet another to the innumerable iniquities of the occupation,
and rescinded the intention of imposing an Apartheid ordinance
forbidding Israelis and Palestinian from travelling together on
the West Bank roads.** May that be a sign of things to come.


Contact: Adam Keller - Gush Shalom spokesperson [e-mail]