Now the Israeli fight begins

EVEN AS FIGHTING winds down in Lebanon, the sniping is only starting on the Israeli home front. Having gotten used to handily defeating their Arab foes, Israelis are understandably unhappy that this war ended in what is, at best, a stalemate. A few days ago, Haaretz, Israel's leading liberal daily, ran a front-page article saying Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "must go." Such cries are likely to intensify, along with calls to convene a commission of inquiry to investigate why Israel did not have more success in stopping the rain of terrorist rockets.

A weeklong visit to Israel, sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, revealed a catalog of defects that analysts attribute to the fact that Olmert (a former mayor), Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni (a lawyer) and Defense Minister Amir Peretz (a trade union leader) are national security neophytes.

Olmert's inexperience showed when he ordered military action against Lebanon on July 12 within hours of a Hezbollah raid that kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others -- without even bothering to hold a Cabinet meeting to explore various options. In his haste, the prime minister apparently accepted the assurances of Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, the first air force general ever to lead the Israel Defense Forces, that air power alone could cripple Hezbollah.

The air force did have remarkable and unappreciated success in destroying most of Hezbollah's medium- and long-range rocket launchers -- the Fajrs and Zilzals capable of hitting major cities such as Haifa and Tel Aviv. But there was little that aircraft could do against short-range Katyusha rockets, so small that they cannot readily be detected from the air. In their attempts to knock out Katyushas fired from residential areas, the fliers wound up inflicting substantial civilian casualties that, as Hezbollah intended, hurt Israel in the court of international opinion.

When it became evident that air attacks weren't enough, Olmert ordered small-scale ground forays that met strong resistance from dug-in, determined Hezbollah fighters equipped with sophisticated antitank missiles. It took a long time, at least by Israeli standards, to mobilize enough reserves to mount a full-scale invasion. The offensive finally began just two days before irresistible international pressure imposed a cease-fire, leaving Hezbollah bloodied but unbowed.