Forward.com

Ari Shavit: Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran and Syria Win

Ha’aretz’s resident Jeremiah, Ari Shavit, paints a pretty grim picture about where the past two years have left Israel vis-à-vis its enemies:

Here are the results of Israel’s war against Hezbollah so far. Hezbollah is bringing home a living murderer, and Israel is bringing home two dead soldiers - over whose capture it sacrificed 160 other soldiers and civilians.

Hezbollah celebrates a symbolic victory, and Israel is in ideological crisis.

Hezbollah has won almost complete political control over Lebanon, and Israel wallows in irrevocable political chaos.

Hezbollah is armed with 40,000 rockets threatening most of Israel’s territory, while Israel has no response.

Hezbollah increases its firepower four or five times, and Israel remains feebly silent.

Hezbollah doubles its fighting alignment and sets up numerous outposts north and south of the Litani River, which will force Israel to conquer half of Lebanon in the next confrontation, while Israel remains paralyzed with confusion.

Feeling its power, Hezbollah is demanding the Shaba Farms area as well, while Israel is stammering its way to the next withdrawal.

Two years after an ephemeral militia provoked a regional superpower, the militia is growing stronger than ever, and the regional superpower is in a state of turmoil, degeneration and foggy stupor.

And, he argues, things aren’t much better on the Palestinian, Iranian and Syrian fronts.

Read the full article here.

Hat tip: Jeffrey Goldberg

UPDATE: It is worth noting that not everyone in the Arab press is hailing Hezbollah’s “victory.”

Even Sy Hersh Doesn’t Know What the Israelis Bombed in Syria

Seymour Hersh, who cover’s the spooks and cloak-and-dagger beat for The New Yorker, has spent the past three months trying to figure out what exactly it was that Israeli warplanes bombed in the Syrian desert in that mysterious raid back in September.

And he still doesn’t know the answer.

He doesn’t seem to think it was a nuclear facility, as many have surmised. And he does seem favorably disposed to the idea that the Israelis were sending a lesson to the Iranians. Beyond that, his lengthy article in the latest issue of The New Yorker still leaves plenty of questions unanswered.

The Israelis who Hersh spoke to, however, were adamant that they had, in fact, hit something of significance.

Hersh writes:

“Don’t you write that there was nothing there!” a senior Israeli official, who is in a position to know the details of the raid on Syria, said, shaking a finger at me. “The thing in Syria was real.”

Exactly what it was, however, remains a mystery — even to a super-sleuth like Hersh.