World

Analysis: Choreographed Warfare

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

February 8, 2000 / 9:10 AM EST / CBS

Call it 'designer violence.'

Israel's overnight air raids against Lebanon were a carefully calculated balance - between rage and the unwritten rules of a choreographed conflict.

Israel says its attacks on Lebanon's power system were a response to attacks on its troops, which have occupied parts of Lebanon for two decades. More accurate would be to say they were a response to unusually graphic TV coverage of the aftermath of one of those attacks last weekend.

CBS News Correspondent Jesse Schulman

Video aired on Israeli TV Sunday night showed wounded and dying soldiers being evacuated from the battle zone, after being ambushed by Hizbollah guerillas. It was powerful stuff - Israelis rarely get so vivid a close-up look at the realities of the Lebanon quagmire. The coverage magnified the impact of Israel's sudden bout of losses in Lebanon - five soldiers within two weeks. Public fury, political pressure and the screaming headlines of the media here forced Prime Minister Ehud Barak into a show of toughness in response.

But it was a delicately crafted show of toughness.

Under an accord brokered by the U.S. in 1996, Israeli forces in Lebanon and the Hizbollah guerillas trying to eject them are not allowed to injure each others' civilians. In effect, the pact means they are free to kill each others' fighters at will.

Under the rules of the game based on the so-called "Grapes of Wrath" accord, Hizbollah is "permitted" to fire rockets into Israel in retaliation, if Lebanese civilians are killed in Israeli raids.

Barak's problem was to find a way to assuage Israeli public anger without drawing Hizbollah rocket fire - which would have required a larger Israeli response in turn, and made it more or less impossible to re-start the suspended peace talks with Syria. His answer - to hit civilian power relay stations, producing the highly visible effect of knocking out power to Lebanon's largest cities, but with minimal risk of civilian casualties.

For good measure, Barak ordered attacks on "Hizbollah headquarters". Since Hizbollah can watch TV (and read websites) as well as anyone else, they heard the Israelis say the attacks were coming, and we can be absolutely certain the "targets" hit were long empty.

So far it looks like the careful craftsmanship has worked. The Israeli public's desire to see the army lash out seems satisfied. Hizbollah has vowed revenge but said very specifically it meant revenge against the Israeli military in Lebanon - that is, it would not be cross-border rocketing of civilians. Israel then declared the air raids to be over, for now. As of this writing, the arrangement is holding.

The twist in the tale, the part that isn't going according to plan, is that ordinary Israelis are sourng on the deadly dance. And it shouldn't be surprising, since Barak has declared Israel will pull out of Lebanon by this summer, come what may.

As a result, when Israelis see the pictures of wounded and dying soldiers, the part of them that isn't just hurt and angry asks, "If we're bringing the troops home soon anyway, why do more soldiers have to die in the meantime?"

By Jesse Schulman
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