From Debka: Nasrallah described how, several weeks before Israel was scheduled to withdraw from Lebanon, he organized the town and village populations of the south and several thousand Shiites from Beirut into massed groups of civilians, each ordered to stage marches in different sectors. Elderly people hoisting Lebanese and Hizballah flags, women and children marched in a body on the bases of the Israeli-backed South Lebanese Army who, aware of the Israeli pullout, did not dare open fire on the advancing processions. In no time, all their bases were overrun by the motley mobs and the Hizballah flag fluttering overhead. According to Nasrallah, the departing Israeli troops had to negotiate safe passage back to the Israeli border in exchange for leaving their weapons, even tanks, behind.
Our sources reveal that the Hizballah leader showed Hamas the Gaza version of his plan. For stage one, he proposed collecting the 200,000 Palestinian mourners who followed the Yassin and Rantisi funeral processions, and dividing them into groups of 10-15,000. Each would march on a marked IDF position or camp defending Netzarim and Gush Katif. In stage two, a million Hamas marchers would hurl themselves at Gush Katif, the largest settlement bloc of the Gaza Strip. Even Israeli tanks would not be able to arrest this human deluge, he said. The Israelis may start shooting, but the Palestinian mass will keep coming, and, like in Lebanon, it will mow down the army positions. The settlements will then crumble. Israeli troops and settlers will be stampeded into flight and the Palestinians will take over their bases and homes – not in 2005 as the Israelis offered, but next summer.
This would likely work. The Israelis, being foolishly of the opinion that it is possible for them to be regarded any worse by the world, will hold their fire until it is too late. As with Lebanon, they’ll find themselves retreating in disarray, giving enough encouragement to their enemies to inspire another three years of useless and pointless carnage that will achieve nothing.
I do not believe in war by half-measure. We should not have gone into Iraq unless we were prepared to wipe out every Iraqi in the country in defense of our national interest. We aren’t ready to do so, of course, because there was no sufficient provocation nor did/does our national interest demand it. There is no such thing as civilized war, it is inherently uncivil. It is evil. It is, rarely, necessary, in a fallen world populated by evil men. And when it is necessary – when it is absolutely inescapable – it must be pursued mercilessly until victory is beyond any doubt.