The sharpening of knives

Two days after Israel waged its war; this means at Friday 14th of July, Yede’ot Ahronot the biggest newspaper in the state (and probably other news papers) attached to its copy a small blue-white flag written on it in Hebrew: “we will win”. Now after 33 days of war and one ceasefire resolution, all Israeli newspapers together with many writers, journalists and politicians have to admit: we didn’t win. The optimistic among them said we had a draw. The others said we had our first defeat. And they thanked the USA, England, France and the Security Council for the pro Israeli solution.
I remember that already on the first days of the war I wrote an article and said: “after all, and in the end man and not any war machine is the decisive factor in a war”
The Israelis (and many people in the West) can’t understand this simple sentence. They think that Hezbollah fighters are not more than a gang of extreme terrorists and fanatic Muslims who explode themselves to get their price in paradise in the form of beautiful ladies. Or they are mercenaries who fight for handful of dollars but when they face the first danger, they take off their shoes and run away.
Israel learned on its flesh that this is not the case. Although it’s true that Hezbollah is a religious party and belongs to the Shi’et sect, its struggle, which didn’t begin one month but about 25 years ago, was a patriotic struggle. It developed through a hard, bitter and long fight against the occupation of their land by Israel, which waged also in that time even more cruel war against civilians, destroying whole villages and committing many massacres. The collective memory of the people of south Lebanon is not short as Israel mistakenly thought.
Soon, the cannons will be silent, and another war will begin in Israel. Some people even said it has already begun. The politicians against the militaries, the politicians against themselves: Olmert against Pertz and vice versa, Olmert against Levni and vice versa. The coalition against the opposition and vice versa.
Everyone is asking now: where’s the victory which you promised us? is that worthy of all that loses? Etc. etc.
Few people, Like the journalist Gedo’n Levi in Haaretz said: maybe it was better that we didn’t win. Imagine that we had a big and easy victory, what will happen? Then the next step will be a war against Iran and Syria and we’ll destroy Gaza completely. The steadfast of Lebanon sopped such scenario. The arrogance of Israel is damaged.
Hezbollah can claim victory in spite of the high price which it paid and in spite of the unfair resolution of the Security Council. My question is: Can Hezbollah as sectarian religious party lead a whole progressive struggle against American-Israeli hegemony in the Middle East? I doubt that, but about this subject much writing and discussions should come.