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WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- Three days into the Israeli military incursion into Gaza, it is clear that this war so far is going Israel's way, in sharp contrast to the July 2006 mini-war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. As we predicted over the past two weeks in these columns, air attacks alone were not going to achieve the Israeli goals. Several of them, in fact, so far are being met.
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First, the Israeli army is re-establishing its old reputation for toughness, overwhelming power and tactical superiority to its enemies.
Hamas has not proved remotely comparable to Hezbollah in 2006 in showing any ability to inflict significant casualties on the Israeli forces so far. The Hezbollah forces were dug into well-prepared underground and protected positions in 2006 that took Israel by surprise. Hamas has shown no comparable ability to resist Israel. In the year and a half it has run Gaza, it has not been able to train its cadres to fight the Israelis with anything like the same degree of competence and determination that Hezbollah showed.
The Israeli army also is performing vastly better under the leadership of Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi than it did in southern Lebanon a year and a half ago.
So far the Israelis have been targeting Hamas' elite forces effectively
Ashkenazi and his Southern Command chief Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant have been directing the incursion in the style of British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery during World War II rather than in the style of dashing U.S. tank commander Gen. George S. Patton: That is to say, they have been advancing their forces cautiously but effectively, and they have shown far more skill in coordinating tank and infantry forces than much criticized former chief of staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz did in Lebanon in 2006.
If the operation goes well, Galant probably will be in line to succeed the tough, thorough Ashkenazi as chief of staff. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Monday that Galant for a long time was pushing for a serious ground operation into Gaza to cripple Hamas as Hamas grew ever bolder in bombarding Israeli areas within range of its rockets.
There has been a noticeable improvement in the Israeli army's training and discipline, both of which proved sadly lacking in the Hezbollah operation.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Barak also have taken much greater care to prepare Israel's domestic population for the uncertainties and strains of the war than they did in 2006 against Hezbollah, and the Israelis have finally started to use the Internet and YouTube effectively for propaganda as their opponents have for so long.
Hamas, for all its popularity and political effectiveness, has not proved remotely as militarily effective as Hezbollah. Of course, Hezbollah has been building its organization and roots in southern Lebanon for more than a quarter of a century. Hamas has controlled Gaza for only the past year and a half.
Nevertheless, so far in this new conflict, Hamas has clearly lacked the training, the equipment and the depth of defensive positions that Hezbollah deployed so well in 2006. So far, Hamas' vaunted abilities to wage successful defensive guerrilla-style warfare have not been much in evidence. And the casualties that they have inflicted have been derisory compared with their pre-war boasting.
It should be noted that the Israeli army has not been operating as the rapid penetration force that proved so awesome in so many wars, from 1947 to 1982, either. Nevertheless, the improvement in its performance since 2006 is noteworthy, and credit for it should go primarily to Barak and Ashkenazi.
At the political level, as we predicted in these columns, Olmert and Barak have taken advantage of the window of opportunity afforded to them by the last few weeks of sympathetic U.S. President George W. Bush's time in office to carry out the Gaza operation before new U.S. President Barack Obama takes command on Jan. 20. Obama is expected to move fast to stop the conflict, if it is still raging then.
However, it remains unclear whether the Israelis plan to try to drive Hamas totally out of Gaza, which they certainly have the military power to do.
The New York Times Monday cited what it described as "senior Israeli officials" saying the operation could go on for days, or even weeks.
Despite the growing wave of anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic protests around the world triggered by the continuing Gaza operations, the Israelis appear determined and able to continue in the face of those pressures as long as Bush continues to strongly support them. On Saturday night, on the president's instructions, the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire.
Hamas can still win in the strategic and political dimension if it survives the Israeli onslaught with the help of international pressure and retains its hold on Gaza. In that event, Hamas may be in a position after this conflict to advance its next goal of toppling weak and ineffectual Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas from his last holdout in Ramallah, as the titular ruler of the West Bank. But it will have to survive the current Israeli storm first.
