Is it too early to give the war in the north a formal name?
What should we call this war? Thus far, we've been using fairly generic names, like the "War with Hezbollah" or the "War in the North." But those seem too pedestrian to capture the essence of what is rapidly shaping up to be one of the most decisive fights in Israel's short but battle-weary history.
A grander name might be the "Israel-Iranian/Syrian Proxy War." Or how about the "War Between the West and Radical Islam?" But those high-flying monikers presuppose we know more than we do about who the ultimate players in the unfolding drama will be and how it will all end up. Most wars don't get named until after they're done. After all, you couldn't know the Six-Day War would be called that on the fourth day of the fighting?
Indeed, maybe what's taking place today along the Lebanese border will eventually be downgraded in the history books from a full-fledged war to a limited "operation," in which case the military code name - "Just Reward" - might just as well be used.
The Knesset debated that very issue earlier today.
MK Menahem Ben-Sasson of Kadima argued that Israel can use "the term 'war' only when the military actions are started by our side." Ben-Sasson expressed concern that calling the current conflict a war would contribute to a negative public image painting as a "hostile aggressor." He preferred the label "military action."
That response infuriated Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav. "Refusing to call this situation by its rightful name, a war, is a completely irresponsible action by the government," Yahav declared. Only by calling it a war can "proper aid be received by citizens of the North."
A definition of war also allows for reparations for real estate damage and provides a security blanket to employees and businesses guaranteeing that both will be compensated for time absent from work, Yahav added.
Meretz MK Zahava Gal-On agreed. "I think it is a clear case of hutzpa by the government not to have declared war the first day," she said "They are trying to save money while people are suffering."
Legal wrangling aside, I think we have enough data to give the war a proper name. My proposal stems not from the war's most likely conclusion, but the mood into which Israelis have fallen at its onset. Yes, there's defiance and resolute steadfastness. But there's something else that's gripped the country.
I say we should call this "The War of Disillusionment."
Not disillusionment in our military or even the government: opinion polls still show a high degree of support for the action in the north.
Rather, this is the war when our dreams of a new Middle East literally went up in smoke. Everything we've strived for since the Oslo Accords has been bombed back to 1967, most critically our hope that things could ever be different in our tough little neighborhood.
When Oslo first emerged on the Israeli political scene some 15 years ago, it was met by both detractors and supporters, but there was an overall mood in the country that, if nothing else, life would not be the same. We had a chance at peace, at treaties, at borders and negotiated resolutions. Some felt Yasser Arafat was going to be rehabilitated and that the PLO would be our partner. Our children would no longer have to serve long years in the army and reserves.
That was quickly followed by the peace treaty with Jordan and the opening of friendly relations with several progressive Arab countries. We even gave our daughter, born in those heady optimistic days, the middle name "Yonit" - meaning little dove of peace.
The process eventually culminated with the pull-out from Lebanon which, while hasty and ill-planned, still said to the world: "This is an internationally recognized border and you no longer have any basis for calling us 'occupiers.'"
We all know what happened then. In the fall of 2000, following the failed Camp David talks, Arafat and the Palestinian Authority launched a protracted campaign of terror and suicide bombings against civilians inside the 1967 "Green Line" that effectively buried the Oslo process.
Ariel Sharon re-invented himself and his drive to build the separation fence, along with last summer's controversial Disengagement from Gaza, were conscious steps to create a new reality, one where Israelis and Palestinians - and indeed, Israelis and the rest of the Middle East - would be able to co-exist peacefully … just not together.
Giving up the dream of driving to Damascus for falafel was the first disillusionment. Now the War with Hezbollah represents the final one. Because if disengagement posited that we can live in the same crowded piece of real estate, just not in the same building, we were - a year ago - still closing our eyes to the growing reality that the other side wanted us evicted entirely.
We wanted so desperately to believe that all those statements made in Arabic (but not English) about still intending to push the Jews into the sea were just poetic hyperbole that made for good rally chants, but that no one really meant it. That all those who had died in the years of so-called peace had not died in vain.
Now, sadly, Israelis believe what the other side is saying. And the message is this: Nothing has changed since 1967. Since 1948 before that, and maybe all the way back to the Balfour Declaration. The War with Hezbollah tells Israelis that our neighbors don't want us here, not at all.
Lebanon is not a border dispute - Israel pulled out in 2000 and the UN went as far as to recognize the border. The legal definition of the border with Gaza is murkier, but for nine months, the Strip has been judenrein. The attack that killed two soldiers and resulted in the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit was on the Israeli side of the border. So what else could all this be, but a continuation of the first Arab-Israeli war?
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday told representatives of the Gaza evacuees living in temporary housing in the Negev community of Nitzan that "we will yet evacuate communities and it is important to me to complete this chapter as soon as possible." He added that he was "convinced that we made the right decision to carry out the disengagement plan."
But will he really be able to implement his realignment plan? Will Israelis, after the "War of Disillusionment," consent to setting the hoped-for new international border to just a few kilometers away from their homes in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv? Hezbollah and the Palestinian government run by Hamas both get their marching orders from Iran and Syria. If Hezbollah can make a 35-kilometer band of land in the north of Israel a living hell, why on earth would Israelis agree to a plan that could potentially put those same missiles under someone's bed in a house down the block, even if it is on the other side of a "fence?"
Let's not forget that "when Iranian President Ahmadinejad speaks about destroying Israel, he means exactly that," wrote MK Ephraim Sneh, leader of the Labor Party Knesset faction. "And before he obtains nuclear weapons, he is trying to hammer and weaken Israeli society with various types of rockets and missiles."
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Israeli Prime Minister in their meeting on Monday that it is "time for a new Middle East. It is time to say to those that don't want a different kind of Middle East that we will prevail. They will not."
Israelis won't give up. It's not that kind of disillusionment. We won't all pack up and make yerida to New York or Los Angeles. We have no choice but to remain vigilant.
Even if the war is concluded in our favor and Hezbollah is dealt a mortal blow with international peace keepers replacing terrorists in southern Lebanon; and even if Iran is given a bloody nose through the defeat of its proxy and remarkably goes the way of Libya which has purportedly given up its weapons of mass destruction program; even then there's still no turning away from the lessons learned in these hot weeks of July.
"Give peace a chance?" veteran Israel Television journalist Idelle Ross said this week. "Wouldn't we love to? Maybe another time, another place."
Let me suggest, then, perhaps an even better name for everything that's going on: "The War When Reality Finally Sunk In."
