Israel's changing war aims

This is a perceptive article by Ze'ev Sternhell in today's Ha'aretz. Titled The most unsuccessful war, the writer points out that the more unsuccessful the war has been the more desperate the excuses for it have become.

No situation can continue to exist for long without an ideological reason. That's how when once it was clear that it was not achieving its aims, an unsuccessful military campaign was upgraded with the wave of a magic wand to the level of a war of survival. When everyone understood that a moral reason had to be found both for the dimensions of the destruction sowed in Lebanon and the killing of the civilian population there, and for the Israeli dead and wounded (nobody is even talking about the exposure of the entire civilian population in the North of Israel to enemy fire while people are kept in disgraceful conditions in bomb shelters), a war of survival was invented, which by nature must be long and exhausting.

There's a brief pandering to the Israeli army's "heroic" past:

The Six-Day War and Yom Kippur War were wars of survival, and through them the IDF was revealed in all its greatness. The present war is the most unsuccessful we have ever had; it is much worse than the first Lebanon War, which at least was properly prepared, and in which, with the exception of gaining control over the Beirut-Damascus highway, the army more or less achieved its goals as determined by then-defense minister Ariel Sharon.

And by way of that, the writer stumbles on where this war hasn't been like previous efforts by Israel. '67 and '73 weren't wars of survival but in 1967 the aim was clear and 1973 was truly defensive even if it was an occupation that was being defended. This time around Israel's aims are, like its justifications (never the same thing), unclear. They flit from reason to reason to unreason.

It is frightening to think that those who decided to embark on the present war did not even dream of its outcome and its destructive consequences in almost every possible realm, of the political and psychological damage, the serious blow to the government's credibility, and yes -- the killing of children in vain. The cynicism being demonstrated by government spokesmen, official and otherwise, including several military correspondents, in the face of the disaster suffered by the Lebanese, amazes even someone who has long since lost many of his youthful illusions.

What is perplexing about this is that Israel must have planned so massive an attack on Lebanon and yet they seem not to have a clear idea of what they want to achieve. It seems that death and destruction have become their own reasons for death and destruction.

Worth demonstrating against?