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ANALYSIS / Next round of Gaza hostilities will be more intense By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent Tags: Hamas Gaza, Israel News  The Israeli reactions to the conclusions reached by the Goldstone Commission about Operation Cast Lead are characterized by large doses of affront and anger. But the issue of the next war is no less important. Justice Richard Goldstone, who conducted his investigation on the basis of a clearly ideological approach, effectively operated as an "unknowing agent" of Tehran. The practical significance of his report is that Israel is liable to wage its next war, against a more serious threat than the one posed by Hamas, with its arms and legs shackled. Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi this week told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Hezbollah is in possession of missiles with a range of 300-325 kilometers. He then reiterated the IDF's rejection of the accusations concerning its behavior in the Gaza operation. "I am not the commander of an army of murderers, looters and rapists," Ashkenazi asserted. The two statements are connected. Backing the soldiers and thwarting the establishment of a state inquiry commission in the wake of the Goldstone report is the army's declared stance, according to the chief of staff, but this far from reflects a consensus. Ashkenazi and Brig. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit, the military advocate general, were cautioned already toward the end of Operation Cast Lead that a delay in carrying out operational debriefings and criminal investigations would work against Israel. Academic experts conveyed a similar opinion to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, who supported Mendelblit's approach. The need for an additional Israeli examination of the events in Gaza did not dissipate after the publication of the Goldstone report, and it goes beyond the growing danger that suits will be filed against IDF officers abroad. Advertisement The report, which is being quoted everywhere and already almost constitutes a binding document, does not change the essence of the threat that Israel will confront in another round of fighting, in Gaza and especially in Lebanon. The next round will likely be more intense than previous campaigns - more rockets of higher accuracy and greater range, "from Dimona northward," as Military Intelligence puts it. To put a stop to the firing, the IDF will have to use considerable force, combining massive firepower with the deployment of ground forces. On the first day of the Second Lebanon War in 2006, the U.S. secretary of state at the time, Condoleezza Rice, presented then-prime minister Ehud Olmert with two red lines: Israel must not attack strategic infrastructures, or targets identified with the Washington-backed government of Fuad Siniora. But with the exception of these two constraints (and despite the fact that Dan Halutz, who was chief of staff at the time, claims that they were why Israel did not win), the United States barely intervened. During Operation Cast Lead the Bush administration was in its final days and Olmert decided to end the operation just before the inauguration of Barack Obama. It's true that Obama is employing methods similar to those of Israel, notably airborne "targeted assassinations" in Afghanistan, but the administration's liberal stance, along with the somewhat problematic interaction between the president and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will in large measure dictate Washington's response to the Goldstone report. It is not enough that Western leaders, generals and legal experts visiting Israel decry the incompatibility of the old laws of war with the asymmetric warfare waged by states against terrorist organizations. In any case, the Israeli demand for a change in the rules of war has as much chance of succeeding as a defendant in traffic court who demands that the judge change the speed limit. In practice, Operation Cast Lead - without ignoring its key achievement in bringing an extended period of relative quiet to the south of the country - indirectly created improved conditions for the enemy in any future confrontation. Short wars The calm on the Lebanese border is deceptive. All that's needed to spark a war is one significant terror incident, such as the kidnapping of a soldier in the north or a Hezbollah attack on Israeli tourists abroad. Hardly a week goes by without Defense Minister Ehud Barak issuing a threat to the effect that Israel will hold the government of Lebanon directly responsible for any aggression from its territory. But the limitations Rice imposed on Olmert could become valid again under Obama and after Goldstone. According to a report by Nahum Barnea in the Yedioth Ahronoth daily, Netanyahu has already drawn his conclusions from the Goldstone report: Israel must fight only short wars, which will end before the international community wakes up. This is a systematic doctrine whose chief advocate in the General Staff is the head of the Planning Branch (and a former fighter pilot), Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel. "Short" is almost code for "aerial." It takes far longer to mount a meaningful ground maneuver than to bomb Beirut from the air. At the moment of truth, Israel will face a serious dilemma: Should it initiate a massive blow to remove the danger, despite the major international damage this would cause? Top Defense Ministry officials admit today about the Gaza campaign what was publicly denied 10 months ago. The assumption was that a large number of IDF dead would bring about public pressure to stop the fighting and would make it difficult to present it as an achievement, on the eve of last February's general election. Thus the General Staff decided to use massive force and wreak major destruction on the ground in order to preserve the lives of Israeli soldiers. The unwritten doctrine stipulated that only minimal risk would be taken with soldiers' lives, with the other side of the coin being avoiding enemy civilian casualties. Ashkenazi, however blunt and forceful he is in his relations with his subordinates, is cautious and restrained when it comes to the use of military force. But the oversight of the General Staff was far from perfect and much was left to the discretion of commanders on the ground. Independent investigation The IDF was not especially quick to investigate deviations from the norm in the operation or to act against those responsible for them. Testimonies that conflicted with the official line were warded off aggressively (such as with the allegations collected by the organization Breaking the Silence) or hidden in accelerated investigations by the Military Police (the testimonies given after the operation by graduates of the Rabin Pre-Military Academy in Kiryat Tivon). The Goldstone report is a crude affair and steeped in slander, but Israel is finding it difficult to rebuff one of its principal contentions: that the IDF did not investigate the operation properly. Mendelblit told Haaretz this week that he has ordered additional Military Police probes, in response to specific accusations made by Goldstone. At the moment, the Ashkenazi-Barak axis is preventing other, more extensive moves. The key word in the responses of the chief of staff and the defense minister is "backing." Backing is indeed deserved by the 90-something percent of the commanding officers and soldiers who fought in Gaza and emerged with clean hands, having operated according to professional standards and in good faith. But there is no justification for giving backing to those who are suspected of destroying dozens of homes in the final days of the campaign, if this turns out to have been a punitive action and not related to maintaining the forces' security. Prof. Moshe Halbertal, a philosopher and coauthor of "The Spirit of the IDF," the army's binding code of ethics, published a reasoned article in the November 6 issue of The New Republic. In it, he states that the Goldstone commission showed a lack of understanding about the nature of the confrontation that took place in Gaza. He rejects the allegations regarding the bombing of the Hamas police officers' graduation ceremony at the start of the operation, justifies the IDF's retaliatory firing of mortar shells in some cases, and accuses the Goldstone commission of seeking "to prepare a general indictment of Israel as a predatory state." At the same time, he notes, it is important for Israel to respond to the report by presenting the principles according to which it operated in Gaza, as this will expose the prejudices that guided the Goldstone commission. "A mere denunciation of the report will not suffice," Halbertal writes. "Israel must establish an independent investigation into the concrete allegations that the report makes. [Thus] Israel can establish the legitimacy of its self-defense in the next round." Related articles: Hamas: Israel fabricating pretext for new Gaza war IDF Chief: Israel will fight in Gaza again if needed ANALYSIS / Israel preparing public for a new war in Gaza