12:00 AM (UAE)
Occupied Jerusalem: Vice-Premier Shimon Peres told a panel investigating the government's handling of last year's war in Lebanon that Israel's decision to invade was a mistake and the military was unprepared, according to testimony made public.
Peres also said Hezbollah did a better job of handling media coverage than the Israelis did.
The 15-page transcript of his appearance before the commission last November has large swathes deleted by Israel's military censors on security grounds, but nevertheless provides insights into the veteran statesman's thinking. The transcript was released on Thursday.
"The greatest mistake is the very fact of war," he told the commission.
"If it had been up to me, I would not have gone into this war."
Hezbollah rained almost 4,000 rockets on northern Israel, but Israel's military failed to achieve the war's stated aims - smashing the group and returning two captured soldiers.
While Peres refused to lay blame, he said the military "was not prepared for this war" and its inconclusive outcome harmed Israel's deterrent posture in the eyes of the Arab world.
"We are perceived today as weaker than we were before," he said.
Peres told the commission the war was neither a success nor a failure, but he said the government was wrong to publicly prioritise the return of the soldiers, snatched by Hezbollah in a cross-border raid on July 12.
"If you say your primary objective is to free the abducted [soldiers], you in practice put yourself at the mercy of the enemy," Peres told the panel. "Why would you say that?"
He added that Hezbollah had been more effective than Israel in the battle for favourable media coverage of the month-long conflict, finding an effective spokesman in its leader Hassan Nasrallah.
"Hezbollah united around a spokesman of no little talent - Nasrallah," Peres said.
"We relentlessly attacked one another. One person blamed the other and the net effect was negative."
Courtesy Of:
GulfNews
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