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'Fighting terror is like fighting crime, not another army'
 "Fighting terror is rather like fighting crime, not like fighting another army," Vice-Premier Shimon Peres told a London think tank on Wednesday in a speech urging a strategic re-thinking of Israel's military and economic priorities. "Neither force nor diplomacy can resolve the long-standing tensions in the region as peace would come through sustained economic growth," Peres told the Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House). "When it comes to peace, I believe that we tried using strategy and diplomacy too much and did not use economy enough," he continued. "The war with Hizbullah has ushered in a new style of military conflict in the Middle East, one the IDF is unprepared to fight." The Lebanon war was "a new confrontation in the military sense," Peres told the London foreign policy think tank, with "terrorists equipped with missiles and rockets." This new style of warfare had changed "the nature of military confrontation from being territorial to becoming ballistic. It wasn't anymore a struggle for land or to win another piece of territory, but really trying to kill as much as you can without entrenching themselves on the land itself," Peres said. And, "it came as a surprise to us." Posted by: Fred 2006-09-29 |
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