Jan 3rd, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Ground Attack
Israeli ground forces now moving into Gaza. Whatever you think of the merits of this step, I think we can take it as implicit acknowledgment by the IDF that the past week’s worth of air strikes were, though deadly to the people killed or maimed by high explosive and flying rubble, basically useless and undertaken without real strategy. So far, though, the fighting has succeeded in boosting the incumbent Labor/Kadima coalition’s poll numbers versus their Likud adversaries. So that’s something, I guess.
89 Responses to “Ground Attack”
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January 3rd, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Suck on this!
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:39 pm
FWIW, you may have seen that Moshe Arens (Likud, former MOD & for’n Min, former Irgun) argued in Ha’aretz that only a ground operation could achieve the actual purported military goals of the operation. (Of course replete with the WWII references regarding V2’s.) It is not unlikely that he’s describing the views of a good bit of the Israeli military establishment.
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:42 pm
That seems like a pretty big stretch. Why not take it to mean they always had a combined air/ground campaign in mind from the start?
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:47 pm
the past week’s worth of air strikes were, though deadly to the people killed or maimed by high explosive and flying rubble, basically useless and undertaken without real strategy.
Terrorizing the Palestinians is the strategy. I imagine the air strikes were very effective at it.
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:48 pm
@DJ
Exactly. This was certainly the plan from the very beginning especially in light of how poorly Israel fared following a bomb-only strategy in Lebanon two years ago.
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Does it therefore follow that the air campaign of the 2003 Iraq War (or the 1991 War or, basically, any American military campaign of the past 50 years) was “basically useless and undertaken without real strategy” simply because it was followed by a ground invasion…?
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Without strategy? I thought the strategy was to see if anyone would raise a fuss, and since no one really did they felt they had the green light to do whatever.
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:54 pm
I think this is MY’s once weekly “I’m going to write something really dumb just to piss off the commenters and then not acknowledge that I wrote something really dumb just to piss them off even more” post.
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Please… like someone was going to raise a fuss over Gaza…?!
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Does it therefore follow that the air campaign of the 2003 Iraq War (or the 1991 War or, basically, any American military campaign of the past 50 years) was “basically useless and undertaken without real strategy” simply because it was followed by a ground invasion…?
Only if you know nothing at all about how air attack and support relates to a ground invasion.
January 3rd, 2009 at 4:00 pm
WTF? Or maybe they wanted to kill as many opposing forces as possible from a position of safety before sending ground forces in. Softening up a target with bombing as the first part of military operation seems like a pretty common modern military tactic to me.
January 3rd, 2009 at 4:12 pm
“Softening up a target with bombing as the first part of military operation seems like a pretty common modern military tactic to me.”
I totally agree. I’d add that air strikes alone almost never work. They need the subsequent ground invasion to be useful. One would assume the Israelis have learned that by now. We should also consider that Israel was moving in tanks and artillery as soon as the air strikes began. Sounds like a pretty coherent plan to me. Of course, ‘coherent’ and ‘constructive’ are two different things.
January 3rd, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Or the air strikes served to soften up the enemy before a ground invasion..
That said, Israel will pay for this aggression with 20 more years of suicide bombers attacking their markets and coffee houses. Israel should be condemned by the international community for this, and I would love to see the US navy soften up the Israeli navy and end the naval blockade, then the USAF could soften up some Israeli targets like the Knesset and the IDF bases and make this a fair fight between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
January 3rd, 2009 at 4:18 pm
I think MY hit this on the head earlier this week when he remarked, that, “this’ll be good for Israeli and HAMAS politicians and bad for their respective citizens.”
One point I would like to see discussed further is the question of whether the HAMAS rocket attacks on civilians are really directed against civilians and thus a violation of the laws of war. Since, military service is compulsory in Israel, and nearly all adults, except for Israeli Arabs, are members of the reserves, couldn’t an argument be made that there are very few actual “civilians” in Israel proper. And indeed legally justifiable in light of the continued occupation (although Israel left gaza a few years ago, they still do not have control of their borders or flow of goods).
I’m not Pro-HAMAs or anti-Israel, (I’m actually pro-humanity), I’m just wondering.
January 3rd, 2009 at 4:22 pm
“Since, military service is compulsory in Israel, and nearly all adults, except for Israeli Arabs, are members of the reserves, couldn’t an argument be made that there are very few actual “civilians” in Israel proper.”
What about the children, dipshit? In any case, Hamas has made no attempt to limit its rocket attacks to adult, Jewish Israelis. I believe one of the casualties in a recent strike was an Israeli Arab.
January 3rd, 2009 at 4:26 pm
It would be just as pathetic for Hamas to attempt to re-define civilians as military targets as it would for anyone else. And should Hamas ever become technologically able to actually aim their rockets to a target, perhaps long enough to strike a military base, I can’t say they would limit their strikes to those targets, either.
January 3rd, 2009 at 4:28 pm
NattyB, I hate to invoke the dreaded specter of genocide here, but aren’t you pretty much saying that killing any Israeli Jew is lawful under the laws of war, since they should all be treated as combatants under Israeli conscription laws? I am not one to invoke the Holocaust (or the Khmer Rouge, or the Congo Free State, etc) lightly, but this seems to be an essentially genocidal view. (I say “essentially” because there are some circumstances in which killing even enemy combatants in war is illegal — e.g., if an Israeli Jewish soldier were captured and disarmed by Hamas, it wouldn’t be internatianally legal to kill her even if she were a combatant by any standard.)
January 3rd, 2009 at 4:36 pm
“Does it therefore follow that the air campaign of the 2003 Iraq War (or the 1991 War or, basically, any American military campaign of the past 50 years) was “basically useless and undertaken without real strategy” simply because it was followed by a ground invasion…?”
The Israelis claim they weren’t planning this from the start. That’s the claim. If they really weren’t then what Matt is saying would be true. If they were, well first they’re being deceptive, second I don’t understand — what’s their endgame? They’ve already killed countless hundreds of Palestinians and made life inside of Gaza into some sort of Mad Max-redux ghetto. By invading what else are their objectives? Blowing random shit up until Gaza just doesn’t have civilization at all anymore?
January 3rd, 2009 at 4:37 pm
“And should Hamas ever become technologically able to actually aim their rockets to a target, perhaps long enough to strike a military base, I can’t say they would limit their strikes to those targets, either.”
I think they would it makes startegic sense.
January 3rd, 2009 at 4:41 pm
If Hamas had a military, the same missile strikes would not be called “terrorism”. They could even market them as “surgical strikes” if they hired the right PR companies and had considerable influence over the press.
Don’t forget that Palestinians are regularly attacked and killed by settlers. The settlers are getting so unruly that they’re attacking the IDF now.
January 3rd, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Ah, to be killed in an attempt to boost a politician’s poll numbers. Is there any higher honor?
January 3rd, 2009 at 4:55 pm
I think NattyB share this opinion with all the Israel supporters who say most of the dead in Gaza are “Hamas security forces” and therefore “Terrorists”. Since Israel strangles Gaza economically , there are no private jobs, everybody there is connected to Hamas (the local government) somehow.
But the most important thing to remember is that this conflict is not a war between two countries. It is Israel attacking with the full force of a Western-equipped army a small territory under her control, that can best described as a giant prison. A government massacring people who would be citizens in any real democracy.
January 3rd, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Oh boy. This should bring Matt some heat from the “i get a boner defending israel” crowd.
January 3rd, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Chrsux,
The Lebanon operation was not “Air Only”. Israel tried to invade southern Lebanon, and they faced heavy resistance and casualties(116 Israeli soldiers dead).
Julian Elson,
Have you ever been to Israel? There are soldiers, in uniform and armed, everywhere. To me, this seems a lot like “human shield” tactics.
From an international law point of view, I don’t see how blowing up a cafe that almost certainly had several on-duty soldiers in it is any different than blowing up a school full of kids on the grounds that there may have been terrorists using it as a base.
I don’t advocate violence on either side, but I don’t see anything particularly egregious about Hamas’s attacks.
El Cid,
“And should Hamas ever become technologically able to actually aim their rockets to a target, perhaps long enough to strike a military base, I can’t say they would limit their strikes to those targets, either.”
Can you justify that statement? There have been a lot of interviews over the years of terrorists, this is one of my favorites. To quote:
Obviously, that doesn’t prove much. But it really is rather racist to assume in the absence of evidence that Palestinians would kill huge numbers of civilians if they could.
January 3rd, 2009 at 5:14 pm
FWIW some coverage of this issue from the UK.
Thursday 1 January
In the morning I get up early and call a friend who lives in Alshabora camp. He confirms the attack had hit there and I go to meet him.
It looks like an earthquake. Many houses have been damaged, and many people have been wounded. The people who had escaped injury were trying to clean the place up – they have nowhere else to go. But the biggest shock is when I ask about the target. It was the children’s playground.
“We heard a strong explosion happen, but with all the smoke and the dust we couldn’t see well, and the electricity was off,” I am told by a small child.
“We saw everything fall down – the window broke on us. We went downstairs, and people were saying that the playground’s been targeted. This park is not a member of Hamas, it’s a park for playing. It’s for civilians – so why did they attack it?,” asks one 12-year-old girl who lives nearby.
The target was a civilian area – but there was no warning, not one phone call from the Israeli army to tell civilians to beware.
I visit the main hospital in Rafah. There are so many injured people, most of them children. In one ward, I meet four children aged five or six. They are in deep shock. They can’t speak, they just look at you.
January 3rd, 2009 at 5:18 pm
The truly annoying thing is that Debka went down some time shortly before the ground phase of Cast Lead began, depriving news junkies and war nerds of a reasonably credible and timely source on the scene.
January 3rd, 2009 at 5:32 pm
The bottom line is that Israel can continue to do whatever it wants so long as the United States continues to support it.
And the United States can continue to support it as long as foreign governments – including specifically Arab governments – continue to purchase T bills.
January 3rd, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Where were the rockets Hamas was firing landing? Were they landing in Israel Or were they landing in Palestine? You know the part of Palestine that is illegally being occupied by Israel. You know they could be shooting at people that are breaking Israeli, law Palestinian law, and international law But they must be protected at all costs for some reason.
I have had it with Israel. They are denying the Palestinian people food. If you deny people food, they die. The logical conclusion is denying food is the same as denying the right to live. It is a war crime.
January 3rd, 2009 at 5:56 pm
“I have had it with Israel. They are denying the Palestinian people food. If you deny people food, they die. The logical conclusion is denying food is the same as denying the right to live. It is a war crime.”
Just one problem with your analysis: it is not considered a war crime under any international statute; and the blockade began after the Quasam rockets (unanimously credited a war crime by the UN and others)…
Just sayin’…
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:01 pm
I don’t believe for one second that a Hamas militant cares one bit more about killing civilians than do Israelis, who are quite happy to kill civilians. How on earth is that “racist”?
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Dagger Di Gorro writes:
Just one problem with your analysis: it is not considered a war crime under any international statute; and the blockade began after the Quasam rockets (unanimously credited a war crime by the UN and others)…
Just one problem with your analysis: Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention declares:
No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.
Pillage is prohibited.
Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.
Just sayin’…
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Collective punishment is always a war crime regardless of timing. Denying the Palestinians food is a war crime regardless of who started the hostilities. And it started before the rockets from hamas.
Just sayin’
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:08 pm
ndm Thanks! You said it better and with documentation!
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:09 pm
I’m sure the Top Ten “progressives” are cheering on the genocide. I think it’s wonderful that the IDF is now going in to run tanks over fleeing children. If only you were all there to say “hip, hip, hooray” when the Nazis penned in the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto or better yet when the Eisentzgruppen moved behind the regular German troops into Poland and Russia. Could anyone really blame al-Qaeda now if they started targeting all the morally repulsive Jewish progressives (a.k.a. poltroons) here? Because you’re complicit in Nazi Israel’s slaughter.
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:23 pm
الموت لاسرائيل
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Since we, as American taxpayers, are paying for the soundtrack to this vicious little campaign ad, aren’t we at least entitled to slip in a little recorded note that says we don’t approve of this message?
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:36 pm
“regardless of who started the hostilities”
At this point, it’s way too late to worry about who started the hostilities. These hostilities go back to the late 19th Century. Ultimately, we really can only question the wisdom of the Ottoman Empire in allowing Jewish immigration to Palestine. They really deserve the most blame, and they don’t exist anymore. The sad thing is that Ottoman Empire was really trying to do a good thing. But good things can have bad consequences. We need to move on from worrying about who killed whom, to finding a way to stop the killing.
January 3rd, 2009 at 7:03 pm
You seem to think that the two modes of attack are separate; they aren’t. The aerial assault’s purpose was to make it easier for the ground assault to succeed at its stated goals.
Combined Arms – you might read up on it.
January 3rd, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Collective punishment is a war crime but blockade doesn’t count as collective punishment. Those were the international norms as defined by the victors in both World Wars I and II (which saw attempts at blockade by all parties).
January 3rd, 2009 at 7:07 pm
The poll numbers are not just “something” but “the main thing”. People often say that Israeli air strikes on Gaza create new suicide bombers, but it’s equally true that Hamas missiles on Sderot (and, now, points north) create new Likud voters (or voters for parties even more wingnut-nationalist than Likud). If Israel paused its campaign and Hamas kept lobbing missiles, the Israeli wingnuts would tell the swing voters “see, if you want to stop Hamas, you need a government with the balls to finish the job”.
January 3rd, 2009 at 7:07 pm
What good will come of this killing and destruction?
Does anyone have an answer which doesn’t involve Kadima’s pole ratings?
January 3rd, 2009 at 7:21 pm
The fact is that this action by Israel was done with the permission of the US Government. Olmert, like Sharon, Barak, Netanyahu, Peres, Rabin etc. doesn’t go to the mens room without getting permission from the US president. That fact will not change unless or until the State of Israel weans itself off the US teat. The only question is will President Elect Osama be as permissive as some of his predecessors have been?
January 3rd, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Is Obama really offering a “nuclear umbrella” to Israel?
January 3rd, 2009 at 7:33 pm
I think everyone needs to realize that war is a crime. Humans killing humans is not a socially redeeming venture. Given that, it is sometime a necessary condition in the human animal. The only moral way to wage war is quickly and violently. When wars drag out is when the innocents suffer. The situation in Israel and Palestine is a war that has lasted 61 years because of a lack of will on the part of the UN. Thus, innocents continue to suffer.
January 3rd, 2009 at 7:38 pm
“I would love to see the US navy soften up the Israeli navy and end the naval blockade, then the USAF could soften up some Israeli targets like the Knesset and the IDF bases and make this a fair fight between the Israelis and the Palestinians.”
And I’d love to see Giselle Bundchen lick my balls. Keep dreaming.
“The only question is will President Elect Osama be as permissive as some of his predecessors have been?”
Even more, probably. First, $3 billion isn’t even a rounding error compared to the money he’s going to spend domestically. Second, our first president with a Muslim father, stepfather, and middle name is going to go out of his way to show he’s pro-Israel. In fact, he already has. Remember his little speech this summer about how he’d feel if someone were launching rockets at his house where his daughters were sleeping? I bet the Israelis remember it, and took it as an implicit green light to bomb the stuffing out of Gaza.
January 3rd, 2009 at 8:20 pm
I don’t know if Obama will change the US policies on this. If I had to bet on it, I’d bet know. I do know one thing — he’s the first US president with extensive experience in the Muslim world, and he certainly won’t be able to sleep well if he doesn’t change the policies.
January 3rd, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Ariel bombardment is useless strategically. Save nuclear I guess. The well known but always forgotten lesson of WWII is that the destruction of many German cities didn’t really effect the military outcome much. However it is a great way to terrorize people especially ordinary citizens.
Bombardment is terrorism. Period.
The US has been bombed by air twice. WTC North and WTC South. As terrible as it was it, it’s a minuscule little note in the 70 year history of aerial bombardment of civilians.
The US is the master of bombing civilians. We have probably killed at least a million civilians by bombing them. We love it. We bombed Bagdhad twice, in both wars, for no reason other than the sheer love of destroying things. Bombing cities is a method, the method, of meting out collective punnishment. We love it.
In the terrible Iraq Iran war, as far as I know, neither side bombed civilians from the air. Both sides had air power and were probably capable of it. Of course since both sides could one can figure that provided a deterrent.
It is oh so easy to bomb defenseless cities. Doubly easy when there is no possibility of a counter strike. That’s what we love most, in the home of the brave.
January 3rd, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Just one problem with your analysis: Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention declares:
No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.
Pillage is prohibited.
Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.
Of course if you want to interpret the Geneva Convention in that way, more power to you. You must, however, admit that under your interpretation every American administration that has conducted a war in the past 100 years – including and especially World War II (though admittedly the 4th Geneva conventions were passed after WWII) – is guilty of far more egregious war crimes.
January 3rd, 2009 at 9:10 pm
No argument there.
January 3rd, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Re Obama and his previous statements about Israel:
Perhaps BHO has adopted the tried-and-true Israeli attitude to declarations – to say you will do or not do something while doing the exact opposite of what you have declared.
January 3rd, 2009 at 9:17 pm
“The US is the master of bombing civilians. We have probably killed at least a million civilians by bombing them.”
Well, now there’s an understatement. We killed about a million in Cambodia alone. Want to add in Laos, Vietnam, and Indonesia? Then we’re up to about four million. And we haven’t even mentioned World War II or Korea. Now those numbers include starvation effects, but they should. When you drop Agent Orange and napalm people’s rice fields, you can’t claim you never expected them to be without food. That was the purpose, after all. In that sense, Dagger Di Gorro’s last comment is pretty damn true. And if we’re really looking for an American war crime, Dresden would be a good place to look. Although Hanoi would be another good example. In the end though, the bombing of Cambodia has to be our darkest hour. The bombing was bad enough, and it didn’t have much military justification. But the repercussions were truly horrible. While it’s true that even the Cambodians didn’t predict what was to come, maybe we should learn to expect such repercussions. Here’s a simple concept: bombing people doesn’t make them love you. Crazy, I know.
January 3rd, 2009 at 9:34 pm
You must, however, admit that under your interpretation every American administration that has conducted a war in the past 100 years – including and especially World War II (though admittedly the 4th Geneva conventions were passed after WWII) – is guilty of far more egregious war crimes.
Yeah, no shit.
January 3rd, 2009 at 9:54 pm
America’s Iraq Project, and specifically the example of Fallujah in 2004, shows what the Israelis have to look forward to – they may very well end up razing Gaza to the ground. Fortunately for the Israelis by their reckoning there are no male civilians in Gaza over the age of 12.
January 3rd, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Re rapier
Ariel bombardment is useless strategically.
As I pointed out on a previous thread, this statement is only half true. Strategic bombing of civilian targets is a waste of bombs, aircraft, and trained flight crews. However, the notion that all strategic bombing is useless is not true. As a for instance, many critics have rightfully claimed that, even after 3 years of intensive strategic bombing of German industrial facilities and power generation plants, German production of munitions was greater in 1944 then in 1941. This is one of the most misleading statistics in the history of that science. What the critics fail to add is that the percent of German industrial production devoted to munitions was 25% in 1941 and 80% in 1944. The increase in production of munitions was no where near a factor of 3, indicating that the strategic bombing campaign made a very considerable contribution to the war effort.
January 3rd, 2009 at 11:28 pm
So all you that are so disgusted by the actions of the US in the last 150 years, I invite you to move out. All countries of consequence are guilty of something at some point. Deal with it. You don’t have to sign on but if you want to suck the teat sometimes you have to deal with the manure. The phrase “I’m the type who always wonders if some other idea or place or system is better and I’m missing out” comes to mind.
January 4th, 2009 at 12:44 am
“that the strategic bombing campaign made a very considerable contribution to the war effort.”
It certainly did. The quality of Luger 9mm’s went down big time. I’m glad I have a 1938 version. But that really only works against a country with very high production capabilities. Like a country that can produce a 9m Luger. In Vietnam, it really just pissed them off. We could keep a bridge out of operation for as much as twelve hours. But it was a bamboo bridge, so they could rebuild in four hours. If we bombed them again right away, they’d stop working for a few hours. And manufacturing? You can stamp an AK-47 out out of door panels from a broken down car, and it only takes a car jack to do it. Anyone in Brooklyn will tell you that door panels can be removed in less than five minutes. But the Vietnamese could do it faster. The only good thing about the Middle East right now is that nobody is as crafty as the Vietnamese. But the Palestinians aren’t so far behind. This war will only create knowledge and destruction. And it isn’t the right kind of knowledge, and it isn’t the right kind of destruction.
January 4th, 2009 at 1:12 am
So here’s a weird thought. Why are we so concerned about the Israelis, anyway? What about the Sinhalese? They have recently done much more effective operations against the Tamils. Less people killed for sure, but the right people killed. Anyone care about that? More people have been killed by the LTTE than any terrorist organization in the world. Al Qaeda is a close third, but somehow that’s the most important. Anyone want to guess who’s second in terrorist killing? I know damn well who they are. Fortunately, I missed their bomb by fifty minutes. I’ll give everyone a hint, they use recently produced US military grade C-4 explosive. Now where would they get that?
January 4th, 2009 at 1:49 am
I think it’s about time that Hamas did some serious damage to Israel. I prefer long range missiles hitting downtown Tel Aviv.
Israel knows only one language: force. Time to fuck ‘em up.
January 4th, 2009 at 1:53 am
“they use recently produced US military grade C-4 explosive.”
Let’s be clear about that. C-4 is chemically tracible to not only the lab, but the date made. Different batches have different chemical traces. And we can even know who signed the purchases. Except that such information would be classified. And highly so. But someone knows it. Maybe that might help find out about that bomb in Kusadasi. But, sadly, our services don’t really care about that. They’re more concerned about covering things up. Especially the things involved in their transfer of weapons to the Kurds in Iraq. Whatever that may do for Iraq, has anyone considered what that might do to Turkey?
January 4th, 2009 at 2:05 am
Israel, like all stupid militaristic societies, doesn’t learn.
4th Gen War is here to stay. Hamas has learned a little bit from Hizballah in the last couple of years. You can’t fight a useful urban war in a small area with a population of 1.5 million – one quarter the population of your whole invading country.
As Israel enters Gaza, as it entered southern Lebanon, it will get its ass kicked. It won’t get it kicked as badly as it did in Lebanon, because Hamas is not Hizballah, but as the Israeli body bags pile up and their war crimes are revealed to the world, sooner or later the Israeli population will lose heart and the operation will be terminated, just like Lebanon.
And Hamas will emerge the stronger. There is ZERO chance that Hamas can be destroyed or seriously damaged by the Israeli assault. At worst, Hamas will melt back into the population of 1.5 million. At best, Hamas will lose five hundred or so fighters and kill 100 or more Israeli soldiers, thus establishing a reasonable body count exchange.
There may be a higher ratio than in Lebanon, because Hamas is closer to Israel and thus Israel has better intelligence on Hamas than it did on Hibzallah, and the territory is urban not rural. But Israel will still lose enough soldiers to establish that the operation was a waste of time.
And if it’s true that Hamas has imported some of the same anti-tank weapons that Hizballah used so effectively in 2006, then Israel may lose a LOT of their vaunted Merkavas.
In Lebanon, Hibzallah also used those AT weapons against Israeli troops. First, they fired on the Israelis, who took cover in a building. Then Hizballah insurgents fired one AT weapon into the building to make a hole in the wall, then a second through the hole, which turned the AT weapon into an anti-personnel weapon, killing wholesale lots of Israeli soldiers.
Gaza is made for that sort of combat. Not to mention IEDs and shaped charges of the sort the Iraqi insurgents have been using. Reportedly some Hamas soldiers have been trained by Hizballah and Iranian soldiers in such tactics.
Israel is going to regret this attack just as they regretted Lebanon. But of course the politicians won’t – one side or the other will take power because of this assault.
January 4th, 2009 at 2:08 am
“I think it’s about time that Hamas did some serious damage to Israel. I prefer long range missiles hitting downtown Tel Aviv.
Israel knows only one language: force. Time to fuck ‘em up.”
You sound like a tough guy, Farid. Just think though: if Israel is putting this kind of beating on your Hamas pals after their crappy rocket attacks, what do you think Israel would do in response to long range missiles hitting downtown Tel Aviv? Chances are, they’d force Hamas out of Gaza, just like they forced the PLO out of Beirut in the early 80s. Back then, Tunisia was willing to let the PLO relocate to its country. Which one of your spineless Arab countries would be willing to host Hamas?
January 4th, 2009 at 2:38 am
R.S. Hack,
How do you know Israel isn’t working on 5th Gen Warfare right now? Why do you assume that Israel — not a stupid country — hasn’t incorporated the lessons of the 2006 Lebanon war as well?
The idea that the bombings don’t affect Hamas is nonsense. Smuggling tunnels that take thousands of man-hours to dig have been destroyed. Hundreds of fighters have been killed. Tons of Hamas weapons have been destroyed. Rocket scientists have been killed. One of Hamas’s 5 most senior leaders has been killed, along with most of his brood. Meanwhile, Hamas lacks any significant support from Egypt or other Arab countries. Even Hizbollah isn’t helping them. The rest of the Arab-Muslim world is either impotent or acknowledges that the current conflict is the fault of Hamas.
January 4th, 2009 at 3:01 am
“Israel knows only one language: force. Time to fuck ‘em up.”
In some sense, you are right, But force really doesn’t work. It’s just a fantasy of macho men. The reality of war is that war is a negative sum game. If you use force, you’ve already lost. If you’ve won, you’ve lost anyway. I think anyone who has ever won a war should put a price on it, and then ask whether it was worth it. Most would say it wasn’t. But many people have no choice but to fight. For them, it was just a tragedy, but maybe they won. And they won for one reason, they needed to.
My favorite win was with the Lao. They have their ways of doing things. And Communism isn’t that way. But Communism gave them the way by describing the wrong way. Now, they go the right way. But that Right Way is their own way. They’re redneck in their ways, but they have a right to be rednecks. More importantly, they have the right to be peaceful people. And nobody should bomb them anymore. Sadly, in modern times, it’s understood that anyone who attempts to be peaceful will be bombed. Maybe we should try another approach. Just maybe? At least the Lao have found a way. In the next life, things will be better. Can you say that? But for this life, you shouldn’t accept some little girl getting killed by shrapnel in her head unless you’re willing to have that girl be your your daughter. If you support any war, you should certainly support the results. And the results aren’t exactly pretty, are they? If you can’t do that, if you can’t support the death of your child, then tell me why I should support the death of someone else’s child. Tell me exactly why some six year old Palestinian girl should die for your beliefs. I’m sure they’re great beliefs, so let’s hear them. Bring them on. And I ask that of both Palestinians and Israelis. Why does your war require the killing of innocents? It is an offense to both your religions. Why do you do it? I’d say it’s unacceptable, but nobody will listen to me. And there’s a very simple reason for that. You won’t accept that you might be wrong. For that, fuck you very much.
January 4th, 2009 at 3:15 am
“You sound like a tough guy,”
Not if the rockets are equipped with biological agents. Time to get serious about Israel.
They want Holocaust let’s give ‘em one.
January 4th, 2009 at 4:11 am
“They want Holocaust let’s give ‘em one.”
Farid, please. This is not helpful. Allah surely wants peace. And you cannot give it to Him this way.
January 4th, 2009 at 4:29 am
dude, I don’t give a shit about Allah … I am an athiest who believes its now time to stop Israel.
Let’s fuck them up.
January 4th, 2009 at 7:26 am
“dude, I don’t give a shit about Allah”
“Let’s fuck them up.”
Fair enough. I give a shit about peace. I really don’t like seeing people kill each other. There is always a better way. Everyone weeps and cries for Israel, but they forget very quickly when India has such attacks. And when Palestine is brutalized? Well, nobody really cares, do they? I understand that. But the way to change that is not with bombs and rockets. And let’s be honest, you aren’t going to fuck them up. The reverse will always happen until some larger power stops it. Until the day that the United States is made impotent, that will not happen. But that day may not be so far off. If we fire 5% of our nuclear weapons, human life might not exist anymore. So anyone can call our bluff. Kill us, kill us all. Are we really willing to annhilate ourselves to prove a political or religious point? I don’t think we’ll do it. But the real issue is that nobody else thinks so, either. And that is what makes our nuclear weapons useless. Any they are simply too dangerous to use. So now we only have the kind of army that can sort of conquer a beaten country with no real army. Want to take on Iran now? Their conventional army may suck, but they understand asymmetrical warfare better than anyone. And they’ll sacrifice anyone to do it.
In the end we must stop this insanity. The very idea that violence can solve problems is just insane. The weird thing is that I am literally considered to be insane for thinking that violence can’t solve problems. But I’ve talked to enough therapists to know that I am not insane to think that the world is. But that isn’t really comforting. But you know, when I go crazy, I only hurt myself. When Israeli leaders go crazy, a lot of people get hurt. But they usually only go crazy when they need to be elected. And, oh yeah, the elections are coming up. How proud a Palestinian mother must be to bury her child knowing that it will help the election prospects of an Israeli politician.
January 4th, 2009 at 8:51 am
In the first Gulf War we bombed a parking garage that was being used as a bomb shelter. Over 700 were killed. Yawn. The Air Force claimed not to know it was a shelter. They never did explain the strategic or tactical utility of destroying one. In fact every bomb dropped in Baghdad in both wars served no military function except perhaps some communication infrastructure. Making doubly sure there would be no effective defense against our bombing. Our useless bombing.
My nieces daughter was terrorized at age two by the loud sounds of fighter jets at an airshow. A minor trauma of early childhood I suppose but the fear of airplanes is still with her. Her father, a hell of a nice guy cares nothing about politics but has slight tendency to wingnuttery in a casual way when he thinks about politics and culture. Several times the subject of that moment when his little girl was pluralized in fear by the fighter planes has arisen and I always mention he should imagine the fear if the bombs had been real. I don’t think it penetrates. Like most people he has almost no ability to empathize with distant others. He just loves seeing those figher planes howerve. The little girl now 5 still fears them.
January 4th, 2009 at 9:05 am
It is time to face the fact that dual loyalty is no longer and anti-Semitic canard, but a fact — and a problem — in American public life. George Washington warned: “[A] passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. …[I]t gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.”
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/30/democracy/index.html
January 4th, 2009 at 9:27 am
That, of course, was the only real purpose for this entire exercise.
January 4th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Fred; “How do you know Israel isn’t working on 5th Gen Warfare right now?”
‘Cause there is no such thing.
“Why do you assume that Israel — not a stupid country — hasn’t incorporated the lessons of the 2006 Lebanon war as well?”
Because there were no lessons to be learned except don’t invade countries with well-trained guerrilla fighters operating on their own soil on favorable terrain. Which really isn’t all that 4th Gen – it’s common sense. What is 4th Gen is the fact that Hizballah is a legitimate nationalist resistance force which is able to command serious resources within a nominal nation state.
“The idea that the bombings don’t affect Hamas is nonsense.”
Nobody said it doesn’t affect them. What it will NOT do is destroy they – or even set them back by much.
The 2006 Lebanese bombardment by Israel caused Hizballah to use up maybe thirty percent of its rockets. Two years later, Hizballah, which had maybe 10-15,000 rockets at the start of 2006, now has an estimated 40,000 rockets.
Same thing will happen with Hamas. The tunnels will be rebuilt, presumably in different locations, the weapons will continue to be smuggled in in even greater numbers, more fighters will be recruited to replace those lost and then some, and new leaders will be promoted. In a year or two, the situation will be back as it was before the offensive started, or worse from the Israeli point of view.
The current conflict is not the fault of Hamas. Nothing in the Middle East is the fault of the Palestinians – it’s all the fault of Israel and will continue to be so until Israel as a state is eliminated.
January 4th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Fostert: I quote you the wise Chiun: “Armies cause problems by killing many, when the solution to all problems is to kill one – the right one.”
When Israel’s Zionist LEADERS are all dead, Israel will cease to exist as a Zionist state. That should be the goal of the Muslim World: Death to Zionists!
The only other way to produce that result – no Zionist leaders – is for the majority of Israel’s population to renounce Zionism and start electing Zionist leaders. Since Israel’s population has been moving toward to right wing, this seems unlikely.
Again, the only solutions are: 1) the international community dissolves Israel and recreates Palestine non-violently, or 2) Israel must be destroyed.
January 4th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Aargh, that should be “stop electing Zionist leaders”…
January 4th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Any significant biological attack on Israel would greatly impact many Palestinians and the surrounding Arab nations in numerous ways, one being the immediate repercussions from the weapons themselves, two being the all-out total war response from nuclear Israel itself. The solution to the problem is not more violence, but less. Farid’s nihilistic truculence is just a symptom of the larger problem. Israel’s coarse arrogance and fiendishly systematic brutalization of the Palestinian people has led to a numb outrage that tends to erupt in unfocused ways. This is the emotional climate that breeds fanatics, suicide bombers, and desperadoes out of previously ordinary people. Israel must feel the pain from the West, not just condemnation, but financial and military aid truncation. Will ostensible AIPAC stooge Obama lead the charge? Does a Napoleonic hobbit like Sarkozy even have any influence? What can Terry Jones, ahem, Gordon Brown, really accomplish? Can malevelont house elf Putin and his tiny slavic henchman affect any change? And what are the Palestinians to do, continue to suffer and die, meekly? I know, maybe the internet can solve it! If enough web board and blog commenters get angry, Israel will have to stop, right?
January 4th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Hack,
How many rockets has Hizbullah launched at Israel since the 2006 war?
January 4th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Matthew,
In a couple posts now, you have suggested that inter-party politics is a significant motivator behind current Israeli military actions. That may or my not be true. It certainly seems plausible. But there also seems to be an insinuation in these posts that somehow ‘boosting the poll numbers’ is the unseemly goal of cynical politicians who are pursuing self-interest at the expense of Israeli national interests. Isn’t ‘boosting the poll numbers’ strongly correlated with acting in a manner that is widely supported by Israelis? What is unseemly about that? Isn’t that democracy in action?
January 4th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Hizbullah was so successful, it hasn’t dared lift a finger against Israel since.
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