Iron Swords vs. Al-Aqsa Deluge - Israel/Palestinians (again)

[seahawk]

2 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

There is a third way, which will probably appeal to you because it will have the left wing around the world throwing their toys out the pram.

You send in the Army around the periphery of Gaza. You 'evacuate' large areas of men women and children, put them in 'care camps'. Then you bulldoze their housing. And then you keep doing that, until a penny drops.

Dont need to clear all of Gaza. Take say maybe 4 or 5 thouand people, or as many as you have capacity for.And point out you cant give them back till you get all the hostages back. And then when/if you get them back, or their bodies, you dump that 5000 Palestinians you took on the West Bank, and fund them to build new houses.

Will it work? Dont know. Its more imaginative than just carpet bombing the way to a solution, and nobody who stops to think about it, cant say that it isnt a truly fair.

Add Palestinians to the West Bank and the orthodox parties in parliament will get a hissy fit and end the government.

[Roman Alymov]

10 minutes ago, lucklucky said:

So you could have peace with Communists and Nazis? 

You have peace with Communists right now - since China, Vietnam and Cuba are officially Communist countries. And some of our nice Nordic Europe neighbors are cheering their Nazi past (with full support of the rest of "West"- as the case of in Canada Parliament have demonstrated, they are ready to invent "non-Nazi SS members" when needed).

[Mighty_Zuk]

1 minute ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

There is a third way, which will probably appeal to you because it will have the left wing around the world throwing their toys out the pram.

You send in the Army around the periphery of Gaza. You 'evacuate' large areas of men women and children, put them in 'care camps'. Then you bulldoze their housing. And then you keep doing that, until a penny drops.

Dont need to clear all of Gaza. Take say maybe 4 or 5 thouand people, or as many as you have capacity for.And point out you cant give them back till you get all the hostages back. And then when/if you get them back, or their bodies, you dump that 5000 Palestinians you took on the West Bank, and fund them to build new houses.

Will it work? Dont know. Its more imaginative than just carpet bombing the way to a solution, and nobody who stops to think about it, cant say that it isnt a truly fair.

Israel already has thousands of Palestinians in its prisons. They're easy to come by as well - anyone who throws rocks at cars, torches property, carries weapons, plans attacks etc etc is arrested. Then used for the next trade, rinse and repeat.

[futon]

Ahmed Yassin was an interesting one. 

[Stuart Galbraith]

22 minutes ago, Perun said:

Can you, all of you who support violance, explain to me how are you correct. For last 75 years there is constantly violance but not on every border. How can Jordan and Israel be at peace but with Palestinians cant be peace? The answer is that force is not a solution but compromise is.

Ill go this far with you. The Israelis have surely helped create their own Gollum, by not having a fair solution to the Palestinian problem for much of their existence. From what I hear though, they had one deal which gave the Palestinians pretty much all they wanted, even 90 percent of Jerusalem, but the ONLY thing they were not given was the right of return. And Arafat, the dozy old tosser, rejected it. Which strongly illustratest he problem, the Palestinian leadership for decades, hasnt really wanted a solution.

So whilst Israel undoubted helped create their own Gollum, and surely this right wing, near fascist regime has certainly helped things along, ultimately it was the Palestinians own choice to hitch their cart to this death cult. Everyone makes mistakes. But keep making the same one, over and over again for decades, people are going to lose all sympathy. I certainly have. Ive always been a supporter of the 2 state solution, but its dead. Ive really no more interest in hearing any Palestinian arguments because, thus far, its been complete indifference to Israeli casualties.

Fuck Gollum, basically.

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 minute ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

Israel already has thousands of Palestinians in its prisons. They're easy to come by as well - anyone who throws rocks at cars, torches property, carries weapons, plans attacks etc etc is arrested. Then used for the next trade, rinse and repeat.

But not children. After all, if Children are Hama's future, you start removing them, they have a longevity problem. Not easy to be rulers of a nation full of rubble and old people.

Is it abhorrent? Probably. Worse than what the Palestinians have done? Not remotely close.

[seahawk]

Imho the option is a modern version of the intra-German border. Fortifications, mines, vehicle ditches and automated turrets. The fence is too easy to bring down, you need something more substantial.

On the down side, this also makes moving into Gaza a lot harder, but maybe this can be sold as a positive point.

[Mighty_Zuk]

It seems that as of right now, the western support for Israel is unprecedented when looking 30-40 years back.

The US sends a carrier group to the east med, supplies Israel with new interceptors and munitions now rather than by the end of the war, and is ready to strike by itself at targets across the middle east. Never have I witnessed such powerful US support.

[Roman Alymov]

30 minutes ago, Perun said:

Can you, all of you who support violance, explain to me how are you correct. For last 75 years there is constantly violance but not on every border. How can Jordan and Israel be at peace but with Palestinians cant be peace? The answer is that force is not a solution but compromise is.

I'm affraid the peace with Jordan is result of suppression of "Arab street" in Jordan itself. Jordan is monarchy after all. Not sure how it will work with "democratic Jordan" as this hypotetical democracy, quite likely,  will soon became controlled by Islamists.

   Video filmed by young IDF soldiers on one of the attacked bases moments before they were killed https://t.me/anna_news/57576

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 minute ago, seahawk said:

Imho the option is a modern version of the intra-German border. Fortifications, mines, vehicle ditches and automated turrets. The fence is too easy to bring down, you need something more substantial.

On the down side, this also makes moving into Gaza a lot harder, but maybe this can be sold as a positive point.

That too. But of course clearing the outlying regions and bulldozing them makes implimenting that a lot easier.

 

[Roman Alymov]

17 minutes ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

It seems that as of right now, the western support for Israel is unprecedented when looking 30-40 years back.

The problem is, "West" is no more "World" now. If West support "final solution of Palestinian question"  - policeman in Egypt (or Malasia, or Pakistan, or other Muslim country) might find out not only Jewish toursits are legitimate targets, but all "whites" (may be unless they are waving Russian flag around). 

    So West support might be unprecidented, but it is no more the only thing that matters.

[Mighty_Zuk]

31 minutes ago, Perun said:

Can you, all of you who support violance, explain to me how are you correct. For last 75 years there is constantly violance but not on every border. How can Jordan and Israel be at peace but with Palestinians cant be peace? The answer is that force is not a solution but compromise is.

Because Egypt, Jordan and Israel are normal countries that understand that the wellbeing of their citizens is ultimately in their best interest, and also that a functioning economy has merits.

Palestine has none of those. It glorifies death and if Israel stops existing today it'd wage war on the Arab nations. It has no economy, and no government because it keeps empowering terrorist regimes. It is a culture of nothing but death. 

But since Israel has a culture which values life, the Palestinians are still alive and not a footnote in Syria's and Jordan's history.

So what option does Israel have without turning into an oiled death machine? Simply to contain them. If they try anything, mow them down. Eventually though Israel's culture changes. From the Israeli left of the 60's that believed in communism to cautious peaceniks in the 80's to believing in a coexistence in the 2000's to believing in "end the occupation but with caveats" in 2010's to "burn them all down" in October 2023. I think eventually we'll get to a point of driving them out.

[Der Zeitgeist]

More eyewitness accounts of the Supernova Festival massacre:

 

[Roman Alymov]

22 minutes ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

Because Egypt, Jordan and Israel are normal countries that understand that the wellbeing of their citizens is ultimately in their best interest, and also that a functioning economy has merits.

Palestine has none of those. It glorifies death and if Israel stops existing today it'd wage war on the Arab nations. It has no economy, and no government because it keeps empowering terrorist regimes. It is a culture of nothing but death. 

What is Palestine?  In its current form it is not some historic entity, but de-facto artificial creation, like giant refugee camp

From Alexander Dukov's TG ( https://t.me/historiographe/9409 )

"Just as "Ukrainians" in 90% of cases instantly dissolve among Russians, "Palestinians", when they gain equal rights, instantly dissolve among the Arabs of Jordan, Lebanon and other neighboring countries, from which they are no different. But since the existence of Palestinian terrorist organizations is impossible without the presence of "Palestinians", the "Palestinian people" has been intensively constructed by all interested forces for decades. At the same time, if the "Ukrainians" are constructed on the basis of really existing ethnic subgroups, with <Taras> Shevchenko and embroidered shirts, then the "Palestinians" do not even have that." 

[Roman Alymov]

And more from Dukov

"There is a persistent misconception that Israel appeared and began to oppress the Arabs living in Palestine, apartheid them and genocide them, the cursed Israeli military.

In fact, if you look into the Declaration of Independence of Israel, you will find there a more than liberal approach to representatives of other ethnic groups: "The State of Israel... it will realize full social and political equality of all its citizens without distinction of religion, race or gender. It will ensure freedom of religion and conscience, the right to use the native language, the right to education and culture."

Indeed, from the very beginning, Arabs had the right to take Israeli citizenship and become full citizens. And a number of Arab groups (for example, the Druze) have used this right and are now fighting against terrorists.

But the majority, of course, did not agree and participated in the war of the Arab states to destroy Israel, organized and prepared by the outgoing British. And the USSR, on the contrary, helped Israel to survive in this war."

[Roman Alymov]

1 hour ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

Israel already has thousands of Palestinians in its prisons. They're easy to come by as well - anyone who throws rocks at cars, torches property, carries weapons, plans attacks etc etc is arrested. Then used for the next trade, rinse and repeat.

There are reports now about Israel citizens of Arab ethnicity attacked on the streets by Jewish mobs - how wide spread it it? Also, as far as i remember, lots of "Palestinians" work in Israel while living in Palestinian towns - what are they doing now?

[Roman Alymov]

More MANPAD launches by HAMAS (but looks like no hits - probably missiles are too old or operators lack training)

https://t.me/milinfolive/108082

[Stuart Galbraith]

9 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

What is Palestine?  In its current form it is not some historic entity, but de-facto artificial creation, like giant refugee camp

From Alexander Dukov's TG ( https://t.me/historiographe/9409 )

"Just as "Ukrainians" in 90% of cases instantly dissolve among Russians, "Palestinians", when they gain equal rights, instantly dissolve among the Arabs of Jordan, Lebanon and other neighboring countries, from which they are no different. But since the existence of Palestinian terrorist organizations is impossible without the presence of "Palestinians", the "Palestinian people" has been intensively constructed by all interested forces for decades. At the same time, if the "Ukrainians" are constructed on the basis of really existing ethnic subgroups, with <Taras> Shevchenko and embroidered shirts, then the "Palestinians" do not even have that." 

No, you arent going to turn this into another diatribe on the rights of mass murder of Ukrainians, on the basis of a wholly different terrorist action by Palestinians. You have a thread for that already, please, go play with it.

[Der Zeitgeist]

[Roman Alymov]

Video of HAMAS mortars in action, note well-prepared positions https://t.me/boris_rozhin/100023

[Roman Alymov]

Not exactly war news, butmight be explanation of why things went so wrong for IDF:

"The chief Rabbi of Russia Berl Lazar was hospitalized in Moscow with a concussion after dancing during the celebration of Simchat Torah. This is reported by RIA Novosti.

According to the telegram channel Baza, the celebration took place in the synagogue in Maryina Grove on the evening of October 7, the day when Hamas attacked Israel. Berl Lazar danced until two-thirty in the morning and fell while dancing with Torah, having received a concussion.

Borukh Gorin, chairman of the Public Council of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FEOR), said that "these dances of the Simchat Torah in Maryina Grove will never be forgotten."

According to Rabbi Alexander Boroda, President of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, it is customary for Russian Jews to celebrate Simchat Torah with strong non—alcoholic alcoholic beverages - vodka, whiskey and tequila." ( Главный раввин РФ госпитализирован после празднования в синагоге (bfm.ru) )

[Roman Alymov]

Russian expert take on the situation (Yandex-translation from https://bmpd.livejournal.com/4759505.html )

"The army of the undaunted

October 8th, 19:14
A photo shoot taken on the morning of October 8, 2023 by an AFP correspondent in the area of the Lebanese-Israeli border of Israeli artillery units deployed there to repel possible attacks by the Lebanese Hezbollah on 155 mm/39 M109A5 self-propelled howitzers (Doher) clearly shows how the Israeli army imagines a "modern war". Self-propelled guns, closely deployed in a completely open place "wheel to wheel", mixed with special machines, without any disguise and surrounded by stacks of ammunition. It is obvious that the possibility of counter-battery warfare on the part of the enemy is not assumed in principle, and Israeli gunners (representatives of a nation that was considered a leader in the development of unmanned vehicles yesterday) do not suspect the existence of barrage ammunition, UAVs, quadrocopters and FPV drones.

This "non-obscurity" is also visible in a number of other scenes that have been supplied in abundance since the next Arab-Israeli war that began on October 7. Tanks, easily hit by single copters. Dense piles of Israeli infantry huddled together, moving during the sweeps in the settlements captured by Hamas - obviously accustomed to acting against single lightly armed Palestinians, but if the enemy has imaginary group weapons, this will surely lead to the heaviest losses. It is significant that this problem was noted by observers during the fighting of the Israeli army in Lebanon in 2006, but the who, it seems, is still there.

The point, of course, is not in the individual tactical problems of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The unprecedented attack by Hamas from the Gaza Strip on Israel on October 7, 2023 demonstrated the systemic crisis of the Israeli military organization, which rested on the experience and achievements of a long period of successful wars against the Arabs. Firstly, the reservist system of building AOI itself is obviously problematic in modern conditions, with the dissolution of most of the military personnel for the weekend. As a result, apparently, the AOI simply does not have not only a sufficient number of units of constant readiness, but even a sufficient number of people at the points of permanent deployment of units. Regular units turn out to be, in fact, also a mobilization fiction. Even in the obviously dangerous direction of the border with the Gaza Strip, there were no people not only for the protection and defense of the border line itself and the checkpoint on it, but even for the self-protection of the PPD of military units.

With the demonstrated unavailability of regular units, it can be assumed that the reservist units of the AOI have generally lower combat readiness and training (as shown by the Lebanese War in 2006). It seems that Israel needs to move towards greater professionalization and "regularization" of the army - which, of course, will require a different level of military spending.

Alas, history shows that a good army is forged more from defeats and failures than from victories. Let's omit the visual nearest examples. Israel has historically had a fair amount of reasons to cultivate stupidity in the style of "we can repeat", and prolonged intoxication with its own successes, combined with hypertrophied nationalism, also led the Israeli military system to all the obvious results of this in practice - arrogance, cooking the military organization "in its own juice", overestimating the value of its own experience and its own achievements, disregard for the experience of other countries and other conflicts, miscalculations in assessing important areas of military development, underestimating the enemy. Even the Lebanese war of 2006 revealed many problematic moments that were revealed later in Ukraine in 2022-2023 - the high vulnerability of tanks and armored vehicles, the difficulties of overcoming enemy fortified positions and the general crisis of "maneuverability", the increasing "transparency" of the battlefield. By and large, only the Hezbollah group's lack of full-fledged artillery and normal air defense systems at that time, which allowed Israeli artillery and aviation to operate almost in landfill conditions, prevented the fighting in Lebanon from slipping into a pure positional crisis in the spirit of the current Ukrainian war. However, it still didn't work out for AOI with "little blood" to have another quick triumph. And the opponent then showed himself to be generally well technically prepared, trained and morally stable.

It cannot be said that Israel, which is still a democratic society, did not hear the "Lebanese call" of 2006. A whole "Grape Commission" was created, which made a lot of recommendations in the field of military construction. But now, in retrospect, it is obvious that no serious conclusions were made by Israeli society and the Israeli military-political elite. Actually, democracy in itself is not a guarantee of the success of military construction, especially if the military caste of the country is extremely self-confident - the example of pre-war France is indicative.

The main problem for Israel, clearly demonstrated first in Lebanon in 2006, and now by the events of October 7, is the change in the nature and level of its opponents. The legendary victories of Israel from 1948 to 1982 were the victories of a largely modern industrial urbanized society over the armed forces of backward largely agrarian "peasant" Arab societies, over the armies of the "Fellahs". It is from there that the notorious stories about the "inferior" Arab "mentality" for modern war and successful military construction come. However, Arab societies are rapidly changing, urbanizing, becoming urban, educated and entering the "information society". Moreover, paradoxically, this process is fastest going on in the territories adjacent to Israel (and occupied by it) (the neighborhood with developed Israel helps a lot here). Gaza is now not a village, but rather a large metropolis with an urban population. This makes the level of Arab organization and self-organization, including military, radically higher, and gives other opportunities in the use of military equipment and modern weapons. In 10-20 years, conditionally, every resident of Gaza will have his own combat quadcopter. What will Israel do? Exactly the same processes are taking place on an even larger scale in such an existential Israeli enemy as Iran, then other Arab countries, even the most backward, will approach this. The Arab armed forces and formations are actively modernizing in all respects. The combat experience of the Yemeni Houthis (by the way, with the support of Iran) shows the successful integration of the most modern methods of warfare and forces and means even by a very archaic society. And this is not to mention the prospects of Iran, and possibly, sooner or later, other Arab countries, obtaining nuclear weapons. Is Israel ready for war with a completely different, qualitatively Arab opponent? The events of October 7 and howitzers in an open field on the Lebanese border on October 8 show that I am not ready.

Will Israel be able to find a solution? Given the current trends in the development of Israeli politics, it is not a fact at all. The most important thing is that Israel has no long-term vision of solving the problem of the Gaza Strip and the occupied Palestinian territories in principle. The consensus approach of the current Israeli establishment is to sabotage any peace process and preserve the "status quo" in the form of "Bantustanization" of Palestine for an indefinite period. In fact, if we discard tactical zigzags and phraseology, the United States is forced to condone this Israeli policy, thereby encouraging it. In essence, this position of Israel is the position of an ostrich with its head in the sand. How long will it be possible to maintain this position in the light of the progress of Palestinian society, leading, among other things, to an increase in the effectiveness of Palestinian actions militarily? On October 7, an Israeli ostrich got a good kick in the ass. If the current trends continue, then sooner or later Israel may find itself facing, if not a catastrophe, then the hardest tests."

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

2 hours ago, seahawk said:

Add Palestinians to the West Bank and the orthodox parties in parliament will get a hissy fit and end the government.

Which for all the good the have done, strikes me as no bad thing.

The opposition are asking to form a wartime government, which frankly would be the best thing for everyone.

[Marsh]

1 hour ago, Roman Alymov said:

Russian expert take on the situation (Yandex-translation from https://bmpd.livejournal.com/4759505.html )

"The army of the undaunted

October 8th, 19:14
A photo shoot taken on the morning of October 8, 2023 by an AFP correspondent in the area of the Lebanese-Israeli border of Israeli artillery units deployed there to repel possible attacks by the Lebanese Hezbollah on 155 mm/39 M109A5 self-propelled howitzers (Doher) clearly shows how the Israeli army imagines a "modern war". Self-propelled guns, closely deployed in a completely open place "wheel to wheel", mixed with special machines, without any disguise and surrounded by stacks of ammunition. It is obvious that the possibility of counter-battery warfare on the part of the enemy is not assumed in principle, and Israeli gunners (representatives of a nation that was considered a leader in the development of unmanned vehicles yesterday) do not suspect the existence of barrage ammunition, UAVs, quadrocopters and FPV drones.

This "non-obscurity" is also visible in a number of other scenes that have been supplied in abundance since the next Arab-Israeli war that began on October 7. Tanks, easily hit by single copters. Dense piles of Israeli infantry huddled together, moving during the sweeps in the settlements captured by Hamas - obviously accustomed to acting against single lightly armed Palestinians, but if the enemy has imaginary group weapons, this will surely lead to the heaviest losses. It is significant that this problem was noted by observers during the fighting of the Israeli army in Lebanon in 2006, but the who, it seems, is still there.

The point, of course, is not in the individual tactical problems of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The unprecedented attack by Hamas from the Gaza Strip on Israel on October 7, 2023 demonstrated the systemic crisis of the Israeli military organization, which rested on the experience and achievements of a long period of successful wars against the Arabs. Firstly, the reservist system of building AOI itself is obviously problematic in modern conditions, with the dissolution of most of the military personnel for the weekend. As a result, apparently, the AOI simply does not have not only a sufficient number of units of constant readiness, but even a sufficient number of people at the points of permanent deployment of units. Regular units turn out to be, in fact, also a mobilization fiction. Even in the obviously dangerous direction of the border with the Gaza Strip, there were no people not only for the protection and defense of the border line itself and the checkpoint on it, but even for the self-protection of the PPD of military units.

With the demonstrated unavailability of regular units, it can be assumed that the reservist units of the AOI have generally lower combat readiness and training (as shown by the Lebanese War in 2006). It seems that Israel needs to move towards greater professionalization and "regularization" of the army - which, of course, will require a different level of military spending.

Alas, history shows that a good army is forged more from defeats and failures than from victories. Let's omit the visual nearest examples. Israel has historically had a fair amount of reasons to cultivate stupidity in the style of "we can repeat", and prolonged intoxication with its own successes, combined with hypertrophied nationalism, also led the Israeli military system to all the obvious results of this in practice - arrogance, cooking the military organization "in its own juice", overestimating the value of its own experience and its own achievements, disregard for the experience of other countries and other conflicts, miscalculations in assessing important areas of military development, underestimating the enemy. Even the Lebanese war of 2006 revealed many problematic moments that were revealed later in Ukraine in 2022-2023 - the high vulnerability of tanks and armored vehicles, the difficulties of overcoming enemy fortified positions and the general crisis of "maneuverability", the increasing "transparency" of the battlefield. By and large, only the Hezbollah group's lack of full-fledged artillery and normal air defense systems at that time, which allowed Israeli artillery and aviation to operate almost in landfill conditions, prevented the fighting in Lebanon from slipping into a pure positional crisis in the spirit of the current Ukrainian war. However, it still didn't work out for AOI with "little blood" to have another quick triumph. And the opponent then showed himself to be generally well technically prepared, trained and morally stable.

It cannot be said that Israel, which is still a democratic society, did not hear the "Lebanese call" of 2006. A whole "Grape Commission" was created, which made a lot of recommendations in the field of military construction. But now, in retrospect, it is obvious that no serious conclusions were made by Israeli society and the Israeli military-political elite. Actually, democracy in itself is not a guarantee of the success of military construction, especially if the military caste of the country is extremely self-confident - the example of pre-war France is indicative.

The main problem for Israel, clearly demonstrated first in Lebanon in 2006, and now by the events of October 7, is the change in the nature and level of its opponents. The legendary victories of Israel from 1948 to 1982 were the victories of a largely modern industrial urbanized society over the armed forces of backward largely agrarian "peasant" Arab societies, over the armies of the "Fellahs". It is from there that the notorious stories about the "inferior" Arab "mentality" for modern war and successful military construction come. However, Arab societies are rapidly changing, urbanizing, becoming urban, educated and entering the "information society". Moreover, paradoxically, this process is fastest going on in the territories adjacent to Israel (and occupied by it) (the neighborhood with developed Israel helps a lot here). Gaza is now not a village, but rather a large metropolis with an urban population. This makes the level of Arab organization and self-organization, including military, radically higher, and gives other opportunities in the use of military equipment and modern weapons. In 10-20 years, conditionally, every resident of Gaza will have his own combat quadcopter. What will Israel do? Exactly the same processes are taking place on an even larger scale in such an existential Israeli enemy as Iran, then other Arab countries, even the most backward, will approach this. The Arab armed forces and formations are actively modernizing in all respects. The combat experience of the Yemeni Houthis (by the way, with the support of Iran) shows the successful integration of the most modern methods of warfare and forces and means even by a very archaic society. And this is not to mention the prospects of Iran, and possibly, sooner or later, other Arab countries, obtaining nuclear weapons. Is Israel ready for war with a completely different, qualitatively Arab opponent? The events of October 7 and howitzers in an open field on the Lebanese border on October 8 show that I am not ready.

Will Israel be able to find a solution? Given the current trends in the development of Israeli politics, it is not a fact at all. The most important thing is that Israel has no long-term vision of solving the problem of the Gaza Strip and the occupied Palestinian territories in principle. The consensus approach of the current Israeli establishment is to sabotage any peace process and preserve the "status quo" in the form of "Bantustanization" of Palestine for an indefinite period. In fact, if we discard tactical zigzags and phraseology, the United States is forced to condone this Israeli policy, thereby encouraging it. In essence, this position of Israel is the position of an ostrich with its head in the sand. How long will it be possible to maintain this position in the light of the progress of Palestinian society, leading, among other things, to an increase in the effectiveness of Palestinian actions militarily? On October 7, an Israeli ostrich got a good kick in the ass. If the current trends continue, then sooner or later Israel may find itself facing, if not a catastrophe, then the hardest tests."

 

I think that is a pretty perceptive article. I have attended several IDF exercises over the years and in the more recent ones have been astonished at the low standard of training and tactical acumen. All the money seems to have gone into technology and the airforce, whilst the bread and butter skills of infantry, artillery and armour have been allowed to wither. There has been far too much of a focus on asymmetric warfare against a poorly equipped opponent and not enough on combating a peer or near peer enemy.

[Rob Veenendaal]

In Dutch news:
Israël starts total blockade of Gaza and mobilises 300.000 reserves.