I am appalled but i am at work so this will have to do until i can properly blog about this!
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3686955,00.html
Monday, 16 March 2009
Friday, 13 March 2009
20 20 hindsight
After the Gaza offensive I was surprised at myself for forecasting the exact opposite of what happened. Israel invaded killed some people and then left. The rockets that were the reason for the invasion are still falling on Israel.
Here lies the essence of guerrilla war, the point of this form of warfare is to enable the militarily weak to fight the strong. From the perspective of the Hamas chieftains, to stand and fight the IDF was insane. Their forces might well kill many Israeli soldiers but they in turn would surely lose many more in a vain attempt to stand up to the cream of the IDF.
What they did is the same thing that underground armies the world over have done when faced by a superior fighting force; they went to ground.
The IDF moved into Gaza suffering very few casualties, in turn the IDF didn't manage to kill anywhere near the number of Hamas fighters that the generals were aiming (no pun intended) for.
This ensured that after a while there were calls for the IDF to withdraw, politicians became antsy at the number of civilian casualties (as well they should), so after wading in they sped out to face precisely the same situation that they faced before moving in in the first place.
The effect was likened by an American officer in Vietnam to a man shaking his fist in a bucket of water, while you will cause immense violence while your fist is in the bucket a minute after you take it out the water is still and serene once again and there is no sign that the fist was ever there at all.
Some argue that the IDF should have remained in Gaza, that the fist should have remained in the bucket indefinitely. Had this been the case we would have seen further cases of stand off attacks by Hamas of the kind that we see in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention that we saw in Gaza before the Israeli withdrawal. These would take the form of mines, both anti tank and anti personnel, there would be the very occasional ambush and booby trapped rooms.
Before the IDF withdrew from Gaza the first time around soldiers were not permitted to move through the area on foot but would travel in armoured personnel carriers whose rear ramp would open directly into a Palestinian building after the driver had reversed his vehicle inside, such was the threat of snipers, such was the situation that entails when the occupying army is opposed by a guerrilla army allowed to operate with impunity by the people living in the territory.
This is guerrilla warfare and unfortunately for us the only way to win it is to convince the civilian population of the failure of the guerrillas to achieve anything, essentially to convince them that Israel is in fact right.
Not likely!
Here lies the essence of guerrilla war, the point of this form of warfare is to enable the militarily weak to fight the strong. From the perspective of the Hamas chieftains, to stand and fight the IDF was insane. Their forces might well kill many Israeli soldiers but they in turn would surely lose many more in a vain attempt to stand up to the cream of the IDF.
What they did is the same thing that underground armies the world over have done when faced by a superior fighting force; they went to ground.
The IDF moved into Gaza suffering very few casualties, in turn the IDF didn't manage to kill anywhere near the number of Hamas fighters that the generals were aiming (no pun intended) for.
This ensured that after a while there were calls for the IDF to withdraw, politicians became antsy at the number of civilian casualties (as well they should), so after wading in they sped out to face precisely the same situation that they faced before moving in in the first place.
The effect was likened by an American officer in Vietnam to a man shaking his fist in a bucket of water, while you will cause immense violence while your fist is in the bucket a minute after you take it out the water is still and serene once again and there is no sign that the fist was ever there at all.
Some argue that the IDF should have remained in Gaza, that the fist should have remained in the bucket indefinitely. Had this been the case we would have seen further cases of stand off attacks by Hamas of the kind that we see in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention that we saw in Gaza before the Israeli withdrawal. These would take the form of mines, both anti tank and anti personnel, there would be the very occasional ambush and booby trapped rooms.
Before the IDF withdrew from Gaza the first time around soldiers were not permitted to move through the area on foot but would travel in armoured personnel carriers whose rear ramp would open directly into a Palestinian building after the driver had reversed his vehicle inside, such was the threat of snipers, such was the situation that entails when the occupying army is opposed by a guerrilla army allowed to operate with impunity by the people living in the territory.
This is guerrilla warfare and unfortunately for us the only way to win it is to convince the civilian population of the failure of the guerrillas to achieve anything, essentially to convince them that Israel is in fact right.
Not likely!
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