I'm Awfully Disappointed In Israel Right Now
Exploding Pagers and Walkie Talkies Was a Good Start, but Where is the Follow Up?
Israel is now known as the pre-eminent military power in the Middle East, but it has not always been so known. Prior to the establishment of a Jewish State in Israel no one took the threat of a few security companies (Not military companies. Think a heavily armed version of the security guard at the mall. They were, however the forerunner of the Israeli Defense Force. ) seriously. The world in general and the Arabian Peninsula in particular had no way to know what a powerhouse Israel would turn into. Israel’s ability to defend itself shocked a lot of people.
Then the 1948 War happened. Israel took on the entire Arab world and won. They defied the odds and established their independence. What had been intended to be a Palestinian nation shared between Jews and Arabs was destroyed, as Jews took the areas they could hold on to and invading forces took the rest. The West Bank, which had been ceded to the Arabs in Palestine (the term “Palestinian” wasn’t used until decades later) were seized by invading Arabs. Egypt took the Gaza Strip. The West Bank was occupied by Jordan. Nowhere in the country was there a “Palestinian” government.
What followed was a series of wars that are still being fought, with Israel involved in a conflict involving a number of Iranian proxies although Iran hasn’t shown the courage to go head to head with the regions biggest power. That may be a smart choice on their part as Israel stands undefeated in combat. Iran seems to be smart enough to know that they’ll get their backsides handed to them in a stand up fight. So what we have now is the battle of Israel vs. Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels. Things are ugly right now, but despite the fact that many people seem to think this war will have dire consequences for Israel, they’ve lost no territory and have advanced well into Gaza, moving basically at will.
Israel is going to do what it has to do to finish off Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The rest of the world and their opinions don’t matter. They’ve had enough of their people dying and they’re not going to take it anymore. Hamas stuffed babies into ovens. So did Nazis. Israelis aren’t stupid. When someone chants “From the River to the Sea, Palestine shall be free” they’re including all of Israel. Baking babies is a clear indication of the intent to commit the genocide of the Jewish people there.
All of which brings us to the modern day, and Israel’s destruction of Hezbollah’s communication via explosive booby traps and the killing of many of its operatives the same way. This was a coup. The details that have come out about how it was accomplished boggle the mind: Israeli intelligence managed to become part of Hezbollah’s supply chain and get Hezbollah to pay for the equipment that would eventually kill their operatives. That part of what happened has me cheering for Mossad. They accomplished something unheard of in the annals of war.
And yes, there have been some deaths of those not involved in the conflict. Rest assured that I feel just as much sympathy for the civilians killed as collateral damage as Hezbollah feels for the deaths of the civilians they deliberately target with their missile strikes into Israel. Quite frankly, Hezbollah is not an armed force that is officially part of a government (IE The US Army or the Russian Navy, etc) and, as such, has no legal authority to wage war and therefore no protection under the Geneva Convention anyway.
All of this to say that Israel has missed a real opportunity here. Communications, Command, Control and Intelligence have always been an important part of warfare, even if they weren’t always known by such a modern sounding moniker. The Electronics Attack (I’m sticking with that name. Feel free to use it.) had to have created a disruption in Hezbollah Command, Control and Communications. When that much communications infrastructure is destroyed and the people using it killed, that creates a hole. If an armed force can’t communicate with its troops, it cannot command or control them.
At one point, communication was achieved using musical instruments. That faded out when radio took over. For Hezbollah, it became first cell phones and then, when Israel started gathering information using those, it became pagers and walkie talkies. But, if you’re Hezbollah, you have no real radio network, you can’t use cell phones, your pagers and your walkie talkies are either destroyed or suspected of containing an explosive charge, how do you fight back effectively? How do you get your troops to where they need to be in time to repel an Israeli invasion?
You don’t because you can’t. You watch your troops fight and die in a fight with an enemy that has C3. They have also most likely gained Intelligence because they probably didn’t have the names of every person whose device blew up beforehand, and can further extrapolate from that. Hezbollah was, in other words screwed. They were open to an assault that could have resulted in their positions being pushed back, their missiles being seized or destroyed, their fighters killed and tons of front line leadership either dead or in Israeli custody. This was Israel’s chance to destroy one of her enemies and eliminate the threat on her northern border.
So why am I reading about Hezbollah retaliating? Why are the people who are firing those weapons not already dead? Why would Israel waste their greatest chance at a complete victory over Hezbollah?
I sincerely hope it’s not the American government urging them to show restraint. The US still owes Hezbollah for what happened in 1983. Of course the “Biden” administration (or whoever is actually in charge since Joe is obviously not capable of leading anything at this point) is scared of doing anything useful since it might make someone angry. For the record, I have no evidence indicating the the US Government is holding Israel back here. I just think it might be.
Whether it’s us or not is really not the point though. Israel used to do what it needed to do. In 1967 Israel faced a military crisis. They were facing threats in the form of military action from Syria, which was acting in support of Syria who was harboring terrorists and wanted a war with Israel. Israel, for its part, was spoiling for a war as well. They wanted to stop the flow of terrorists into their territory. All sides were primed for a fight, and they all got one.
Israel caught the Egyptian Air Force on the ground. The majority of Egyptian aircraft were destroyed with no chance to defend themselves. Then Israel turned their attention to Syrian aircraft, once again destroying them on the ground. Following that, Israel asked Jordan to stay out of the war. When Jordan attacked anyway, Israel counterattacked, steamrolling all opposition, which had no air cover.
By the end of the war, Israel had captured the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan and the Gaza Strip as well as the Sinai Desert from Egypt. It took six days. Peace with Egypt was later bought by returning the Sinai Desert. Israel still controls all other territory taken in the 1967 war. That’s what planning and opportunism will get you.
Anyone who says the Electronics Attack was not well planned is either lying or an idiot. What I’m not seeing is the opportunism. Israel just pulled off one of the most creative and hard hitting attacks in the history of warfare and basically decided to call it a day and go home for dinner and a night’s sleep afterward. It’s not a matter of if missing this opening will hurt Israel. It’s a matter of how much. The Israeli government has a lot to answer for here. I doubt they will ever provide the explanation they owe however. I guess I’ll deal with that if, after all is said and done, they win this freaking war.