Tag Archives: Israel

Hear, o Israel

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As readers have probably noticed, throughout the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas I’ve devoted relatively little attention to that topic. Not because there is nothing to say—there is—but because I did not want to gladden the Philistines daughters’ hearts. Now, however, the point has come where I can no longer avoid telling my countrymen- and women the truth about the danger facing us. My vehicle for doing so will be a long quote from the famous historian Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny. Kindle Edition. 2024.

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”Most governments, most of the time, seek to monopolize violence. If only the government can legitimately use force, and this use is constrained by law, then the forms of politics that we take for granted become possible. It is impossible to carry out democratic elections, try cases at court, design and enforce laws, or indeed manage any of the other quiet business of government when agencies beyond the state also have access to violence. For just this reason, people and parties who wish to undermine democracy and the rule of law create and fund violent organizations that involve themselves in politics. Such groups can take the form of a paramilitary wing of a political party, the personal bodyguard of a particular politician—or apparently spontaneous citizens’ initiatives, which usually turn out to have been organized by a party or its leader. Armed groups first degrade a political order, and then transform it. Violent right-wing groups, such as the Iron Guard in interwar Romania or the Arrow Cross in interwar Hungary, intimidated their rivals. Nazi storm troopers began as a security detail clearing the halls of Hitler’s opponents during his rallies. As paramilitaries known as the SA and the SS, they created a climate of fear that helped the Nazi Party in the parliamentary elections of 1932 and 1933. In Austria in 1938 it was the local SA that quickly took advantage of the absence of the usual local authority to loot, beat, and humiliate Jews, thereby changing the rules of politics and preparing the way for the Nazi takeover of the country. It was the SS that ran the German concentration camps—lawless zones where ordinary rules did not apply. During the Second World War, the SS extended the lawlessness it had pioneered in the camps to whole European countries under German occupation. The SS began as an organization outside the law, became an organization that transcended the law, and ended up as an organization that undid the law.”

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Let me make myself clear; I am not trying to equate Israel with Germany during the last days of the Weimar Republic. Not yet, at any rate. But the potential in the form of political extremism and armed militias, rampaging mainly but not solely in the West Bank, is definitely there. So are threats on the justice system and its desperate attempts to keep some kind of order. And it is growing every day. First anarchy then, by way of a “corrective,” Fascism.

This country is at war, the most terrible and, in some ways, most important activity man can engage in. God grant our leaders (and those on the other side) the wisdom to know what to do and, above all, what not to do. Or else, I am afraid, we will all meet in hell.

How Can I Help Palestine?

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“How Can I help Palestine” is the title of a short essay I stumbled across on Quora, one of those websites on which you can ask (almost) anything and get answers from (almost) anyone. I thought it was amusing, so I am copying it here.

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How can I help Palestine? I have been boycotting Israeli products. What more can I do?

Throw away its computer. Many of its components were invented or perfected in Israel.

Don’t use texting or instant messaging. Invented or perfected in Israel.

Don’t buy generic drugs. The world’s largest supplier is Teva, an Israeli company. Be sure to pay full price.

Be careful what apps you use on your cell phone. Many of the popular ones were developed in Israel.

Basically, think about how your parents lived in the 1950s and 1960s and use that as the basis of your spending decisions. If it wasn’t in your mother’s kitchen back in the day, chances are Israel has a hand in its current incarnation.

On the other hand buy as much olive oil, dates and figs as you can. They are the mainstays of the Palestinian economy.

Please, God

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Israel, I always say, is like a Chi Wawa. A very small dog that, thanks to its mighty bark, always draws more than its share of attention. The reason why it barks so loudly is because it is surrounded by so many hostile Arabs who keep firing at it. And the other way around, of course. Normally that is all one hears. But there is another side to the matter, and that is what it pleases me to write about today.

I live in Mevasseret Zion, about four or five miles west of Jerusalem. Another mile or so to the west is an Arab village, Abu Ghosh. Some identify it with the Biblical Kiryat Yearim, the place where David took the Ark of the Covenant after it has been recovered from the Philistines. It is also where Mary was resurrected, an event commemorated by a large Benedictine Monastery where concerts are held. During the last decades of Ottoman rule it was a den of highwaymen who preyed on travelers between Jaffa and Jerusalem. During Israel’s 1948 War of Independence its inhabitants sided with Israel, which is why they did not suffer expulsion but were able to stay on their ancestral land. Today it is an Arab, mostly Moslem, village with a population of about 7,600. Economically it is doing extremely well; the reason being that, come Saturday and almost all Jerusalem restaurants are closed, Jews flood the village in their tens of thousands.

Some years ago I had an Arab student who lived with her family in Abu Ghosh. Since our two places are so close to each other, I offered her a ride and after class. She gladly accepted but said she wanted to sit in the rear seat. Feeling slightly offended, I asked her if she really distrusted me. No, she said, I do not. However, she added, it is our custom. Try it and you’ll see I am right. We did try it, many times, and it turned out that she was right. A worry less for her, a worry less for me.

On the way we used to talk. I asked her how she came to be called Osnat, which is a name Jewish, but not Arab, Israeli families sometimes give their daughters (the original Osnat, mentioned in Genesis, was an Egyptian lady whom Pharaoh gave Joseph in recognition of his services to the crown). It turned out that her father was a heavy earth-moving machinery operator. At one point in his life he had worked for a kibbutz woman who treated him very well. By way of saying thanks, he named his daughter after her.

Osnat herself was in her mid-twenties. All her cousins had married at about seventeen and were already the mothers of several children. That, she decided, was not the life she wanted. Instead she went to study and was reading for an M.A in the humanities. More typical of Jewish women than of Arab ones. Her reward was to work as a teacher in east Jerusalem; being an Israeli citizen, she made ten times as much as her Palestinian colleagues. Later she and I lost touch, so I do not know where she is or whether she is still single. Possibly she did not stay in her village but found an Israeli-Arab husband living abroad—educated Israeli Arab women often do.

Nor is this the only way in which Jewish and Arab-Israeli approaches to life often change places and merge. Some years ago CNN did a series on wedding customs around the world. One of the episodes described an Arab wedding. But which Arabs were they? Israeli ones, of course. To distinguish it from a Jewish Israeli wedding one had to be a real expert.

Or visit an Ikea shop, where you will see Jews and Arabs quietly queueing together or else sharing a table while taking a meal. Or Dabach, a supermarket and general purpose store not far from the town of Carmiel in the north that has been doing sufficiently well to spread into central Israel. Same story.

Or visit Karim, a native of Abu Gosh who owns the grocery shop where my wife regularly does her shopping. Over the years we learnt that he is actually a university graduate with a degree in agriculture. Unable to find work in his field, though, he opened a shop and did well enough to take over the one next door as well. Right opposite his place is an Israeli-Jewish plant-nursery several of whose employees are Arabs. This is where the whole of Mevasseret Zion goes to obtain its grass, shrubbery, potted plants, gardening equipment, and so on. Arab or no Arab, I love going there. So much so, in fact, that I sometimes do so with no intention to buy anything, simply for a breath of fresh air.

The recent construction of a new children’s amusement park will no doubt bring in additional hordes of visiting Jerusalemites. Nor is Abu Ghosh the only place where many of us Israeli Jews go in order to get Arab (or “Oriental”) food. My late mother, who was born and raised in the Netherlands before, aged 30, moving to Israel with her husband and three small children used to refer to Arab music as “Arab caterwauling.” Not so many younger Israelis who like to listen to it, as I myself also do; somehow it fits into the landscape in a way Western classical music never can.

Briefly, the impression of eternally squabbling ethnic groups is often misleading. It gets even better than that. Many Western countries have a problem with Muslim women’s clothes. Seeing them as religious symbols, they try to ban them from schools, the civil services, the streets, and even the beaches. Here in Israel we never had any of these problems. True, few Arab Israeli women wear the niqab or face-cover. Go to any beach, and you can see it for yourself. But a great many wear headcover without drawing attention. In any case some Jewish women have also taken to wearing a niqab.

So far, and in spite of events in Gaza, northern Israel and southern Lebanon, the peace in Abu Gosh has held. Whatever may be going on in people’s minds, Never in the four decades my wife and I have been going there did we hear one bad word said about Arab this or Jewish that. Please God, may it stay that way.

Incompetence

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Then (based on Wikipedia):

 

The abortive Dieppe Raid of 19 August 1942 taught the Western Allies, Britain and the US, that a successful invasion of Europe could only be carried out if sufficient logistic support was made available to sustain not just the initial landing but subsequent operations as well. Next the naval commander for the Raid, British Vice-Admiral John Hughes-Hallett, declared that, if a port could not be captured, then an artificial one should be built and taken across the Channel. In this he was supported by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill who, during his tenure as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1915-16, had come up with the idea as part of his plans to capture some German islands in the North Sea.

Later that year the Chief of Combined Operations Vice-Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, outlined the requirement for piers at least one mile (1.6 km) long at which a continuous stream of supplies could be handled. Including a pier head capable of handling 2,000-ton ships. A headquarters was set up, an organization was created, and trials were held at various locations considered suitable both because conditions were similar to those prevailing in Normandy and for security reasons.

By September 1943—just one month after Dieppe—preliminary plans for building not one but two floating harbor—one for the British, one for the Americans—were in place. So were the processes leading to the procurement and manufacturing of the most important components. Including, first, sixty-one dozen old ships designated to be sunk so they could serve as outer breakwaters; second, huge floating caissons, made of concrete and designed to be anchored to the sea bed so as to form the main protection against the waves; and, third, a roadway whose parts could be linked with each other as well as the caissons by which they were going to be supported.

Excluding the blockships, the total weight of components built to be towed across the Channel has been estimated at approximately 1.5 million tons. As was only to be expected from such a large and complex project, problems there were aplenty. However, by the afternoon of D-Day (6 June 1944) all the component parts, both towed and those designed to cross the Channel on their own power, were waiting and ready. Such being the case, construction proceeded much as had been planned—the more so because German resistance was much weaker than expected.

Known as “mulberries,” both harbors were almost fully functional when on 19 June a large north-east storm blew into Normandy and devastated the one supporting the Americans at Omaha Beach. Later it turned out that this was the worst storm to hit the coast in 40 years. So bad was the destruction at Omaha in particular that the entire harbor was deemed irreparable. Most of the constituent parts were completely destroyed, or cast adrift, and the roadways and piers smashed.

The British Mulberry harbor at Arromanches was more protected and, though damaged by the storm, remained usable. Originally designed to last only three month, for eight months it was used to land over 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles, and 4 million tons of supplies, providing much needed reinforcements in France. In response to this longer-than-planned use, the breakwater was reinforced by the addition of specially strengthened caissons. The Royal Engineers had built a complete Mulberry Harbor out of 600,000 tons of concrete between 33 jetties, and had 10 mi (16 km) of floating roadways to land men and vehicles on the beach. Known to the troops at Port Winston, and in spite of being built in a hurry, to this day it remains one of the best examples of military engineering in history.

 

That was then. And now?

 

Al Arabiya English, published: 3 May 2024: 07:05 PM GSTUpdated: 03 May ,2024

“The US military temporarily has paused construction of a floating pier off the coast of Gaza due to weather that caused unsafe conditions for soldiers [my emphasis], the United States Central Command said on Friday. Forecasted high winds and high sea swells caused unsafe conditions for Soldiers working on the surface of the partially constructed pier. The partially built pier and military vessels involved in its construction were moved to the Port of Ashdod, where assembly will continue and will be completed before it is placed in an unannounced location.

Once done, the badly needed humanitarian aid will be delivered by ships and then by trucks to shore. Vehicles from third parties will drive off the ship and the temporary pier to a marshaling yard ashore, CENTCOM [US Central Command] said. The aid will then be offloaded in the shore facility before being transferred to partner organizations that will distribute it inside Gaza.”

 

A month and a half has passed and the pier, while spectacularly expensive, is still not operational. Instead, parts of it, carried by the currents, have been found as far north as the beaches of Tel Aviv.

Egypt

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As the wars between Israel and Hamas, Israel and Hezbollah, Israeland Syria, Israel and Iran, and Israel and the Houthi of Yemen keep going, the belligerents apart no country has assumed a more important role in the conflict than Egypt did and does. In this post I will try to shed light on some of the more important issues at stake as well as take a guess at what the future may bring.

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At the time Israel proclaimed its independence on 15 May 1948 Egypt was still under British occupation, as indeed it had been from 1882 on. However, this fact did not prevent the government of Egyptian King Farouq from sending their army into Palestine with the objective, first, to appease his own public opinion—which was very anti-Israeli—and second, offset any gains the remaining Arab states might make by invading Palestine and annexing part of it. As it turned out, the calculus did not work. By early 1949 the Lebanese, Syrian, Jordanian, and Iraqi excursions into Palestine had all been halted, though not quite turned back (the Jordanians in particular remained in possession of East Jerusalem and the West Bank). Meanwhile, further to the south the Egyptian expeditionary force had come close to being annihilated; in the event, they were only saved by the threat of British intervention.

The official end of Israel’s war of independence in July 1949 did not lead to peace either with Egypt or with any other Arab country. Instead, both on Israel’s border with Egypt—now moved northward so as to leave the government in Cairo in control of the Gaza Strip—there took place any number of incidents. Most were very small; a theft here, a murder there. A few, however led full scale between Israel and its neighbors, threatening not only the Middle East but, thanks to Superpower meddling, world peace. This period lasted until late 1973 when the last Israeli-Egyptian war came to an end. Resulting in stalemate it opened the long road towards peace, albeit that this was by no means always apparent at the time.

The next stage got under way in 1977 when President Anwar Sadat of Egypt visited Israel’s capital, Jerusalem. Thanks in large part to US mediation, by 1981 a peaceful relationship between the two countries, along with a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai, the peninsula’s demilitarization, and the establishment of diplomatic, economic and some tourist ties was in place and working fairly well. To be sure, things did not always proceed as smoothly as the Israelis in particular would have liked. In particular, Israel’s attempts to tackle terrorism from Lebanon by invading that country (1982 and 2007) as well as its persistent failure to move toward an end to its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza often led to grumbling in Cairo. Deliberately or not, the latter also failed to properly seal the tunnels linking the Sinai and Gaza, thus enabling Hamas to receive large supplies of money, arms and supplies. So much so, in fact, that when Israeli troops in early 2024 invaded the underground tunnels they described them as a “superhighway.” Still on the whole the peace agreement held, greatly benefitting both countries.

The outbreak of the next major round of Israeli-Palestinian hostilities on 7 October 2023 appears to have taken Egypt by surprise, causing it to try and follow a number of different courses simultaneously. Formally the peace between the two countries, including diplomatic relations, trade, and limited military cooperation against the independence-seeking Bedouins of the Sinai, remained in place. Faced with problems in the west (anarchy in Libya), the south (anarchy in the Sudan, Ethiopia’s attempt to divert the Nile), the southeast (the Red Sea where the Houthis’ have been mounting attacks on maritime traffic, causing a decline in Egypt’s income from the Suez Canal), and the east (where Iran has been doing whatever it can to stir up trouble) Cairo knew better than to add another country to its list of enemies. Yet it did not mind the Israelis learning some bitter lessons concerning the limits of their military power and the need to enter into some kind of relationship with Hamas; if teaching those lessons meant at least partially closing an eye to the vast inflow of money, supplies and arms from the Sinai to Gaza, so be it.

Above all, official Cairo has its own public opinion to consider. Especially but by no means exclusively that prevailing among the better educated and professional classes in the cities. Starting at least as early as 1982, it has been these classes which were most vehemently critical of Israel. If not to the point of actually abrogating the peace treaty and preparing for war, certainly by limiting contacts with it and putting them on hold.

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Prediction is difficult, especially of the future. Faced with the ongoing war, essentially there appear to be three courses of action Egypt might take. They are as follows:

  1. Stick to its present course of working with the US and Qatar to lean on both Hamas and Israel to end the shooting war in one way or another. This would probably be the preferred policy, except that it does not appear to stand much of a chance of achieving its objective anytime soon. One thing, though, appears certain: the longer the war, the harder it will be for Egypt to keep doing what it has been doing or trying to do up to the present.
  2. Take a much stronger pro-Israeli line in all that regards to a. the Israeli prisoners in Hamas’ hands; b. an eventual cease fire; and c. the weakening of Hamas control over Gaza. Given how unpopular Israel is in Egypt right now, and also how obdurate both Israel and Hamas have been and still are, such a change seems rather unlikely.
  3. In everything pertaining to the war, turn against Israel (and the US). In case the present regime continues in force, any such change will probably proceed slowly and gradually. However, in a dictatorship such as Egypt a sudden upheaval, most likely in the form of a military coup, can never be ruled out. Right now, sitting in my study I can see the balcony on which, years ago, I received two Canadian intelligence officers who had previously gained long experience serving in Egypt. To my question whether a coup aimed at unseating then President Hosni Mubarak was possible, both of them hastened to reassure me it was not.

As has been said, no one believes there is a plot to kill the emperor until he is killed.

 

Guest Article: Sitzkrieg?

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Sitzkrieg?

By

William S. Lind*

Several people have inquired why I have not written a column for TR in some time. Let me assure them I am in good health and face no lack of material as our world speeds towards destruction. The reason I have not written is that the TR website is being wholly revised and much improved. That work should be done soon, and once it is I will fire more barrages at my usual target, folly. I think readers will find the revisions to the website worth the wait.

Meanwhile, the two wars the United States is involved in, those in Ukraine and in the Gaza strip, seem caught in strategic Sitzkrieg. In the former, Russia grinds slowly forward in a war of attrition Ukraine is doomed to lose. In Gaza, Israel digs itself ever-deeper into the Fourth Generation war trap in which a state defeats itself. But this seeming strategic stability is deceptive. Below the surface lurk factors that portend upheavals.

In Ukraine, NATO must soon face the fact that Kiev is losing and will continue to lose unless it can create a war of maneuver. It had its chance to do that in the summer of 2023 and blew it at the operational level by duplicating Operation Barbarossa; it launched three divergent thrusts, which is to say there was no Schwerpunkt. No Schwerpunkt means no decisive result, which is what Ukraine got.

Kiev’s defeat need not shatter world peace. But NATO’s response to defeat in Ukraine may do so. Panic is already showing its head in Paris, where French President Macron is suggesting NATO might send in troops to fight Russia directly. Berlin says no, but the traffic-light coalition government is weak and can be pushed around. London is in a belligerent mood and Warsaw is always eager to launch a cavalry charge against Russian tanks. The decisive voice will be Washington’s. That is not good news, because the Dead Inca has no idea what he’s doing and his advisors will be terrified of the charge of “losing Ukraine” in an election year. Can NATO just swallow hard and say, “We lost?”  If not, the alternative is escalation in a war against nuclear power.

In Gaza, Israel has destroyed itself at the moral level of war, which is what states usually do against non-state opponents. Martin van Creveld’s “power of weakness” is triumphing again. Hamas will emerge from the war physically diminished but not destroyed, while most of the world sees it as “the good guys” because the massacres on October 7 have been overshadowed by Israel’s destruction of Gaza. Hamas will rebuild quickly, and not only in Gaza. Recruits and money will flow to it in a veritable Niagara.

The threat of a wider war lies to Israel’s north, not its south. While Hezbollah’s operations have been restrained, they have nonetheless driven 80,000 Israelis from their homes, along with tens of thousands of Lebanese who have fled Israeli airstrikes. The latter don’t matter strategically, but the former do because Netanyahu needs their votes. As always, he will put himself above his country’s interests. That suggests he is likely to launch a ground invasion of Lebanon, which Hezbollah apparently is anticipating and ready for. Hezbollah is much stronger than Hamas, and recent events suggest Iran will also be forced to get involved directly. 

If Israel is able to degrade Hamas but not destroy it while an Israeli invasion of Lebanon does not go well (it didn’t last time) and Iran is sending presents to Tel Aviv, what does a panicky Netanyahu do?  Don’t rule out his pushing the nuclear button. That might destroy Iran’s nuclear program, and maybe southern Lebanon as well. But it would leave Israel a pariah in a world where all bets are off.

The current strategic stability is an illusion. Wars move in fits and starts, and Sitzkrieg tends to be followed by wild swings and dramatic breakthroughs. The fact that gold has risen about $500 an ounce in a few months says I am not the only one seeing danger ahead.

*William S. (“Bill”) Lind is a well-known American author and commentator on political and military affairs. This essay was posted for the first time on Traditional Right, May 13 2024.

Checkmate

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Dvora and I have a grandson. Only child of Efrat and Jonathan, he is called Avishai, a Biblical name meaning “my father’s [or God’s] gift.” Like all grandchildren he is the cutest little boy in the world. With unruly blond curlers and mischievous eyes that are almost always laughing. He loves playgrounds, running about, and ice cream. And chocolate balls too! He is a chatterbox who even as he adds new words to his already quite extensive vocabulary sometimes finds his thoughts outrunning his ability to express them, causing a slight but touching stammer. In a few weeks he will be four years old.

For those of you who are not familiar with the geography of this country, the answer to your question—is his life in any great danger owing to the war—is no. The distance from Gaza to Rehovot where Avishai and his parents live is about 54 kilometers. Their flat is located on the 12th floor of a high rise building. Not only is there no way they can reach the ground floor on time, but there is no point in trying to do so; the building does not have an underground shelter. Instead the flat is provided with a reinforced room that will hopefully protect its inhabitants against anything but a close hit.

But that does not mean that, both in Rehovot and elsewhere, the ongoing hostilities do not make their impact felt. Our oldest grandson, Orr (“Light”) is a junior IDF officer. Though not of the kind where his life is in any greater danger than that of most people here. But three of his cousins, two boys and a girl, are rapidly approaching the age where they will have to reflect about what they are going to do when the call comes as, it surely will. Rehovot itself, located as it is near a major air base, has been attacked many times, luckily resulting in very limited casualties and damage. There and elsewhere other reminders of the war include the rather frequent roar of IsraeIi fighter bombers flying overhead; the somewhat muted atmosphere in what is normally quite a boisterous country; and the growing number of wounded men—hardly any women, fortunately—one comes across in the streets.

When the guns fire, the kids cry. On both sides of the front, mind you. That is why I am posting the following poem, originally written in Hebrew by the late Israeli poet, publicist and playwright Hanoch Levin. But dedicated, on this occasion, to the children of both Israel and Gaza.

 

Checkmate

O where has my boy gone

My good boy where has he gone?

A black pawn has killed a white one.

My daddy won’t return. My daddy won’t be back

A white pawn has killed a black one.

There’s weeping in the homes, there’s silence on the green

The king is playing with the queen.

My boy won’t rise again. He sleeps, he won’t grow

A black pawn has killed a white one.

My daddy is in darkness, no more will he see light

A white pawn has killed a black one.

There’s weeping in the homes, there’s silence on the green

The king is playing with the queen.

My boy once at my breast is now a cloud of snow

A black pawn has killed a white one.

My father’s kindly heart is now a frozen sack

A white pawn has killed a black one.

There’s weeping in the homes, there’s silence on the green

The king is playing with the queen.

O where has my boy gone

My good boy where has he gone?

All soldiers black all soldiers white fall low.

My daddy won’t return. My daddy won’t be back

A white pawn has killed a black one.

There are no white pawns left nor any black ones

There’s weeping in the homes, there’s silence on the green

The king is playing with the queen.

There’s weeping in the homes, there’s silence on the green

And still the king keeps playing with the queen.

 

You can find the song at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d70p5EpwKC0. I have listened to it many times, and each time it makes me want to tear out the few hairs I have left on my head. What have we humans done, what are we doing, to each other! Skip the accords and start at 1.47 minutes.

The above translation is based on the one at the website with some changes of my own.

Something for the Mullahs to Think About

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Against the background of the continuing Iranian-Israeli tensions, it may be useful to take another look at what is at stake. Iran is a large country comprising some 1,600,000 square kilometers, Israel a very small one with just about 28,000, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip included. In terms of population the difference is as 88,000,000 to 9,500,000. Short of dropping some nuclear bombs on a few key Iranian cities, how can David expect to fight Goliath and win?

For one possible answer, consider the following. Iran is a country of many mountains, quite a number of rivers—none very long, incidentally—and dams. Out of a total of 183 currently operational dams, 52 are related to the Caspian Sea catchment area. 12 are based in the Urmia basin further to the southwest, 68 are located in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman watersheds, 34 are in the Central Plateau, 11 are in Sarakhs catchment basin, and other dams are located across the eastern boundary basin (Hamoun). Most are serving one or more of the following four purposes. 1. Flood control. 2. Providing drinking water. 3. Agricultural irrigation. 4. Electricity-generation.

The biggest dam is the Karkheh Dam (capacity 5,900,000,000 cubic meters). Next come the Bakhtiari Dam (4,845,000,000 cubic meters), the Dez Dam (3,340,000,000), the Seimarem Dam (3,200,000,000), the Chamshir Dam (2,300,000,000), the Karun 4 Dam (2,000,000,000), the Marun Dam (1,200,000,000), the Lar Dam (960,000,000), the Sardasht Dam (545,000,000), the, the Daryan Dam (316,000,000), the Ashavan Dam (260,000,000), the Mamloo Dam (250,000,000), and the Al Kabir Dam (202,000,000). The maximum capacity of all dams combined is believed to be around 55,000,000,000 cubic meters.

Simply gathering the vast amounts of data needed to asses what a coordinated attack on these and other dams could do to the country would require entire regiments of experts. The more so because many of the details are unavailable to the public. It is, however, worth-while to bring up the following story. In May 1941 the officers at the Africa Corps headquarters were a worried lot. This is surprising, given that the corps, brilliantly led by General Erwin Rommel, had just completed a spectacular 1,100-kilometer advance that took it from the gates of Tripoli all the way to Sallum, a small village just east of the border between Italian Libya and British-ruled Egypt. Measured in terms of driving distance the figure was even larger. Should the German advance continue it would soon reach the Nile. And that was just what the Germans were worried about. Suppose the British, ere they abandoned Egypt and retreated into the Sinai and from there into Palestine, blew up the Aswan Dam; what would happen then?

A coded message—chefsache, nur durch Offizaier—went out to the General Staff. From there it was passed on to the experts of the newly founded Wehrtechnische Fakultaet, the newly-founded Military-Technological Faculty of the University of Berlin. It took a few days before a reply was received. When it did, it pointed out that the capacity of the Dam—meaning, the old British-built one that had been completed in 1902 and was by far the largest in the world until that time—was 5,300,000,000 cubic meters (5.3 cubic kilometers) of water. Just what so much water could do to the vulnerable land to the north depended on many variables. However, provided the demolition job was carried out in the right way (starting from the middle and working its way in both directions, rather than the other way around) and during the right season of the year (starting in July and lasting until November) it would occasion a monstrous wave, thirty to forty meters high, drowning everything in its path to the Mediterranean. Including, some 690 kilometers away, the capital of Cairo which at that time was a city of a million and a half out of a total of about 18,000,000.

In terms of capacity, several of the Iranian reservoirs are comparable with the one created by the Old Aswan Dam. Surely there must be something for the Mullahs to think about here?

Guest Article: Why Hamas Will Lose

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By

Colonel (res.) Dr. Moshe Ben David*

Professor Yuval Harari, who teaches modern history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has turned himself into one of the leading intellectuals of the Western world. His books, particularly Homo Deus, deal with important turning points in human history as well as our ability to survive into the future. In no small part thanks in part to President Obama’s endorsement, they reached the stop of the best-sellers list. As requests for articles and interviews came pouring in, they also made the author famous. True, many of his best known prophecies have neither materialized nor look as if they are going to be materialized. Instead of making progress towards a better, more peaceful and better off, world what we see is Covid-17, starvation in the Sudan, and war both in Europe and the Middle East; not to mention terrorism over much of the world. None of this has caused Harari to lose confidence in himself and his ability to look into the future. In particular, in an article just published on Israel’s most important news website as well as a CNN-interview with Christiane Amanpour, he discussed the future of Israel’s war against Hamas. Israel, so Harari, has no chance of winning the war. Why? Because, to do so, the government in Jerusalem would have to lay down clear objectives, something which, so far, it has been unable to do. Israel, he went on to say, needs a new government. One that would drop its “preposterous Biblical fantasies” concerning a complete victory and prepare for some kind of compromise. He ends by saying that Israel and Hamas have reached an impasse. Even in case the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) succeed in defeating Hamas and disarming it, the real outcome will be a defeat for Israel. The only way to prevent such a situation is compromise, negotiation and peace.

I’d like to use, as my opening shot, the work of the widely respected American political scientist Bernard Brodie (1910-78). To be viable, so Brodie, a military-political plan must take into account objectives and means; including, among the latter, the balance of armed force and society’s willingness to sacrifice some of its young men in the process of attaining them. Seen in this light, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statement, on the first day of the war, that Israel’s objective is “the complete destruction of Hamas”—the organization which, on 7 October 2023, subjected Israel to a surprise attack and inflicted some 1,000 casualties in a single day—appears both reasonable and attainable. Reasonable, because it reminds one of the Allies’ highly successful “unconditional surrender” during World War II, a formula that proved highly successful. Attainable, because of the military balance in Gaza. Clearly, in case Israel fails to achieve Netanyahu’s stated objective it will have to change its policy. That is what the cabinet is for.

Here it is worth adding that there exists a fundamental difference between the attacker and the attacked. The former, in this case Hamas, can adopt any objectives he wants. The latter, in this case Israel, faces a simple choice: either fight or surrender. Supposing he decides to fight, his only objective can be to defeat the enemy. Everything else comes later and must necessarily depend on events on the battlefield—meaning that the relationship between objectives and means must remain flexible and cannot be nearly as rigid as Harari imagines. Indeed the whole idea of laying down the political objectives ahead of events on the battlefield, which is what he seems to say, is, to use a term I have used before in this article, preposterous.

Second, his claim that, to win the war or at any rate not to lose it, Israel must have a new government. One that will rid itself of all kind of all kinds of illusions concerning total victory and prepared for some kind of compromise. In this context it seems that Harari is unaware of the fact that, right from the beginning of the war, the IDF has been following the government’s guidance step by step. Not a single encounter with the IDF that did not end with Hamas being defeated, either by having its troops killed, wounded or captured or when those troops evacuated their positions, leaving its enemy in control or the battlefield. One does not change a winning horse in the midst of a race; doing so can only strengthen Hamas in its decision to fight on. Besides, what does Harari think a change of government could achieve? Suppose the Israel decides to change its objective as laid down by Netanyahu and aim at replacing Hamas’s rule in Gaza by one run by the (Palestinian Authority) in Ramallah; does anyone really believe that Hamas will tamely sit down and agree? Halil Shkaki, the Palestinian’s Authority’s number one expert on polls and polling, says that 73 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank support Hamas and are in favor of the atrocities it has committed. Furthermore, the Authority spends 1.3 billion shekel, or 7 percent of its annual budget, assisting the relatives of Palestinian casualties who died while fighting Israel. This on top of symbolic gestures such as naming streets and squares after them, praising them in the schoolbooks it makes children study, and the like. Ending the war with a compromise, such as Harari suggests, will only enable Hamas to take over the West Bank in addition to Gaza, putting Israel’s heartland within easy reach of some of the heavy weapons it already has.

Harari’s third claim, namely that Israel and Hamas have reached an impasses that can only end in an Israeli defeat, is also wrong. Soon after the successful massacre they committed on 7 October Hamas’ leaders announced they were expecting to follow up with additional measures of the same kind. Unfortunately for them but fortunately for Israel, so far it does not appear as if they are able to realize that threat. Here is another, and much more likely scenario: following its successes so far, and after a due period of rest and reconstruction, the IDF will enter the city of Raffia in the southern part of the Strip and do away with the residuals of Hamas’ organized units on land, in the air, at sea, and underground. The oft-heard comparisons with the IDF in Lebanon as well as the American adventures in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq are, in reality, irrelevant. Why? Because the Gaza Strip only comprises 1.42 square miles, equal to 0.00083 percent of Iraqi territory, 0.00055 percent of Afghan territory, 0.0011 percent of Vietnamese territory, and 0.034 percent of Lebanese territory. Once Raffia is dealt with, all Israel will need to defeat what remains of Hamas and completely dominate the country is three brigades.

Dominating the Strip on all sides will also isolate it from the external world and make it much harder to smuggle in the kind of arms, money, and logistic support terrorists and guerrillas require. In this context it is important to keep in mind the fact that Gaza’s population is not homogeneous. About one third, consisting of natives (as opposed to those who left Israel at one point or another), supports the PA and would like few things better than settling accounts with Hamas which has been maltreating them ever since the Israelis withdrew almost two decades ago.

To sum up, it stands to reason that, even after it completes its occupation of the Strip, the IDF will have to carry out sporadic anti-terrorist operations. In doing so it will be able to draw on half a century’s experience not only in the Strip but in the West Bank as well. Ending terrorism will not be easy and will take time. However, given the various types of specialist forces the IDF deploys as well the various innovative techniques it has devised, many of which are the envy of foreign farmed forces and are widely imitated, there is no reason why the struggle will not lead to a successful end. Finally a word about the “preposterous Biblical fantasies” that, says Harari, are dreamt up by all kinds of Israeli extremists, including not a few in the government itself.  Nietzsche in his Untimely Meditations says that those who condemn the past endanger both themselves and others. This is because we are all products of the past, complete with all its problems, passions, errors and even crimes. That again is why, for both individual and nations, to deny their past is tantamount to shooting oneself. This is true of Harari himself; but it is even more true of countless others the world over who think as he does.

Col. (res) Dr. Moshe Ben David, is a retired IDF infantry officer with much experience in counterinsurgency. He is also a former vice president of Amadox Inc.

Konseptsia

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As you may have guessed, konseptsia (plural, konseptsiot) is a Hebrew word we Israelis often use. It means, roughly, a system of interlocking ideas (sometimes known, in English, as “parameters”) that, taken together, form a framework for thought. Rather than try to provide a closer definition, I will provide you with three examples of past konseptsiot that have paid a critically important role in the Israel’s history and are helping shape world history right down to the present day.

Konseptsia No. 1. To say that Israel has long history of fighting many of its Arab neighbors would be an understatement. The Arab Revolt of 1936-39, the 1948 War of Independence, the 1956 Suez Campaign, and countless smaller incidents followed each other in an almost unbroken chain. Still, as of the winter of 1966-67 there seemed to be no sign of an immediate threat. At the General Staff, the Intelligence Division was inclined to attribute this to the fact that Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser had sent some of his best troops to Yemen to assist rebels against the government there. As a result, it was thought, he was in no position to wage war against Israel until further notice.

So far so good. But then, all of a sudden, things began to happen. Rather than allowing events in Yemen to give up any plans for a war with Israel, Nasser, perhaps because he worried lest Israel would soon be in possession of its first nuclear warheads, decided to use the prevailing tension between Israel and Syria to withdraw his troops from Yemen. Next, on 14 May 1967, he sent 110,000 of them into the Sinai Peninsula. Not content with this, on 18 May Nasser demanded that the UN withdraw its troops which had been stationed there since 1956-7 and were meant to separate the two sides. Granted his wish, on 22 May he closed the Red Sea to Israeli shipping, thereby undoing the fruit of the 1956 Suez Campaign and effectively cutting Israel’s maritime communications with the Far East. On 30 May King Hussein of Jordan arrived in Cairo where he signed a mutual defense pact with Egypt; a few days later Iraq too joined the alliance. As Israel watched the konseptsia, which said that another war any time soon was highly unlikely, collapsed, triggering a crisis in the government and near panic among the population. In the end it was only by means of a full-scale Israeli offensive against its neighbors that the situation was saved.

Konseptsia No. 2. Following its spectacular victory of June 1967, Israel was left in possession of the Sinai Peninsula (taken from Egypt), the Golan Heights (taken from Syria) and the West Bank (taken from Jordan). Six years later, in spite of the so-called War of Attrition waged by Israel and Egypt along the Suez Canal in in 1968-70, this situation still prevailed. Central to the confidence Israel exuded during those years was the belief, firmly held by the General Staff, that neither Egypt nor Syria would dare go to war without making sure they had air superiority first. Since this kind of superiority was deemed to be beyond those countries’ reach, Israeli Intelligence considered war to be highly unlikely.

However, reality refused to agree with theory. Instead of building up their air forces to the point where they could match the Israeli one the Egyptian and Syrians armies, lavishly supported by the Soviet Union, focused on vast arrays of anti-aircraft defenses to provide them with the cover they needed. On 6 October 1973, with some 350,000 first line troops between them, they attacked. They crossed the Suez Canal and, in the north, came very close to overrunning the Golan Heights. It took the Israelis eighteen days of ferocious fighting, as well as some 3,000 casualties (KIA only), to redress the situation. Once again, the konseptsia had failed.

Konseptsia No. 3. Though they fought outnumbered two or three to one, the October 1973 War did bring out the best in Israel’s fighting forces. Still the outcome of the war in question was much less decisive than that of its 1967 predecessor. Which explains why, starting late in that year and spilling over into 1974-75, an inquiry was held to discover the origins of the intelligence failure that had caused Israel to be taken by surprise and made possible the Arab’s early victories. The investigation appears to have been thorough, leading to the dismissal of the chief of staff and the chief of intelligence. A third high ranking casualty was the commander, Southern Front. Perhaps more important in the long run, both the intelligence-gathering process and the organization responsible for obtaining and disseminating it were reformed, albeit in ways that are not always available to the public.

Fifty years passed. By late 2023 Israel had been battling terrorism, especially but not exclusively that launched from Gaza, for ages. Assuredly it was a nuisance; but one to which the Israel Defense Forces had become accustomed and with which it had learnt to live, more or less. The border was fortified—with the aid, among other things, of a one-of-its-type heavy steel, sensor-studded, partition that surrounded the Strip and prevented the construction of underground tunnels—and equipped with lookout posts positioned so as to support each other and leave no square inch of land uncovered. Fences, searchlights, killing zones, and any number of other devices combined to make crossing the border without being detected almost impossible. For months prior to 7 October intelligence, some of it electronic, some obtained with the aid of drones, and some originating in the (mostly female, incidentally) lookouts in their lightly fortified positions, showed signs that something was afoot. Including, in particular, exercises mounted by Hamas by way of rehearsing an attack. Repeatedly, warnings went up the chain of command. As repeatedly, they were pushed aside. With Hamas’s past performance in mind, neither the Intelligence Division nor Southern Command could bring themselves to think that Hamas was capable of much more than mounting a company-size raid.

*

Came 7 October, a Jewish holiday. In a replay of 1973, several key commanders were with their families, enjoying a well-deserved break from duty. Presumably that was one reason why the Israelis were slow to react, requiring hours and hours before its armored forces and air force took up the fight. What happened next has been told many times and will surely continue to be told many times in the future. Instead of coming up with a company sized attack or two, Hamas sent in the equivalent of a brigade. In its wake came a mob of less disciplined marauders who, it turns out, were responsible for many if not most the atrocities committed by Hamas on that day. Instead of operating by stealth while trying to infiltrate the defenses, they brought bulldozers to tear them down. Instead of trying to avoid the lookouts, they attacked them head-on in their bunker-like, but still all too light, fortifications. Having crossed the frontier they spread out westward. Blocking Israeli roads, shooting up Israeli traffic, overrunning some nearby Israeli settlements, disrupting a music festival held nearby, and inflicting over a thousand casualties in dead alone—the largest number, as has been pointed out, of Jews killed in a single day since the end of the Holocaust. As these lines were being written over two months later Israel, its society and its armed forces were still fighting to deal with the consequences of the attack.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that those who did not see the writing on the wall were idiots. Or that they neglected their duty, “falling asleep while on guard,” as the Hebrew phrase goes. Or that the technology deployed along the frontier was not good enough. Far from that being the case, it was some of the best and most advanced ever seen. What I am saying is something far more profound and much more important: namely that, much as people blame the konseptsia as the factor that guided and misguided Israel’s political-military thought, without some kind of konseptsia thought itself is impossible. Sticking with it may mean disaster; dismantling it risks leaving behind a jumble of incoherent, often vague and conflicting and misleading, ideas. When Clausewitz famously wrote about war, waged by fallible human beings under the most intense kind of pressure, being the province of confusion and misunderstanding he knew what he was talking about.

And so, dear readers, regardless of what technological progress, specifically including AI, may still some up with, it will remain. And not just in the military sphere either.