Tag Archives: war

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.

*

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.

*

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.

 

Cutting the Hype

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These days it is all but impossible to open the Net without stumbling over zillions of references to artificial intelligence (AI). What it is; the things it can and will do; the good things it will bring about; the fortunes it will make for those willing and able to make the fullest use of it; and, above all, the disasters which, thanks to God the Computer and His human acolytes, are just around the corner and, unless countered in time, may yet bring about the destruction of mankind.

In what follows, I want to cut the hype a little by providing a very brief list of some of those things. And, on the way, explain why, in my view, either their impact has been vastly exaggerated or they will not happen at all.

Claim: AI can and will make countless workers superfluous. The outcome will be massive unemployment with all its concomitant problems. Such as a impoverishment, a growing cleavage between rich and poor, class struggles, political upheavals, uprisings, revolutions, civil warfare, and what not.

Rebuttal: Much the same was said and written about the first computers around 1970, the first industrial robots during the 1950s, and so on backward in time all the way to the first steam engines during the first few decades of the 19th century in particular. Fear of technologically-generated unemployment may indeed be tracked back to the Roman Emperor Vespasian (reigned, 69-79 CE) who had the inventor of a labor-saving device executed for precisely that reason. World-wide, during the almost 2,000 years since then, employment has often gone up and down. However, taking 1900 as our starting line, not one of the greatest upheavals—not National Socialism, not the Chinese Revolution not decolonization, not feminism, to list just three—has been due mainly, let alone exclusively, to technological change. As my teacher, Jacob Talmon, used to say: I know all that stuff about history, anonymous political, economic, social, cultural, and, yes, technological forces. But, absent Lenin, do you really think the Russian Revolution would have taken place?

Claim: AI and the ability to manipulate and spread information of every kind (spoken, written, in the form of images) will make it much harder, perhaps impossible, to distinguish truth from falsehood, honesty from fraud.

Rebuttal: True. But so did the invention, first of speech, then of writing (see on this Yuval Harari Sapiens, which helped inspire this post), then of print, then of newspapers, then of photography, then of film, then of the telegraph, then of electronic media such as radio and TV. Every one of them was open to abuse by means of adding material, subtracting material, and plain faking. And every one of them often has been and still is being so abused day by day. Long before the invention of “intellectual property” thieves and counterfeiters were forging ahead. Photoshop and Deepfake themselves are computer-generated. But what one computer can generate another can counter; at least in principle.

Claim: In the military field, AI will help make war much more deadly and much more destructive.

Rebuttal: The same was said and written about previous inventions such as the machine gun, the aircraft, and the submarine. Not to mention dynamite which its inventor, Alred Nobel (yes, he of the Prize) hoped would be so deadly as to cause war to be abolished). In fact, though, it is not technology alone but politics, economics and various social factors—above all, the willingness of individuals and groups to fight and, if necessary, die—that will govern the deadliness and destructiveness of future war, just as they have done in the past. Caesar’s conquest of Gaul is said to have caused the death of a million people. Tamerlane in the fourteenth century wiped out perhaps 17 million. And even that is easily overshadowed by the number Genghis Khan, using nothing more sophisticated than captured mechanical siege engines, killed a century and a half earlier. Here I want to repeat a statement I have often made before: namely that the one invention that has really changed war, and will continue to make its impact felt in all future wars to come, is nukes.

Claim: AI will put an end to art and artists.

Rebuttal: A little more than a century ago, the same was said and written about film bringing about the end of the theater. Starting almost two centuries ago, the same was said and written about photography sounding the death-knell of painting. Need I add that photography and film, far from causing art to disappear, have themselves turned into a very important art forms?

Claim: “AI-powered image and video analysis tools are used for a wide range of social impact applications. They can detect anomalies in medical scans, assess crop health for farmers, and even identify endangered species from camera trap images, aiding conservation efforts.”

Rebuttal: as if all the things, and any number of others like them, were not done long before anyone heard of AI.

Claim: AI has changed/will change “everything.”

Rebuttal: Back in the 1990s, exactly the same things were said of .com. Yet looking back, it would seem that the things that did not change (the impact of poverty, disease, natural disasters, war, old age and death e.g, as well as that of love, friendship, solidarity, patriotism, etc.) are just as important as those that did.

If not more so.

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.

On Escalation

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To most people, whether or not a ruler or country “uses” nuclear weapons is a simple choice between either dropping them on the enemy or not doing so. For “experts,” though, things are much more complicated (after all making them so, or making them appear to be so, is the way they earn their daily bread). So today, given Putin’s recent threat to resort to nuclear weapons in case NATO sends its troop into Ukraine, I am going to assume the mantle of an expert and explain some of the things “using” such weapons might mean.

  1. Making verbal threats. Almost eight decades have passed since the first nuclear weapon was dropped on Hiroshima (without any kind of warning, nota bene). Since then there have been plenty of occasions when countries, statesmen and politicians threatened to use the nukes in their arsenal. Eisenhower did so in 1953 in connection with the Korean War; Khrushchev in 1956 in connection with the Suez Crisis; Kennedy in 1962 in connection with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Nixon in 1973 in connection with the Arab-Israeli War of that year; India and Pakistan in 1998 in connection with the Kargil War; and so on right down to Putin today. Some of the threats have been overt and rather brutal, others more or less secret and veiled. Some were delivered directly, others with the help of a third party.
  2. To put some muscle behind the threat, weapons may be moved out of storage and put on display. Normally everything pertaining to nukes is kept highly secret. Here and there, though, countries have allowed their nuclear warheads, or replicas of them, to be shown, photographed, and celebrated for what they might do to opponents. In particular Russia, China and North Korea like to parade their intercontinental ballistic missiles. True monsters they are, any one of which can demolish almost any city on earth within, say, less than an hour of the order being given. Some such displays are accompanied by verbal threats, others not. At times the sequence is reversed in the sense that display precedes threats rather than the other way around.
  3. Raising the state of alert. Again contrary to what most people think, putting nuclear weapons to use, in other words commanding and controlling them, is by no means simply a matter of pushing the proverbial button. First, those in charge of the weapons must make sure they are always ready to be launched at a moment’s notice. Second, they must make sure the weapons are not launched by accident, or by unauthorized personnel, or by an authorized officer somewhere in the launching chain either deliberately disobeying orders or going out of his or her mind. The two requirements, speed (lest the weapons are targeted and destroyed before they can be launched) and reliability contradict each other; making the problem of nuclear command and control as difficult as any we humans have to face. Raising the state of alarm will cut through some parts of the problem—though just how, and to what extent, is rightly kept one of the most guarded secrets of all.
  4. Going a step further, weapons and delivery vehicles may be tested. Pace any number of computer models and exercises, ultimately the only way to make sure one’s nuclear weapons will work is to test them. Such tests, of course, may also be used in an attempt to influence the enemy’s behavior—as was notoriously the case when India and Pakistan both tested a number of weapons back in 1998. Some tests may be conducted in or over some outlying part of one’s own country as American, Soviet, British, French, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani and North Korea ones all were. Others may take place over some part of the vast no-man’s world that constitutes the earth’s oceans; for example, the Israeli-South African bomb said to have been detonated over the Indian Ocean back in 1979. It is also possible to send some of one’s missiles hurtling over enemy country, as North Korea has often done in respect to Japan.Each of the above mentioned methods represents a different way of (hopefully) “using” one’s nuclear weapons in order to influence the enemy’s behavior without bringing about Armageddon. Historically all have been implemented quite often, some even as a matter of routine. The problem is that, since no country or leader has ever admitted giving way to a nuclear threat, it is hard to say how effective such threats were. There are, however, additional ways states might put their nuclear weapons to use.
  5. Launching a limited nuclear strike at some less important enemy target such as outlying, more or less unpopulated, spaces or else a ship at sea. All in the hope of scaring the opponents to the point where he’ll give way to one’s demands, but without, if at all possible, risking a nuclear response.
  6. Launching a limited nuclear strike at the enemy’s nuclear or, in case he does not have them, conventional forces. Targets might consist of early warning installations, anti-aircraft and missile defenses, troop-concentrations, communication centers, depots, etc.
  7. Launching a limited nuclear strike at the enemy’s industrial infrastructure.
  8. Launching a nuclear strike at all of the targets mentioned in bullets 5 to 7.
  9. Launching a full scale nuclear strike at the enemy’s main demographic centers.

One well known nuclear strategist, Herman Kahn, in his 1962 book distinguished among no fewer than forty different stages on the “escalation ladder.” In practice, there are two reasons why the ladder is largely theoretical. First, the various stages are likely to be hard to keep apart. Second, even if the side using the weapons does keep them apart in his own mind, the other is highly unlikely to share his views. In particular, a strike that one side sees as relatively harmless may very well be perceived by the other as a mere prelude. Thus bringing about the very retaliation he seeks to avoid.

As far as publicly available sources allow us to judge, up to the present Putin has limited himself to the first of these nine stages. That is less–considerably less–than some others have done before him. So the question is, will he stop there?

War without Kitsch

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One thing, and by no means not the least important thing, war always produces a tsunami of kitsch. The kind that seeks to show how utterly wicked, utterly cruel and utterly depraved, the enemy is. The kind that claims to weep for, and commiserate with, the losses on one’s own side. The kind that contrasts our heroes’ indomitable courage and commitment to the sacred cause with the dastardly cowardice and treachery so characteristic of, so inherent in, the other side. The kind that, by its very nature, stokes the flames and undermines any kind of rational thought. If, indeed, it does not prohibit such thought altogether.

Needless to say, Israel—my Israel—is not exempt. Some of the stuff that has been drowning us since the 7th of October is the product of genuine emotion. But much of it—especially that pronounced by, or commissioned by, politicians—is patently false. At times, so obvious is the fakery as to make one want to puke.

Given this background, I found myself seeking an expression of grief that would not overflow with kitsch. The kind that is simple and noble. The kind that can actually do some good. Doing so, I recalled a speech given by Moshe Dayan, at that time Israel’s chief of the general staff. The occasion was the kidnapping and assassination of a young Israeli, Roi Rotberg. Rotberg, aged 21, was a member of a kibbutz not far from the Gaza Strip, exactly the area where the current war started, where he was in charge of the local security squad. On 29 April 1956 he was caught in an ambush and killed. Later his body, which had been dragged into the Strip, was returned to Israel.

The following is a translation, taken straight from good old Wikipedia, of Dayan’s address. Every word, every full stop and comma and question mark, is as relevant today as it was 68 years ago.

“Early yesterday morning Roi was murdered. The quiet of the spring morning dazzled him and he did not see those waiting in ambush for him, at the edge of the furrow. Let us not cast the blame on the murderers today. Why should we declare their burning hatred for us? For eight years they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been transforming the lands and the villages, where they and their fathers dwelt, into our estate. It is not among the Arabs in Gaza, but in our own midst that we must seek Roi’s blood. How did we shut our eyes and refuse to look squarely at our fate, and see, in all its brutality, the destiny of our generation? Have we forgotten that this group of young people dwelling at Nahal Oz is bearing the heavy gates of Gaza[1] on its shoulders? Beyond the furrow of the border, a sea of hatred and desire for revenge is swelling, awaiting the day when serenity will dull our path, for the day when we will heed the ambassadors of malevolent hypocrisy who call upon us to lay down our arms. Roi’s blood is crying out to us and only to us from his torn body. Although we have sworn a thousandfold that our blood shall not flow in vain, yesterday again we were tempted, we listened, we believed.

We will make our reckoning with ourselves today; we are a generation that settles the land and without the steel helmet and the cannon’s maw, we will not be able to plant a tree and build a home. Let us not be deterred from seeing the loathing that is inflaming and filling the lives of the hundreds of thousands of Arabs who live around us. Let us not avert our eyes lest our arms weaken. This is the fate of our generation. This is our life’s choice – to be prepared and armed, strong and determined, lest the sword be stricken from our fist and our lives cut down. The young Roi who left Tel Aviv to build his home at the gates of Gaza to be a wall for us was blinded by the light in his heart and he did not see the flash of the sword. The yearning for peace deafened his ears and he did not hear the voice of murder waiting in ambush. The gates of Gaza weighed too heavily on his shoulders and overcame him.“

[1] A reference to the Biblical book of Judges where the hero Samson escapes the then Philistine city of Gaza by ripping out the city’s gates and carrying them away on his shoulders.

Disabled

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As the Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the Gaza Strip drags on and on, it is time to say a word about the human cost of war. Of all war, let me quickly add, and on both sides. To my knowledge, no one has tackled this difficult topic better than Wilfred Owen did. A British officer who fought in World War I, he was killed in action just a week before the ceasefire of 11.11.1918. He left behind the following lines:

Disabled

He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,

And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,

Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park

Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,

Voices of play and pleasure after day,

Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.

                *        *        *        *        *

About this time Town used to swing so gay

When glow-lamps budded in the light-blue trees, 

And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,—

In the old times, before he threw away his knees.

Now he will never feel again how slim

Girls’ waists are, or how warm their subtle hands,

All of them touch him like some queer disease.

               *        *        *        *        *

There was an artist silly for his face,

For it was younger than his youth, last year.

Now, he is old; his back will never brace;

He’s lost his colour very far from here,

Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,

And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race 

And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.

                  *        *        *        *        *

One time he liked a blood-smear down his leg,

After the matches carried shoulder-high.

It was after football, when he’d drunk a peg,

He thought he’d better join. He wonders why.

Someone had said he’d look a god in kilts.

That’s why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg,

Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts,

He asked to join. He didn’t have to beg;

Smiling they wrote his lie: aged nineteen years.

Germans he scarcely thought of, all their guilt,

And Austria’s, did not move him. And no fears

Of Fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts

For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;

And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;

Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.

And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.

                  *        *        *        *        *

Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.

Only a solemn man who brought him fruits

Thanked him; and then inquired about his soul.

                  *        *        *        *        *

Now, he will spend a few sick years in institutes,

And do what things the rules consider wise,

And take whatever pity they may dole.

Tonight he noticed how the women’s eyes

Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.

How cold and late it is! Why don’t they come

And put him into bed? Why don’t they come?

Not for the IDF Alone

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Ever since the first day of the current Israeli-Palestinian war on 7 October 2023, Israel’s media have been bristling with stories about heroic Israeli (not Palestinian, needless to say) women. How they received their mobilization orders just as men did. How they took their leave of home and hearth (including, in some cases, their children) just as men did. How they donned uniform, took up their weapons, and went out to fight just as men did. How some of them were killed just as men were. Here I want to say, loud and clear: almost all of it is nonsense. Nonsense in tomato juice, as we Israelis like to say. Nonsense of the kind that, in the long run, will do the IDF incalculable harm.

First, the nonsense. As of the time I am writing this at the end of November 2023, Israel’s mobilized armed forces number about 550,000 uniformed personnel, up from 180,000 in “ordinary” times. Of the latter figure between 25 and 30 percent are women. How many women have been called up and are currently on active service the IDF does not say. However, its official casualty list (in Hebrew) is available here. It shows that, as of 21 November, 392 IDF soldiers had lost their lives. Of those 40, or one in eight, were female.

At first sight one in eight does not appear totally unreasonable, given that most of the troops on active service are reservists and that far fewer female reservists than male ones were called up. However, pay attention to the following. The male casualties on the list are distributed over a period of 35 days. Not so the female ones, all but one of whom lost their lives during the first day of the war. Poor girls; serving as outlooks, insufficiently trained in the use of the infantry weapons with which they had been issued, unsupported either on the ground or from the air, they were in no position either to escape or to fight off Hamas’ surprise attack. Expiring as Odysseus’ maids did (Odyssey XXII 468-73):

[Like birds], with nooses around their necks

that they might die most piteously.

And they writhed a little while with their feet

but not for long.

Shame on you, IDF, for allowing such things to happen. And shame on you, penis-envy driven feminist fiends, for misleading your credulous women followers and pushing them in that direction! The much lower number killed since then suggests that, whatever female soldiers may have been doing from 8 October on, they hardly took part in any serious fighting. Case closed.

Second, the long term harm. It is a truism, observable throughout history and in practically every human field, institution or organization, that wherever women make their entry men leave. So in the case of cashiers, so in that of pharmacists, and so in that of psychologists among many others. In part they do so by default: no two persons can occupy a chair designed for one. But there is more to it than that. To quote Frederick the Great, a commander who knew a thing or two about fighting spirit, the one thing that can make men march into the muzzles of the cannons trained at them is honor. Specifically, I add, male honor, the kind more or less reserved for men that makes them attractive for women. Conversely, for a man to do a woman’s work is not an honor. It is humiliation. Think of Heracles who, at one point in his career, was punished by being made to dress as a woman and acting as a handmaid to the mythical Queen Omphale. Omphale, incidentally, reads like the female form of “navel,” but I’ll let that pass.

A man who competes with (or fights against) a woman and loses, loses. A man who competes with (or fights against) a woman and wins also loses; killing a woman may be profitable, but it is rarely considered honorable. Finding themselves in a lose/lose situation, no wonder many men prefer to withdraw. Supposing only the process goes on long enough, the military will end up by being left with hardly any men worthy of the name at all.

Nor does this warning refer to the IDF alone.