In Terror Fight, Israel’s Hands Still Tied
Israel’s outgoing chief of military intelligence, Major General Amos Yadlin, warned this week that the greater Tel Aviv area could face missile attacks from multiple directions, and that Israel’s enemies “are trying to increase their missile arrays in terms of range and accuracy. Tens of thousands of missiles are weapons of terror, not the kind you can conquer land or win a war with.”
In other words, sowing terror among the population could be just one aspect of a larger onslaught.
On a more positive note, Yadlin said he “can safely say that Israel’s deterrence and the IDF’s might are stronger than ever.” However, he also implied that much of Israel’s might could be nullified by political factors: “Our enemies expect our hands to be tied, like in the case of the Goldstone Report. This may allow Iran and Hezbollah to continue arming themselves, while hiding in the midst of civilian population.”
The Goldstone Report, a UN-sponsored counterattack to Israel’s 2009 Gaza offensive, charged Israel with war crimes on the basis of Hamas-vetted interviews in Gaza. Yet it has been only tepidly opposed by the United States and the EU.
Yadlin’s words compare and contrast interestingly with another item in the Israeli media this week, an article on al-Qaeda’s threat to Europe by Ron Ben-Yishai, military analyst for Israel’s largest daily Yediot Aharonot. Noting that U.S., Pakistani, British, French, and German intelligence agencies concur on the existence of the threat, and that the group planning attacks “is hiding, organizing, and training in the tribal area in Western Pakistan,” Ben-Yishai writes that:
This group’s immediate objective is to avenge the fatal blows sustained by al-Qaeda in Pakistan as a result of U.S. drone attacks in recent months. Since entering the White House, U.S. President Barack Obama has authorized no less than 122 drone hits against senior al-Qaeda and Pakistani Taliban leaders hiding out in the tribal regions of the country. This is more than double the number of attacks former President George W. Bush authorized in all eight years of his presidency.
Just last month, at least 22 such attacks in Pakistan alone killed dozens of Muslim terrorists.
The hypocrisy is still there when it comes to Israel fighting terror. Israel is the only Western democracy with terror enclaves right on its borders (though this is the fault of its own unwise steps) and at the same time, multiple political and diplomatic constraints in defending itself.
“We ARE all Israelis now.” It’s just a plain fact. We are quickly heading for that “Clash of Civilizations” that bin Laden talked about right after 9/11 and Americans had better realize that we should be standing by our friends in this fight and not try to isolate them. American has few real friends as it is, so we had better protect the few who would actually stand with us in this war against radical Islam.
With Obama in office, the day will come when Iran has a nuclear weapon and, when that day comes, all bets are off. If America doesn’t do something about it, Israel will. Will we stand with Israel if she does act alone, or will we denounce her at the UN, like all of the other anti-semitic nations in that horrible organization? We should stand by Israel and protect that good friend in the coming months, because Obama will have to decide if Israel is, indeed, “worth” saving.
I have a terrible feeling that within a year or two Israel will be facing another situation like the Yom Kippur War of 1973, where she faced massive assaults on many fronts. This situation will become extremely critical if Iran has a nuclear weapon. Is Obama willing to openly assist in the defense of Israel? Well, if his tepid response to the incident with the boats trying to break the naval blockade of Gaza is any indication, we are in for a lot of trouble. Obama is very adept at throwing people and countries under the bus. Hopefully, Israel will not be one of them.
In a roundabout, PC manner of speaking, Yadlin is stating the obvious-at least to those whose ears aren’t full of wax.
Israel’s enemies seek to terrorize Israel out of the region by ANY means at their disposal.That their war is NOT a fight about ‘settlements’, or this or that piece of land. It IS about taking over ALL of Israel.
Moreover, and equally important, he is pointing a finger at Israel’s political leadership, in effect, daring them to man up.It has NOT been the case(in a very long time) about Israel’s capability to decimate the enemy.HOWEVER, it has been the case of the will of Israel’s leadership to attain VICTORY over her tormentors, thus, ignoring her Washington masters.
And herein lies our albatross, and I am not referring to our enemies.IF the political leaders take the shackles off of our fighters, then we will prevail. We have the training, the lethal weaponry, and the motivation to do so. Nevertheless, it would require a revamping of military orders, to allow our fighters to care MORE for our citizens than for enemy civilians.The IDF would have to finally ! rip apart our twin albatrosses-’havlaga’ (restraint is strength, an oxymoron of the highest magnitude) and ‘limited conflict’ doctrines.
To wit, IF the enemy is not restraining themselves, and IF the enemy is going in for our jugular, then surely they do not operate under limited conflict.
Again, Yadlin is warning Israel’s citizens that it IS the political leadership which holds the fate of our nation in its hands-not the enemy.
Adina, ‘havlaga’ is literally ‘restraint’ without reference to strength, although in IDF doctrine it implies some sort of spiritual strength that is supposed to compensate for fighting to a draw, or winning on the battlefield in the expectation that the pols will give up the fruits of victory (1973 being a perfect example; the high losses depressed the country for years because Meir, Dayan, Rabin and Peres yielded to essentially American pressure). [The US, in contradiction to the beliefs and perhaps wishes of many Americans, has been the party to strip Israel of physical depth and bargaining power - with the assent of her own leaders.]
Havlaga was Hagana doctrine from 1948. So you raise a very interesting point. Havlaga very much grew out of the Labor Party/Jewish Agency thinking of Ben Gurion and the Labor ideologues, though Ben Gurion certainly possessed another strain of thought, we’ll call it his ‘natural’ streak. Havlaga made sense in the Yom Haatzmaut War, and the ‘win to a draw’ thinking also was practical given the enormous and brutal pressure that Eisenhower brought upon him in 1957 – ‘withdraw from Sinai or we’ll destroy your economy.’ By 1967 it no longer made sense, yet the same people were essentially in power when it came time to face down Nixon and Kissinger over the crossing of the Canal and the fate of Egypt’s Third Army. Dayan was still there. Golda had been B-G’s sidekick, and nearly all the Generals came out of the Labor elite’s labs. When Rabin became PM in ’74, it was nearly guaranteed, particularly with the ‘underminer’ and monster-ego Peres at his side, that Ford and Kissinger would essentially dictate terms over the disengagement agreements with Egypt.
Then I’d add the following points – Israeli leaders have never really absorbed that US negotiators negotiate on behalf of the Arabs each and every time. And the Israeli economy, until the late 1980s, was always vulnerable to hostile assault (and, again, I mean the leverage afforded to US diplomats by Israel’s terrible economy at the time). The irony now is that Israel has one of the strongest economies in the world, yet we need Yadlin to raise the issue. I expect that Amos, like us, expects his words to be ignored. This is the ‘underneath’ reality that David Hornik never addresses; it reminds me of other hawks in Israel who simply fail to address the psychological and ideological weaknesses of Israel’s elites.
Larry, a great overview of Israeli military history and its psychological underpinnings.
In fact, when the perennial leftist Dayan ( a man nearing a nervous breakdown during his tenure as DM, leftists are NOT mentally wired to lead battles )recommended that our Temple Mount(our spiritual wellspring, can anyone imagine the Muslims giving away Mecca/Medina?) be given over to the Wafq’s control-AFTER a bloody battle in 1967 that finally ! got it back into our hands-it became apparent that Israel’s leadership are hopelessly deluded and incapable of protecting our national interests.
There are many reasons for their psychosis, but suffice it to say that besieged mentalities have NO business fighting wars in the Middle East.They are just NOT psychologically sound enough to be at the helm.
IF the posters want to know exactly what happens when Islamists get their way, (and consequently leftists lead us)particularly in the Middle East, they would do well to pick up my brother’s recently released book, ‘Terrorist Cop’ by Dzikansky (NYPD Homicide Detective, First Grade) and Slater. All the gory details of world wide Islamist terror are contained in this must read,and most importantly, a practical chapter on ‘Lessons Learned’ is included.
Weak leaders-AKA leftist appeasers-are the death of their citizens, most especially in tiny Israel.President Peres, the octogenarian who NEVER retires, infamously coined the term ‘sacrifices for peace’. This is how he referred to the dead Jews who died on the altar of Israeli Derangement Syndrome, courtesy of The Oslo Peace/Death Accords.
Thanks for the kind words. There are some interesting archival pieces about Dayan and Meir at Y-net; I assume you saw those. It is interesting that most of the ‘breakdown’ focus was on Rabin, who had a nicotine-plus-stress (plus alcohol?) breakdown during May ’67. It took the brazen Herutnik (at the time) Weizman to get things together. However, I think your point about Dayan is right – he has gotten a pass and was in fact wavering a lot, esp. in ’73 when he was the decisive voice that effectively guaranteed that Golda would not preempt, a step that CoS Elazar claimed would have saved many lives.
I will look for your brother’s book. Have you seen Peter Lance’s stuff, particularly on the Blind Sheikh, Zawahiri and Ali Mohammed, the double or triple agent from Egypt who was an American officer and was involved with the terror cells in Jersey and Brooklyn?
1) Havlaga – It is my understanding that this term was coined to describe the policy of the Hagana towards the British Mandate following the white paper of 1939. The decision was to continue to defend the Yishuv against Arab attacks, to continue the settlement process, and the smuggling in of immigrants, and not to respond to the provocations of the British policy. By 1948 it was no longer relevant, and was never used against the Arabs – e.g. the reprisal strikes of unit 101 between 1948 and 1956.
2) To the best of my knowledge, Ezer Weizmann was in charge for about 24 hours while Rabin recovered, and the main thing he did was give contradictory orders which threw the southern front into chaos for a day or two until things could be sorted out. It was also speculated that this mismanagement was one of the reasons he was passed over for the job of chief-of-staff.
Not only have I seen Lance’s work, but I gave him access to Israeli print media, and his interview with Israel National News, with Tamar Yonah, was due to my introduction. I have spoken with him quite a few times about his ongoing ‘research’.
Larry, if you read my article at Israel National News, The Opening of Jihad on US Soil, I refer to the Brooklyn Al Farooq Mosque connection etc.Take a look at the site, or google my name and it will come up.
I have been tracking these jihadists for quite some time.
Considering Bill Clinton’s aversion to pursuing Muslim terrorists, and considering that there were nine Algerians on TWA Flight 800, I’ve always been skeptical of the FBI’s explanation that a gas leak caused the mid-air explosion of that airliner back in 1996, not coincidentally at the same time that all kinds of other attacks by terrorists were going on all around the world. Hell, that irresponsible, useless and disingenuous putz, Clinton, even passed up not just one or two, but three opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden between 1996 and 1999. So why wouldn’t he lie about that airliner to cover his ass in that instance, too.
Clinton was always an enabler for terrorists, Muslims and non-Muslims, alike. Too preocccupied with getting blow jobs from Monica and others to protect the people in this country, much less the people in other countries, too. Running the country was always just a lark to that irresponsible, playboy jackass. Clearly, the safety of Americans was never of any concern to that narcissistic sociopath.
My secondary point there was that Obama is just as irresponsible as Clinton was. The events in the Middle East are just an irritating distraction to Obama, who can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, and who wants to stay focused on wealth and power redistribution from white people to people of color, not just domestically, but around the world, also, and in case you haven’t noticed, most Israelis are white people, too, hence, to that madman in the White House, they’re the enemy, too.
Sharansky’s 3 D’s at work. It really should surprise no one. Hostility by the left and their allies to Jews defending their children’s lives is not something new. Israel just needs to do what she has to whether the world like sit or not. As Golda once said, I would rather be alive and hated then dead and loved.
The truth is that as Israel goes so goes the world…it happened with Palestinian terror and it is happening with Islamic fascist terror…at least not everyone is ignorant of reality as evidenced by the Friends of Israel initiative and truthfully Israel wouldn’t have such a robust economy if everyone truly was against her. But vigilance is always the key and opening your mouth and explaining yourself is important. Someone out there is bound to listen, even if its only the peons of the world…you know the ones that actually do most of the living and dieing in this world.The ones who are daily subject to the terror fears, unlike the “elites” who give themselves some really nice security measures.
Israel should take care of Israel and not worry about the rest of the worlds opinions. The world has made clear throughout history their attitudes, feelings and behaviors towards Jews. The world has no qualms about and in most cases have been complicit with our brutal demise.
Israel shouldnt pay attention to ‘world public opinion’ which only exists between the ears of the believers. Israel, do what is necessary for your protection.
I think that the answer is simple. Israel should clearly mark its drones with American insignia and then use them to attack Hamas and Hezbollah. Its clear that the world thinks that American drone attacks are a legal form of defense and approves of them. Using “American” drones to attack Hamas and Hezbollah would just be an extension of American policy. Another hitch in this form of retaliation would be the end of targeted killings of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders. Since the world clearly criticizes Israel for such attacks, those should never be used again. The general population of where the enemy lives should be targeted instead, just like Hamas and Hezbollah do. Since that form of retaliation as used by Hamas and Hezbollah is not criticized by the world in general, it should be adopted by the Israelis. And, if a few of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders are “accidentally” killed in the process, so be it. Other things could be done to help us win the hearts and minds of the world. Since religious works and formal charters of the said national groups advocate genocide, Israel should openly call for the death of all the residents of Gaza, West Bank and Shiite areas of Lebanon. With these things done, I’m sure that the world will love us even more and openly admire us.
Dianne, all your points are on target.
Whoopee! Hooray! Yippee! FINALLY, somebody here agrees with me! Wheeeeeeeeee!!!
Good points, Dianne. I believe that Flight 800 was accidentally shot down by US missiles, then the whole thing covered up by Clinton using the FBI.
Adina, thanks for the further notes. I purchased your brother’s book and it’s on the way to my dwelling. Hope to meet you in Israel one day.
Larry, hope to see you too in Israel, post if coming here.
Enjoy the book, and it’s a good thing you seem to have a strong constitution, you’ll need it to get through it!
I may appear to have a strong constitution from your remote location, however there is occasional doubt on the issue.
Will be arriving on or around 15 November. Please feel free to extract my email from the moderator if you wish, and also pass it on to Terry if you have his email.
Larry
And yet, AND Yet the Democrats LOVE that phoney and egomaniacal sociopath, certainly indifferent to, if not oblivious to the extent to which their irresponsible, playboy president (and that slick con artist) exploited the vulnerabilities of the poor and the ignorant and the disenfranchised strictly to empower himself for all of the perks that came with the job of POTUS. Go figure.
BTW, I suspect that either it was a ground-to-air missle wielded by Muslim terrorists, or an accidentally or prematurely exploded bomb and a plan-gone-wrong by inept terrorists on that airliner – NOT a U.S. missle that brought down that plane.
The Clinton Administration was so irresponsible that, hell, it wasn’t even until after 9/11 that Democrats realized and/or finally acknowledged that there were terrorist cells already in place in this country, and even then, they wouldn’t admit to their incompetence, instead sleazily finger-pointing and sleazily blaming the laxness of the Bush Administration for the circumstances which led to 9/11, even though anyone with any common sense would realize by now that it was the laxness of the Clinton Administration and the FBI that enabled those terrorists to orchestrate their monstrous plans to fly airliners into predesignated targets, plans which were shown to have commenced back in 1996, coincidentally at the same time that TWA Flt. 800 exploded in mid-air, quite possibly as a test of one of several variations of the terrorists’ plans.
No, it wasn’t a U.S. missle that brought down that airliner. The FBI covered up their own incompetence and the incompetence of the Clinton Administration for their bumbling failure to discover that there were already terrorist cells in this country. In fact, if you will recall, it was BUSH who got the FBI and the CIA to clean up their acts. Until Bush became POTUS, I doubt if FBI agents could find their way to bathrooms in their own offices without maps and red arrows painted on the walls and floors to show them the way. I’m serious. (Well, sort of
)
Jonathan, interesting comments. I think you may be technically correct, but I don’t think your points contradict my overall point. Clearly you do…
It would be nice for Israel to adopt the American tactics, but Israel doesn’t have the luxury of a media which is supportive of an aggressive approach to fighting terrorism, and a good third of Israeli Jews oppose practically any military approach to fighting terrorism as well.
Many Israelis felt the Goldstone Report was one sided, tendentiously anti Israel, unfairlypro Palestinian, and that much of the report and it’s findings against Israel was fabricated.
I ask how different that report was from all of Israeli television and radio, practically all of Israeli print media, and even the Kadima party.
Frankly, compared to the Israel media and the Israeli Left, the Goldstone Report was the epitome of fairness and good judgement.
There is another simple answer to Israeli media. Give them all a promotion, send them to the USA, and have them work for the MSM here. We’ve already become deaf to our MSM’s reporting and they would fit right in.
Israeli media remind me of the “reporters” Moses sent to Canan to report back what they saw. Ten of them came back criticizing and two of them came back with a positive report. I think that those ten must have belonged to the same union as Israel’s MSM. As a result of their reporting, the Jews were forced to wander the desert for another forty years. Unfortunately we don’t have the luxury of wandering in the desert for forty years this time. In a poker player’s terms, G-d wants us to either put up or shut up. I think he is sick of our whining.