Tuesday, August 09, 2022
From Ian:
Key military and political takeaways from ‘Operation Breaking Dawn’
Key military and political takeaways from ‘Operation Breaking Dawn’
Israel’s 66-hour campaign targeting the military leadership of Palestinian Islamic Jihad was a major success on multiple levels. The first was military: Israel succeeded in taking out the entire PIJ command structure, rapidly achieved its military objectives, striking over 170 strategic targets with limited collateral damage, and then quickly brokered a ceasefire.Ruthie Blum: Identifying with the invisible residents of southern Israel
The second and perhaps even more surprising success was that coverage of Israel’s preemptive strike in the international media was muted, as were the condemnations from around the world that are typically connected to any Israeli military action.
Unparalleled military dominance
For decades, Israel has enjoyed superior intelligence, firepower and air power compared to its enemies. However, Israel’s military edge over local terror factions has reached a new level, as demonstrated clearly both during the current round of hostilities and the previous one just over a year ago.
For better and for worse, Israel has become a surveillance superpower. Israel is watching and listening; even to apps and channels its enemies think are encrypted. Israeli security services can track and locate nearly any device at any time.
These game-changing surveillance capabilities plus advanced technology enable the Israel Defense Forces to generate new targets in real time using complex algorithms. During the 11-day “Operation Guardian of the Walls” in May 2021, Israel was able to automatically and continuously generate new targets in the middle of the fighting, in a manner beyond the scope and abilities of any human intelligence.
The second component of Israel’s military dominance is pinpoint accuracy. If a target is in the dining room of an apartment on the fourth floor of a 10-story building, Israel can put a missile through the window of the room.
Israel is thus able to identify, locate and strike targets while dramatically minimizing collateral damage and civilian casualties. This enables Israel to inflict mortal blows to terror infrastructure and only terror infrastructure. On multiple occasions during the three-day operation, for instance, Israel delayed a strike due to children identified playing in the area, waiting to fire until civilians were clear of the area.
This struck me more with each phone call I received on Saturday evening from friends in Jerusalem and elsewhere inquiring whether I thought there would be additional Red Alerts later that night. Each expressed surprise when I responded that the rockets were still flying, every few minutes, without let-up, as they had been for the past 24 hours. The thing is that the bulk was felt in the south.Caroline Glick: The strategic blindness of Israel’s caretaker government
Contrary to what these friends had assumed, my knowledge about this untenable situation had nothing to do with my having to write about it. Nor was my cognizance the result of a permanent perch in front of the TV and Internet.
No, the reason for my keen awareness of what the residents of the south were having to endure was the Red Alert app that I had downloaded on my phone. I didn’t need to have it; I could hear the sirens in my own neighborhood, and lists of rocket-launches and their locations were visible on every television channel.
But it was a way to get a sense of how often the people who live close to Gaza were under immediate attack. The frequency of the app’s notifications was chilling. Indeed, the chime barely ceased, around the clock, for two-and-a-half days.
Every eerie “cling” sound represented innocent Israelis—from communities whose names are unfamiliar to most of their counterparts to the north—hurrying to hole up in safe rooms, bomb shelters or stairwells. It’s no wonder that many took their kids and fled, until the ceasefire, to homes farther away from the missile-equipped murderers next door.
The Israeli government, especially the current interim one, constantly calls for unity. What might help in this virtually impossible endeavor would be a heavy dose of empathy for those bearing the brunt of the enemy’s will—and repeated attempts—to annihilate the entire Jewish state.
When the next round of rocket barrages begins—and there will be a next round—I urge everyone, Israelis and sympathizers abroad, to arm him/herself with a Red Alert app. It’s an eye-opener, including for those of us who think that we can identify with the plight of our civilian brethren on the front lines.
Israel’s operation demonstrated the depth of the strategic challenge Gaza poses. Islamic Jihad is a wholly owned subsidiary of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, which founded it in 1988 and still arms and commands its operations today. Islamic Jihad used to be seen as a mere nuisance in the Gaza Strip. But this week it showed it has amassed an arsenal capable of presenting Israel with a massive security challenge. Even worse, it has just a fraction of the capabilities that Hamas enjoys.
Hamas is not a wholly owned subsidiary of Iran, but it is an Iranian client. Hamas receives funding and arms from Tehran. Its leaders are in direct, intimate contact with the Iranian regime, which they brag about. Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh was in Tehran last April to participate in Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s inauguration. Hamas’ tens of thousands of missiles cover nearly all of Israel. Its anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles pose a threat to Israeli ground and air operations in Gaza.
Iranian sponsorship isn’t the only thing Hamas and Islamic Jihad share. They are partners. According to media reports, there were Hamas officers in Islamic Jihad command centers all week long. Hamas approved every missile volley Islamic Jihad launched and provided it with logistical support. Given the intimacy of their cooperation, the fact that Hamas didn’t use its own missiles to attack Israel is a meaningless distinction. Indeed, it’s worse than that. Pretending that Hamas is not involved in an operation it actually enabled and participated in gives Hamas a free pass for waging war.
But for the Lapid-Gantz caretaker government, none of this mattered. The government and its attendant media insisted Hamas and Islamic Jihad are totally separate from one another, and even rivals. The government’s narrative claimed Hamas was acting like a responsible adult.
Between Friday and Saturday, the IDF’s job quickly moved from attacking Islamic Jihad to ending the operation as quickly as possible to avoid Palestinian Arab civilian casualties that would “compel” Hamas to start shooting its own missiles at Israel. In other words, the government put the onus on itself. Hamas would come in if Israel made a mistake. Hamas is responsible. It cares about its people. And it will only join the fray if Israel forces its hand.
This false narrative is doubly destructive given Hamas’ actual nature. Hamas isn’t a responsible governing authority. It’s a terrorist organization ideologically committed to annihilating Israel and the entire Jewish people. By treating Hamas as the responsible adult in the room, the government gave legitimacy to an actor that is morally, militarily, ideologically and politically illegitimate.
This is not to say that Israel should have opened a major campaign against Hamas. A caretaker government lacks the political legitimacy to initiate a large-scale conflict. But the government’s kowtowing to Hamas, like its anxious acceptance of Islamic Jihad’s ceasefire terms, was unnecessary and destructive.
