Gaza War Discussion

[MR2]

Satire

[Badger52]

Originally Posted by Box

...and WITHOUT Matt 'Guitar' Murphy

I have spoken.

We're on a mission from God. Matt goes.
- Mister Man

[Badger52]

Some interesting observations from a guy (ostensibly contractor?) who just got back from that AO. The news feeds they get over there are not the watered down ones seen here. Anyway, from a post over at subguns:*

42 hours hotel to door is still rough
This will be a random dump of what I found out.

Flying the great circle route from the middle east is over due to war zones. They fly south of Israel and then across the Med to Spain and then do a limited arc over the Atlantic. I think it added an hour or 2 to the flight time going on memory.

Middle eastern feeds are drastically different than what we see. The videos they were getting were horrific. It was like seeing WW2 holocaust level barbarism.

The dude that was showing me this stuff was saying I don't like seeing the women and kids getting hurt but the Israeli soldiers deserve it with a glee in his eye.

The middle east considers Palestinians to be lower than dogs but are useful for killing Israelis. They actually hate Palis but they hate the Israelis just a little bit more.

Nobody wants the Palestinians in their country. Kind of like inviting MS13 to stay at your house.

This struck me hard. The Palestinians mothers are ashamed of their kids if they don't get killed fighting the Israelis. They want them to be martyred. They don't want kids that are doctors and lawyers. They want suicide bombers. It's a badge of honor to the mothers.

I was watching Hamas operate and they are well trained. Better trained that the IDF they came up against that first day. They spread out when on open ground and then formed stacks when they got to a building or door. They stayed a couple feet off the walls when going down alleys. They had rifles covering sectors. This thing was well planned.

The check points they hit was manned by IDF they hated. The check point guards must be low level IDF. They torment the Pali's that are passing through twice a day. It's 3 hours wait to go to work and 3 more hours to get back into Gaza.

I noted they cut the border wall with linear shape charges. I wonder where they got that? Did they make them?

I also saw they fired rockets right over the advancing trucks and Para gliders. The rockets put the border guards into bunkers. At the same time they dropped grenades on the towers with the crews 50cals in them to take them off line. Very well planned and coordinated.

Somebody on twitter said these guys were not normal haji. They were well equipped with lots of ammo in mags. The normal haji has maybe 2 mags with 60 rounds.

They took out that first tank with a dropped shape charge. Israel is still parking all their armor in clumps without a thought to drones. They will learn that's a bad idea soon.

The guys I was with said IDF are pussies when it comes to a gun fight. They want to kill remotely with drones. They said Hamas has no fear and wants to die fighting the Israeli's. IDF will have huge losses if they go into Gaza on the ground.

It's always good to be back in the US.

* Just offering the link; no guarantee on its veracity.

[Joker]

New TTPs will need to be followed by the IDF. With the use of VBIEDs, shape charges in various locations, and other types of IEDs combined with the high ground (buildings) Hamas owns, the IDF will be challenged. But, with the use of drones in combination with other technologies and tactics they can overcome those challenges.

Article

[Joker]

Originally Posted by Badger52

Some interesting observations from a guy (ostenibly contractor?) who just got back from that AO. The news feeds they get over there are not the watered down ones seen here. Anyway, from a post over at subguns:*


* Just offering the link; no guarantee on its veracity.

Wagoner

[Roguish Lawyer]

Originally Posted by Box

...and WITHOUT Matt 'Guitar' Murphy

Don't you blaspheme in here!

[mojaveman]

New TTPs will need to be followed by the IDF. With the use of VBIEDs, shape charges in various locations, and other types of IEDs combined with the high ground (buildings) Hamas owns, the IDF will be challenged. But, with the use of drones in combination with other technologies and tactics they can overcome those challenges.

Article

Good read

[EricV]

I've got a question about what's happening. There is some talk that the powers that be in Israel let it happen. I don't subscribe to that Idea, but am wondering about a few things.

My understanding is that the IDF had 4 battalions around Gaza, but pulled 3 of them off for duty protecting some demonstrations in the West Bank.

The regular army IDF doesn't have regular army battalions in a reserve some where so has to pull 75% of their strength off the wire around Gaza??

The IDF can't call up a couple of battalions of reservists for duty instead of pulling off 75% around Gaza?? If accurate about them pulling off 3 battalions, it all seems strange.

[Paslode]

Originally Posted by EricV

I've got a question about what's happening. There is some talk that the powers that be in Israel let it happen. I don't subscribe to that Idea, but am wondering about a few things.

My understanding is that the IDF had 4 battalions around Gaza, but pulled 3 of them off for duty protecting some demonstrations in the West Bank.

The regular army IDF doesn't have regular army battalions in a reserve some where so has to pull 75% of their strength off the wire around Gaza??

The IDF can't call up a couple of battalions of reservists for duty instead of pulling off 75% around Gaza?? If accurate about them pulling off 3 battalions, it all seems strange.

You might take into consideration that Israel, like the US has elements within their governments who would have no issue letting things like this happen. Look no further than the border problems in the US as an example. You might even go as far as looking at the Pandemic as another example.

The ends justify the means.

[LongWire]

Early reporting on ABC showed a Female Border guard claiming that she had no gun or ammo at her tower.....

Like WTF are you guarding?

[The Reaper]

Shades of Marine Barracks Lebanon!

TR

[Badger52]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

Shades of Marine Barracks Lebanon!

TR

Current generations of entrenched bureaukrats would say, "Lebanon? Marine Barracks... What about it?"

[Airbornelawyer]

A few random observations:

• The collapse of the Soviet Union significantly changed the demographics of Israel. The 1990s to 2000s saw an influx of large numbers of Russian Jews. Along with the rescue of the Falashas, the Ethiopian Jewish population, this really affected the post-independence balance between mainly central European Jews and Jews from the Arab World.

• One unanticipated effect was that a lot of these new Jews were poor and unskilled. They quickly filled the social roles held by many Israeli Arabs and Palestinians. This made many Palestinian workers redundant and was probably a big factor in allowing the withdrawals from the Gaza Strip and most of the West Bank. The Israeli economy could now afford to let most Palestinians go their own way.

• The Israeli left dominated politics for decades. The left ran the government from 1948 to 1977, 1984 to 1986, 1992 to 1996 and 1999-2001. The right has been divided on numerous issues and coalition governments had to balance various interests, including those of arch-conservative Orthodox religious parties. I think the Israeli left thought the influx of former Soviet Jews would benefit them, since these new citizens were raised in an atheist state, but the opposite seems to have occurred. They've reacted badly to the threat to their influence, and the treatment of right-wing politicians like Netanyahu is rather reminiscent of Bush Derangement Syndrome and Trump Derangement Syndrome.

The most recent episode of this is a controversy over the role of the judiciary. There are some comparisons to the Democrats' anger that the Supreme Court is no longer their tool to legislate from the bench and recent pushes to pack the Court, but the Israeli situation is even worse. This has apparently been a distraction for politicians for the past year or so, though that's not really an excuse for military and intelligence professionals to be distracted as well.

• A propos of LongWire's post above, I've no idea what the situation is like today, but when I was more engaged in Israeli military matters a few decades ago, the Border Police (Mishmar HaGvul) were pretty much the bastard step-children of the Israeli defense establishment. Lower quality recruits, smaller budgets, worse equipment and training, etc. That said, I've also seen recent reports from regular infantry and armor units on border duty who've also described extremely restrictive ROEs.

• In general, Israeli ROEs do tend to be more restrictive than what US and western soldiers are used to. Orthodox Jewish laws of war are stricter than their Western equivalent, which evolved in the wake of the Thirty Years' War out of Catholic just war theory. Most ultra-Orthodox Jews are exempt from the draft, and for regular Orthodox Jews to engage in warfare, the rules regarding conduct are fairly strict. The Palestinians know this, and routinely use civilian facilities as cover, since they are fighting their war in the Western media as much as on the battlefield.

• On a separate note, but since it was mentioned above, never forget that the 1983 terrorist attacks were a precursor of al-Qaeda's multiple simultaneous attack strategem. It was not just the Marine barracks, but the French barracks as well, which were hit by simultaneous suicide bombers. The terrorists murdered 220 US Marines, 18 USN sailors, 3 US Army soldiers, 58 French paratroopers and six civilians (4 of them children).

[Penn]

imo, worth your time. VDH very broadly and succinctly describes current state of world affairs, while foundational supporting his insight with historical and present day policy.

Scroll down to -read more- and the whole transcript is available.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/epocht..._cmp=vigilantf

[Trapper John]

Originally Posted by JJ_BPK

We need Charles to finish up what he started 1291 years ago.

Unfortunately, I think that negotiated resolutions or the two-state solution are not practical. Reality is reductionist leaving only one solution as suggested by PRB. Israel must follow the model that US established with occupation of Japan to end WWII. Our military assets in the AO will be needed to permanently neutralize the Iranian terrorist state. JMHO