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Israel Must Invade Now
As the decision to invade Gaza drags on, it’s becoming clear that there will be many losers in this war. We hope that Hamas will be the biggest loser by losing the bulk of its people. But it may not be an exaggeration to say the entire Middle East, if not the conditions of the world, may be at stake.
Israel is not going to make its decision freely. They now have to bow to the demands of the United States, which has pressured them not to invade. Apparently, they hope Hamas will release more hostages, and everyone should be satisfied that progress is being made. Meanwhile, we don’t know how many hostages are actually alive. Also, they have had to agree to humanitarian aid delivery, which up to this point is not subject to visual inspection and could include arms; the aid could also end up in the hands of Hamas. Israel is apparently complying with the U.S. requirements, since they have been told the U.S. could withhold essential armaments otherwise.
The United States believes it has the optimal viewpoint on dealing with Hamas, a group that has no intention of cooperating on anything unless it sets the terms. No matter how badly they are wiped out, they will never give up the fight. Never. They will never agree to an unconditional surrender and everything that would entail. But the United States, married to the idea of negotiation, will also never give up. Our leaders don’t realize that they have sacrificed their reputation and credibility on their own failed military actions. I suspect Israel is only going along with their demands because they think they must. The U.S. is also still trying to maintain a balancing act with Iran. It refuses to call out Iran, actually applying sanctions and starving the mullahs. (After all, they might get upset with us.) And there are rumors that the U.S. wants to manage the war jointly with Israel.
Give me a break.
There are no good solutions to this horrible situation. But Israel must prioritize the best options in this war:
It must invade Gaza sooner rather than later, taking out as many tunnels and terrorists as possible, knowing that the hostages may die as will many IDF soldiers.
The consequences will be terrible. The entire world will call them monsters. The U.S. will be furious, but once Israel goes in, I think the U.S. will finally give them the weapons they need; the U.S. doesn’t want to cause another Holocaust. Many people on all sides, including the hostages, will likely die.
But we have to ask the simple question: do we want Israel to survive? The main issue is existential, and all the other arguments and justifications are secondary. Israel jeopardizes its future if it does not destroy Hamas. The longer it waits, the more opportunities Hamas has to re-arm.
Israel must go in now.
Published in Military
Commitment is required. The US doesn’t have it. We’ll see if Israel does…
When in modern warfare has a defender been as well prepared to defend an urban conflict as Hamas is?
When in modern warfare has an invader been so handcuffed in tactics as Israel is (don’t injure the human shields)?
When in modern warfare has an invader been so handcuffed in strategy as Israel is (e.g., risking bogging the entire army down in Gaza, having to shuttle some back north to fight Hezbollah, and then have Fatah police drive the center of Israel in to the Med.)?
Our “leaders” need to accept that this would be the case when the first terrorist crossed into Israel on 10/7 and committed murder.
To me, there’s no point in waiting. I agree that the IDF should invade ASAP.
I keep envisioning Biden speaking to Netanyahu like he did that Ukranian official about not getting that funding if Shokin (the prosecutor looking into Burisma) wasn’t fired.
Was that ‘talk’ letting that 100 million in to Gaza? or I suspect, that Israel wouldn’t get any replenishment of arms/stocks if they go in….”well son of a bitch, they didn’t go in! (laughter from all the Leftists, Commies and Jew haters)”.
What about letters of Marque and Reprisal? It is kind of an old school thing, but against non-state actors (like pirates) it might make more sense than an invasion. It would be cheap and Israel would have less political blow back.
Letters of marque allowed governments to fight their wars using private captains and sailors, akin to mercenary soldiers, to hunt down enemies and fight their wars instead of using their navies. Oftentimes it was cheaper and easier for governments to issue letters of marque to privateers than to maintain a longstanding navy. Instead of building, funding, and maintaining a navy in times of peace and in times of war, governments would issue letters of marque to privateers so they could fight the nation’s battles. This way, the government issuing the letter of marque were not responsible to fix or maintain any of the privateers’ ships since they were owned by the privateers
Does that work on land? Basically you’d be asking Israel to trust mercenaries. Sounds risky to me.
Worse than Israel’s enemies are Israel’s “friends”.
Think “Wagner Group.” You arm them up, send them off, and things are just sunbeams and sparkles until Prigozhin turns around and marches on the capital.
Something has been bothering me for a few days and I couldn’t figure out exactly what. Today, I had a flashback to the days after 9/11 and it became more clear. I can’t remember if Shrub coined the phrase of someone else did but “bring the terrorists to justice” was a terrible choice. Bob Schieffer talked at length about the loss of American life that would occur when we “went into the caves” and brought the terrorists out. What did that fool expect? Did he think we were going to put them on trial? Apparently, he and few others thought that was a good idea. I thought that “bring them to justice” meant killing them as efficiently as possible with as little risk to American soldiers as possible. Bomb the cave entrances to seal them up and let the bastards starve or suffocate. Either would be fine with me.
Now I’m about as militaristic as a runway model, but I don’t get the idea of a ground invasion. Take out the Hamas people blocking exits, as has been reported, tell the inhabitants to move and then level the place. Seal the tunnels; let the bastards starve. MOABs, thermobaric weapons; whatever works. They deserve worse, but neutralizing them is enough, IMHO.
Regarding those few American hostages that have been released, does anyone know what price we paid? I would like to think that we are not enriching Hamas by paying for hostages, but I would be quite surprised if Hamas is just giving them back for free.
Isn’t that the truth!
Where will they go? I’m not challenging you, Django, but nobody wants them. Oh, now I’m becoming evil: we could drive them into the sea…
Feel free to challenge, and I’ll admit that I don’t know. The main point for me is don’t waste Israeli lives fighting tunnel-to-tunnel.
I agree. The most efficient way to destroy them is the best.
On the Call Me Back podcast (amazing content on what’s going on in Israel) I heard an interview with Haviv Rettig Gur and he shared an interesting opinion on the delay to invade. He feels like, and thinks the Israeli leadership agrees, delaying the invasion helps the Israelis strategically. His point is that Hamas is currently almost entirely underground in their tunnel system. While it is extensive they don’t have infinite amounts of food and other perishables down there. Israel is basically forcing them to live underground until they must come above ground and are much easier to eliminate.
Of course the situation is extremely more complex than most of us can probably even comprehend. One interesting strategy that has been promoted is to contain Hamas and deal with Hezbollah first, as they are actually the more serious threat. I’m sure the least desired outcome is to become mired in Gaza and then have Hezbollah decided to join the party.
Haviv ended by saying that we all know how this war started but none of us know how it will end. He is confident that Israel will get the results they want but no one thinks it will be fast or easy. I agree with that and it doesn’t matter what the Squad and ignorant kids on campuses think about it.
I don’t think we are doing that….although you can’t put much past this administration. It’s interesting that the first pair released were family of a very well known journalist who broke down on the air when discussing it. Seems pretty likely that Hamas saw the PR benefits of releasing them…….the journalist now has become a “cease fire” advocate i believe
Where are you getting this info because it doesn’t align with what I am hearing/reading. The only direct pressure I have credibly heard about from the US is to not start another front with Hezbollah. Now I do think that Hamas is going to trickle hostages out to try to get the US to pressure a delay…absolutely. I just don’t know of any threats we have made to delay an attack on Hamas
I’m very sorry–I was wrong. The US threatened to withhold armaments if Israel didn’t allow humanitarian aid through. This is still a problem–I’ll correct the OP.
Well put and unfortunately true.
Susan, there may be sound strategic reasons for what seems like a delay (I say “seems” because it took us months to attack after Pearl Harbor, ditto for action in response to 9/11. Perhaps it only seems like it’s dragging on because we live in such a fast media environment.). Given the network of tunnels that Hamas has, the likelihood that it’s been booby-trapped, the difficulty of house-to house fighting, it might be that the delay is not being caused by the idiotic Biden Administration, but rather because of the need to plan this intelligently to minimize the loss of Israeli lives. Well, that’s my hope, at any rate.
Thanks for your sincere comment, Jean. I appreciate it. The reason I think it’s a stall is that the tunnels, booby-traps and dangers of house-to-house fighting are true now and will be in a month or six months. In fact, Hamas will have the opportunity to set more traps and be better prepared if they have more time. I’m not convinced that the delay will be helpful.
Susan I wasn’t trying to correct you I was really wondering where the info came from. I haven’t really heard that specifically either but don’t doubt Biden pressured them about aide while he was there. Its kinda crazy to worry about aide to the enemy and plan to attack them simultaneously. I don’t remember reading about the Allies worrying about assisting the population of Japan before the surrender…
I know that, but I still made a mistake and apologizing doesn’t hurt my ego–too much! The original correct information came from Caroline Glick at http://www.carolineglick.com.
Sad to say, but you have to consider the hostages already dead.
What’s the line from Speed? “Shoot the hostage – take him out of the equation”. I know it’s just a movie, but it’s not wrong.
The ocean is right there. Find a few entrances and start pumping sea water into the tunnels. Stop when the water stops going in anymore.
I wonder if Hamas had the foresight to install watertight doors…
Delay always works to the advantage of defender who is given the chance to dig in and fortify.
“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” George S. Patton
Good one!
I think I even made a comment on this at another thread. Is driving a population into the sea a good and justifiable objective? Is what’s right for the goose, right for the gander? I’m sure the answer would have been, No.
Whatever it takes to keep fires burning in the tunnels would be my pick. Fire is bad enough, but it also saps the oxygen from anything connected.
I don’t think you are wrong. According to reporting by Glick, Blinken threatened to withhold among other things precision rockets, bombs and artillery shells (including resupply of Iron Dome missiles) if HAMAS wasn’t allowed to resupply Gaza. They call this “humanitarian aid” to the Palestinians but it certainly would be resupplying Hamas as well.
Also, monitoring what Hamas convoys would be carrying in their trucks would be performed by the neutral UN and we know how unbiased and dedicated UN peacekeepers and soldiers have been.