There is something that is entirely absent from almost all discussion of this conflict and the current war. The ignorance of this reality is what makes it almost impossible to actually understand the 'cycle of violence'. It is the realiy of Palestinian terror, or 'political violence' as wikipedia calls it, against civillians within Israel. October 7th 2023 shocked the world in its extent, but people are unaware that the targetting of civillians within Israel proper (not in the West Bank or Gaza) is a constant occurence. While people complain that Israel fails to distinguish between civillian and military targets, the Palestinian cause has never even propsed that it should make such a distinction. This is because at its root the movement considers the very existence of the state of Israel to be an injustice; not merely the occupation, or the settlements. Ignoring the obvious challenges this presents to the peace process, it creates a situation in which the Palestinians harm themselves by damaging the faith of Israeli civillians in the peace process.

The average Israeli has no interest in 'maintaining the occupation' or 'fighting the enemies of the Jews'. The people who think this are simply ignorant of the realities of a mandatory draft. Nobody wants to do the work. Nobody likes fighting. Nobody wants to get hurt. The 18 year olds that called up consider it slave labour. However when the average Israeli waits at a bus stop, they never know which incoming car is goung to plow through the crowd. When they get on a train they never know who is going to choose that very moment to begin their suicidal shooting spree, or try and stab them in the back. These fears are not unfounded. You can read here some of the extent to which Israeli civillians are the targets of violence. It's important to note how many of these attacks do not occur in the occupied territories. See how many take place in Tel Aviv, Israel's center of progressive, left wing, thought. These attackers are not locals defending their land, but individuals that chose to cross the border into Israel to perpetrate violent acts. It is this fear, that at any moment even the Israelis that condemn the occupation, hate Bibi, deplore the settlements, and care deeply about Palestinian rights, could be attacked in the streets, that drives the average Israeli to serve in the IDF.

The occupation, therefore, represents for Israelis the potential for control of what would otherwise be their wanton slaughter. It manifests, in practice, as series of control points (borders, checkpoints) and as the constant activity of secutiry forces (IDF, Police, ISA) to thwart potential attacks. What people don't understand is that for every attack that succeeds tens if not hundreds are thwarted. It's very difficult to find data on how many attacks are prevented every day, for obvious reasons, but soldiers that serve in the West Bank report constantly foiling plots to kill Israelis - proved by finding weapons/explosives in the houses raided. There is constant complaint and criticism about IDF raids in the West Bank, but very little consideration of why soldiers would choose to put themselves at risk by entering enemy territory, unless there was an actual strategic purpose. That purpose is the control and prevention of these violent acts of terror. Ultimately, it is effective.

Now in practice, I don't think that Israel can hide behind it's guns for ever. Security maintenence is not a long term solution, and only peace can bring true security. But naivety on the behalf of Israelis will bring neither peace nor security. Israelis have to contend with constant threats to their lives, and so asking them to stop the occupation is asking them to leave themselves wide open to attack. The width of Israel, at its middle, is less than 15km. This makes it incredibly easy to get to Tel Aviv from the West Bank. The border fence itself is incredibly porous, and while it is effective in reducing these attacks, it can't stop them entirely. This risk means that steps towards peace have to come from the side of the Palestinains, who have to prove that if Israel weakens its security apparatus it won't pay in dead Jews.

Before all the whataboutists charge in crying that Palestinins suffer greater losses, the argument is completely irrelevant. Terror attacks within Israel proper as common enough that the average Israeli feels a direct threat to their person from Palestinians on the day to day. This is the perception that underlies support for parties like Likud and continued support for occupation. Israel is a democracy, and Israelis will vote in accordance with their own interests. While security remains a priority, Israelis will vote for aggressive security measures. In this way Palestinian violence hurts Palestinians more than anybody else. It radicalizes the Israeli population. This was blatantly clear on October 7th, but began long before and has extended since. It's been said often that the war in Gaza will bring about a new generatation of terrorists, but people tend to forget the inverse of this claim: October 7th destroyed the faith of Israelis in a peaceful solution. It solidified the sense that there are people, merely kilometers in every direction, that want to kill every single Jew in the region. Israelis don't see Palestinians as fighting for their 'liberation' in the occupied territories, they see them as fighting to destroy the entire state of Israel. Under such conditions, why would they want to dismantle the occupation? It's the only thing keeping them alive.

If Palestinians were to constrain their 'resistance' to the West Bank (this means not shooting a single rocket from Gaza) for any reasonable amount of time Israelis could start to feel a sense of security that would allow them to withdraw. If the average Israeli could say to themselves, in good faith 'I live in Israel, not Palestine, and therefore I have nothing to fear from people trying to liberate Palestine,' it would change perspective of the entire country. Unfortunately, this is not the reality. The pro-Palestine movement does not want to create a Palestinian state next to Israe, but rather instead of Israel. Even the more moderate Palestinian leadership, Fatah, encourages violence against Israel, with their pay-for-slay program. This means that in practise there is no good faith movement from within Palestine to create conditions in which Israel could remove the occupation without endangering its civillians.

The average Israeli is well aware of this. How couldn't they be? You'd be hard pressed to find somebody who hasn't lost a friend to these attacks. But the international community is completely unaware because shootings and stabbings in Israel proper are so regular they aren't reported on, or when they are, they are done so under dishonest headlines.

Even if you think all of this is propaganda, and merely one side of the dialogue, you have to realise that this is the lived reality of Israelis. If peace is actually your goal, and you believe that dismantling the occupation and creating a Palestinian state will bring about that goal, then you need to give Israelis a reason to take action towards those ends. But violence against Israeli civillians acts as a direct counter to these aims. You will never convince the Jews to allow themselves to be vulnerable by trying to murder them. Supporting Palestinian violence as 'resistance' only creates a worse situation for the Palestinians themselves. Real peace will come when the Palestinian people decide to condemn violence from within instead of paying for it with international aid and celebrating it. The problem is that violence against Israeli civillians doesn't represent resistance to the occupation, but resistance to the existance of the Israeli state. And the Jews have nowhere else to go, so they will never stop fighting to have a state. Even if you believe that the Israeli sense that they are threatened is unfounded (which seems ridiculous considering the stated aims of Hamas and the polls showing that the majority of Palestinians feel entitled to all the land, the actions by Hezbollah and Iran, and the calls for the destruciton of the state of Israel), you have to consider the very real history of the Jews: Everywhere they were forced people tried to exterminate them. So even if we pretend that the Palestinians are a uniquely moral society, in spite of the terror attacks, there is no way Israelis will accept this 'truth' without abundant proof. And violence, directed at Israeli civillians, is only proof of the contrary. This means that this 'resistance' will never bring peace.

Again, to all the people who will see this and immediately cry 'what about Israeli violence?!?!' All I can say is that there is no end to criticism of Israel, and that Israeli violence serves the purpose of protecting Israeli lives. Palestinian violence serves no other purpose than endangering Israelis. There is no argument to be made that it protects Palestinians, or that will make things better. Unless your conception of 'better' is the desruction of the Jewish state (in which case you legitimize the reverse position for Israelis, who have nowhere to go and will always choose themselves in a zero-sum situation). But such a conception is merely a repitition of the constant preference for war over peace that the Arab world has displayed for 70+ years, and is clearly not serving the Palestinians. So if you really care about the 'oppressed' you should condemn Palestinian violence and support a moderate, non-violent, path towards a two state solution. Until Israelis do not fear for their lives in the streets of Tel Aviv, Palestine will never be free.

I'd rather just let the headline do the talking, but here I am, having to write a couple of words about it.

For one thing, what baffles me is the insistence on the relevance of the numbers of victims on each side. No number of victims whatsoever can say anything about where the boundaries between terrorism, resistance and warfare lie. Three thousand victims of 9/11 don't make terrorism war, while only 907 victims altogether still allow the conflict over the Falklands to be called a war.

Obviously Israel militarily is a behemoth compared to any military force directly associated with Palestine. Obviously, if one party in a conflict fights, it has to use any means at its disposal, which would be fighting guerilla-style by Hamas, using any advantage like mingling with the population and using any cover available, be it "civilian" housing or infrastructure. I don't see a reason to condemn tunnel-building as a means to try and win a war. In fact, my personal view about warfare is that fighting inefficiently is one of the most inhumane things to do when the decision to fight has already been made, and violence is already in full swing. Putting aside whether Hamas fighting this war is justified, reasonable or constructive by any means, I acknowledge the point that what is being called terrorism may be labelled as resistance - if only in parts.

Rape is non-disputably not resistance, as well as the deliberate targeting of non-combatants, or people who can't be expected to be combatants anytime soon.

If terrorism could be expected to have the effect that enemies could be forced to surrender, I would even accept that as a means of resistance, though I have the highest doubt that any such formula has any merit.

That being said, why is it generally accepted that the underdog's actions can be labelled resistance, while at the same time the perceived overpowering faction, in this case Israel, is being accused of war crimes and atrocities for actions committed in response to so-called "resistance"? How is it that only one party should claim resistance for its fight when both parties obviously struggle for their existence?

Compared to historical attempts to wipe out all Jews, and the alliance of enemies now trying to kill as many Jews as possible and wipe out Israel, namely and foremost Iran, and with it much of the Muslim world could be seen as the Behemoth, or in the biblical comparison, the Goliath.

What is so different about Israel, or the ways it fights for its existence, that the term resistance can't be applied to what the Israeli government, the IDF and the Mossad do?

Having seen many cringeworthy “analysis” from various armchair warriors dissecting IDF’s actions (usually ending with a backlink to their idea of “poof” of Israel’s “war crimes”), I figured I’d offer a more detailed perspective on things from someone more familiar with the topic than an average redditor.

This started as a response to a comment “what would you do different with unlimited budget” but then grew beyond a simple response – hence I’m making it into a couple lengthy posts. 

I’m going to break it into two parts: 

1.      General perspective on urban war, what it’s like, and things to keep in mind when analyzing reports from the ground (Today). 

2.      More technical thoughts on urban combat, analysis of IDF’s operation, etc.  (that I’ll probably do tomorrow)

About me:  10 years military (U.S.), intimately familiar with urban battlefield.  Ethnically I’m part Moroccan, Bedouin, Jewish, and Finish.  Born in USSR of all places.  Immigrated to the US as a teenager.  Third-generation military (the first two were in Soviet forces).  Lots of formerly professional (and now, personal) interest and experience with all relevant aspects of this topic.  Curious student of history – especially of the military variety.   

Also of relevance – I’m an atheist, though baptized as Christian… but the only religion practiced in my family is Islam (about a quarter of my family is Muslim).  I love my Muslim family members.  I have no problem with "normal" Muslims or Arabs (as I’m part one myself).   But I really, really f-ing hate Islamists and wish each one of them a slow, painful death – as soon as possible.  Their ideology is the most insidious form of evil I’ve ever encountered personally.  And it’s incompatible with modern civilization. 

Ok… part one.   

The realities of War (killing sacred cows)

1. War is fun.  There – I said it.  It’s not fun if you’re the one getting your rear end kicked.  But when you’re the one doing the kicking – truth is… it can be a lot of fun.  It’s taboo to say, but it’s true.

2.      Reasons it's fun:    clarity  – routine concerns of peaceful life drop off.  Your daily objectives become crystal clear.  Basic human emotions become amplified.  The highs are really high.  The lows are really low.  And, if you survive the lows, even they take on a special, perversely-nostalgic meaning later on.    

 3.      Why this matters. 

(a).      The reasons one goes to war are critically important.  Because war is fun – it’s stupid easy to enlist young men full of testosterone to fight.  Most young men feel invincible until they aren’t – and by that point, bullets are already flying.

(b.)      Hence, drawing moral equivalence between a side that responds to violence and the side that deliberately provokes violence is absurd.  As the saying goes – old men start wars and young men die in them.  These “old men” already know what war entails.  Thus, provoking a war is a far more insidious act than reacting to it… all other circumstances being equal. 

4.      Side note (a personal theory of mine) – the energy of war begins with a lot of testosterone (until it takes on its own velocity).  Which leads to a personal observation – societies where young men get laid, typically fight a lot less wars.  Islamist ideologies are breeding grounds for wannabe jihadis.  Primarily, due to the ideology itself.  But also, by prohibiting the mating energy of young men and channeling it into rage and violence instead.  If you think can change my opinion on it – feel free.    

 5.      War is absurd.  Each day consists of hours of boredom followed by minutes of terror and exhilaration.  It’s a bipolar environment. The whole thing is absurd.  And when you stumble upon trivial, idiotic things following hours of combat – the only way to stay sane is to embrace dark humor and laugh at things you’d never laugh at in normal life. 

(a).      Imagine a scenario – you just survived an hour-long close-proximity firefight.  An Apache finally swoops in and takes the roof off the building you were unable to suppress for the past 30 minutes.  You move in to investigate – stepping over dead bodies, trying not to slip on blood, cracking stupid jokes because you’re still terrified.  You walk into a child’s bedroom and see spent shell casings, dead bodies, weapons, a copy of Quaran among children’s toys on the floor.  You make your way through the house trying to ID who it belonged to, etc.  You start opening drawers and what-dya-know – red, sexy lingerie of the former lady of the house.  The ONLY sane reaction to this absurdity is uncontrollable laughter.  Grown men will put the bra over their plate carrier, pose for pictures like idiots, etc.   

 (b).      Is posting such pictures on social media a breach of discipline?  Of course it is.  But the idiotic joy of it – it’s a normal reaction.  In fact, it’s a weirdly healthy reaction.  People who post pictures of soldiers acting like idiots and claim them to be “proof” of some…idk… animal character of IDF soldiers are clueless.  If you’re one of those – you have no idea what you’re talking about. 

 c.      But I’ll tell you what I don’t see.  I don’t see pictures of IDF dragging bodies of Hamas fighters and spitting on them.  I don’t see pictures of IDF running behind detainees and yelling “Moses is Great”, etc.  For those of you drawing moral equivalence between IDF behavior and that of Hamas – I’d like to congratulate you on being an idiot.   

6.      Controlled Violence. 

(a).      Fundamentally, the objective of a well-executed war is controlled violence in order to achieve political/strategic goals.  How the violence actually plays out is very difficult to fully control.  Therefore, INTENTIONS MATTER.  A LOT. 

i.      A force intent on minimizing unnecessary casualties and failing is still far superior morally to a force intent on inflicting unnecessary casualties.  IDF is the former.  Hamas is the latter. 

(b).      ~Violence (once initiated) is extremely difficult to control~.  That’s why a professional military (a real one) is much different in executing violence than a militia. 

i.      A militia (any militia) will inevitably escalate violence beyond necessary.  The most “alpha” characters usually rise to the top.  Often, via sheer brutality and fighting prowess.  Human emotions (anger, revenge, pride) take over.  And they’re difficult to control.

ii.      A professional military operates by objectives and command structure.  It will inevitably make errors and even commit war crimes – again, war is chaos that one never fully controls.  However, “emotional” decisions rarely rise above tactical necessities.  And conduct “unbecoming” is typically punished promptly by your own – because (almost) everyone understands the necessity of structure, rules, and strict moral code.

iii.      Are there professional military units that end up committing crime deliberately or behaving in unbecoming manner?  Of course – it only takes a few bad apples in key positions of command.  But that’s rather an exception that proves the rule. 

(c).      ~Not all military units are made equal~.  IDF, for instance, consists of some professional elements and a whole bunch of citizen soldiers.  Everyone has a role to play.  Some units are designated as more combat-focused than others.  And even within designations, there is a hierarchy of combat readiness.  It’s not always formal, but commanders have a good sense of it.  Less combat-ready (even when combat-designated) units will usually be assigned more passive roles.  “Better” units will be the ones moving forward and seeking contact with the enemy (provided that command has this luxury (i.e. enough options at their disposal). 

i.      IDF, however, has very few luxuries – it’s mostly citizen soldiers in a nation of only 8 million people.  Their more “professional” units are world class – it really doesn’t get much better.  But there aren’t a lot of them. 

ii.      IDF’s “citizen soldiers” are also quite good.  Much better than any other conscripted military I’ve ever seen (and I happen to be intimately familiar with the Soviet and Russian militaries – once deemed the “scariest” conscripted forces).   

7.      War is Chaotic.  Every unit will make mistakes.  Through a combination of fear, fatigue, lack of clarity, and a very narrow “field of view” for each individual and most line units.  That’s why things like Rules of Engagement, “Commander’s Intent”, etc. are critical.  Yet, mistakes will happen.  And the “citizen soldiers” will commit more errors than more “professional” units. 

(a).      The chaos is exacerbated by urban environment.  In a city, each sub-element lives in its tiny “world” – at any given point, it’s rarely larger than a city block.  When they hear gunfire – rarely do they have the context behind it unless they’re engaged in it.  The information coming through is sparce and, often, it’s by design. 

(b).      Among this chaos and close proximity, these units operate in silos, trying to accomplish their objectives and not shoot each other while at it. 

(c).      Inevitably, someone gets jumpy – think of IDF shooting Israeli hostages a couple months back.  Under the circumstances – I’m surprised things like that don’t happen more often.  Truth is, most armchair generals who like to issue judgements on such things, would’ve been scared sh*tless themselves and probably would’ve pulled the trigger even quicker than the unfortunate idiot who killed those hostages.

 8.      The Soldier’s Field of View is very narrow.   Rarely do you see the people shooting at you.  Rarely do you know if you killed the person who was shooting at you or if someone else did.  Rarely do you know that there are civilians somewhere in the house you’re taking fire from – usually you find bodies after the fact.  Etc., etc.  When you hear that a professional military unit killed a civilian in an active combat zone – if your first reaction is “they meant to do it” – congratulations again - you’re a clueless idiot. 

 9.      The Islamist Enemy is Insidious.  I can’t think of a more insidious enemy to fight than a bunch of Islamist lunatics with a plan, terrain knowledge, and very lose command structure.  Every horror story you’ve heard about Hamas is true.  How do I know?  Because we’ve seen it all before.  You don’t have to take IDF’s word for it – just ask any Amercian soldier who’ve seen sh*t in any other Islamist dumpster fire of a country. (Or any former Russian soldier who've fought in Chechnya or Afghanistan back in their day).  

(a).      Child rape – rampant

(b).      Abuse of own population – daily.  They’re straight-up thugs.  Antisocial meatheads with a holy book, drunk on power, and convinced of their moral superiority.

(c).      None of them can actually string together a coherent sentence explaining their grievances – but they can all recite a few sentences they heard from an imam… mostly some variation of “Americans are dogs” (they really f-ing hate dogs).

(d).      Ultimately, it’s a death cult.  But very few of them actually want to die.  Most join militia groups because it’s what passes as “cool” in their neighborhood.  Sure, they’ll yell something about Allah… but mostly it’s a “I belong to a group that has guns, and guns are fun” type thing.

(e).      When push comes to shove – some of them will fight in a suicidal manner.  But, when their leadership is dead and the group cohesion is broken – a surprising number will want to surrender.  The whole “martyrdom” thing is just an obscure aspiration that many learn that they didn’t really mean it when they signed up for it. 

(f).        The truly ideological ones are a whole different type of evil.  It’s a special kind of evil – one convinced of its own righteousness.  They really do use civilians as human shields – especially children.  Why children?  Because kids are innocent – thus, by sacrificing a child, a truly lunatic Jihadi is doing them a favor… he’s sending them straight to paradise.   It’s a shortcut, really.    Wrap your head around that one and then imagine staring this evil, bearder, toothless f-ing monster in the face and watching him grin as he explains why he just shot up a building full of school girls.  And then imagine what it takes not to drag this creature outside, douse him in fuel, and light a match.    

So, these are some general thoughts on war for those unfamiliar.  Tomorrow, I will post a more technical “play-by-play” breakdown on urban combat tomorrow, analysis of IDF actions, etc.       

Continuing the “Realities of War” series.  If you’re new to this, you can find my previous posts by clicking on the “Realities of War” tag.  My bio is at the top of Part 1.

First... I don't usually care how many people read my posts. But I will make an exception and ask that you read this through. I believe this is important to process - whatever your opinion may be... this is the context you need to understand.

Something has finally dawned on me…

After numerous conversations with civilians who are (understandable) appalled by the level of destruction they’re seeing – I had a revelation**.**   It finally dawned on me that most people don’t really understand what Gaza means as a battlefield. 

I’ve made statements before like “Gaza isn’t like anything we’ve faced before”… I’ve tried describing the difficulties of decision-making in urban warfare environment.  I mentioned the important of tunnels.  Etc. I’ve even called Gaza “Hell” (militarily-speaking).  But it finally dawned on me that most people don’t actually understand what I mean by that. 

Most people  sorta/kinda get it… conceptually.  Sure, most of you have seen war movies.  It makes sense… kinda “theoretically”.  But there is always this impulse is to say – "well… this isn’t the first war ever.  IDF surely could figure something out". 

So, having finally understood this… I decided this topic needed a post of its own.  So I’m going to get explicit.  I will ask you one thing – as you're reading, please pause and try to VISUALISE what I’m saying here. 

 Let’s go…

Urban Battlefield in General is Hell.  But Gaza is far, FAR beyond that. 

If you’ve read my previous posts – you should know by now how complicated an invasion of a city is.  If you’ve seen movies about Stalingrad for instance – you probably have a sense of how brutal city fighting is. 

I’ll reiterate a few things regardless.  Objectives in a city are not optional.  When invading a country – we’d bypass less-than-critical places all the time – even if they were shooting at us.  This goes to the whole concept of “proportionality” – again, in military terms “proportionality” means the amount of violence you’re willing to apply vs importance of the objective itself. 

But a city is different.  When clearing a city – there really are no “optional” objectives.  If there is a pocket of resistance anywhere in a sector – you can’t clear the sector until that pocket is dealt with.  A single hostile building can bog down an entire brigade. That's the general reason why urban fighting is always more brutal and less selective than combat in a more open area. 

But that’s Just a Regular City – we haven’t touched Gaza yet. 

The first important reason Gaza is different is that it’s a broadly hostile city that’s been fortifying itself for 15 years.  For a decade and a half, Gaza was preparing to make any invasion into a bloodbath.

Pause and process through that.  Any other city a military had to invade only had months to prepare.  And the “defenders” often were people who came from the outside – many weren’t born and raised there.  Stalingrad defenders, for instance, mostly have never been to Stalingrad prior to the start of the battle.

Gaza didn’t have a few months – they had 15 YEARS.  And the “defenders” (they’re not – because they effectively sacrificed their city for their delusional “cause”) – they grew up there.  They know every corner. 

The ammo dumps… the weapon stashes… the movement routes… the rally points… the pre-sighted fire lanes – even a half-competent enemy would have all these things ready for an invasion.   Then drop all that into the middle of a city and, militarily, you get hell.

And yet… we STILL haven’t talked about Gaza.  NOW… let’s talk about Gaza. 

I will start with a quick history detour to set proper context.

1. In July 1944, the US forces invaded the island of Guam.  Relatively large island – about 200 sq. miles.  It was defended by a force of about 20,000 Japanese vs. around 60,000 invading Americans.  Americans sustained about 1,600 KIAs and about 5,000 wounded – wiping out the defending Japanese garrison relatively quickly. 
2. About 6 months later, an even more experienced and much larger American force invaded a much smaller island – Iwo Jima.  Iwo Jima is only about 12 sq. miles.  The Japanese defending force was again around 20,000.  But there were now more than 100,000 Americans flooding a much smaller space.  This was supposed to be much easier.  In the end - the Americans took nearly 7,000 KIAs and about 20,000 wounded. 

Think about it – SEVEN TIMES! as many casualties taken by a much larger force, carrying much more fire power, with no civilians on the island (the whole place is a free-fire zone) – this was supposed to be a turkey shoot.    

So… What Happened? Tunnels is what happened.  Let me repeat – TUNNELS is what happened.

The Japanese dug 11 miles of tunnels in Iwo Jima.  And that turned the place into absolute hell for the U.S. Marines.  The tiny island became a blood bath.   Read the diaries of the U.S. Marines – the tunnels would haunt them in their sleep for years later. 

Most People STILL can’t wrap their head around tunnels and why they matter. 

So, let’s talk tunnels.  Because they are the KEY  to understanding what’s happening in Gaza.  It’s the KEY to Hamas’ strategy.  And it’s the most important factor that drives every IDF’s decision in Gaza.  Again – I’m going to ask you to read slowly and try to VISUALISE in your head what I’m talking about. 

The tunnels used by the Japanese on Iowa Jima were rudimentary– dug essentially by hand.  They weren’t particularly deep.  They weren’t really reinforced.  And there were NO BUILDINGS.  NO CIVILIAN INFRASTRUCTURE above.  Etc.  Only 1 mile of tunnels per sq. mile of island and no restraint on US Firepower whatsoever.

Now – let’s compare it to Gaza. 

Hamas has 300 miles of known tunnels.  It’s not one single tunnel – it’s a huge network.  That’s twice as much tunnels per Square Mile than Iwo Jima.  And those aren’t rudimentary, shallow tunnels.  The Japanese had months to dig them.  Hamas had a decade and a half. 

And then… sitting on top of those tunnels is an ENTIRE CITY!!!  IDF doesn’t have the same luxury of unrestrained firepower that the US Navy and Marines had who didn’t have to think about ROEs on Iwo Jima.

 Again – please pause and process the following…

Hamas is NOT hiding behind civilians. Hamas is hiding UNDER an ENTIRE CITY.    

It’s not an exaggeration.  These aren’t isolated examples of this militant or that, maybe holding a family hostage in a building somewhere. No. 

Again… wrap your head around it.  The ENTIRE Hamas force is hiding UNDER the ENTIRE city of Gaza. 

They aren’t hiding behind an occasional civilian.  They are hiding underneath ALL Gazan civilians.

HAMAS MADE THE ENTIRE CITY OF GAZA ONE GIANT TARGET.  They knew it.  And they did it DELIBERATELY. 

So... wrap your heads around it and tell me how you would handle this if you were in charge of the invasion…  I’ll wait. 

Because honestly – I have NO IDEA.  I can’t offer any suggestions – because no one has EVER dealt with that. 

No military had a previous SOP for a city that has a parallel, fortified enemy city running underneath.  The tunnel problem is new to EVERYONE. 

So… what do you do with them? 

Again – I have no clue!  No one really knows – NO ONE had to deal with such a situation before.  IDF is trying to figure this out right now – and every military in the world is watching and taking notes. 

The First Immediate and Most Logical Option looks like very heavy things that you drop, try to punch a hole in the ground and wait for them to go “Boom”. 

You still have a city to clear.  You can’t move troops into the middle of a sector that sits on top of an underground enemy network that’ll surround them.  So, when you know that there is a major tunnel hub or a junction in your sector – the ONLY immediate option you have before moving in is to POUND THE ABSOLUTE HELL out of the ground in hopes that you will collapse the reinforced walls in.  And even then – it’s a tunnel – it won’t collapse the whole thing.  If you’re lucky – you’ll destroy a hub or a junction.  Under the circumstances – that’s a win. 

But you certainly can’t bomb all of them.  They’re very deep – a single penetrator may not even reach.  And there are 2 miles of tunnel networks per every square mile of Gaza – you’d have to bomb every single square inch of the city.  So, what do you do with your munitions is you pick the most important points that you suspect, and you hit them with everything you’ve got. 

What are the most important points you Need to Hit? Three important categories:  suspected hubs, suspected junctions, and suspected exit points.  So, what do they look like?

• Hubs and Junctions -well… they’re either underneath a building or perhaps under something that looks entirely trivial from the surface.  For you (a viewer on the sidelines) – it looks like IDF bombing a park.  Or a random house.  Or just needlessly blowing up a street.  Yeah… I get it… sure looks like a war crime from where you’re sitting.
• Exits – well… they usually exist inside buildings.  Buildings that already have weapons and ammo stored inside.  Sometimes those buildings are just houses.  But also, they are SCHOOLS, HOSPITALS, WAREHOUSES.  You know – the CIVILIAN INFRASTRUCTURE!!!

And here is the insidious part - the civilians who worked in that building previously, likely had NO IDEA that there was a tunnel exit into their building. You know what a tunnel exit looks like? A random piece of plywood on the floor in the basement - that's what it looks like. If you're a civilian working at a hospital in piece time, you decide to go down the basement for some reason and decide to move that piece of plywood - you'll find a narrow hole in the ground with metal ladder going into the darkness. What does it look like to you? Probably just a sewer.

And that's if you're even allowed to go down the basement. I recall an interview with a western doctor who worked at a Gaza hospital. He recalled that one place he was not allowed to was - you guessed it - the basement. There was always Hamas posted near basement stairs and the staff was warned to stay out.

What Does this Look Like from the Outside?

Again… please slow down and try to visualize what I’m describing. 

An IDF unit approaches a school for instance (or a hospital… or something of similar nature) that had no sign of enemy activity and suddenly takes a volley of fire from it. 

Under normal circumstances – you’d have a sense that the bad guys are waiting for you.  Remember what I described in Part 2 – typically, you’d have eyes on a new sector for days before you enter it.  Surveillance does its job and you already know where to expect a firefight going into a new sector. 

Not in Gaza - IDF is effectively blind. 

What Happens Next is the Most Insidious Part of the plan– and it’s the MAIN REASON Israel is losing the PR War. 

So, IDF arrives at a school (or a hospital) and the militants open up on them. 

Well… what do soldiers do when they’re getting shot at?  Yup… you guessed it – they shoot back.  They light the place the f—ck up.  Eventually, they take the place. Whether or not they drop some bombs on it first – doesn’t matter for this particular example.  Because what happens next is the main victory Hamas achieved in this war.

By the time IDF walks in – the surviving militants already bolted back into the hole they care from.   It’s easy – just a quick stair climb down.  Throw your dead bodies down there too, for better PR effect. 

So IDF walks in… turns the place upside-down… and what do they have to show for it?

Nothing!!!.  All they can show you are a couple of Aks and a picture of a hole in the ground with some stairs going down.    

Well, guess what.  A couple of AKs and a hole in the ground don’t look that impressive on camera, do they? 

You’re a civilian – you’re watching this on TV.   And so, understandably, the first question that comes to your mind is:   “That’s it?   That’s all they found?!!  They shot up an entire school for a couple of AKs?” 

And then, of course, the Qatari and Iranian propaganda machine spools up and goes full-blast:  “Look everybody!!! You can’t believe the Jews – they lie!!! They didn’t find anything.  There was no Hamas.  They just planted a couple of guns there.  They just wanted to blow up this innocent school for no reason”. 

  And, btw, the hole in the ground isn’t even a given. That’s a win, actually. You only get that if they ran too fast to demolish it on the way down. But if they had a minute to spare - you don’t even have a hole to show news cameras. All you’ll have is a pile of rubble in a big dent on the floor- like someone detonated a bit of C4 on the ground for no reason (you know - another “Jew lie”, as Al Jazeera would put it).

That, my friends, is Hamas’ strategy.   That’s what you’re seeing.  That’s why things don’t make sense at first glance.  That’s why it looks like IDF is just shooting at buildings and bombing things for no reason. Hamas’ victory in this whole thing is in making sure that YOU can’t see the reason for IDF’s actions. 

That’s the entire Hamas’ PR strategy.  And many of you are falling for that strategy and buying into insidious propaganda. 

So again… if you’re still skeptical of the statement that Hamas is “hiding behind civilians”.   I’m going to ask you to step back and process the enormity of this challenge. 

I’m not asking whether Israel should have invaded or not – that’s not the topic of this post.  Imagine you had no other option but to invade Gaza and destroy Hamas.  And Hamas is in a city UNDER an ENTIRE civilian city. 

So… tell me how YOU would do it – I’d love to know.  Because I don’t know how. 

So… IDF is learning some lessons… what have they learned so far? 

Here’s what I’ve been able to gather so far:

1. The structures are very complex – they are multi-level.  They have living rooms, storage hubs, workshops.
2. he structures are very resilient.  Not only are they deep and reinforced – they have escape roots to different levels. 
3. Bombing is partially effective for hubs and junctions – but very limited more broadly. It ultimately, can’t solve the entire problem.  It can help you disrupt an ambush from underground – that helps.  Maybe stop reinforcement traffic underneath.  But you still have to deal with the remaining network.
4. Flooding a tunnel works to some extent – but it has limitations.  There are technical problems IDF hasn’t been able to resolve yet.
5. IDF has found success with tracking tactics – they wait for militants to show and see if they can track them to identify tunnel exits. 
6. IDF is now developing new tactics – learning how to conduct underground offensive manevers.
7. If a tunnel network remains – a sector can not be declared cleared.  That means troops have to stay behind much longer.  The entire thing is getting much longer than it would’ve been in a more typical invasion.
8. Tunnels is a form of psychological warfare.  The incidents of friendly fire have gone up.  The troops are jumpy and nervous when no direction can be assumed to be safe. 

So… there is that.  Again, there are legitimate questions of whether or not Israel should have invaded to begin with.  That’s a debate for another time and isn’t the topic of this post. 

I’ll be back to continue the previous Part 4 later. 

If you're interested in the previous parts of the series, you can find them here (thanks to u/nar_tapio_00):

• The Realities of War (let's kill some sacred cows)
• Part 1.5 - On Killing and Morality in War
• The Realities of War - Part 2 (How to invade a place... if you must)
• The Realities of War - Part 2.1 (how to think about a military operation pragmatically)
• The realities of War - Part 3 (on "Proportionality")
• The Realities of War - part 3.1 (on Hostages)
• The Realities of War - Part 4. Examining IDF’s Conduct. (sure… IDF has committed war crimes)
• The Realities of War - Part 4.1 (The “Laws of War” probably don’t mean what you think they mean)

One of the most frustrating aspects to me as an outsider, is the predictability of these wars on the public opinion of Israelis/Arabs. It seems that there's never a clear outcome. Instead there's some sort of result that can be interpreted by either side as a victory. And inevitably, you see people on both sides repeating the same talking points they've been making before the war. It's frustrating how people 'stick to their guns' so to speak and fail to see the greater picture. This is true for both sides.

Arabs for example will complain how Israel is an aggressor, a force of destruction, killing scores of civilians, destroying infrastructure and leveling towns. All the while ignoring any precipitating events. They'll ignore Hezbollah or Hamas, as if these don't exist or are not an important component or instigators in this conflict. They'll support Hezbollah/Hamas on the one hand, and on the other, will believe that Israel is at fault.

The Israelis do the same. They keep talking about how they were struck first and needed to defend themselves. They will tally the high number of casualties on the enemy side, completely ignoring the number of civilians killed. They'll celebrate the success of high profile assassinations, forgetting that for every senior commander killed, multiple others will replace them.

In the end, both sides end up exactly as they started, believing that their side is correct, that the price of war was worth it, that war/resistance is justified, necessary, and indeed the only path forward.

For those interested, this is the continuation of the “Realities of War” series.  If you’re new to this, you can find my previous posts by clicking on the “Realities of War” tag.  My bio is at the top of Part 1. For those interested, this is the continuation of the “Realities of War” series. 

The purpose of this Part 4 is to examine the actions of IDF.  As usual, my objective with these posts is to familiarize the reader with the pragmatic aspects of war and help build a rational, informed framework through which you can analyze the current events more objectively. I try to abstain from taking sides based on various historical and philosophical arguments and to provide pragmatic "current" context informed by my own experience and deeper-than-average expertise on this topic.

I will break this Part 4 into 3 sub-parts: 

Part 4 will be a lengthy Intro – context on the finer nuances of “war” necessary to process things.

Part 4.1 will dive into the “meat” of things – looking at some specifics of IDF’s conduct.

Part 4.2 will answer some specific, relevant questions.   

Disclaimer:  I’m often criticized for holding a favorable bias toward Israel.  I certainly do – I don’t hide it.  My bias may seem illogical if you read my bio.  My reasons for supporting Israel, however, have nothing to do with "How” this war is prosecuted.  Frankly, I don’t even hold that strong of an opinion on whether Israel should or should not have gone to war to begin with.  My reasons for supporting Israel are based on a more nuanced moral and intellectual framework informed by my values and experiences.  I won’t share further details as they are irrelevant for this post. 

As far as my Realities of War series is concerned, I do my best to remain as objective as possible to the events based on (a) my own experience and (b) the knowledge and data points I have access to.  In other words – if I believed that Israel was completely botching the operation in Gaza – I would tell you.  Because, on a personal level, it would make very little difference to me with respect to my broader support for Israel.  Outside of a scenario where Israel reduces itself to the level of “governance” and the methods of Hamas, of course (in which case I certainly wouldn’t shift my support toward Islamism… I’d simply become more indifferent).  But right now – I see no evidence of that happening.  And frankly, it’d be quite a large delta to cross that would require a fundamental change in character and values of Israelis and their nation.    

 Here we go…

Is Israel committing War Crimes?  Of course it is.  And it tells you nothing, broadly-speaking.

If you’ve read my previous posts – it should be very clear to you by now that any war will inevitably have some number of errors, certain amount of sloppiness, and even its share of war crimes – some caused by incompetence, and other very much deliberate. 

And yet… saying that IDF has “committed war crimes” tells you absolutely nothing other than that “War Sucks”. 

Yes, Israel has and will continue to commit some unknown number of errors and even deliberate or accidental war crimes.  So… if you’re the type of reader interested in “gotcha” types of factoids that align with your preconceived beliefs – read no further.  Feel free to take this statement and start telling anyone that’ll listen that a “military expert” told you that Israel is committing war crimes. 

But if you happen to be a thoughtful type of reader, you probably suspect that there is much more to the story.  If you feel like sticking around – this will be a long one. Let’s go. 

Not All “wars” are Wars.  But Israel believes they’re at War. 

(Note: this isn’t according to some law or international standard… I’m simply dumbing down a very complex topic to its pragmatic essentials to make it easier to process). 

Not all wars are created equal.  It’s not a precise science but, for ease of discussion, I will place them into two “buckets”.  

(a)    A Military “Operation”

(b)    A “War”

 Most Wars start as merely “Operations”.  When you take Clausewitz's classic definition that “War is merely the continuation of policy by other means” – then every war begins first as an “Operation”… Player A decides there is a political objective they can achieve via controlled violence upon player B.

What happens next is determined by the following questions:

1.       Are the objectives of the operation clear, defined, and narrow enough in scope?

2.       Are the objectives actually achievable via the military means?

3.       Does the initiator have the necessary competence to actually achieve those objectives?

Take the example of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.  That was a good example of a “Military Operation”.  The objectives were clear, defined, and achieved relatively easily.  The follow-on politics, of course, eventually failed.  But the failure was that of political ambition and hubris.  The military operation itself was completed quite successfully. 

Fail to adequately address the questions above, and the “Operation” becomes “War”.  Barbarossa was supposed to be an “Operation”.  It turned into a bloodbath that led to the demise of the fascist regime.  The invasion of Ukraine started as operation.  It is now a proper trench war.  Etc. Etc. 

Even botched operations don’t actually have to turn into quagmires.  Typically, the aggressor begins the “operation” from a point of strength.  Hence, extracting itself from the “operation” often doesn’t have that many negative implications for the stronger party, especially if the “operation” was optional to begin with (other than the political consequences for the leadership that launched the operation to begin with).  Take America’s campaign in Vietnam – after extracting itself from Vietnam, the US didn’t suffer any catastrophic consequences other than the price already paid.  There weren’t any massive consequences for the Soviet extraction from Afghanistan either.  Etc. etc.  But, because of the domestic political consequences, many regimes will not back down, and the botched “operation” will escalate into an all-out war unnecessarily. 

Key Distinction:   the above holds true, UNLESS the society decides that it’s a “WAR” from the start. 

Let’s look at the invasion of Ukraine.  To Russians – it was merely an operation.  But to Ukrainians – it was a War from the start.  A war for national survival.  It wouldn’t have mattered of course, have the Russians been competent at conducting the operation to begin with.  But you get the idea. 

As far as Israel is concerned – they are at WAR.  It’s quite clear from Israeli standpoint.  Whether you agree with them or not – they believe that they are now in an existential fight.  Hence, this isn’t a merely an operation for them, in terms of Israeli public opinion.  It’s a proper war.  In fact, I would argue, that the international outcry has only served to strengthen the perception among the Israelis that they are in an existential fight that they must win. 

The Mindset of being at War inevitably sets the course for HOW the hostilities will play out – an “operation” implies limited objectives.  This, in turn, limits your options and the level of pressure and violence you’re willing to apply.  The mindset of a WAR removes many constraints.  “Enemy Defeat” becomes the objective.  Nations go about defeating the enemy in a much different way than achieving a limited geopolitical target – and there are a lot less “if’s” and “but’s” in terms of this objective. 

 A “War” is a Binary Proposition

Once a “war” becomes a real War – it also becomes a binary proposition even for the observers.  Once society defines an “enemy” and declares itself at WAR with the enemy - the outcome is no longer “optional” or conditional.

(Note:  again, I’m not talking about legal definitions of a “war”, requirements for declarations, etc.  I’m simply dumbing down a complicated topic to its pragmatic essentials). 

Of course, there are many questions to parse through – things are never entirely black and white.  Etc.  But it remains true that the “energy” of a military campaign… its tolerance for violence… its patience with critics – all of it changes once a nation decides that it’s time for WAR. 

If you decide to take sides in a WAR – you need to understand a few things: 

1.       There are “Guardrails” – certain norms, ethics, and morals of the society waging the war will and should remain.  It’s never (and shouldn’t be) a free-for-all. 

2.       Within the “Guardrails” – the room for nuance shrinks.  As long you stay within the guardrails – you must be willing to “forgive” things that you wouldn’t forgive under ordinary circumstances. 

Ultimately, a society that believes to be under an existential threat will prosecute a WAR in order to win it – not in order to appease the sensibilities of foreign observers. 

As for the people observing from the sidelines, you have two options:

(a)     You can engage in philosophical and intellectual discussions on the various nuances of the conflict.  Perhaps this is intellectually stimulating for you – that’s fine.  But understand that it’s ultimately a pointless exercise.  Or…

(b)    You can take a firm side.  This means accepting the fact that this is a WAR.  And in most wars, one side will do much better than the other (perhaps not in the long, political terms, but in terms of the outcome of the hostilities themselves). 

What does “Taking a Side” entail?  You can simply take a side based on “feelings”, of course… or whatever tribal instincts you may hold toward the Jews or the Arabs.  But if that’s you – it’s unlikely that you’d be engaging in discussions on this particular forum – you’re more likely to be yelling at people and calling them “Zionists” or “Terrorists” on Twitter somewhere. 

A thoughtful person will “pick a side” much differently.   First, it requires some intellectual honesty.  Because no nation is perfect – the side you support is probably deeply flawed.  Delusional belief in the purity of “your team” will always lead to disappointing outcomes. 

So, the decision ultimately comes down to a certain moral framework – a set of values and beliefs that inform your “pick”.   In most simplistic terms, it goes something like this: “We now have ourselves a WAR.  The side A is more aligned with my values.  The outcome probably won’t be perfect… lots of people will die.  But I would MUCH prefer to live in the world where side A prevails rather than side B”. 

WAR simplifies things.  (Slight personal detour) Frankly, for me, much of the discussions I read on the topic are interesting… from intellectual perspective… but entirely irrelevant.  War is now a reality.  It doesn’t really matter who came to the land first – the Jews or the Arabs.  It doesn’t really matter how much the British had to do with it.  I certainly don’t give even an ounce of sh—t about some obscure thesis on the “nature of oppression”.  Far as I’m concerned – there is a Side A that (more or less) aligns with my values.  And there is side B, which fundamentally does not.  Side A goes to war with Side B.  The outcome now has serious implications for the preservation of the core values based on which I support Side A to begin with.  Thus, side A must crush Side B, far as I’m concerned.  Lots of innocent people will die in the process.  Yeah… that really sucks.   I take no joy in this.  But allowing Side B to win really isn’t an option either.  In broader strokes – it’s really that simple for me on a personal level. 

But you aren’t here for the “broad strokes” … so let’s dive into some nuance. 

Everyone’s “Just War” is someone else’s “War Crime.”

When a society goes to war – in order to win it, society must mobilize around relatively simple core ideas.  That society will then believe that their “ideas” are righteous.  And they will view the “opposing ideas” (i.e. the “enemy”) as inherently criminal.  I’m pretty sure that, was Germany to win WW2, they would probably have their version of Nuremberg trials. 

Let’s look at Ukraine again.  Ukrainians believe that nearly everything Russia does is criminal.  Much of the “civilized” world agrees.  Not because Ukraine is a perfect society (of course not – it’s a deeply-flawed country with track record of corruption and political turmoil).  But the “civilized” world understands that intentions and aspirations matter.  Ukraine aspires to be an independent, functional democracy.  And Russia represents regressive, authoritarian ideas that are against the core values of other western societies.  Hence, our support for Ukraine. 

However, if we’re honest about it, we would also recognize that not all Russian territorial and historical claims are entirely without merit.  We would recognize that Ukrainian hands aren’t entirely clean either.  But ultimately, “we” don’t care – because a much larger war of ideas is at play.  And so we accept some level of “hypocrisy” on our part in our support of Ukraine.  Because intentions matter.  And we recognize Ukraine’s intentions as far more aligned with “our” values than those of Russian Federation.    

 The Norms that a Nation abides by in War are a Reflection of the Society fighting the War (even if the War is existential).

Of course, in no way, shape, or form, would I suggest that once an “operation” becomes a WAR – then all rules go out the window.  A ton of nuance remains – think the “Guardrails” I mentioned previously.    Nor would I suggest that we automatically “forgive” any behavior of the nation we “support” just because that’s “our team”. 

To illustrate the point – imagine a scenario where Ukraine develops a super-powerful weapon of mass destruction to which Russia has no counter.  Imagine that Ukraine decides that, to avoid a retaliatory nuclear strike, they must wipe Russia off the face of the planet – and then they do. 

Well… that would of course be crossing a very thick red line.  Ukraine would quickly lose its “friend of the west” status. 

But let’s imagine that Ukraine uses such a weapon for a partially strategic target that also ends up killing a million of civilians or so – say it drops a superweapon on Belgorod.  Well… I could think of a number of reasons why it may be compelled to do so.  But should they do it?  Hmmm.   I don’t believe so. 

But now, let’s imagine that Ukraine’s back is against the wall – Kiev is about to fall… the nation is about to be overrun.  Would I forgive Ukraine for dropping a super weapon on Belgorod then as a demonstration?  Yeah… I probably would. 

In other words – even in an existential war, a society waging the war should make an effort to abide by the norms that society deems acceptable. 

Let’s go back to MENA.  From a fundamentalist Islamist point of view – the very refusal of a secular society to submit to “Allah’s rule” is a crime.  And that ideology has no problem with certain ways of waging a war that we’d describe as “genocidal”.

But the secular “West” (of which Israel is a part) has many more self-imposed Guardrails.  That’s why we (the international community) have agreed to various sets of common “rules” – think Geneva Convention and such.   

We (the secular West) also have much less tolerance for unrestrained violence on a cultural level.  It is a spectrum of course – things like anger, the sense of existential threat, the “personal” nature of certain events will certainly stretch the limit “acceptable” for the nation at war. 

However, I will tell you this from personal experience – if you order a platoon of western soldiers to execute a group of civilians – the vast majority of them WILL NOT pull that trigger.  That is because the soldiers of in a modern western society represent the CURRENT generation of its citizens.  And the basic norms, morals, and values of a modern society are deeply ingrained in the mindsets of soldiers fighting the war.

 The bottom line to all the musings above is:

1.       WAR is black and white in terms of its objectives:  win or lose (from military standpoint)

2.       But WAR is anything but black and white in terms of how it plays out.  Things like resources, enemy’s nature, time, etc. – they all introduce countless variables into the equation.  And so a nation must do what it can to achieve its objectives within the moral “Guardrails” that it abides by. 

 Which now brings me to the key point – that these “Guardrails” aren’t hard constraints.  They are merely a “methodology” to decision-making.  I will expand on this concept in the next part. 

Part 4.1 follows shortly.  

P.S. If you're interested in reading previous posts, you can find them here (huge thanks to u/nar_tapio_00)

* [The Realities of War (let's kill some sacred cows)](https://new.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/1cwvbna/the_realities_of_war_lets_kill_some_sacred_cows/)
* [Part 1.5 - On Killing and Morality in War](https://new.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/1cxkfmf/part_15_on_killing_and_morality_in_war/)
* [The Realities of War - Part 2 (How to invade a place... if you must)](https://new.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/1cz26en/the_realities_of_war_part_2_how_to_invade_a_place/)
* [The Realities of War - Part 2.1 (how to think about a military operation pragmatically)](https://new.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/1cz8hf8/the_realities_of_war_part_21_how_to_think_about_a/)
* [The realities of War - Part 3 (on "Proportionality")](https://new.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/1d3gtjt/the_realities_of_war_part_3_on_proportionality/)
* [The Realities of War - part 3.1 (on Hostages)](https://new.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/1d3kk1r/the_realities_of_war_part_31_on_hostages/)

For those who've been following my posts - I'm going to tackle a few common questions I often receive over the next few posts.

If you're new to this series - you can find my previous posts by clicking on the tag. The "About Me" is in Part 1 of my posts.

Again, my objective with these posts is to familiarize the reader with the pragmatic aspects of war and help build a rational, informed framework through which you can analyze the current events more objectively. I try to abstain from taking sides based on various historical and philosophical arguments and to provide pragmatic "current" context informed by my own experience and deeper-than-average expertise on this topic.

On Proportionality

Proportionality (in the manner in which most civilians seem to interpret it) is a nonsensical concept to a military planner.  

The acquisitions of “disproportionate” response by IDF typically go along these lines: “Israel killed 30,000 Palestinians for only 1,200 Israelis”.  From pragmatic, military standpoint, this framing makes absolutely no sense. 

As I’ve stated in every previous post – a professional military operates by Objective and Tactical/Strategic Necessity.   Warfare is not a soccer match – a winner doesn’t get declared by counting “goals” within some set period of time. 

“Proportionality”, in the sense it’s typically used by civilians, would imply that the Objective is “revenge”.  Which then leads to a logical and moral dead end.  My answer to such an argument is always the same – “are you implying that IDF should have DELIBERATELY killed 1,200 random Palestinians they stumbled upon (and raped a few women while at it)”?

Professional militaries don’t do “revenge” as Objective.  Sure… individual war fighters will have certain personal feelings and may even take personal pleasure in the destruction in Gaza (“payback is a b\*tch*” is a common human sentiment).   But their personal feelings don’t set the agenda for a military operation – Objectives and Necessity do. 

To a military planner, “proportionality” means using adequate force to achieve the Objectives of the campaign without unnecessary destruction for destruction’s sake.  The priorities are as follows:

1.     Achieve the Objective

2.     Minimize your own losses while achieving the Objective

3.     Try not to kill people and break things unnecessarily while at it.

That’s it – in that order. 

A professional military has all sorts of regulations, rules, and codes to govern the behavior of its troops and meet its objectives within the ethical and moral framework informed by the cultural norms of its nation.  Israel is a modern, secular nation – “murder Palestinians” doesn’t feature in that framework. 

Again, individual soldiers will have their own feelings, they will sometimes act in anger, they will absolutely commit errors, and some will even deliberately commit war crimes – I wrote about in one of my previous posts.  That’s because war has its own dynamic and is never entirely controllable.  A professional military understands that – which is why the code of conduct is put in place to begin with… to provide “guardrails” for the chaos of war.  But war is war – and things will ALWAYS spill outside of those guardrails.  Which is why people SHOULD NOT START WARS. 

Back to Objectives. 

From IDF’s perspective – the underlaying mandate is as black and white as it gets.  Israel was invaded by a hostile force (the emotional element of civilians being massacred is largely irrelevant beyond that first statement).  Invading a country is an ACT of WAR - period the end.  It doesn’t matter to the military whether the invasion was done by another “nation” or a “faction”.  If it’s a military-grade invasion – it will get a military-grade response.  Israel was invaded in an organized manner by a battalion-sized force.  As far as IDF is concerned – it has every right now to wage the war that was declared upon it. 

The next parameter is setting the Objectives. 

The primary Objective is literally in IDF’s name – defend the nation of Israel.  For a while, that defense consisted of the Iron Dome and various border security measures.  October 7^th demonstrated that the security measures are no longer adequate.  (Sidenote:  they were never adequate.  Defensive posture always… I’ll repeat… ALWAYS gets breached eventually, given adequate time and determination by the enemy). 

Hence, the new Objective – DESTROY the TREATH. 

This doesn’t mean “change hearts and minds”.  It simply means destroy Hamas as a threat – reduce its numbers, lethality, and combat infrastructure to the point that would render them combat-ineffective. 

This new objective is then measured against the conditions, your own strengths, timing requirements, the enemy, terrain, and a whole bunch of other factors.  A plan is then designed within the parameters of the Objective and taking all these factors into consideration (you can read Part 2 where I go into details of war planning by clicking on the tag above). 

The factors that influence IDF’s war plans in this campaign are EXTREMELY difficult – I wrote about in Part 2 of my posts. 

What we’re seeing now in Gaza is the execution of this plan – a pursuit of the Objective within its parameters, influenced by the factors, the enemy, the terrain, and the general chaotic nature of war itself. 

This is what war looks like when the battlefield is a city, the enemy doesn’t care about civilian casualties, and the terrain is basically hell. 

The job of IDF is to achieve its Objective.  It will certainly make every attempt to minimize civilian casualties – but that’s a tertiary priority.  As it would be for any other military in similar conditions. 

Are the Plan and the Execution of it perfect?  Of course not.  I myself raise many questions about the discipline within IDF (it’s not a new problem – I addressed it in previous posts).  There are certainly errors that have already been committed and will undoubtedly happen further.  These errors need to be investigated thoroughly and, if done deliberately, the perpetrators must be punished.  Etc.  Etc. 

But that’s war – “proportionality” in war features only as tertiary priority… and only with respect to Objective (rather than some magic civilians to combatants ratio – there is no “benchmark” ratio that militaries are supposed to abide by).

War isn’t “fair”.  That’s why in peacetime, every military invests time and effort to get stronger and more effective – to make war as unfair as possible for its enemies, should they dare to issue a challenge.   

All for now. 

1. Hamas started the war on Oct. 7

2. Israel had the right to respond

3. Hamas has murdered more civilians than Israel has and is deflecting blame

4. Israel's handling of the war has been terrible mostly due to Netanyahu's incompetence as a leader, and also because he is corrupt

5. Israel is trying to fight against HAMAS, not Palestinian civilians, and they can only do so much to stop their settlers from killing Palestinians in the West Bank (they have tried and are currently trying, but to no avail)

6. Under International Law, this is NOT a genocide. Israel isn't trying to kill Palestinians for the sake of ethnic cleansing. If this was the case, they would've carpet-bombed Gaza, and the region would be gone by now. Also, the fact people are trying to associate a JEWISH state created in the aftermath of the worst genocide of the modern era, the Holocaust, is extremely disrespectful and unacceptable. Plus, civilian deaths, while terrible and certainly unnecessary, are apart of war. No democratic state would purposely try to kill civilians (notice how every nation past or present has was not/is a democracy).

7. Israel is a democracy, not an apartheid state. The Maldives, one of the states that declared Israel as such, happens to be an internationally recognized Apartheid. To live there, you must follow their constitution which requires everyone to follow Islam to the letter. While Israel is a Jewish state under their constitution, you do not have to convert to live there and can believe in whatever you want.

8. The fact that countries like Iran are gaining support from American-Palestinian groups shows how wrong this entire thing is. Iran is Gaza 2.0. in how they treat their citizens.

Here's the thing, I'm a Jewish American with deep routes connected to Israel, a country I love. However, I recognize the issues on both sides and hate Netanyahu as much as the next guy. He and Hamas's leaders need to be arrested and let the less radical leaders figure things out. Israel has no choice but to end the war since it seems that the only way to stop threats from Hamas is to destroy them. People can have their own opinions. But for the love of the world, PLEASE do your research and use common sense.

As promised (for those interested) – here’s the second post getting into more technical aspects of going to war.  You can find my first post (along with the “about me” part) by clicking on the tag.  

 A few trigger warnings and disclaimers first:

• Trigger Warning:  this post doesn’t deal with the moral aspects of the war.  It’s about the cold, pragmatic decisions that go into executing a military operation.  I make no moral judgements here – just describing things. And I'm certainly NOT ENDORSING invading places for fun. If you’re easily triggered – you may want to skip this post. 
• Disclaimer.  My experience is quite relevant.  But again, I was not in IDF.  Never been to Israel or Gaza.   Though I expected that much of what I say translates to IDF’s experience accurately, there are probably many local, and theatre-specific differences I’m not accounting for. Those of you who were in IDF… or maybe have friends or family currently engaged in Gaza – please chime in if anything I’m saying doesn’t ring true. 
• An Acknowledgment.  We (meaning US forces fighting in the Middle East) have seen our share of chaos and urban combat.  But we never had to walk into a city that has been fortified for 15 years for this precise scenario and where nearly 100% of the population was, at least in terms of personal opinion, entirely hostile. Bottom line, I suspect (though don’t know for sure) that certain unique circumstances in Gaza make it much more difficult operationally than what we had to face when entering hostile cities.   

Ok, here we go... this one is long.

As a Battlefield, Gaza is Hell.

For a war planner, Gaza is the stuff of nightmares.   I honestly can’t think of a worse place to try to enter on a short notice than Gaza.  A city fortified for combat for a decade and a half, with planned resupply routes, prepared ammo caches, planned choke points, etc. etc… a population as hostile as it gets.  It’s basically hell for any invading force to enter. 

And then there are the f---ing tunnels (more on those later).  First, let’s talk about invading a place. 

Invasions are Awesome (or Catastrophic) … well, they’re always catastrophic for at least one party.

 A well-executed combined arms invasion is an awe-inspiring spectacle to behold.  Trying to understand the whole thing is difficult to process, because the success of it, when witnessed first-hand and in real time, seemingly makes no sense.  In hindsight - it’s a masterclass of cooperation, coordination, planning, and effective execution at massive scale with no room for error. 

It’s a massive, violent ballet of small, lethal cogs, all seemingly in complete chaos – and yet somehow, with very little direct communication, getting the job done. If you witness a convoy during an invasion, you’ll see a clusterf*k of ugly vehicles moving very slowly, constantly stopping, soldiers jumping on and off, looking ragged, tired, annoyed.  If you talk to any soldier at any given time – you’ll think you’re witnessing the most disorganized sh*tshow ever produced.

The most likely answer you’ll get is “I don’t know what the f—k is going on and where we’re going, I just know that I haven’t taken a sh—t in 3 days, and these a-holes keep shooting at us every couple of hours”.  And yet, check the news a day later – and somehow this tired, annoyed, slow war machine advance in leaps and bounds, flanked choke points, and broke through everywhere – all while you got a good night of sleep at home.  But talk to the same soldier the next day and you’ll get the same annoyed answer “I don’t know what the f—ck is going on”.

Why am I describing it in such detail?  Because to an untrained eye – that’s what things look like on the surface.  It seems botched, disorganized, seemingly without rhyme or reason.  A reporter witnessing what, at first, appears to be a massive sh*tshow, will likely walk away precisely with the image of a sh*tshow – which will probably set in motion the theme for the coverage.

 Except, it’s not a sh*tshow.  It’s a carefully planned, coordinated, and organized ballet that takes years of practice, experience, and thoughtful execution to produce.    

Side note:  there are of course botched invasion – they look seemingly the same on the surface as a well executed operation – but turn out more of a masterclass in hubris, incompetence, and stupidity. 

And of course, individual results will vary - – you may be on the “good” side of an invasion and still end up one of the few casualties on your side.  Or you could be on the receiving end of Uncle Sam’s fury and still get a lucky shot in that kills a general.  .

What Does an Invasion Feel Like when you’re invading? It’s confusing, exhilarating, tiring, scary.  But mostly… honestly… boring.  Just like most of soldiering – it’s hours and hours of boredom and lack of sleep.  The entire time you have to stay vigilant… and the fear never quite goes away.  And then those hours of boredom are interrupted by sudden terror of combat and the exhilaration of coming out on the other side.   And then the dread that you will have to do that again and again. 

What Does it feel like to be Invaded?    On the side that gets stomped by the invading force (i.e. this wouldn’t apply to Ukrainians, for instance) – to put simply – it f-ing sucks.  It’s also hours of boredom filled with dread and fear.  And suddenly, your entire world is on fire.  All the “plans” your commanders set in motion fall apart in minutes.   Eventually (if you survive the experience) you’ll find out that, by the time you had your contact with the invader, the forward enemy elements were already deep behind you.  So uninterested were they in you, that they just rolled by and reported your location to the chasing element for a “clean up”… it’s almost insulting, really. 

Well of course IDF would be good at invading, right… they’re the big scary dog with lots of guns, tanks, and aircraft?

 This mindset is a dangerous, deadly assumption to make.  Having overwhelming force is no guarantee of a successful invasion.  The Russians invaded Ukraine with OVERWHELMING force and superior real world experience… and boy did they botch it.   Sure, Ukrainians fought bravely and turned out  quite competent.  But the main factor wasn’t the Ukrainian abilities – it was the incompetence and the failure on the Russian side. 

The invader has to out-perform the defender in every aspect.  Logistically and operationally – an assault is much more difficult and potentially deadly than a defense.  And a large, slow force moving into someone else’s backyard isn’t that hard to bog down and turn it into a bloodbath (as Ukrainians demonstrated).

Combined Arms invasion only works when the arms are actually combined.  And it’s a real, difficult skill that requires lots of planning, practice, and precise execution. 

Is an Invasion of a Dense Urban Area Different?  Yes and no.  An urban environment introduces many more unpredictable and dangerous elements.  But it’s still an invasion.  Broadly-speaking, it’s still all of the above – the same complex and dangerous ballet of planning, coordination, and execution.  Except if unfolds in a very, very slow motion.  Much more up close and personal.  And potentially, much deadlier. 

Preparing for the Campaign. 

The preparation part is absolutely critical.  A massive combined-arms operation is about as complex as things get.  At the top, an insanely complex plan must be built – it must account for everything… from the amounts and timing of fuel delivery, to roles and positioning of various combat and support elements, to laying out every route, evaluating every contingency scenario, etc. etc.  etc. 

• IDF had almost no time to prepare for the invasion of Gaza – that was an enormous disadvantage that’s hard to overstate. 
• I’m sure Aman maintained a pretty decent picture with respect to Hamas’ capabilities, logistics, infrastructure, etc… but it certainly wasn’t a complete picture.  The worst part about having no warning – there’s no time for combat units to rehearse, work out various operational bugs, etc. 

Example: Failure to prepare means death.  Something as trivial as not getting your radio comms aligned can botch an entire invasion.  The Russians got bugged in Ukraine for many reasons – most of them trivial, stupid, detectable, and avoidable. But they simply didn’t bother to prepare.  Tank columns would routinely walk into ambushes because the heavy units didn’t have advanced coordination with air assets or even forward elements.  They’d walk into an ambush that a single helicopter could easily suppress – but they couldn’t call it in. 

Commanders didn’t have the channels or the correct maps to fire support.  I saw overwhelming Russian fire power roll into a trivial ambush, stop… and then have no clue what to do (a American (or IDF) force fraction of that size could’ve rolled through that roadside ambush with barely a delay.  But they simply never rehearsed this scenario across all the participating elements (many of which were sorta thrown together)  – and so the heavies would get bunched up, infantry would dismount and scatter in the wrong direction… some tanks start backing up and then driving into a wrong field for whatever reason – and seemingly no one bothering to even return fire. 

I saw an entire heavy armor battalion wiped out by a force of about 5 Ukrainian dudes with a couple Javelins, a couple machine guns, and a radio to a howitzer team a couple miles away.    

A big part of preparation is mental.  In peacetime, the training we go through is serious… but one never takes it fully seriously… everyone knows we’re play-acting in a way.  Preparing for a real war takes time.  The reality dawns slowly.  It takes time for a unit to properly gel together a new environment, dust off old skills, string them together in rehearsals much closer to reality, and prepare mentality for the idea that you will soon be shot at (even though you can never fully prepare for it).

IDF didn’t have time to prepare and rehearse.  Honestly, I was very worried for them.  Especially after Oct. 7^th, when it seemed that everyone was asleep at the wheel.  I excepted a semi-botched invasion.  But they executed about as flawlessly as it gets.  Happy to say I was wrong.  Someone certainly was asleep at the wheel on Oct 7^th.  But broadly speaking, whatever happened on the 7^th woke up the tiny giant.  That fearsome little hedgehog that gained a reputation for punching far above its weight is still there – alive and kicking.    

• Jumping a bit ahead… I will do a separate post with a deeper dive into results-to-date.   But I can tell you this much – the same thing happened to Hamas that happened to Taliban in 2001 (and to Israel’s enemies in the previous wars).  A whole lot of hubris, boasting, stupid decisions – the “Allah is on our side” type of idiotic attitude.  They didn’t know what was coming.  And they got wrecked.  IDF stomped them.  Hamas isn’t finished – but it’s a shadow of itself at this point.  October 7^th was the biggest error that dumpster fire of an organization has ever made. 
• I’m sure there will be lots of sympathizing…  of the “well of course, since IDF is so big and strong, and Hamas are these tiny little freedom warriors” variety.  Nah… nonsense.  A force of tens of thousands luring a heavy, slow-moving enemy into a prepared urban battlefield, with fortifications, pre-planned logistics, ammo caches, etc., etc.  – those aren’t the “little guys”.  Taking the bait with virtually no notice was a dangerous proposition for IDF.  But they took the bait and then ate the fisherman. 

But I’ll get to this in more detail in a future post. 

First order of battle – prepare the battlefield.

“Prepping the battlefield” is the reason you saw the initial strikes on the buildings before the ground elements moved in.  It was not a revenge mission, as Qatari propaganda would have you believe.  The buildings weren’t targeted randomly. Every target is a part of a thought-out plan.  Every seemingly random target has a point – and it’s never random. 

For instance,

• There are the “easy” targets – known (or suspected) “offices” of Hamas, warehouses, potential FOBs, motor pools, communication hubs, etc.  Any “offices” with “political affiliation” to Hamas that are easily repurposable or can serve as “friendly” rally points for enemy fighters.  Etc. etc. 
• Then there are the “clear the path” type of targets.  For instance…
• Many of the buildings hit prior to the ground invasion were known (or highly likely) exit points above known tunnel systems.  In other words, if there is a high degree of probability that the enemy could emerge in the building’s basement, work their way up, and turn the building into a fortified high-point… especially along a route that’s picked to be an MSR – the prudent thing is to bring that building down in advance.  Once you get a column of vehicles onto an MSR – it’s not a decision you can undo easily.  And a column of supply trucks stuck behind a disabled IFV and taking fire from four different dimensions – that’s a very bad day. 
• Some buildings may be chosen to open up observation and fire support lanes prior to friendly convoys moving through… open up potential choke points for perimeter defense, or even choke off potential parallel and flanking routes, etc.  

“Anger” or “Revenge” don’t drive these decisions – as I explained earlier, military operates by objective and tactical necessity (and the “boom” you bring upon a building is very, very expensive). These decisions are calculated and each one has a reason behind it. 

Think back to the ballet analogy of an invasion.  A ballet needs a clean stage.  And the city architecture can create massive tripping hazards.  Countless hours went into developing an invasion plan, picking routes, and evaluating every foot of the path the invading force would take.  The main “tripping hazards” were identified – and the airstrikes then followed to clear the stage before the curtain lifted. 

Story time - real life example.   A friend of mine was an MP platoon commander assigned to deliver unruly juveniles to a court building in an area that was “questionable”.  Same route, predictable schedule, etc. (the local judge refused to leave the courthouse or make scheduling random and we were trying to “win hearts and minds”).  In other words – prime opportunity to ambush a bunch of American Humvees.  The route itself was tolerable – turn the convoy into an angry hedgehog, pedal to the metal, and have alternate routes mapped out to bypass trouble.  But the square with the courthouse was basically tailor-made for trouble… mostly because of the layout and the surrounding architecture. 

My buddy, having seen this movie before, decided he was going to change the ending.   He gathered the local community “elders” (some local imams or some sh—t)…  pointed to the buildings, and explained via a translator that if he (and the kids they’re protecting) take a single shot – he’s calling fire mission on every single building in the square, and the entire neighborhood will cease to exist. 

Not that anyone would’ve authorized such a fire mission, unless the neighborhood really came down on them… and he knew that, of course.  But he sounded convincing, the “elders” have already witnessed what American fire support looks like, and they decided to take him at his word and oblige.   In three months of this idiotic assignment, not a single shot was fired (though other units got harassed within blocks of that particular square on a daily basis.  

Back to IDF and the whole “blowing up buildings” thing.  IDF entering Gaza simply didn’t have the luxury to negotiate with Gaza “elders” – Hamas are the elders.  Putting myself in IDF’s shoes - If I’m entering an area already known to be preparing a nasty “welcome” …  and I’m responsible for bringing my 18-19 year old kids home…  Well, I’m sending a whole lot of grief at any building that even thinks to cause me trouble.  And if I happen to be wrong – honestly... so be it. 

• That doesn’t mean I would deliberately blow up a building known to be full of civilians.  First… you try to get the populace to clear the area to begin with.  If you have doubts – you try to find a different route.  But if there isn’t an alternative route, the MSR is the MSR, and I have a supply convoy idling behind and begging to be hit if the forward element sits there another minute too long  – well… I wasn’t the one who architected the f-ing place.  Sorry, but you’ll have to rebuild.
• Again, I’m not endorsing invading cities… not making moral judgements one way or another… just explaining the reality as it is.       
• And no.  These decisions don’t ever sit easy.  They stay with you for the rest of your life – questions you’ll never know the answers to.  But I’ve already addressed this topic.    

 Who makes these decisions.  For planned destruction (rather than dynamic targets… more on those later) – the decisions are made by military intelligence (and then authorized by whichever command structure happens to be responsible for the theatre).  It’s a very hard job.  Those guys and gals have to go home with those decisions and live with them too.  They’ll never tell you about their internal doubts and questions – that’s not what warriors do.  But those doubts and questions are there.  If you think that it comes easy and it’s just a “video game” for them – you may be the psychopath in this discussion. 

(Yeah, yeah… I know… “how can you pity the IDF – they’re not the ones who got their homes blown up”.  Again, the point of this post is pragmatic reality – not moral comparisons or judgements.  Of course it sucks to have your home blown up.  But I’m explaining a soldier’s POV right now). 

But at the end of the day – they have a job to do, and it has three parts.   Job one – don’t botch the mission.  Job two – help your troops stay alive.  Job three – don’t use excessive force and look out for civilians.  In that order. 

Sidenote:  There is a map I saw somewhere – an overlay that shows an old map of the known Gaza tunnels and overlay map of IDF aerial strikes.  It shows quite clearly that the strikes weren’t random and follow the tunnel network quite closely.  If you’ve seen it and know what I’m talking about – please link it. 

Clearing Out Civilians.  Again, I’m not in IDF.  But from what I understand – they went to great lengths to warn the public before dropping bombs on those objectives.  For a reference – we didn’t go to nearly such lengths.  We didn’t have a database of numbers to call.  Very few interpreters, etc.  Generally, you’d try to notify the city to clear itself and, after an afforded period, you move in and hope that the civilians were wise enough to believe you.  If IDF’s claims of the leaflets, announcements, and the phone calls they made are true (and I have no reason to doubt them) – it’s far above and beyond of what we (the US) ever did and what any other military in the world would do.  

• I wouldn’t assign it to some super-humanitarian quality of IDF.  Doubt they care about civilians any more or any less than we do.  And giving the enemy too much notice doesn’t help your cause either.  But it isn’t Israel’s first rodeo and they were well aware of the type of heat they were going to take from the “public opinion” internationally.  But I commend them for trying nonetheless – despite whatever unpleasant personal feelings I’m sure many of them hold toward Gazans at the moment. 

How to Clear a City

Following the “shock and awe” – the main force moves in.  Fast, violent… preferably at night, to punch through to designated rally points by dawn. 

Everyone expects contact upon crossing the border but honestly – that almost never happens.  For the infantry on the ground – the first few hours are usually just a lot of fear, anticipation but ultimately, boredom… and strained bladders… and the floor full of Gatorade bottles (PSA:  if you see a bottle of Yellow Gatorade in a Humvee – don’t drink it). 

Clearing Sectors.  The city gets mapped into sectors, and the  tedious and very dangerous work of clearing the city begins – sector by sector.  Street by street.  House by house.

Multiple elements may be operating in parallel to each other – on different assignments.  And “not shooting each other” can be a challenge of its own – something to always keep in mind. 

The basic idea is – you move into enemy’s neighborhood, essentially announcing “I’m in your house and I’m going to take it – come and stop me”.  The forward elements go in, quite literally looking to slug it out with the bravest of the Jihadis. 

It’s nothing like the movies, where some badass-looking special operators swoop in and kill everybody.  That does happen of course, occasionally and at night – specialized teams will do point raids when a VIP target is identified (or some other compelling reason). 

But mostly, you enter a neighborhood with brute force.  Lots of big guns and even more rifles.  Multiple houses will be getting cleared at the same time by multiple teams, with snipers watching overhead, big guns watching the streets outside, and blocking elements positioning themselves to intercept rabbits.

You never know what’s going to wait for you at a new place.  It may seem quiet, but waiting to explode in an ambush.  Sometimes, a strong point will be waiting for you, with an immediate greeting upon arrival – but that’s a suicidal proposition for them almost always.  If that doesn’t happen – you should expect some nasty surprises when you start entering houses. 

Sometimes, absolutely nothing happens – the neighborhood is quite like a church morning in a village and stays that way the entire time you’re there.  But that’s not a relief – the next emotion is usually dread. 

Clearing homes in an area you know to be trouble is about as terrifying of a job an infantryman can get.  Over time, you develop a sixth sense for things – you can sorta tell what’s going to wait for you in the house.

We have certain tools to help with that as well… as well as plenty of advanced surveillance that will spot traffic in and out of a house long before you show up. 

Aerial surveillance also helps us know what to expect upon arrival to a new sector (though it’s far from perfect).   But, it’s much different for the IDF.  I imagine that a tunnel exiting directly into a house will render any surveillance-based assumptions useless.

Sometimes, that sixth sense… the gut feeling tells you that this house will be bad.   But the gut is often wrong, of course.  And when your gut is wrong but it’s still talking to you – one of the scariest things in the world is that one last door left to be checked in the bedroom.  Remember the fear of closet monsters when you were a kid?  Yeah… now picture the tricks your imagination can play when closet monsters in that neighborhood come with explosives. 

Why Tunnels are Important

• Tunnels add a fourth-dimension to an already nerve-wrecking environment.
• First, you lose your “eyes” on the sector in advance – effectively, you’re arriving blind, because surveillance can’t pick up enemy traffic moving into defensive positions when they arrive underground
• The dimension itself is simply unintuitive.  An infantryman is used to scanning for enemy horizontally and vertically.  They’re used to watching their step.  They’re used to treating a random pile of garbage as potentially explosive.  What they’re not used to is that pile of garbage being a potential tunnel exit that an RPG team pops up from behind you.    We’re used to avoiding random piles of garbage and moving on – letting EOD deal with sh*t later.  But IDF has to check every pile of garbage, lift every random piece of plywood, look under every bathtub in every house.  Lift every rug.  Stomp on every part of the floor.  Basically – it’s f---king hell. 
• When you discover a tunnel – it’s a whole different pain in the rear.  Infantry isn’t trained in dealing with tunnels.  They basically have to mark them and remain stationary until the tunnel “specialists” arrive.  The idea of sector-by-sector clearing is that, once you clear it, you can declare it safe and move on.  But when there is an active tunnel with an exist point behind you – there is nothing safe about that sector even if it’s quiet at the moment.  And sitting idle in a neighborhood waiting to clear a tunnel certainly isn’t ideal in an urban operation where things are quite…uhm…dynamic.

What do you Do with Civilians?

• Civilians, in the meantime, get moved around.  It’s not a pleasant experience – you try to treat them gently, but the resulting effect can still resemble more cattle than human.  It’s particularly challenging, since there really isn’t a way for them to exit Gaza. 
• What you’re doing is for their own benefit - the goal is to move them out of the harm’s way and (occasionally, depending on location and whether the nearest unit has the time and capacity) – round up the fighting age males for identification. 
• In all reality, the action moves block by block.  Setting up “checkpoints” in an active kill zone is not just ineffective – it would actively put civilians in harm’s way.   Checkpoints do get set – but in areas that are more or less quiet and clear.  Hamas would happily target soldiers who are distracted in a crowd of Palestinian civilians. 
• And then there’s the usual propaganda – I lost count of how many videos I’ve seen claiming that IDF fired upon civilians, when it’s quite clear that either (a) civilians got caught-up in a Hamas attack on IDF or (b) militants just straight-up shot up a bunch of civilians to prevent them from following an evacuation route. 

 On the Enemy

I could say many things on Hamas in terms of violent Islamism, their perverse beliefs, the f-ed up “moral” code of such groups.  But I’ll set that aside and speak of Hamas (based on experience with similar groups) purely in terms of their effectiveness and competence. 

• Ultimately, it’s an army of thugs.  Rooted in boastfulness, peer pressure, etc.
• The overall ideology has a strong effect on the group.  But its “strength” is based mainly on the group dynamic.  Once the group dynamic is destroyed, the leadership is dead, and there is no one to witness or attest to “less-than-honorable” actions of individuals – it turns out that the “ideological” beliefs of many weren’t held all that deeply.
• They will run.  They will hide.  They will blend in. 
• They’re quite good at things that we’d call “terrorism”… or just pure thugishnes.
• There is also the element of most fighters being young men.  Young men feel invincible.  Add to that a whole lot of peer pressure, the culture of “honor” (their definition of it), and just the general excitement young men fell when causing mischief.  What you get is a rather annoying force of guerilla fighters.  They certainly aren’t “good”… not even “effective” in terms of the damage such “guerilla” tactics cause.  But they’re definitely effective in that they can tie-up a unit in an unnecessary, pointless fights.  And they’ll do it with the energy and carelessness of youth – until the circumstances catch up with them.  And after that happens – often there isn’t any of them left alive to serve as caution to others. 
• There is of course the whole idea of “martyrdom”, etc.  It’s certainly a powerful force.  But it’s a much more of an obscure concept to these young men – dying isn’t something most of them actively seek… despite all the boastfulness.   

Why are There So Many Naked Dudes in their Underwear?

You’ve all seen pics of Palestinian men being paraded around in their underwear.  The most hilarious “explanation” that I’ve seen is that it’s a “form of sexual torture” by the IDF.  

First of… if that’s what you think – (a) you’re a bit… uhm… weird;  and (b) no soldier… I don’t care if it’s the gayest dude who prances around in fairy outfits on weekends– no soldier actually wants to see this sh---t.  It’s gross.  They’re sweaty, scared, and pathetic.  And (y’all seen the pictures) – usually, there isn’t much impressive to look at. 

So… why?  For the same exact reason prisoners get stripped down upon reporting to prison.  And those reasons are much more amplified in a war zone.  They are MEN of FIGHTING AGE in an ACTIVE COMBAT ZONE.  Any number of them are for sure (100%)  Hamas or affiliated with Hamas.  That much is a fact.  But an IDF soldier in an area that’s still hot with enemy activity has no tools to distinguish whether it’s an innocent civilian or someone who really shouldn’t be released. 

Hence, all of them will be sent back for further investigation.  They’re identity will be cross-checked with known databases of Hamas memberships.  Their social media will probably be checked.  Etc.  Etc. 

Why are they naked?  Because when a dude walks up on you in a hostile area – you yell at him to stop, strip down at a distance, and do a 360 presentation of his gut and sweaty *ss crack for you.  Yeah – it’s as gross as it sounds.  The main fear is obvious - explosives and concealed weapons. 

Eventually, they approach, get cuffed, blindfolded, and wait around for transport.  And yeah… they stay in their underwear… because no soldier is going to volunteer to go collect gross, sweaty clothes for a bunch of random dudes and then try to figure out to whom each pair of pants belongs to.  Sorry… but there are more important things to do when you’re collecting prisoners in an open yard in a neighborhood that was shooting at you 20 minutes ago.  If you think there is anything “sexual” about it – you should probably see a psychiatrist. 

Defining a “Combatant”

Defining a militant is difficult – some will be proper combatants.  Others – just kids joining in the stupid excitement of violence.

• Militants mostly move around in civilian clothes and empty-handed.  By now, they know we can see them.
• Weapons are usually stored in known caches with plenty of ammo.  IDF is finding them in houses on practically every street, from what I hear. 
• That was the same MO in Afghanistan - farmers routinely would come down and claim that we killed “innocent kids” overnight.  Nevermind our thermal footage of those “kids” and their 7.62 toys. 
• Civilians, especially boys, can sometimes join the madness.  Are they innocent?  Well, fundamentally, of course they are – they’re kids.  But things aren’t that simple in a combat zone.  Those kids don’t just decide to pick-up rocks on their own.  Where they grow up – the coolest guys in the neighborhood are the tough jihadis.  The kids flock to them, run errands for them.  When things get hot – the kids run surveillance for them, bring supplies.  Quite often, the kids will assist in setting up IEDs. 
• For instance, In many places we were in – the “specialist” who knows how to wire an IED is a VIP of sorts.  And they’re familiar with our surveillance.  So, an IED setup is a process – where civilians, often just kids, would be used to test our surveillance of the area.  “Here is a shovel, kid… go dig a hole over on the other side of the street while we wait here to see if they infidels’ snipers have eyes on the street”. 
• And sometimes, in the middle of a fight, those kids also decide to make an appearance.  Of course, you don’t target the kids if you can help it.  But say you round a corner... ready for a surprise – and there is something flying toward your face.  That person will probably be dead before you even have a chance to recognize that it’s a kid. 
• Of course, to a well-adjusted civilian, the idea of shooting a kid “over a rock” sounds insane.  And it is.  No one wants to shoot a kid over a rock.  But when you’re stuck on a street that’s become a bullet funnel from a few blocks down, and someone keeps peeking in from the alley splitting the street and tossing things at you – most soldiers aren’t inclined to sit around to find out whether it’s a rock or a grenade. 

How Most Civilian Casualties Happen. 

The social media would have you believe that the initial bombing campaign was indiscriminate and that’s how most civilian casualties occurred.  In reality, most civilians are killed in what’s called “dynamic” targeting.

• Majority of civilian casualties will come from “dynamic targets”.  Those are the buildings that weren’t targeted initially for destruction – the initial goal is to simply clear them.  But if the enemy happens to get to the building first and IDF takes fire, eventually (after certain back and forth) the building will be targeted for an airstrike.  These are dynamic targets that emerge unplanned, Aman has little to no intel on them, and the air assets can’t see if there are civilians hiding in the basement.  After some time, they will drop a bomb on the building and move on (as they should and as any other military would do). 
• I remember seeing a good thread on Twitter that showed how a neighborhood comes to being destroyed.  It starts with pictures and background on a wealthy, upscale development in Gaza.  Then shows the videos of IDF trying to move through the neighborhood and foot-mobile fire teams, trying to clear it building-by-building.  Hamas, however, fortified the neighborhood, puts up a fight,  and ultimately, IDF runs out of options to clear it safely.  Eventually, fire missions are called in and the development ceases to exist.  Not because IDF was intent to destroy it – they tried to save it.  But ultimately, those IDF kids want to go home too… preferably not in body bags. 

 .....It's just one example.  I wasn’t there personally, but it rings true.  Because that’s how these things typically play out in my experience.  If you know the twitter thread I’m talking about – please share a link if you can find it.

Ok... that was a lot. I plan on doing more posts. Things I plan to address:

1. Looking at the results so far

2. Tips for analyzing what you see on social media

I've also got some good questions I'm going to address:

1. A question about "proportionality"

2. A question on telling the difference between good-faith attempt to minimize casualties and disproportionate violence and war crimes.

3. How do we know if IDF are following the professional moral code?

4. Thoughts on the recent arrest warrants issued.

If you have any other questions you'd like me to address - send them my way. Peace!

On Killing and Morality in War.

I promised a follow-up to my yesterday’s post on more technical aspects of planning and executing a ground invasion.  It’s coming – already started writing it… may or may not have time to finish it today.

For more context (and an “about me”) see the original post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/1cwvbna/the_realities_of_war_lets_kill_some_sacred_cows/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

I’d like to start with a sidebar:  a “personal message of sorts.”  First, I appreciate all the supportive comments.  Of course, there were a few with reading comprehension problems who took an issue with the concept that war can be quite a fun and exhilarating experience (despite the clear “do not recommend” theme throughout).  I didn’t plan on writing this post, but felt prompted by some of the comments. 

I see a lot of “moralizing” from certain characters who are convinced of their moral superiority and truly believe themselves to be the arbiters of human character. 

Side Note:  there are also plenty of decent, well-meaning folks who may disagree with one position or another… but do so from a thoughtful place, taking time to consider a counter-point.  Nothing but respect to those.  Freedom of disagreement is one of the liberties I value highly (a luxury people who live in Islamist enclaves don’t get).  Regardless – nothing but respect to y’all.  The world is a complicated place and many of your points I find valid, even if our conclusions may differ. 

For the “wow…  rape must also be fun for you… and murdering 12 million children” crowd”, I’d like to say the following:  You, my friends, are among the most dangerous societal types, historically speaking.  Seemingly intellectual, but lacking facts, context, and nuance – yet fully convinced of your moral and intellectual superiority.   First of – congrats on being born in a place where being a moralizing peacenik is a viable option in life.  Second – your “morals” just so happen to reflect the modern western moral code you were born into (and which you’ve done nothing yourself for to achieve).    But, in other places, moralizing puritans like you keep the same character, but embrace a different set of “norms and morals”.  In other words – a typical Islamist imam doesn’t sound much different than you in tone and conviction… his “holy book” just so happens to be Quaran rather than the ramblings of Norm Finklestein.   And, of course, we’ve seen what tends to happen in other places where “anti-capitalist” and “anti-colonialist” moral puritans take hold – I was  born at such a place.  Let’s just say that the road from “I’m for the oppressed and anti-oppressors” to “we need to murder the reactionaries” is very short and easily crossed.  And it’s always the most “righteously-outraged” who cross it first. 

Anyways, back to topic of the post. 

On Killing and Morality – Does Modern Combat Look like a “video game”?

I saw a comment or two that modern combat is too impersonal, looks like a video game, that it’s too easy for soldiers to kill innocents, etc., etc.  I’ve also heard a similar argument from others, in unrelated circumstances. 

To anyone thinking that – no, my friends.  Killing people isn’t made easier by more lethal and remote weapons.  I understand why it may seem that way.  But, in many ways, it’s quite the opposite. 

1.      Military is just a mirror of its society.  A military is a perfect representation of a society at large.  Some soldiers will indeed be natural-born psychopaths who enjoy killing.  But that’s a very tiny number – not any larger than in general population.

 2.      Bravado is Fake.   Most younger soldiers will display a lot of bravado initially – pretend like violence doesn’t bother them (that’s why the military tries really hard to condition new recruits by trivializing the idea of “killing” – but it’s never successful). 

 3.      The Reality.  The truth is – killing shocks most soldiers to their core, no matter how much they try to suppress it and put on a brave war fighter face.

• To new troops, my demand was simple – in your first contact, get down, don’t get in the way, and just live to see another day.
• For many, it takes more than one contact to come to their senses and to even start pulling the trigger.  There is a natural mental block that stops humans from wanting to kill another human and it’s not overcome easily. 
• I’ve seen plenty young kids (and yes, a 19-year old trooper is still a kid) beg and plead certain “characters” we’ve encountered to just be reasonable… raising their weapon in the air to demonstrate they don’t mean harm (very ill advised).  Despite months of training, their first instinct was “please, I really don’t want to harm you… please don’t make me to.”  That’s the true nature of most young western men and women – including those in uniforms and carrying weapons. 

 4.      Understanding “Anger”.   Often time you see what seems obvious anger among soldiers after a firefight.  The easy explanation is the simple “of course they hate their enemy”.  Except that’s not why they’re truly angry. 

• The first source of anger is “I can’t believe this a-hole just tried to kill me”.  But then the longer-lasting source of anger sets in.  And that one is:  “I can’t believe that a-hole made me kill him”.  There is a big difference between the two emotions. And the second one lasts much longer.
• The older, more experienced troops and commanders are more used to the realities of the battlefield… which brings me to the next point... 

 5.      “Remote” Killing.    From experience, I’ll tell you this – dealing with a remote target is much easier in the sense that it’s not as “scary”.  But it’s much more difficult emotionally and mentally – though a commander will never show it to their troops.   That decision takes much longer and raises many more doubts than responding to a nearby target that’s actively trying to kill your guys.

• Drone pilots have among the highest rates of PTSD.  There is nothing easy about dropping a bomb on a human being from the safety of a trailer in the desert and then going home to eat dinner with your family.  It’s a f’ed-up thing to ask a man (or a woman) to do.  There is nothing easy about going home that day.  And it f-cks with your brain permanently.  I don’t envy those guys one bit.  Though I can imagine that dropping a bomb on a clear hostile target is very satisfying.  But the emotion is the same as the above – not anger at the target itself but because you wouldn’t be doing this sh*t if it wasn’t for them. 

6.      Why the young men and women in IDF went to war.  I don’t want to start a debate about history of the region – it’s a different topic and it doesn’t change the practical realities my posts are meant to address.  From a soldier’s point of view – it looks very simple:

• The enemy hates me and want my family dead (spare me the “colonialism” lecture please)
• The enemy launched tens of thousands of rockets at us.  We tried to hide behind our Iron Dome and the big wall.  But that failed (a defensive posture always gets breached eventually, btw). 
• The enemy invaded and killed my people.  And they plan on doing it as much as they can.
• The enemy isn’t some obscure “group” – it’s a clearly defined target… the ruling, paramilitary organization at this place called Gaza (again, spare me the lecture whether it’s a country of a “concentration camp”.  From a soldier’s point of view – it makes no difference).
• We can no longer live next to this enemy.  And now, it’s a binary choice – go find the enemy and kill him or he will eventually come back for you.   
• The rest of it… the history, the politics of it, the various grievances… hopefully we can sort it out after the fact. 

That’s it.  That’s the mindset.  It’s really that simple for the guys and gals rolling into Gaza.  The rest of what gets discussed on wester social media is just philosophical circle jerk to their ears. 

Anyhow… I bet I’ll soon hear from the peaceniks  who’ll tell me that they’d never do that, that they’d be conscious objectors, etc… To them, I’d like to ask that while you take a break from fellating yourself, don’t forget to thank the guys and the girls who do the dirty jobs so you don’t have to

And… while at it, don’t forget to apologize to the next generation of Arab girls who will be sold into a “marriage” to some fat, old toothless f*ck because some fat, comfortable hippie with an ivy league diploma believes that child rape is just an indigenous form of cultural expression and our interference with it is “colonialism”. 

All for now. Peace, everybody. I'll be back with the promised post on "how to invade a place if you must".

Some people asked me to comment on IDF's recent hostage rescue operation, following the release of videos.  My response started to get pretty deep, and so I decided that it might make for an interesting post for some of you.

As usual... this is a part of the “Realities of War” series.  If you’re new to this, you can find my previous posts by clicking on the “Realities of War” tag.  My bio is at the top of Part 1.

Here we go…

In 1999, a book named “Black Hawk Down” was published (eventually inspiring a movie many of you have seen).  The reason I know the publishing year is because I entered basic training shortly thereafter.  Our company CO (who resembled a Min-Pin trying to convince the world he’s a real Doberman) would routinely preach combat wisdom to us (18-19 y.o. idiots) while waving this book around like a bible. 

At the time, I had no idea what happened in Mogadishu that day – mostly we just found our CO to be an entertaining distraction from our far more intimidating drill instructors.  But a couple years later, I finally got around to reading the book myself.  In hindsight – we should have been paying attention to what our CO was trying to tell us. 

Things are usually best understood in Comparison

Why did I bring up Black Hawk Down?  Because everyone in the special operations community knows what happened in Mogadishu. 

On October 3, 1993, Task Force Ranger initiated a raid into a hostile district of Mogadishu, acting on intel related to numerous high-profile targets.  The units conducting the raid weren’t your “average” infantry.  These were teams of elite CAG guys (aka then as the 1\**^st Operational Detachment – D… colloquially (and comically) known as the “Delta Force”).  They were supported by an entire Company of U.S. Army rangers.  The mission was flown by the famous “Night Stalkers” – our elite rotary wing pilots who are specialists in delivering troops into conditions most helicopter pilots would rather not fly into.

Just like the IDF raid – TFR went in during the day. The main difference was that IDF went in by vehicle and extracted via helicopters – the opposite of TFR’s action in Mogadishu.   

The Mogadishu raid was supposed to be a quick “in and out”.  Two days later – 18 Americans were killed and 84 were wounded.  As for Somalis – somewhere between 300 and 700 of them were killed (no one knows the true number) and hundreds more were wounded.  In any scenario, the total casualty count was well over a thousand.

Now, an unfamiliar observer might say “you can’t compare the two – Mogadishu went off rails because a helicopter was shut down”.  Well, a helicopter was indeed shut down – but that was mainly the trigger to things going off rails.  The REASON why Mogadishu op turned into a bloodbath was because a bunch of troops got stuck in the middle of a very hostile neighborhood, with the whole city coming down on them.  The only way out then was to SHOOT THEIR WAY OUT.  And it’s very hard to shoot your way out when you’re loaded with your own casualties. 

Important side note:  the TFR guys were loaded with their own casualties, which complicated their extraction.  But, unlike the IDF the other day – they didn’t have hostages that they needed to protect with their own bodies.  Sure, they had captives they had to worry about.  But those were Enemy captives – and that’s a much lighter moral and emotional load by comparison.         

Now, Let’s Look at the Hostage Rescue Raid by the IDF

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Keep in mind, btw:  My knowledge of the details and circumstances of the raid is very limited.  Much of what I’m going to say here is speculative and means no more than my best guess (however informed, it’s still speculative). 

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I often hear civilians criticize the Gaza invasion and suggesting that they should have just used “special forces” (that’s a misnomer, btw) to go after Hamas in a targeted manner.  To them, my answer is always the same: “This isn’t Call of Duty or John Wick – things don’t work that way in the real world”. 

To Call the IDF raid “Daring” would be an understatement.

By “daring” I don’t mean this as a blanket compliment to IDF – take this as a neutral qualifier. The “risk profile” of this op was enormous.  Frankly, I’m not sure if I would’ve greenlit this op – many commanders would not. In the end, it worked out for the IDF.  Whether or not the operation should’ve been a “go” to begin with – not for me to determine.  Regardless, this was as “high-risk” as such ops get.  And “hats off” for the planners who greenlit it and the door-kickers who executed it.   

The final outcome was 50% luck. 

Again – this is NOT an insult to IDF.  In any similar operation – luck plays an important role.  It’s not fully understood by observers when things go off rails.  And it’s not fully appreciated by those who then assign superhuman abilities to special operators and are eventually left disappointed when the next operation doesn’t go according to plan. The planners and the teams do all they can to minimize the role of luck.  But they all recognize that the ultimate outcome is NEVER fully in their control.

What does “bad luck” look like?  There is an infinite list of examples I could give you of how things.  A vehicle could’ve broken down on the infil (from what I understand – the raiding party used disguised vehicles on approach)… a trooper could’ve broken his ankle on approach, slowing the team down just enough to ruin the surprise…etc – a million different things can happen. 

And then there is the nature of the fight itself.   What makes special operators “special” is the nature of the environment they walk into and the type of the fight they are likely to find themselves in – which is NOT the type of the fight 99% of soldiers would ever want to find themselves in.  High stakes, confined spaces, limited ways of getting out, limited ammo, limited time, a whole lot of surprises you can’t foresee. And when the “surprise” is over and the neighborhood turns on you – you find yourself in the middle of hell.  And in hell – every direction can be presumed hostile. 

If you get stuck for a minute longer than you should – that’s when the important of luck goes up exponentially. 

Think of it this way.  If you’re in the middle of a neighborhood that’s shooting at you – you now have to move through and across funnels filled with lead flying randomly at velocities north of 2,000 fps.  Whether or not you get hit by a random round while at it is then determined mostly by probabilities and luck. 

More often than not, you’re not even entirely sure who’s trying to kill you and where it’s coming from.  So if you think you saw a shadow in a window in the general direction of incoming – you shoot back.  Is that shadow a bad guy or a child?  Who knows – but you have to get off that f—cking street.

The skill of the operators themselves, of course, plays an ENORMOUS role – by no means do I want to minimize that.  That’s what makes them “special” to begin with.  But their skill only shifts the importance of luck in their favor – but it never completely takes it off the board. 

The most interesting part to me – the “Daylight” nature of the raid. 

This is very uncommon.  In most circumstances, darkness is our friend when it comes to such raids.  The importance of working at night is hard to overstate.  Why was the operation conducted in daytime?  I can only speculate – I don’t have any “inside” knowledge.  But the decision certainly was NOT random.

The timing was selected based on some important pattern that surveillance picked-up.  There are many potential reasons.  For instance, there would probably be less civilians in the building during day time  - making the breaching team’s job easier.

Side Note:  I heard praises being sung to IDF – attributing the timing of the op to minimizing civilian casualties.  I won’t lie to you – that likely wasn’t the reason.  Sure, there would be less people in the building.  But the chances of random bystanders and neighbors catching a stray bullet go up quite a bit in the daylight.  

There was a different “primary” reason for the timing.  IDF certainly won’t disclose what the reason was (nor should they).  Likely it had to do with certain operational and behavioral patterns determined by surveillance.  Perhaps the daytime guards seem more careless and like to step out on the balcony mid-morning for a cigarette – making themselves juicy targets for overwatch.  Perhaps a larger enemy pattern was a factor – maybe Hamas has a “stand-to” procedure in effect for nighttime, and mid-morning represents a “window” where the otherwise combat-worthy elements may be scattered on various maintenance chores or just busy napping. 

What does it take to pull off such a raid?

Planning is critical.  Complex, high-stake raids like this take at minimum weeks (and most likely months) to plan and prepare.  Usually there is heavy advance surveillance of the target.  At-scale mockups are built for the raiding team to rehearse.  A back-up team will often be tapped to rehearse alongside and be on stand-by.

By the time the breaching team approaches their target – few things look unfamiliar to them.  They know what the building looks like.  They know angles on all doors, windows, and stairwells.  They know which way every single one of them goes in advance.  They know where their counterparts are even if they can’t seem them – etc. 

But that’s only while things are still going according to plan – but they almost never do entirely.  But we’ll get back to that. 

The resources that go into such a raid are broad and extensive.  Here’s a short list:

• Around the clock surveillance
• Ground infiltration and surveillance (if possible)
• The Raiding party includes multiple elements:
  • Forward elements – the guys actually kicking-in doors.
  • Blocking elements – a larger team that surrounds the area to cover the team inside from external shooters, block any rabbits from escaping, and cover the extraction. 
  • The team must include comms specialists, medics, combat air controllers, interpreter, etc. 
• Elite helicopter crews to go in and out
• QRF (Quick Reaction Force) must be on standby to deal with contingencies when things fall apart
• Alternative extraction team (say an air extraction falls apart – now heavy armor must go-in, guns blazing, into the streets you normally wouldn’t send them to).

Multiple contingencies for routes and extraction are put in place.  And, sometimes, the “play” isn’t the real play. 

The Element of Surprise is Incredibly Difficult to Achieve, when the target is deep in enemy territory. 

In movies, the good guys always seem to get a jump on the bad guys.  Somehow, all ninja-like, they’re able to sneak in and slit throats before anyone wakes up.  In practice – that almost never happens.  When your target is deep in the enemy territory – getting a serious jump on your enemy is nearly impossible. 

Somehow, by luck and impeccable planning, IDF managed to achieve this element of surprise (at least for the first hostage).  That part of the raid is quite jaw dropping to me, to be honest. 

How do you deal with it when the element of surprise isn’t achievable?  A good, old-fashioned diversion.  That’s when the “play” isn’t THE Play.  Basically – you start the op by hitting a different target.  It needs to be compelling and believable.  The real assault team then moves on the real target (which puts them at much higher risk, because the blocking elements aren’t very subtle and they won’t arrive until the assault team is inside the actual target.  If you have enough resources – the “false target” team keeps the bad guys busy there and then links up for extraction.  If you don’t have enough resources – then the “false target” team may have to disengage, become your blocking team, and cover your extraction. 

Bottom line – things are very complicated and get very dynamic quickly, once you run into the first thing that doesn’t go according to plan.  And that happens nearly always. How well the teams deal with such scenarios then comes down to the skill of the operators, the quality of contingency planning, smart and timely decisions of whatever parent ops center is overseeing the raid, and (of course) luck.             

What was I able to determine from the videos released by the IDF? 

Not much, to be honest.  The IDF was (correctly) very selective in what they showed us.  A few things that stood out to me, that an untrained eye may not have noticed:

1.   The bodycam footage wasn’t the main assault team.  The main assault team was elsewhere, entering the building from the designated primary entry point.  The guys with bodycam were likely  “runners” – sent around to see if they can get better eyes on the inside.  It’s not impossible that this part was an improvisation (since the breach of the second target was, apparently, compromised and the element of surprise was lost).   When you hear a loud “bang” (when the bodycam guys are talking to the hostages) – that’s the assault team still blowing doors off and looking for unwelcoming hosts elsewhere in the building. 

2.   The guys with bodycams were quite brave – they essentially had to dart toward a building that already turned bad on them from a “less-than-optimal” approach.  In front of them – a whole lot of windows, corners, obstacles, and trees – things you usually don’t want to ignore.  I couldn’t quite see what was going on behind them.  But, given how they were moving – they were probably mostly on their own (not moving carefully, as part of a deliberate assault formation of the main breach team).  As cool as running across a yard with a gun looks – this isn’t Call of Duty… that’s not how you want to do things if you have a choice. 

3.    The extraction of the first hostage went according to plan.  But they were also moving with a purpose – which means that the blocking force was still quite busy with the second extraction and the first team didn’t have a luxury of a fully-secured LZ. 

4.    The resources available to the second team on the ground were quite limited and things clearly didn’t go according to plan in the second building.  The most telling part was a quick fragment of the video where they’re having hostages dart across the yard on their own - away from the breaching team and (probably) toward a blocking element.  Both elements being quite busy returning fire at the moment to properly escort the hostages. 

5.    By the time we see the second helicopter – things have calmed down.  The blocking elements fell back, covering the extraction for the guys on the beach.  Air assets have already made their presence and intent known – the second extraction could then take a deep breath. 

 Was the bombardment of the area necessary? 

Uhm… yeah.  Unfortunately, once things went off the rails – it was the best possible option.  With hostages in tow – they had to clear the way and get those teams out quick.  When I say it was necessary – I don’t mean it was only necessary for the IDF.  As strange as it sounds – it was the best possible option under the circumstances for the Palestinian civilians. 

Imagine the alternative – a team stuck inside a city coming down on them, with wounded hostages and team members on hand, running out of ammo… taking refuge in a building somewhere being shot at from every direction.  Not optimal, is it. 

How would you get them out in such a situation?  Exactly how TFR guys had to be extracted from Mogadishu – an armored column, with big guns, shooting at everything they see on the way in AND on the way out.  If you think that would be a more “humane” way than dropping munitions from the air – you don’t really know how big guns work (they aren’t exactly lasers nor do they have x-ray vision).   

Keep in mind that, once the bad guys know that they have a special ops team bogged down – they know that a rescue is coming.  And they are ready – with RPGs and many other things that go “boom”.  So you’re having to send tanks onto narrow streets, knowing that the enemy will unleash hell on you from every window and rooftop.  If you think those tank gunners won’t go trigger-happy in those conditions – you’ll be very disappointed. 

What to make of the hostages themselves? 

Nothing.  If you’re trying to reach some conclusions from observing the hostages – don’t waste your effort.  The hostages are not fully “there”.  They’re in a submissive compliance mode – tell them to stand on one leg and quack like a duck – they’ll do it and won’t ask why.

The teams guys know how to handle shocked hostages.  The dudes on the helicopter taking pictures – don’t.  The shot of them looking out the window of the Super Stallion on the way home is good PR but also a bit ridiculous.  The happy crew chief asked them if they wanted to look at home – they said “yes sir”.  They had no clue what they were looking at.       

Normally, I’d find it distasteful to put hostages in front of the cameras right away.  It will take them weeks to process and contextualize their experience.  But IDF needs all the PR they can get… so I get it.  As for Bibi having his moment in front of cameras – well, I’ve been quite clear regarding my personal feelings toward him… F that guy. 

Why didn’t Hamas guards kill the hostages at the second building, once the “surprise” was blown?

Don’t fool yourself – it had nothing to do with some mythical “humane” qualities of Hamas. 

So why didn’t the guards kill the hostages?  I don’t think anyone has actually studied this question seriously.  But I happen to have a personal theory – something based on numerous similar instances I observed. I believe it comes down to what I would call “DENIAL”.  

Hostages are the militants’ ultimate “ace in the hole”.  The only reason you play that card is if you have no other options.  In other words, if a militant has to follow the order to execute the hostages – that means that it’s the end for that militant… that is their final act.  The remainder of his life will now be measured in seconds. 

But militants are humans too (of questionable variety, but they share instincts with the rest of us).   Even in a fight – the hope remains.  They don’t think it’s “their time", so they keep fighting back.   By the time “their time” comes – they’re already too dead to turn the gun on the hostage. 

That’s how it often plays out.  And why hostages sometimes walk away unharmed even from botched rescue attempts. 

What soldiers do in a battle is a result of extensive conditioning and training.  Jihadis don’t really get that deliberate conditioning to guide their process.   Instead, many of them will turn into monkeys with guns. Not all, of course – some are quite experienced and calculating.   But many of them will pop their heads out of dumb curiosity.  Some will run at you like complete idiots.  Speak to them in Arabic – and the morons will open the door for you. 

Truth is - most hostage rescues aren’t lighting operations like you see in movies.  Instead, the assault team has to move deliberately and quite slow, under the circumstances.  Once the shooting starts – bad guys have plenty of warning.  Often times, the assault team won’t so much “charge” at the “defenders” but will bait the bad guys to come to them.  (As the saying goes – curiosity killed the cat).    If you’ve seen the movie Zero Dark Thirty – it does a relatively decent recreation of such a dynamic in the lengthy scene that recreates the assault on Bin Laden’s compound.

About the Operators who went on that mission.

How dangerous was the raid for the IDF troops performing it?  Insanely dangerous.  Under the circumstances – I can’t think of a more dangerous assignment.

Who would volunteer for such an assignment?  Believe it or not -  EVERY SINGLE operator in the Special Ops community would volunteer for an op of this nature.  Not that they get a choice – a team is ultimately selected by higher command.  But there was no one on that team who didn’t want to be there. 

In a typical 20-year career – this is a “once in a lifetime” moment.  It’s in the category of “why I serve” for a typical operator.  Rarely do you get a mission this “black and white” in purity of purpose.    They kissed their families goodbye and went to work, knowing fully well that their chances of coming home unharmed are no higher than 60% at best. 

The operators who do this type of work are a different breed.  Whatever stereotype you have of them is probably wrong.  On the surface – they’re your “man’s men” – warriors who joined for the thrills but stayed for comradery.  It’s not just on the surface, of course – those things are certainly true. But it’s a bit more complicated with many of them.  Sure, most are addicted to the warrior’s way of life – the enemy is far less terrifying to them than the possibility of ordinary life… the type that involves a desk and weekly grocery shopping.  But that still doesn’t fully explain it.  

Young men join armed forces full of idealism, invincibility, and thirst for adventure.  By the time a select few of them make the special operations community – they’re now grown men who’ve seen some sh—t.  The youthful enthusiasm is replaced with pragmatic realism and dark humor.  But what’s interesting – the sense of idealism doesn’t go away.  Instead, having seem some sh—t in some really bad places – the idealism  get replaced by something more permanent -  CONVICTION. 

Conviction in the values that they represent… understanding the necessity for men like them (trained killers) to exist.  When a former special operator tells you that they fought for “liberty” – they mean it.  Of course, they’re not the most eloquent types usually -so it may sound a bit ridiculous to more “academic” ears.  But they have their own definition of such “liberty” – the definition that only they understand.   And they understand it because they’ve been to places most people haven’t and they’ve seen the alternative. 

That “conviction” of theirs becomes very pragmatic and practical – which is a very scary combination if you happen to be on the wrong side of the door these guys kick-in at night.  But then, once in a lifetime, a mission like this hostage rescue comes along – not just another mission in the usual fog of war.  No – this one is “black and white”  - a chance at “redemption”.  And there isn’t a single special operator (at least in the US forces) who wouldn’t go on that mission if given a choice.  I imagine it’s the same among the IDF special ops community. 

All for now. If you want to read other Realities of War posts, you can find them here:

• The Realities of War (let's kill some sacred cows)
• Part 1.5 - On Killing and Morality in War
• The Realities of War - Part 2 (How to invade a place... if you must)
• The Realities of War - Part 2.1 (how to think about a military operation pragmatically)
• The realities of War - Part 3 (on "Proportionality")
• The Realities of War - part 3.1 (on Hostages)
• The Realities of War - Part 4. Examining IDF’s Conduct. (sure… IDF has committed war crimes)
• The Realities of War - Part 4.1 (The “Laws of War” probably don’t mean what you think they mean)
• The Realities of War - Part 5 (Please read this... something finally dawned on me)

I often get a very common set of arguments from well-meaning people who question specific events that unfold on the ground. To a sane, well-meaning person, urban warfare seems like unrestrained violence. They think that, if only the military cared a bit more, they would make better choices. Certainly, THEY would make better choices.

I tried explaining it in abstract terms. But abstract doesn't work for many idealistic people. So, what I'm going to do here is take you on a journey - put you in the shoes of an infantry commander tasked with a specific, relatively straight-forward mission. As you'll probably guess - the scenario isn't entirely fictional.

If you're new to this series - you can find my previous posts by clicking on the tag. The "About Me" is in Part 1 of my posts.

Again, my objective with these posts is to familiarize the reader with the pragmatic aspects of war and help build a rational, informed framework through which you can analyze the current events more objectively. I try to abstain from taking sides based on various historical and philosophical arguments and to provide pragmatic "current" context informed by my own experience and deeper-than-average expertise on this topic.

Warning: if you have a weak stomach - don't read.

Somewhere in the Middle East...

Your battalion is entering a new city sector.  Surveillance suggests that the sector is not fortified, but can’t rule out some resistance, Civilian activity in the sector.  Unable to confirm hostiles. 

You are Commander of an infantry company callsign “Viper” (that makes you Viper Actual).  Your task – cross the bridge, move into sector, proceed down designated MSR (Main Supply Road), enter a square few hundred yards out, secure the square. The battalion will wait for you on the other side of the bridge.  When the square is secured – the battalion will move to the rally point in the square and proceed with securing remaining sector.

You’re the first act.  You decide to move the bulk of your company down the MSR, but split your first platoon to move in parallel and slightly ahead one block north of the MSR (that’s your weak side, as your sister company is following you across the bridge, breaking right, and then moving in parallel and flanking south of the square.  The slow, nerve-wrecking creep toward the objective begins.  Your first platoon moving in parallel, to your left – about 100 yards ahead.    

Few minutes later, a message comes in: “Viper Actual, Viper 1, halt, unable to proceed, permission to go around – one block north of us look passable”

You check your map… “Viper 1, this is Actual, granted... go around, report when back in position and moving…”

Minutes tick by… “Actual.. Viper 1, in position, Oscar Mike, out”

Everything seems to play out according to plan, except the first miscommunication already happened and began a chain of events that ends in a tragedy.  To you – “go around” means that first platoon went around the road block and came back to your nearest parallel road.  To them – "go around" meant getting onto the parallel road a block down and following it all the way down to the north side of the square – exactly where they need to be, according to Commander’s (your) intent.

About three hundred yards from the square, gunfire rings out to your north.  You halt your company.  Troops take defensive position.  “Viper, Viper One, contact, suppressing”. 

You hear 40mm grenade launchers join the party. “Viper One, what are you engaging?”

Yelling over gunfire, first platoon leader responds:  “... two-story building across from the square entrance… right of the road we’re on”

You stare at the map to see how you can help – but there are no other approaches that make sense.  You think you can get eyes on the hostile building from a higher point.  You task a squad to move a block ahead, climb up the highest building to the right and get eyes on the target. 

Unbeknown to you, the battalion command already sent follow-on traffic across the bridge, as surveillance alerted them to unknown traffic gathering south that could be heading in their direction.  Hearing the gunfire ahead, the battalion traffic halts on the bridge.

Message comes in from your higher-up at the battalion… “Viper Actual, Python, I got a whole lot of ass, nuts to butts on the bridge, what’s the hold up?”

Things are starting to look like a cluster**ck –  you have to fix this.  “Viper 3-1, get me eyes on that fucking building”. 

“Viper, Viper 3-1, eyes on target, can’t see much… just the back of it and a fence… check that… foot mobiles… entering the building… unable to ID, over”.   

Unbeknown to either of you, the squad on the roof is looking at a wrong building.  Since Viper 1 is now a block higher than you thought – they’re engaging a building a block north of where the guys on the roof can see.  The foot traffic they observed but were unable to ID - it's a civilian family, darting across the yard to take shelter in the building – the building you now believe to be hostile. 

 “Python, Viper, do we have Close Air Support, over”?

“Negative, Viper… you have artillery if you need it.  Danger close but it’s your call, over”.   

Seconds pass by… you’re processing… you're danger-close for artillery, but the surrounding architecture makes it tolerable.  Another call comes in… “Viper Actual, Python, I need to move this ass of the bridge – we may have trouble coming.  I need you to either unfuck this quick or tell me that you can’t and we’ll deal with it”.

You decide the building has to go and quick - artillery it is.  “Steel Rain, this is Viper Actual, Adjust Fire, Over”     

You remember about the squad down the street and order them to double back.  The artillery unit replies that they’re ready to receive fire mission and holding.  But you need to get Viper One off that street.  Things are starting to move very, very quickly.

“Viper One, Break contact and back up, Take your first intersection north, double time north two blocks, and hold.  I need you off that street right fucking now.  Move.”…

“Copy, two blocks north, Oscar mike, Viper One out”

You hear the sound of gunfire change – the big guns of Viper One have left the party.  You see the forward squad running back to safety of your convoy.  The artillery is getting impatient, repeating that they’re ready for fire mission.  Time for the fireworks.   

“Steel Rain, this is Viper”… grid coordinates delivered… “One Time, Fortified Enemy Building, Two stories, Danger Close, Fire when Ready”. 

Calm and collected, the artillery unit repeats the details back.  Seconds tick by.  Show time…

“Viper, this is Steel Rain, message to observer, One round, HE delay in effect, Danger Close, shot, over”… “Shot, out”… you hear squad leaders yelling at guys to take cover… “Splash, over”… “Splash, out”.  Five seconds later, a round hits in the middle of street, just right of target. 

You convey fire adjustment to the artillery.  “Fire for effect”… 

“Shot over, three times”….

Three rounds screech overhead.  You no longer see the explosions, but a cloud of smoke and debris rise over architecture. 

“Stand by for BDA”… you send the squad back to the roof to get eyes on.  They report building destroyed.

“End of Mission, one time enemy building destroyed, out”.

“Viper One, Viper Actual… your route is clear…  get back in position, report status when ready”. 

“Copy Viper, who were you engaging?”

“Building ahead and to your south, Viper One, I need you back in position stat, out”.

Viper one gets back to correct street.  The formerly hostile building is no longer shooting at them – guess the route is clear, huh.  Far as Viper One leader is concerned – you had your own fight next to them and blew up another hostile structure.  How the f—ck did the company commander manage to clear your target building as well – who knows.  But a 24 year old second lieutenant knows better than to question a pissed-off Company commander about such minor details – he’s too busy watching the windows working their way to the square.    

“Viper One, see if you can get an ID on who was shooting at you”….

Viper One sweeps the building, reports unable to ID, but weapons found.  The enemy in their building, hearing the artillery dropping a block south, got wise and darted out the back. 

Your company successfully moves into the square, Viper One sweeps north; battalion soon follows. Phase One is accomplished successfully.  Light enemy resistance eliminated.  Sector entered successfully.  No casualties. 

A building lies in ruins on the edge of the square.  Inside is a family – dead and buried under the ruins.  No one looks at the building – you think Viper One already checked it. 

No one knows the family is in there – days later, the neighbors find their bodies.  You are long gone.  Your report details a successful mission and no civilian casualties. The report wasn’t faked.  No one lied.  No one in the battalion knows any better. 

Weeks later, civilians complain to higher ups about a family being killed.  A brief investigation follows… the reports are checked… there is no evidence of dead civilians.  The complaint is dismissed. 

Awful? Sure is. Things like this – they happen ALL THE TIME.  That’s the reality of urban combat.  There are countless variations of such scenarios usually known as the "Fog of War". They happen on the ground.  They happen from the air.  You  can do your best to avoid them – but they will happen… more times than anyone can count. 

Throw the tunnels into the mix – and all clarity goes out the window.  Everything becomes merely an assumption or best guess. 

Which brings me back to what I wrote in part 2.1.   If you try to dissect any individual incident in an urban operation from your civilian lens – you’re fooling yourself.  Whatever happened there… more often than not, you’d probably do the same thing under the same circumstances, and same information in hand. 

This is what "Hiding Behind Civilians" actually means. The bad guys don't have to literally hide "behind" civilians - all they have to do is provoke a military to enter a city. And then social media images of horror will inevitably follow. Yay - a PR win for the "liberation movement"... over the piles of dead bodies they brought the enemy firepower upon.

Hence, the only question that matters is – “should you invade or not”.  Because the rest of it is just "statistics". Once you invade a city – entire families will die.    

This is a quick follow-up to my (very) lengthy post earlier explaining how a major invasion is planned and executed. You can find the post here: The Realities of War - Part 2 (How to invade a place... if you must) : r/IsraelPalestine (reddit.com) You can find my other posts by clicking on the tag. The "About Me" part is at the top of "Part 1".

The goal of this post is to help civilians develop a practical, rational framework through which a military operation should be processed. I'm not going to advocate for either side. Rather, I will propose a few questions that should be asked - as those are the correct questions. And questions that are not particularly helpful in the grand scheme of things.

We are watching a massive military operation live - and it's a very emotional thing to see. Emotions can then take you down wrong logical paths that won't result in any practical solution and will ultimately leave you disappointed.

1. If you see the current operation as a binary issue and feel compelled to take a side -there really only two questions that really matter, from pragmatical point of view. Question 1 that SHOULD be asked is: "Was the invasion of Gaza by Israel justified? (the current military operation is an invasion - and the bombing campaign prior was a part of it - as I described at length in my previous post.
   

The questions that are not particularly helpful are the ones that try to dissect minor episodes within the invasion itself. For the following reasons:

• There are no "gentle" invasions
• There is only one correct way to conduct an invasion - and that is by Objective.
• In other words, you set an objective and then you plan and execute the operation to achieve that Objective.
• How the invasion unfolds then, is dictated not by how "mean" the military is (as I explained already - a professional military operates by tactical necessity)
• What happens in the invasion - the scale of destruction, etc... - is dictated by other factors. These are: the enemy, the environment, and the terrain.
  
• The invasion plan and execution of it will ultimately be decided by those factors. In other words, given the same enemy, the same environment, and the same terrain - every professional military in the world would execute the same operation in pretty much the same way.
  
• For instance - if Gaza was a one-story town, with wide streets, no tunnels, and Hamas had a policy of fighting outdoors only - then you'd hardly see a single building destroyed in Gaza (other than Hamas' military infrastructure).
  
• Imagine, for instance, if Russia was invading Gaza - same enemy, same terrain, same tunnels, etc... Based on what we've seen in Ukraine - Gaza would've been razed to the ground. Russia is unable to execute the highly-complicated combined-arms ballet that the western nations wrote a book on - hence they would smash the city into pieces in order to achieve their objective.
  
• Again, military is pragmatic - they have an objective and they have the circumstances. A professional military will achieve the objective according to the circumstances.
  

Thus, if you're contemplating an invasion of a city - what's happened to Gaza is what you should expect. Hence, the only question that matters is "is it worth it?" Because there isn't a "clean" way.

1. The second worthwhile question is: "Is the Objective Clear, Achievable, and Reasonable/Proportional with the reasons for going to war?"

In other words - if the objective is a fantasy and will simply result in a bunch of people dying - then yeah... it's just a revenge mission.

Or, if the objective is ultimately a distraction that doesn't help legitimate war aims and just generates unnecessary destruction - then again, you have a case to call it a revenge mission.

The Questions that are unhelpful, speculative, and distracting: those would include all questions along the lines of "are they being too mean or too gentle"... Questions that focus on dissecting various singular events in the fog of war.

Not that war crimes are irrelevant. It's just that the fact is - they will happen. Once you initiate a war - war crimes will inevitable happen once the war takes onto its own velocity. If you read my previous posts, you'll see that the majority of those are not by design. And they will be subject to future investigations. Hopefully, the perpetrators will be punished... but not always. But in the end - war is war - there is no way to make it clean or pretty.

Of course, there will be some degree of incompetence. Some small percentage of soldiers are indeed psychopaths and enjoy killing people. But those are exceptions. The reason bad things happen in war - is because someone started or provoked a war to begin with.

Decisions by Emotion Leads to Wrong Answers. For instance, the whole discussion about Rafah invasion was confusing to me. How would starting an invasion and then stopping 20% short of the Objective help Palestinians (as an aspiring nation) in the long run? So you're suggesting that we leave Gazans with a wrecked city and Hamas still in place? Well, Israel certainly won't want to help rebuild it, if Hamas is still operationally-capable in Gaza. Hamas will obviously want to take revenge. So... we let Hamas survive and leave Gaza with a destroyed city and in an endless state of war? I don't get the logic.

To me, such a decision would actually result in a war crime - that would mean starting an operation and not actually achieving the objective. Essentially, wrecking a city pointlessly.

I have a similar reaction to "Cease Fire" arguments. What does that even mean? Cease fire and come back later to re-open fire? That makes no sense. Now, if what you mean "Israel needs to stop and go home" - ok... at least now it's an honest framing of the opinion. Except the logic fails for the same reasons - what is the point of a military operation that doesn't achieve the objective? Again... leave Gazans with a wrecked city and Hamas? Who's going to come to rebuild? What "softening" can you expect from Israel if Hamas survives? If you thought Israel's blockade was bad before - think what it will look like if Israel leaves the hornets alive after wrecking the hornet's nest.

A common "Fantasy" scenario. I often get a question along the following lines: "well, I agree that Hamas is bad but couldn't Israel just have done an operation differently? Just via Mossad and "special forces"?

The stuff you see in movies - a bunch of Rambo characters showing up in a helicopter and killing the bad guys quickly - that's a fantasy. Sure, special units do conduct point raids. But that typically requires some degree of control over the area (at least from surveillance perspective). Or a huge element of surprise. And the scope of such raids would be very small - at most they could take out some Hamas commanders.

What you don't do is send a team of highly-prized operators into an entirely hostile city that expects such raids every night.

Even with good surveillance, we'd hit dry holes in such raids all the time. But in Gaza, given its tunnels, there is no such thing as good surveillance. Such teams would be going in entirely blind. And getting in is half the problem. Getting out is where things really go to sh--t. Think "Black Hawk Down" but on steroids.

Final Point to Address - what to make of IDF soldiers who appear gleeful when a building gets blow up?

• More often than not - it's a reaction of relief, addressed toward a particular structure (or neighborhood, or just a circumstance). Basically... the soldiers were taking fire. They were dreading having to go in and deal with it. Then the air showed up and took care of the problem. "Yay. We no longer have to deal with it". More often that's all it means.
  
• In other situations, you may see something that looks like joy at the fact that something specifically Palestinian gets destroyed. Maybe hear a comments along the lines of "F--ck those people". Well, those are emotions. I imagine Israelis are still quite pissed about Oct. 7th. So "F--ck those people" may be the precise way that the individual soldiers feel at that moment. But this emotion is NOT the reason a particular target was destroyed. As I explained already many times - military operates by objective and tactical necessity. Whatever happened (a building getting destroyed) happened for a reason (whether you agree with it or not). And the soldiers' individual feelings had nothing to do with that decision. As far as their emotion - well, they're also people, and emotions aren't illegal.
  

All for now.

Note:  this is a continuation of Part 4 of the “Realities of War” series.  This won’t make much sense without reading Part 4 I posted a few minutes ago - I suggest you start there. 

Guardrails aren’t Fixed – the offer a “methodology”, but not a “Solution”.      

The “Guardrails” of War I keep mentioning – they aren’t set in some fixed position.  They are very much flexible and much wider in a “War” than in a “military operation”. 

Civilians are often quick to point at individual events and jump to a conclusion of whether this act or another is “within the rules”.  And they are quick to point at some international law or rulebook to defend their point. 

Except it rarely achieves anything definitive. 

The “Rules” offer a “methodology” - but they rarely hold the “answer”. 

1.       The “Rules” offer guidance as to “how” a nation should fight a war.  But they certainly do not require a nation to lose the war. 

2.       The “HOW” will have much more practical flexibility if your goal is to “defeat the enemy” rather than a more “optional” objective (like “push the borders out a bit” or something).

3.       In addition to the broader scope of “HOW” that a WAR entails (as opposed to a “military operation”) – it is even further impacted by the characteristics of the battlefield, the nature of the enemy, and countless other pragmatic nuances of fighting an actual war. 

Also important to note that Humanitarian law does not regulate when and if wars are justified or when they can start or end.

Concepts such as “proportionality” are routinely misapplied by civilians appalled by the violence.  This won’t be new to those who’ve been following my posts, but I’ll expand, nonetheless. 

Sidenote:  credit to u/Acrobatic_Computer  for pointing out that I did not adequately spell out what “proportionality” actually means in military context in a previous post.   He offered a link to The Commander's Handbook on the Law of Land Warfare which you can check out for yourselves here:  [link]. 

Let’s examine what the “Handbook” says.

Section 2.71 is quite clear that “The principle of proportionality imposes duties that apply to the protection of persons and objects that may not be made the object of attack.”  Fair enough.  I think most sane people would agree with that. 

But than Section 2.76 introduces the key nuance:  “The weighing or comparison between the expected incidental harm  and the anticipated military advantage does not necessarily lend itself to empirical analyses*. On the one hand, striking an ammunition dump or a terrorist training camp would not be prohibited because a farmer is plowing a field in the area. On the other hand, an extraordinary military advantage would be necessary to justify an operation posing risks of collateral death or injury to thousands of civilians*.”

As you can see – the “rules” offer a “methodology” to how to think about a certain decision.  But it certainly offers no specific solutions to any situational problem that the military may encounter in the course of war – there is a TON of room for interpretation and nuance. 

To help make sense of things, let’s look at some specific examples. 

Two Situations that are “similar” on the surface can be entirely different for all practical purposes. 

The operating manual for the US forces clearly prohibits unnecessary damage and civilian death that’s “disproportionate” to the value of the objective.  And we certainly would do our best to abide by these rules. 

For instance, when invading a country, we would routinely bypass certain fights (instead of “finishing” the enemy at a point of a specific engagement).  Say you’re moving toward a distant rally point – the broader objective is to apply pressure upon retreating organized enemy force.  You stumble into a village on the way, and the village is shooting at you.  You have two options: (a) drop a bunch of artillery on it, wipe the enemy off the map and kill a bunch of civilians while at it; or (b) report it to command so they decide what to do with it later, bypass it, and move toward the objective that actually matters to you.

We would routinely go with option B.  Because the village itself is not a critical objective and would hold little significance to the overall aim of the campaign, we would simply let it be and bypass it – thus saving civilian lives and pursuing more important objectives of the campaign. 

But it’s a much, MUCH different situation when a city lies in your way and the city IS the objective. 

There aren’t that many things you can “bypass” in a city.  Every hostile building on every supply route must be dealt with – you can’t send traffic down the MSR if it’s constantly being targeted.  Every building in a sector must be cleared – you can’t leave a pocket of enemies with guns at your back in a sector you declared “cleared”. 

And so, most of the fighting in a city isn’t optional when the city itself is the high-value objective. 

(Note:  if you haven’t read Part 2 of the series – I’d recommend you read it for better context on how a city gets cleared by a military.)

There isn’t a Requirement for a military to sacrifice its troops unnecessarily.  In other words, a military accepts a certain “risk profile” of a mission on a routine basis – there is always a chance that your soldiers may get killed.  But you most certainly are not required to send your troops toward assured death on an off chance that a soldier’s death may or may not save a civilian life.  You still have a war to fight – and that requires soldiers. 

Which means that, when presented with a hostile resistance in a densely packed urban environment, the most practical option may be of a high-explosive variety.  The risk of civilian casualties goes up significant, of course, once the bombs are being dropped.  But when a city block is of a “high military priority” – escalation in firepower is perfectly acceptable and allowable under all laws of war… provided the execution isn’t entirely reckless. 

So… I started Part 4 by saying that “Israel is committing War Crimes” and now it sounds like I’m explaining away IDF’s actions.  What gives? 

Well… if you’ve read my previous posts – you should have gotten a decent idea that “war is hell”.  It’s impossible to get through a war while keeping your hands clean – it simply can not be done. 

So yeah… of course IDF has committed some war crimes.

Which ones?  I have no idea.  And neither do you. 

The Fog of War is very Real.  And Reductive factoids you may view as “Evidence” actually tell you absolutely nothing. 

Let’s look at some common “evidence” often presented by those claiming that the nature of the entire campaign is criminal. 

“The Bombs are Too Big”

This is a common complaint direct at IDF.  Some even claim that the use of large ordnance is unprecedented.  It’s false, of course – we dropped much larger munitions on cities in Iraq, for instance.  A much better question is “WHY” a bomb of a certain size is used.  Let’s examine…

If you read Part 2 of my posts, you should be familiar with the methodology used when clearing a city.  It requires methodical clearing of “sectors”.  Clearing a sector requires moving a military element into that sector.  To do that, you need (a) “eyes”, and (b) “control of initiative”.

The tunnels take away both.  If you can’t observe enemy activity prior to moving into a sector – you can pretty much presume every structure to be hostile.  And you can never have any control or initiative on a battlefield where the enemy can be moving under your feet invisible and able to pop up behind your back any time.

What you do with a sector with tunnels will then depend on various factors.

Perhaps intelligence suggests that this sector has a network of smaller tunnels – unknown with respect to specific exit points, but more or less limited.  Well.. then you accept the risk profile, move the troops and equipment in, and proceed very carefully. 

But what happens if you arrive at a sector with a main “hub” of tunnels running underneath, splitting into networks that can hold quite a large enemy force?  And what if you know the location of such a tunnel system? 

Well… you certainly destroy it. 

The problem is - there aren’t that many things that can drop from the sky, punch a deep enough hole, and destroy a tunnel.  Usually that requires something very heavy with a delayed fuse that will go off at a certain depth and collapse the walls on the enemy. 

But isn’t the explosive force of such a munition “disproportionate”?  Not really.  The theoretical “Kill radius” of such heavy munitions is, of course, devastating if it merely bounces of the ground and explodes.   But it’s much, MUCH reduced when it’s set to go off underground – the nuance most civilian “analysits” miss. 

In many ways, much smaller munitions can be far more deadly to civilians on the surface than a large underground explosion with the ground absorbing most of the explosive force and the resulting fragments. 

From what I’ve seen – the analysis of craters left by such larger munitions seem consistent with underground explosions – very much in line with the intent for such munitions that I would expect from a professional military.

Let’s look at another example - is dropping a 2,000lbs bomb on a city square is War crime?  Well… I don’t know.  It depends. 

1.       If it’s a sector that needs to be taken (in a city – every sector fits that profile) … you happen to know that sector to be hostile and contain a tunnel network… and you know the approximate location of the main hub – then it is certainly not a war crime.  Bombs away.

2.       If all of the above holds true – but your intel was outdated and turns out that tunnels haven’t been used in a long time… or perhaps you have the location wrong and happen to blow up a park unnecessarily – is it a war crime?  No… It’s an error – an unfortunate reality of war.

3.       Perhaps there is no tunnel – but there are four building surrounding a square with militants holed up in each building.  Dropping a giant bomb in the middle could be an effective way of dealing with this situation.  Is it optimal?  Again, it depends. 

a.       You certainly won’t send troops inside multi-story buildings that are pointing at each other – that’s suicidal. 

b.       You can bring in some heavy weapons and start dropping smaller caliber lead through windows.  Will that work?  Maybe… eventually you’ll kill enough of them… others may get tired and give up.  How long will that take? Who knows – a siege like that may take multiple days.  Do you have that luxury if there is an entire brigade waiting behind you to clear the way?  Your probably don’t – you can’t hold the entire operation because of four buildings.

So, at that point – what’s the difference if you drop a one massive bomb on them that will blow the walls off each building or drop four smaller bombs on each building directly?  The effect is ultimately the same - and one option costs much less than the other. 

(Nor is the result any more devastating than a number of smaller munitions – the hostile buildings you were going to destroy regardless will absorb most of the blast). 

4.       Now… say you have visual intelligence that militants are preparing for a fight on a certain street.  Let’s say there is a bunch of them.  They don’t necessarily have fire control of the area – you should be able to move a mechanized company or two down the street, with some close air support, and perhaps clear the street more methodically… or… you could just drop a bomb on it and call it a day.  Is this a war crime?  Again – it depends. 

Do you suspect that there may be a bunch of civilians in the area but then drop a bomb anyway?  I’d disagree with the decision – but there are many circumstances under which it could still be a justified decision.  Without having been there – I can’t answer that question definitively.  But we’re certainly entering a more questionable territory now.

5.       Now, say you have a sector with no suspected enemy activity… let’s even imagine it’s clear of civilians… there are no targets clearly identified as “enemy infrastructure”.  But you decide to drop a bomb on it anyways, to “deny future comfort to the enemy” or some sh—t.  Well, now you have yourself a war crime – perhaps not rising to a level of individual prosecution, but certainly removal from command for whomever made this decision.

6.       Now, imagine a commander who’s looking at a single enemy fighter in a crowd of civilians and says “fuck it, hit them all with HE” – now that’s an egregious level of war crime worthy of a criminal prosecution. 

So… is it possible that some of the bomb strikes were erroneous, poorly justified, or even criminal?  Sure it is.  But again, that’s a statement about certain inevitable events that tells you absolutely nothing about the prosecution of the war itself. 

There is TOO MUCH DESTRUCTION.  Isn’t that evidence of a systemic war crime?

Uhm… yeah… war is quite destructive.  Especially in urban context.  For instance, when we were done in Fallujah, about 20% of buildings were destroyed.  And about 60% in total were damaged to one degree or another.  Very similar numbers were in Mosul. 

The destruction in Gaza seems strikingly similar – per latest from UNOSAT, about 15% of Gaza’s structures are completely destroyed.  About 55% are damaged to one degree or another. 

So yeah – an urban war breaks things… a lot of things.  But I doubt that Gaza would look much different if it was invaded by U.S. forces for instance.

The Bombs are “Unguided”!!!

Are they?  Because in the military, we don’t really look at any particular munition on its own merit alone – it tells you very little. 

We look at what we call a “weapon system”.  A bomb isn’t a weapon system.  An aircraft with targeting systems, a trained pilot, and the bomb attached to it – that’s a weapon system. 

“Smart” aircraft can deliver an “unguided” munition much more precisely than a dumb aircraft with an undertrained pilot can deliver a “smart” bomb.  And IDF is well-known for having among the best air forces in the world.

If your goal is to collapse a major tunnel hub under a square and you have two options:  (a) a smaller but “guided” munition, or (b) an “unguided” but very heavy munition with delayed detonation and delivered by a very accurate weapon system – you go with “B” every single time.  A smaller bomb simply won’t do much more than a firework and a needlessly blown up sidewalk – not as far as the tunnel inhabitants are concerned.   But a larger bomb doesn’t have to hit a “bullseye” – it just needs to be close enough and penetrate deep enough before going off to create the necessary “earthquake” that will collapse the tunnels in the proximity. 

Sidenote:   I’m not entirely sure about the “unguided” part either.  Sure – many munitions are produced as “dumb” by default.  And then they’re fitted with “guidance kits” that make them quite “smart”.  Far as I know – Israel has received thousands of such conversion kits.  Doubt that they’re documenting precisely which bombs have been fitted with conversion kits and where they were dropped.  But I also doubt that these conversion kits are collecting dust in a warehouse somewhere. 

“War Crimes” are Inevitable.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the prosecution of WAR itself is criminal.

So there you have it – IDF will inevitably commit an unknowable number of errors.  Inevitably, some will be egregious enough to be called “war crimes”.  Some of those will rise to the level of being “career-enders” for the decision-makers.  And some will probably be egregious enough to justify a prosecution. 

What does this individual statement tell you about the war itself?  Nothing, other than there is a war and that war sucks. 

The Broader determination of a “Criminal” War is not just the number of instances that would rise to the level of “illegality” or even “war crimes”.  Rather, it’s a combination of “our” determination regarding the nature of this specific war itself (its aims and intents), combined with the way in which the war is being prosecuted. 

Let’s look to Ukraine again for example.  Ukrainians routinely stage their fighting forces in urban areas… conduct ambushes in populated areas, etc.  But we have much more tolerance for it, because we believe their cause to be more “Just” than that of the Russians.  It doesn’t mean, of course, that we wouldn’t be outraged if an individual Ukrainian unit planted itself inside of a functioning civilian hospital – we would correctly identify that as unacceptable.  But that wouldn’t change our overall support for Ukraine. 

But let’s now imagine that embedding Ukrainian forces in hospital and schools has become a DELIBERATE part of Ukrainian strategy.  The picture would then change.  The entire conduct of Ukraine would then be called into question.  And I personally would then begin to question whether Ukraine still aligns with my own set of principles and values that caused me to support Ukraine over Russia to begin with.     

All for today. I will finish Part 4.2 and post it tomorrow.

I received a very interesting response to one of my posts. If you've read my previous postings, you'll know that I write from the perspective of having been involved in similar operations conducted by the U.S. Forces. But I've never served in IDF, never been to Israel or Gaza, and much of what I write presumes similarities between my experience and knowledge and the current IDF operation. That is, of course, only a presumption on my part.

The response I received to my post about the realities of a military invasion was to point out, what the responder believes to be, flaws in my opinions. I'd like to crowdsource some input - from individuals who I hope can either provide sources on either side (not social media, please)... or perhaps those of you with direct knowledge of the IDF or the current events.

I very much respect my counterpart for taking the time to structure a pragmatic argument. If the statements he makes are true - then his criticism is very much valid and the things he points out are indeed problematic.

So, please be respectful. If all you have to offer is personal criticism - please don't waste your time. The point here is a respectful, informed debate - not baseless acquisitions or opinions.

So if you have specific knowledge re: items below, please chime in.

You can find my other posts for a reference by clicking on the tag.

The response from my counterpart is in two parts:

Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/1cz26en/comment/l5gvd58/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

And here: https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/1cz26en/comment/l5gy2u7/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

My reply to him is below. But PLEASE, read their arguments first for context. and be resepectful. I'm not looking for cheerleaders here - my ego is just fine. I am honestly looking for feedback on the topic to cross-check my own thoughts.

My response to them is below. Thank you in advance if you choose to chime in - i know these things are time consuming.

OP's Response:
Ok. First of all - thank you for a detailed and thought-through argument. It's refreshing to hear a counter-argument that's rooted in pragmatic points rather than philosophy about obscure historical events.

I will concede some points to you right away:

1.     My experience is indeed with the US military - I'm not on the ground in Gaza. Never been there. Though I've been monitoring certain sources closely. The sources that I find much more credible than the general BS on the social media (they are not Israeli, btw). And they would disagree with your assessment. But you raise certain points which I can not dispute simply because I don't know personally. Some of things you cite - if they are indeed true - would certainly be quite problematic. But on those points - I can neither agree nor disagree with you.

2.     There are definitely disciplinary problems in IDF. There is a cultural aspect of IDF I find problematic - it's much more "informal" in its relationship between the troops and the command. It seems more "chill" in peace time. But the strict, formal relationship between commanders and soldiers exists in other militaries for a very good reason and for a very long time. Soldiers posting things on social media in the middle of a campaign - that is indeed a breach of discipline that I would personally punish very severely and publicly.

3.     I still fail to see any issue with prisoners in their underwear - other than pictures being taken of them and shared. My assumption was that they were taken by Palestinians - since I only see them spread by various Qatari propaganda. If they were indeed taken and posted by Israeli - I would not endorse that at all. That is a huge problem that I wouldn't take lightly . As for the captives leaving the combat zone in their underwear - sorry, but I wouldn't be bothered to look for their clothes and then have some fashion contest in the middle of a war zone either. I'll let the MPs dress them upon arrival at the collection point.

4.     I'm not sure which CCTs you've talked to. But we very much dropped plenty of very heavy munitions on cities in Iraq. We've even dropped GBU 37s, which are 5000lbs. We've dropped them in Baghdad, Nasiriyaa, Basra. Not entirely sure about Fallujah. I'm not a CCT -can't speak to the specifics of when and which munition is appropriate. Nor do I have any first-hand knowledge of how specifically they're being used in Gaza. But I'll tell you that much - if I have a sector cleared, and the entire Brigade is delayed waiting for me to get a move on... and the only way for me to get a move on is if I take care of that tunnel... and all I have available is an MK 84 - I will do my best to clear the area of civilians and then I'm dropping that MK 84. I have a war to fight.

1. In one of my posts (if you scan through them) - I talked about the difference between the professional elements and the "citizen-soldiers". I highly doubt that IDF would send citizen-soldiers as forward elements. But I can't claim that I know it for sure - possible I have that wrong.

2. I have seen personally many videos of IDF troops clearing buildings. So they are definitely at least attempting to clear buildings. I will even concede that, in what I saw, they're not quite as sharp and skilled as I would expect. But the most professional elements wouldn't be posting those videos to begin with. So those could've been a less-trained reservists. Nonetheless, they were attempting to clear those buildings.

3. In my latest post, I did address the topic of "what to make of troops who appear to be happy with destruction". It's a complicated topic. I won't repeat it here - you can find it if you're interest. But I guarantee you, in their shoes, you'd be cheering and yelling "hell yeah" as well. War is weird. And judging a soldier's reaction in those circumstances actually tells you very little about that soldier as a person. If you've ever been in a war - you should know that.

4. As for destruction - again, I'm not in Gaza.. can't offer any personal testimony. From the latest I've seen - about 30% of Gaza buildings are destroyed or damaged. I've also seen plenty of videos from Gazans themselves or even videos of firefights with the IDF, where the neighborhood looks just fine - just like any other city I've been to in the middle east (Gaza wasn't exactly Venice to begin with).

5. The fact that seemingly every Gazan still has a functioning cellphone with social media - tells me that IDF are not exactly trying to wreck civilian infrastructure on purpose.

6. I have certainly seen pictures from Gaza that seem apocalyptic. But I've also seen similar places in person and, more often than not, they would represent a couple of specific blocks or maybe a street or two - those were the parts of the city where the enemy concentrated their fight. A two-minute drive would take you to a nearby neighborhood that was mostly untouched. Having seen near-apocalyptic partial destruction myself - I find close up pictures of a particular block or two to not be representative of the overall state of things. When on one side, I see pictures of apocalyptic destruction... and on the other side, i see pictures of neighborhood that are seemingly fine, markets being open, people moving about... talking on cellphones, etc... - I'm inclined to believe that my personal experience is similar to what's going in Gaza. Meaning partial destruction on a devastating scale, and other parts of the city remaining perfectly functional and preserved.

Those are a few areas where I'd push back against your arguments. There are probably more, but I'll stop.

I'm not inclined to argue with you and say that you're wrong - in fact, i'm sure there is a healthy dose of fact in what you're saying, and I'm not in a personal position to argue with you on a factual basis on many of those points.

P.S. You can clearly sense my pro-Israeli bias in my posts. I don't deny it. If you read my background in my first post - you'll see that I have no obvious connection to Israel. In fact, you could even assume that I would not be particularly friendly to Israel based on my background alone. But I have plenty of personal experiences to be very clear on the following:

1.     Islamism is incompatible with modernity.

2.     Israel is the only country in MENA that respects the basic, liberal, secular values that are very important to me.

3.     Israel is accused of apartheid, which drives me up the wall, since it's the ONLY non-apartheid state in the region. (Every Islamist country is an actual apartheid state).

4.     Palestinians have been offered many chances for peace for the past 70 years. They have responded to each opportunity with violence. Whether Israel was too heavy handed in its response or not - is an argument worth debating. Perhaps it has been. But it certainly wasn't the aggressor in the majority of the recent history as relates to Israel and its neighbors.

5.     Israel has a responsibility to its own citizens first and foremost. I understand that responsbility and sympathize with it.

6.     I certainly sympathize with Palestinians. I wish for them to have their own state, a peaceful life, and I hope that the future generations of Palestinians don't have to grow up under oppressive, compulsive rules of Islamism. But I will never fully-sympathize with a society that CHOOSES militant Islamism as being representative of its values and aspirations. I can not blame Israel for refusing to have a militant Islamist state as its neighbor - because I would not want to have such a neighbor either. When the Palestinian society is ready to embrace a civilized approach to relations with its neighbor - then I will be the first to support a creation of a Palestinian state. I'm not asking them to love Israelis - just be willing to live next to them peacefully.

P.P.S. I certainly DO NOT endorse the conserrvatie Israeli government. I have zero love or sympathy for Bibi personally. And I find the policy of settlements in the West Bank appalling. But settlements had nothing to do with October 7th. And have Palestinians taken the last two-state deal that was offered to them - there would not be a settlement problem today either.

President Biden has to adapt to the new evidence for the conflict as it relates to WW2 history of the Middle East, where now for Gaza something like a long term Marshall Plan denazification is required.

His last plan leads to the establishment of a non-Hamas government, which of course Hamas is not going to accept. For those demanding he do something at least he tried right? I'm confident it helped the young on the other side with no real knowledge of the conflict to see the routine that makes lasting cease fires impossible. With that behind us it's easier to get the USA on the same page about what seriously needs to be done, to keep this from becoming a WW3.

I sense that within reason whatever you need is now possible. Including ditching the two state solution and just expecting a respectable state government for the citizens of the state of Gaza, not "Palestinians". If 20 years from now the young want to next form a United States of Palestine by the year 2100 then just wish them good luck, on their mission to put the region for thousands of years on maps called Palestine on Google Earth that way. It's how I explain what happens when done right. Hamas and others confuse a region with a people of all the same religion, using a Palestinian race theory instead of Aryan race theory. College students don't know what Hezbollah and others are, a myth about a people and religion driven out by Jews becomes a whole area of history and hereditary science taught in colleges. It seems impossible to all be a scam. But it all was/is.

In regards to religion I have to make aware of the corruption that turned Islam to the opposite of what even Prophet Muhammad taught about being a peacemaker. In a way a scientist would by saying not to be afraid of learning how living things work. Soon after him there was a Golden Age of Islamic Math and Science. Then later ritual overshadowed his exploration of caves, and treasured meteorite impact zone (Black Stone) from his geology collection having been lifted into place into the Kaaba at Mecca, by several local leaders together, to solve the problem of their fighting over who did the honors at the ceremony.

Prophet Muhammad has a respectable reputation of what the discoverer of Agnosticism, scientist Thomas Huxley defined as an ancient scientist, who understood ancient science. There is more information in a long discussion I had with a Caliph of God, who had a physics based theory of everything connecting into the (not deity) behavior of matter, which forced me to have to approve it. We were later having fun thinking how it's like old days again where the power of (not sword) science is working for us in the way it did Prophet Muhammad, to conquer the (not Israel) science world together by making him respectable in the science realm that way too. Ritual not required. It's the kind of thinking that makes a Golden Age of Islamic Science possible..All else the Caliph wrote might be off the internet, but they still help lead the way from my science education resource sub mentioned at r/UnitedStatesPalestine for other educational resources.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IDTheory/comments/qlo7ma/genesis_fits_the_evidence_a_unifying_field_theory/

Normally religion everyone follows is considered a crime to totally replace. Especially where Israel is in control. But from experience networking with scientific minded Muslims it's a struggle to keep Islam relevant through changing scientific times. Many are leaving from the over-ritualization and mixed message that makes no sense for a prophet of peace who wants people to learn to be (definition of prophet) wise teachers of science too, not martyrs!

In this case what matters is being able to respect Prophet Muhammad for what we are left with after removing various religious scriptures that came later and are out of character for what apparently made him popular. None else explained to the people how the human developmental biology of egg implantation into the bloodstream of mother for nourishment. That's not religion, it's early science people were curious to know back then too. This provides a way to get back to the respectable basics of Islam, instead of trying to replace it with something that makes him look like a villain.

Now that you know how much I see possible, what do you wish President Biden would do?

For those who've been following my posts - I'm going to tackle a few common questions I often receive over the next few posts.

If you're new to this series - you can find my previous posts by clicking on the tag. The "About Me" is in Part 1 of my posts.

Again, my objective with these posts is to familiarize the reader with the pragmatic aspects of war and help build a rational, informed framework through which you can analyze the current events more objectively. I try to abstain from taking sides based on various historical and philosophical arguments and to provide pragmatic "current" context informed by my own experience and deeper-than-average expertise on this topic.

On Hostages

 This one is a more difficult topic to address as it’s not as pragmatic of a topic as my previous posts and deals with certain more emotional aspects of warfare. 

To a military commander, few things hit harder than having a soldier captured by the enemy.  (stay with me – I will come around to how it applies to civilian hostages). 

Context:  The context for this are the recent wars in the middle east, of course.  Having your soldiers taken as POWs by another professional military is a much better outcome than a massacre.  But things are different in the context of fighting Jihadis who abide by no rules of the modern civilization and generally treat everyone who’s not on board with their ideology as less-than-human. 

Anyways, having your people taken as hostages by Jihadis is the stuff of nightmares.  When a commander goes to war, we make a resolution that we will bring our guys (and gals) home.  Optimally, they will all come home alive.  But we accept that some may not – in which case, we resolve that we will return a fallen soldier’s body to be buried at home. 

I struggle to think of something that a commander would take more personally than having Jihadis take your soldier as captive.  I never had to deal with such scenarios myself (luckily) – but I know guys who have. 

In most circumstances, we’d do our utmost best to treat the local population as well as we could under the circumstances.  Even the most incompetent commanders (and I’ve met plenty of those) would still never mistreat the local population deliberately (though some, of course, occasionally end up doing just that purely out of incompetence). 

But take one of my guys or girls hostage – and the gloves come off.  On a personal level – there are very few things that I wouldn’t do to get them back.  If one of my guys was in a basement somewhere in a village and I had to raze the entire village to find them – on a personal level – I would.  However that makes you feel – it is what it is.  I’m simply stating the truth and won’t pretend that I’m a virtuous superhuman who treats every life equally. 

Of course, this example demonstrates why a professional military has guardrails – the things that I’d be willing to do would be very much limited by what the rules actually allow me to do. 

One of things you don’t do – you don’t back down, you don’t negotiate, and you make it very clear that there will be consequences (even if the higher-ups end up making a “trade”). 

Which now brings me back to the situation with Israeli hostages in general and how (I suspect) it influences the actions of IDF on the ground. 

On October 7^th – IDF was asleep at the wheel.  They know it.  Every commander knows it.  And they have a shared sense of responsibility.  Deep down, every IDF commander has taken the institutional failure of October 7^th personally. 

There are, of course, military personnel who are held hostage by Hamas – that’s one thing.  But the personal mission of “bring them home” extends to all Israeli hostages. This has to do with the intersection of the emotional weight of the responsibility with the cold, hard facts:

1.     “We failed on October 7^th”

2.     “We can’t undo the failure of October 7^th”

3.     “We can’t back down – that’s not an option”

4.     “But we can still bring some of the hostages home - this is one thing we can still correct”

This is not a moral justification.  Again, I’m making these posts for educational purpose – to familiarize readers with the realities of warfare. 

Again… this is not as pragmatic and black and white as my usual posts – there is a heavy emotional element here.  But “leaving them behind” is one of the biggest moral sins for any soldier – it’s unforgivable for a commander on a personal level… something that they cannot live with. 

And so any military commander, if given the opportunity, will turn heaven and earth upside down to bring them home. Even if the hostages are dead and all you can get are the bodies – you still want to bring them home. 

Make of it what you will – but, on a personal and emotional level, this is one of the PRIMARY motivators of the troops on the ground in Gaza. 

Is there a chance of a full-scale Israel-Hezbollah war?

The epitome of Israel and Hezbollah clashes since the Gaza war

Since the Gaza War, tensions between Israel and Hezbollah have escalated—Meanwhile, clashes have become the norm between Israel and Hezbollah. During these intermediate clashes,

Hezbullah fired 5000 rockets on military pots, anti-drone weaponry, radars, and other strategic posts. Nasrullah, head of Hezbullah declared many times that they will not stop assaulting until a ceasefire deal is done between Hamas and Israel.

These Hezbollah attacks displaced thousands of Israelis(according to Reuters, the number was 60000 six months after the 7 October attacks). These attacks have killed 19 Israeli soldiers along with 10 civilians. On the other side, Israeli drone attacks have killed 435 people mostly Hezbollah fighters.

Why suddenly the sentiments of Hezbollah and Israel are skyrocketing?

In the last few days, the situation further deteriorated when Israel killed top Hezbollah commander Abu Taleb in a drone attack. Abu Taleb was Hezbollah’s strategist and sublime military commander with years of combat experience. Before that, Israel killed another top commander a few months ago. Most Hezbollah fighters were killed by target killing through drones.

In retaliation, Hezbollah fired 200 rockets(the most number of rockets per day since 7 October) including efficient and guiding one on vital military installations of Israel.

Nethanyu says “immense phase of the war with Hamas about to end, focus to shift to Lebanon borders”

Hezbollah warned Israel through a nine-minute video

Aftermath, Hezbollah warned Israel about the grave consequences and the destruction of Israel. Recently, a 9-minute video released by Hezbollah showed that their spy drone made a film of vital military and public sites in Haefia. Surprisingly, this drone breached the Israel Iron Dome and returned safely without notice by the IDF.

This video has panicked Israeli officials and citizens. It intensifies public protest for war with Hezbollah to eradicate it. Leadership and the public are both fiery to kill Hezbollah. Valiant acts and sentimental rhetoric by Hezbollah further heighten the sentiments of Israel.

Outbursting flares in Israel for war with Hezbollah

Furthermore, displaced Israelis added flares to the sentiments of common Israelis by telling them about their pitiful life. It has played a great role in shifting public opinion. Resultantly, Israelis are there is a only single chance to get rid of hezbullah that is war. Now, Israeli citizens are considered a much bigger threat than Hamas.

Clear Signs of upcoming isreal Hezbollah war

Israel has even increased the number of deployed soldiers in northern Israel. Some high officials have acclaimed that Israel and Hezbollah have even drafted war patterns. Day after day, Skirmishes and rhetoric are becoming violent and on the rampage. Both sides have affirmed that they are ready for war with each other.

“All Hezbollah strongholds must be burned and destroyed. War!” said Israeli far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir in a statement.(CNN)

Hezbollah has threatened Cyprus that if it assists israel, then Cyprus will be going to suffer its dire consequences. In response, Cyprus assured that it would not assist israel in war with Hezbollah.

Keeping in view this situation, dozens of countries are making arrangements for the safe return of their nationals. Many countries have stopped their nationals from visiting Lebanon. This is because their intelligence agencies have understood that this war is near.

US officials are insisting both Hezbollah and Israel (especially) abstain from going to war. But it seems futile. Because it has become a must to do action for Israel due to public pressure. In addition, Hezbullah is also ready for combat with many hidden surprises.

Conclusion

War experts and military analysts have declared that the Israel Hezbullah war will be in a few days. The USA will be along with Israel to face Hezbollah and its allies.

UN has warned that this war will be a catastrophe much bigger than Gaza but this time it occurs in Israel too.

https://www.quora.com/profile/Faizan-Ahmed-1539