BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 2,215, 23 June 2024
by Dr. Eado Hecht
IDF forces activity in the Gaza Strip. © IDF Spokesperson
We cannot always prevent the murder of workers in an orchard or sleeping families, but we can set a high price for our blood. A price too high for the Arab settlement, the Arab army and the Arab government to pay. … [Retaliation operations] are not for vengeance. It is an act of punishment and warning, that if that state does not control its population and does not prevent them attacking us – the Israeli forces will cause havoc in its land.“
IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan,
Lecture to IDF officers: “Retaliation Operations as a Means of Ensuring Peace”, July 1955
(Published in IDF monthly journal Skira Hodsheet, August 1955).
WHAT HAS HAPPENED?
Israel – Hamas Negotiations:
Not much has changed since the last report.
The Biden administration and the United Nations Security Council have in theory accepted Israel’s position vis-à-vis the acceptable terms of ending the war in Gaza, but Hamas has refused to accept these terms.
Gaza:
The Israeli offensive in the Rafah area gradually took all the ground adjacent to the border between Gaza and Egypt. Over the past few days there have been reports of Israeli forces now conducting attacks from the area taken northwards, both in the relatively open area between the city of Rafah and the coast and inside Rafah itself.
Virtually the entire population that was reported to have been in the Rafah area, both the original inhabitants and those evacuated to Rafah from the more northern areas of Gaza, have moved to the safe havens allotted by the IDF. The resistance by the US government to the Rafah operation was based on the premise this would not happen. Just as in the previous IDF offensives in northern Gaza and the Khan Yunis area, the rate of evacuation is one of the factors determining the rate of advance of the IDF units.
During the clearing operations in each area taken, the IDF units have uncovered hundreds of tunnels, including dozens crossing the border into Egypt. These tunnels were used for smuggling weapons from Egypt into Gaza as well as civilian traffic, both people and goods. Officially the Egyptians destroy all tunnels they discover on their side of the border, but apparently over the past few years they have reduced this effort considerably – these tunnels all have large openings on the Egyptian side of the border, they are not small or camouflaged, and the traffic through them was not a trickle. Also found adjacent to the Egyptian border were rocket launchers and stocks of rockets. Additionally, more evidence has been found in Rafah of the use of UN sites and mosques by Hamas.
The IDF has also continued to conduct raids into northern Gaza and Khan Yunis whenever concentrations of returning Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists are discovered, as well as raids into the Nuseyrat area, between Gaza and Nuseyrat.
Dr. Eado Hecht, a senior research fellow at the BESA Center, is a military analyst focusing mainly on the relationship between military theory, military doctrine, and military practice. He teaches courses on military theory and military history at Bar-Ilan University, Haifa University, and Reichman University and in a variety of courses in the Israel Defense Forces.
@ Sebastien, You said,
I think that you have it right.
“Pacifism is objectively fascist.” – George Orwell in 1942.
Raphael And Israel wasn’t defeated in Lebanon by the Arabs but by internal subversion, i.e., “Peace Now.” Leftist Soldiers actually began refusing orders while insurrectionary mobs clogged the streets and disrupted society, Same thing that defeated the U.S. in Vietnam and emboldened Hamas to invade and perpetrate Oct. 7.
Raphael And Israel wasn’t defeated in Lebanon by the Arabs but by internal subversion, i.e., “Peace Now.” Leftist Soldiers actually began refusing orders. Same thing that defeated the U.S. in Vietnam. And in both places, the traitors then entered the political arena, Deep State, Media, and Education system at all levels and have been honored as “heros”* ever since.
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Heros – How the left loves to redefine words. I’m reminded of the Reagan era parody of the ineffectual anti-drug commercials, in particular, “This is your brain on drugs” commercial showing a fried egg on a grill such as you would only see in a diner – called, “coffee shops” then.
And more specifically, the SNL parody that started with that and then went on: “And this is your brain on drugs on a toasted roll with lettuce and tomato.”‘ And showed somebody holding it up in two hands and biting into it. 😀
“From here, from there, from everywhere” – Dr. Seuss
Just in:
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-807411
Dr. Seuss
“From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere!” – Dr. Seuss,
– One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten Quotes
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All I Really Need to Know I Learned in KindergartenAll I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2399046-all-i-really-need-to-know-i-learned-in-kindergarten
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In the early ’60s, A boy I didn’t know suddenly came across the room and hit me with a building block in Kindergarden which was in a liberal church (both for no apparent reason) and the teacher didn’t do anything then, either (also for no apparent reason).
That’s from back in the golden age when antisemitism didn’t exist anymore.
Actually, there never was any antisemitism before my father told me about my family being murdered when I was 10 in 1969 or 70.
And then, there was a lull and there was no antisemitism until the ’80s when an Italian leftist room mate said to me, “You are a Jew, aren’t you?”
And then there was no antisemitism again until the early ’90s when everybody around me tried to draw a false equivalence between the lynching of Yankel Rosenbaum and a traffic accident.
And then there was no antisemitism again until the early 2000’s until the Arabs began a 5 year campaign of mass murder of Jews in response to being offered everything they had said they wanted and I began reading Palestinian Media Watch and Arutz Sheva and reading what they were really saying to each other in Arabic _ what they’re saying openly in English now – and about daily attacks every day until now.
AND NOW THERE WAS ALWAYS ANTISEMITISM AND THERE WILL ALWAYS BE ANTSEMITISM, IT’S EVERYWHERE, AND THE ONLY SOLUTION IS TO GET RID OF ALL THE ANTISEMITES AND TAKE EVERYTHING THEY HAVE TO THE BEST
OF OUR ABILITY>
There’s two kinds of antisemites: The good ones and the ones who are still breathing.
A black leftist friend (who supports Trump but still has fantasies about the Palies) asked me on the phone: “Do you want the Palestinians to suffer?” And knowing she wouldn’t believe me anyway when I told her she had drunk the Koolaid of lying Arab/Muslim propaganda and that Israel takes more pains to prevent “civilian” loss of life than any other country or army in history – I just said, “Yes.” Though, I meant it. 😀
Got it? Good.
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I remember my late father once saying that he wondered how Jews who not grown up with the constant pressure of antisemitism all around them would react to the shock when they were forced to become aware of it, again.
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He may not have been very nice to me or my familly but he had a lot of wise things to say, in retrospect. And he had been a Jewish hero when it counted during the Shoah. That’s the man I choose to honor and remember.
@Rafael “From here, from there, from everywhere” – Dr. Seuss
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-807411
@Rafael Somebody I know said that there would always be terrorism to which I responded, “I know. that’s why the Arabs have to go.”
I frequently hear pundits say that Israel dare not get involved in a war in the north, after the “defeat” they suffered in Lebanon in 2006. Maybe they just don’t understand Israel’s actions. I also remember another pundit, however, who made a different comment, which I think is more telling. He said, (paraphrased), “Lebanon cannot withstand another “victory” like this one.” Ah! The point is well made. The photos and videos I have seen of Gaza bear this out. The place is totally smashed. Well done, I say!
In reality, I don’t know if the war against Hamas can actually be won, since 90%+/- of the population of Gaza support Hamas. I hope that the IDF can break the back of Hamas, but if not, at least send them back to the stoneage where they belong. If nothing else slows them down, maybe a healthy dose of retaliation will.