Prof. Stuart Cohen has precisely analyzed why the war in Gaza failed – why, in fact, it was a failure when it began. The full piece is at the BESA website. Here’s a start:
In his classic work, On War, Clausewitz commented that: No one starts a war – or, rather, no one in his senses ought to do so – without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it. The former is its political purpose; the latter its operational form. This is the governing principle that will set the course of the war, prescribe the scale of means and effort that is required, and make its influence felt throughout down to the smallest operational detail.
Looking back, did Operation Cast Lead meet those criteria? Were its objectives clearly defined? And were the measures taken commensurate with those ends?
The questions are worth asking because many of the answers glibly trotted out by those who consider the Operation to have been a success hardly stand up to close examination. For instance, one commonly cited justification for the operation is Israel’s need to “punish” Hamas for its protracted record of indiscriminate missile attacks against civilian targets in southern Israel. “Punishment,” however, only warrants depiction as policy when it is administered in accordance with a deliberately considered – and publicized – statement of intent, which announces in advance the retaliation that Israel will inflict for every rocket that Hamas fires. In the absence of any such “price list,” the longer Operation Cast Lead went on the less it appeared to reflect hard-headed thinking. Rather, it gave the impression of an instinctive response, provoked by frustration at Israel’s failure to find any other answer to what had by the end of 2008 become a most humiliating experience.
No wonder, then, that by the second week of Cast Lead the operation seemed to be dragging on without any apparent purpose….
I recommend reading the rest.
Meanwhile, Tel Aviv University political psychologist has written an open letter analyzing the fears and distortions that led to public support for the war. Israel’s actions in Gaza, Bar-Tal writes
…express the wish to erase the feeling of failure in the Second Lebanese War during the summer of 2006; they reflect a deep sense of collective victimhood because of the continuous firing of rockets on civilian settlements in the south by the Hamas military organ– this sense of victimhood led to the urge to revenge in order to punish for the harm done and prevent further firing. In addition, they are derived from the continuous dehumanization of the Hamas organization. Finally, they are based on the conviction that Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, allowing Palestinians to live their lives and they instead engage in terror….
The psychological analysis of the situation illustrates the selective, biasing and distorting transmission and dissemination of information by the Israeli channels of communication. It does not mean that the alternative information does not exist in Israel but very few are interested in knowing what is really happening….
The full text has been posted here.
Cohen puts well into words exactly what I’ve been thinking since the operation began. It looked suspicious from the outset — even before it happened! — in that Hamas all but sent a printed invitation for Israel to attack it. Wasn’t it clear that they knew Israel would walk right into a trap of our own making?
Jewish brawn won’t do it without Jewish brain, and we need to start showing more respect for the brain side. It may be embarrassing to show weakness to our enemies, but it’s even more embarrassing to be outsmarted by them.
And that’s without even saying anything about the loss of life and destruction of homes.
Keep it coming, Haim and Gersh!
Of course the war was a failure from the start. All of the people I know who you would define as being “right-wing” never had expectations that it wouldn’t be. After all, the Prime Minister who ordered the last two wars has repeatedly said that “Israel can’t fight any more”, “it turns out the Palestinians have been right all along”, “I was wrong my entire life in supporting the ‘Right'”, etc. When commanders in the IDF highest goal is to avoid casualties at all cost as opposed to taking their objective, these failures are the inevitable outcome. Even though everyone knew the war was justified, we all realized that it was carried out for political reasons, in order to strengthen Barak and Livni. What is interesting is that, in spite of the old ‘rally round the flag’ attitude Israelis have had in the past in supporting governments that led wars, we didn’t see that reflected in the results of the election where Barak and his Labor Party bombed out and Kadima only held its own, so we see neither of those who led the war got any political benefit out of it in the end. In spite of the fact that Barak is supposed to be a genius, the war showed no tactical ingenuity (except maybe for Barak’s surprise bombing of the police graduation ceremony). The whole thing consisted of massive firepower, slow moving heavily-armed ground forces, no taking of strategic objectives regarding HAMAS’ rocket fire, no use of light, mobile commando units to surprise the HAMAS leadership, nothing, nada. Just smash the hell out of them and hope they cry uncle. In any event, if the Gilad Shalit deal goes ahead on the terms that HAMAS is demanding, as seems to be the case as the media is reporting, HAMAS will emerge in the eyes of everyone as a gigantic victor, Israel will suffer a total, unmitigated defeat (Churchill’s words after Munich) and whatever good may have come out of the war will evaporate.
Y ,yes the Gaza incursion was a failure and was predestant to be just that .When I wrote on this blog a month ago that Hamas had the IDF’s number I couldn’t conceive that Gaza would have gone so bad. Yes ,there has to be a response to these thugs but it can’t be the same old “lets slug it out ” The IDF is using ,big battle ,tactics against people using the “light strike” approach.The Taliban is fighting against us using the small self- contained unit hitting us where we don’t expect them a long way from where there is regiment strength units. Israel can drive Hama crazy by using small elite units to mount lighting stikes on a totally unannounced timetable at random locations for psychological effect and to keep them off-balance . Israel telegraphs it’s intentions and it has to stop that and embrace the stealt . That is how David Ben and the boys did it It worked then and it will work now It just takes longer and the results aren’t so apparent. Assassinations always help . The Hamas leadership is getting too many nights of good sleep
My heart goes out to Daniel Bar-Tal. I was just in Israel visiting family and friends. I had a heated argument with one friend, who has one son in Sadir and who was in Gaza, and a second one about to be drafted. She and her husband voted for Ehud Barak, and her son in the army voted for Bibi. In our discussion she adamantly supported the war, giving all the rationals mentioned by Bar Tal. She used to be a Meretz voter, but said her eyes have been opened, and that what was needed was a strong tough hand.
There is a line of reasoning that says that if the US had a draft instead of a volunteer army, the public would have been far less willing to go along with the Iraq war, but in Israel you can see a different side of the argument. In Israel, the fact that everyone is connected to someone in the army means that there is a huge reluctance to be critical of what they do. Of course Israelis will demand accountability for actions they feel have put their soldiers at unnecessary risk, but they really have no stomach for demanding accountability for actions perpetrated by the army against others.
I see my friend as very protective of her children, and she will never allow herself to believe that her son was engaged in a fight that was unfair and unjustified.