Yom Shnee
Monday
11 Av 5782
August 8 2022
TODAY’S BLOG
The War Grinds To A Halt: Winners and Losers
The 66-hour mini-war ended last night the way that all Israeli wars have ended since 1973.
Islamic Jihad, like Hezbollah, the PLO, and Hamas is still standing, declaring victory, and making demands.
And was still firing missiles at southern Israel up until 11:50 pm last night. Between 11 pm and 12 am, Islamic Jihad struck at Beersheva, Sderot, and all of the Israeli communities along the border.
It is impossible to determine exactly how many missiles were fired at Israel during the mini-war because so many missiles went unreported. The official estimates in the Israeli media this morning are that “more than 1000 were fired.” Judging from reports of residents on the ground as well as the official reports, we here at OneIsrael believe the number is between 1150-1200.
Who were the winners and losers?
The winners:
1. Hamas and the PLO. Islamic Jihad has been battling the PLO for supremacy in Judea and Samaria while battling Hamas for supremacy in Gaza. Basically, Israel has done the dirty work for both terror organizations.
More than this, Israel has further sold its soul to both organizations. How do you think that we were able to find the Islamic Jihad terrorists in Gaza? Obviously, the IDF worked with Hamas which will now want ever more concessions from Israel. How do you think Israel has located and captured all of the Islamic Jihad “operatives” in Judea and Samaria? The IDF worked with the PLO to round them up and will have to pay the PLO for its help.
In essence, by working with Hamas and the PLO, Israel has laundered both terror organizations. Now they seem as if they were fighting terrorism along with Israel.
2. Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz. PM Lapid now looks like a strong leader who can make leadership decisions, and “Defense” Minister Benny Gantz looks like a military leader who can lead Israel to victory. However, when we really consider what happened, both of these “looks” are a delusion. Lapid did not plan or execute anything, and what Gantz mainly did was to order (again with the help of Hamas) the targeted assassinations of two Islamic Jihad leaders. Israel frankly got lucky in catching other terrorists in the same room as the targets.
Interestingly, in previous wars with Gaza, Netanyahu was always roundly criticized for making decisions himself without consulting the cabinet. That is precisely what Lapid and Gantz did in this mini-war.
3. The Iron Dome. The system has continually improved over the years going from a 75% successful shoot-down rate when it was first deployed years ago to a 96% rate in this war with Islamic Jihad. However, we should not exaggerate its effectiveness. In the last war with Hamas, the terrorists were able to overcome the Iron Dome by sheer numbers of missiles fired at one time. Islamic Jihad did not have the same huge quantity of missiles at its disposal.
4. Itamar Ben Gvir. Labeled a “radical extremist” partly because he believes in a strong Israel, Ben Gvir ascended the Temple Mount yesterday despite the threats of Islamic Jihad and Hamas and . . . nothing happened. He demonstrated once again that he is the only Israeli politician who acts.
The Losers:
1. The residents of the Gaza border communities. Tens of thousands of Israelis had their lives halted as the IDF moved into position to target Islamic Jihad leaders. Then these brave people had to live in their bomb shelters for days on end as their communities were pummeled. In places like Nahal Oz and Sderot, there were missile attacks every 5 or 10 minutes for 66 hours. Who knows what the traumatic effect of such bombardments will be?
Once again, the IDF-government strategy treated these Israelis as missile fodder. Even yesterday, in the midst of nonstop attacks, the IDF did next to nothing. As war after war shows, the IDF simply does not have the ability to stop all but a few missile launches.
2. Islamic Jihad. Much of the terror organization’s senior leadership was killed, and some of its assets were destroyed, but even more, its capabilities in Judea and Samaria have been significant degraded.
Not a winner or loser:
1. Iran: It is easy to say that Islamic Jihad is Iran’s proxy and so what happened is a defeat for Tehran. However, Iran also heavily supports Hamas which only grew stronger as a result of this mini-war.
2. Israel. All we have done is kick the can down the road. Another confrontation with Islamic Jihad will certainly come, as will a war with a more powerful Hamas.
As one analyst said this morning: “This was a major operational success but part of a long-term strategic failure.”
The good news is that no Israelis lost their lives in the operation–no soldiers and no civilians. That is always a good ending.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.