Israel cannot win. It can only lose.
You cannot kill your way to victory against an insurgency.
Today's guest post author is not an expert on the Middle East. He is an American veteran of the U.S. experience in Vietnam.
He came out of that experience with a simple, clear idea: A foreign power cannot defeat an insurgency. It can try. We tried in Vietnam and learned that a country can kill individuals, but not an idea that gives purpose to a people. Stalin tried mass murder by starving Ukrainians, but Ukraine and Ukrainians survive. Hitler tried mass murder, but Jews survived and have a homeland. White Americans tried with the Indigenous people of North America. Native people survived, and more of them are crossing the southern border, repopulating the U.S. right now.Jews can be killed, but the tribe, its culture, language, and religion could not be destroyed. They are an insurgency that arose empowered by the tragedy of the Holocaust. Israel's problem is that Palestinians can be killed but the Palestinian tribe, culture, language, and religion cannot be destroyed. They, too, are an insurgency, empowered by the tragedy of their own history.
Larry Slessler
Guest Post by Larry Slessler
HAMAS is in reality an insurgency. Insurgencies are rarely defeated. A few examples of my point:
***The American insurgency forces win a revolution against Great Britain.
***The French were defeated by the Viet Minh in the 1950's. This is followed by the U.S. defeat at the hands of the Viet Cong in a decade's long counterinsurgency effort from the late 1950's through the early 1970's.
***The Soviets took a loss after their decade-long effort in Afghanistan ended in 1989. ". . . and the band played on."
Overwhelming military force is no guarantee of a victory over an insurgency. It is "fool's gold." Insurgencies are not wars of taking ground, that easy measuring-stick guaranteeing victory or defeat. The insurgency is a conflict of the heart, soul and beliefs of the insurgents.
Insurgencies enjoy a stacked deck. The insurgency will win by not losing. The invading military force does not have that luxury. The major military power has to post a complete win, or they lose. In Vietnam we won battles time after time. We enjoyed complete air superiority and overwhelming firepower. However our enemy triumphed by never fully losing.
Part of this can be explained by the fact that the Insurgency is fighting on its home turf. Another major factor is illustrated by the allegory of a "Bacon and egg breakfast." In that meal, the chicken is involved but the pig is committed. I served in Vietnam with a goal of going home alive (involvement). My enemy was defending his home country, was committed to the war for the duration, and was much more willing to die than I was (commitment). U.S. leaders tried to convince us we were in Vietnam to contain evil communism and to free the oppressed people of Vietnam. Those goals were not embraced over time by the majority of Americans. LBJ's decision not to run for re-election in 1968 was a result of a failure to convince a majority of Americans that the war was worth the cost.
The cost-factor is critical for the anti-insurgency forces' home population. They will grow tired of the cost of the war and the body bags and the return of their wounded loved ones. Think British in the American Revolution and the U.S. in Vietnam.
Unless the homegrown insurgency is 100% rooted out and destroyed, time is always their ally. The strategy of winning by not losing has played out over centuries of conflicts.
Israel seems to believe that overwhelming firepower will ensure victory. It never has, and my bet is it won't for the Israelis against Hamas. Every person Israel kills will be a recruitment opportunity for Hamas.
As I stated at the top: Bet on a Hamas victory somewhere down the line. Or maybe better called a defeat for Israel.
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21 comments:
Jews in Israel are on their home turf, of several thousand years’ standing. The Philistines of Gaza were not even Arab. Today’s Palestinians are shock troops in a religious war centered around the control of Jerusalem, financed by a Jew-hating theocracy in Iran. The rest of these tropes and narratives are for secular Western consumption and distraction.
Decades ago, I asked my GWB-supporting friends "what happens if we invade Iraq and its citizens reject democracy?" They had no answer.
Religion is the problem, as leaders can easily convince followers to die protecting it.
The US needs to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and let the people in the Middle East fight amongst themselves, if they choose to.
Insurgents don't always win, even when they are involved and committed with all their heart, soul, and mind, until victory or death. In 1554, 100 percent of the lower 48 plus Alaska was Indian country. In 2024, that's two percent. More to the point, and with all respect to Larry Slessler, the situation in Gaza is not like American, French, or Russian intervention in Viet Nam, Algeria, or Afghanistan. Hamas attacked Israel from outside Israel. Israel is the Jewish state. Unlike the Viet Nam War, the Israel-Hamas war is not a civil war. Israel occupies Gaza in order to protect Israel. Be that as it may, it's the United States that has enabled Israel's military superiority in the Middle East since the 1940s. Therefore, we have a right to take a position concerning how Israel conducts any war. If we're not careful, we are going to have to invade Yemen and that could possibly lead to World War Three if Iran and Russia miscalculate their responses to that invasion. The threat of such escalation probably influences what President Biden, Anthony Blinken, and maybe also Chuck Schumer say and do (and don't do) concerning Israel's war against Hamas.
Thank you, Larry Slessler, for so clearly defining what I've tried to express in this spot several times since October. No matter how many people the Israelis slaughter in Gaza, how many Villages they crush and bulldoze in the West Bank region, they will eventually lose, and I fear our President is playin right into the Insurgencies plan with his unbending support for Netanyahu.
And I want to thank Peter Sage for posting this Guest Opinion.
Israel has reduced Gaza to rubble, killing over 30,000, mainly women and children. The survivors are being made to endure conditions that would be illegal for livestock: 1.7 million displaced people deprived of food, water, medicine and power, trying to try survive in the freezing rain in flooded makeshift camps overflowing with sewage, where diseases associated with overcrowding, malnutrition and poor sanitation are rampant.
When Hamas savagely slaughtered 1,200 Israelis and took 253 hostages, most of the world was united in support of Israel, but not anymore. So yes, the misery, death and destruction perpetrated by Israel in Gaze is strategically unwise, but more importantly, it’s barbaric.
Israel has some advantages that the United States did not have in Vietnam:
* The Israeli public is totally committed to victory. There is no significant anti-war movement.
* Hamas and Hezbollah and their backer Iran constitute an existential threat to Israel. That’s huge motivation for Israelis to support the war. The United States was under no equivalent existential threat from Vietnam.
* Israel controls what goes into Gaza. In the Vietnam war, Haiphong Harbor was a major transshipment point for incoming armaments from the Soviet Union. We never bombed that harbor for fear of what the Soviet Union might do in response.
* There is no major power support for Hamas comparable to the support by the Soviet Union and Communist China for the North Vietnamese.
As Yogi Berra once said, predictions are hard, especially about the future. But there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the prospect for Israeli success in this war.
None of the pro Yisrael butchery of innocent women an children posting to day have acknowledged Larry's point, which is that while Israel may kill every Palestinian in Gaza, mem, women and children, they will no succeed in extinguishing what Hamas is, and every Arab of Palestinian descent, scattered around the Globe will be thirsting for revenge, while Israel may well be the trigger starting World War III.
Other commenters are apparently comfortable with the Israeli methods, which by most standards are war crimes, by denying food, water and medicine to civilians. I guess Barbarianism is good, as long it's not ones own ox being gored.
Wow wow wow
I've got to tell you Peter
Perhaps I did skim through most of your post yesterday and almost everytime I read your posts because you consistently give away the game within the first few sentences of the first paragraph and today is a glaring example.
"Today's guest post author is not an expert on the Middle East."
That is the understatement of the millennium
I'm not gonna waste too much time going on about how bombastically and demonstrably wrong he is other than that there is no Palestinian culture because there is no Palestinian tribe.
These are nothing more than Nomadic arabs that wandered in and colonized (...yup) Colonized the land of Israel after the Roman destruction of the Second Temple and ultimate expulsion and dispersion of the majority of Jews of that time. Yes I say majority because Jews have always lived In the land of Israel. The city of Tzfat, known today as Safed is a clear example. Calling the region "palestina" is a literal Roman middle finger to the Jews. It is purely of historical significance and is only geographically relevant to the Gaza Strip.
Can any of the arabs who presently "occupy" the Gaza Strip be genealogically related to Greek pagans who ate pork??
I highly doubt it.
There is no Palestinian state because it was rejected by the occupying arabs time and time again.
Now the philistine fantasy land is dead
Another aspect that Mr. Sessler clearly does not understand is that this is less about land and more of a 1000 year grudge fest against the Jews of Medina who rejected Mohammed because he was no prophet of Hashem.
This is a religious war.
Do you not know about the red heifers?
I'm sure you know that ham ass called this the Al-Aqsa flood?
... No I didn't think you did.
One clear aspect that I am quite giddy about is this of insurgency against invaders, foreign, ...and domestic.
Joe Biden said if you want to overthrow the government you need F sixteens not an AR15. did that really stop the Taliban?
Mr. Sessler has given me hope for the inevitable MAGA insurgency (Bloodbath) that will come if this election is
once again
stolen
So
all you raghead peaceniks beware
The US bombed Nagasaki and Hiroshima killing tens of thousands of Japanese civilians to end Japan's war against the US. Japan attacked Athe US at Pearl Harbor. The US fought back to defeat Japan, and it looks like it worked out so far.
Hamas attack on Israel is a big mistake, as there is no way that Hamas could win. The victory achieved however was to get too many ill informed people hating Israel, rather than recognizing how wrong Hezbollah, Has, and Iran are.
They lit the fuse for a potential WW III.
Israel has every right to defend itself.
“Israel has reduced Gaza to rubble, killing over 30,000, mainly women and children.”
If you are gullible enough to believe numbers from the Hamas Ministry of Health/Propaganda. There is something very wrong with their numbers, as described in this analysis.
Also, what percentage of those killed were Hamas terrorists? They would not be counted as innocent victims.
“… the situation in Gaza is not like American, French, or Russian intervention in Viet Nam, Algeria, or Afghanistan. Hamas attacked Israel from outside Israel. Israel is the Jewish state. Unlike the Viet Nam War, the Israel-Hamas war is not a civil war. Israel occupies Gaza in order to protect Israel.”
An interviewer once asked Israeli premier Golda Meir why Israel had prevailed in the 1973 war. She replied that Israel had a secret weapon: “We have nowhere else to go.”
If David in Ashland is agreeing with those who support Israel’s ongoing atrocity rather than satirizing them (it's hard to tell), I'm sure they consider themselves in good company.
By dehumanizing others, people are able to quell their conscience, if they have one, and commit atrocities. That’s how Hamas can do what they did and how Israelis now carry out their savage retribution against civilians in Gaza. Trump refers to migrants as “animals” for the same reason. Ironically, if Israel were treating animals the way the way they’re treating Palestinians, there’d probably be more of an uproar.
“If Israel were treating animals the way the way they’re treating Palestinians, there’d probably be more of an uproar.“
Animals don’t commit mass murder, kill children in front of their parents and vice versa, gang rape and mutilate their female victims, and burn and behead babies.
Mike
you dehumanize half of the American populace on a daily basis.
Muslims dehumanize Jews and all Americans, including you, on a daily basis and vow to exterminate all of us.
Tit-for-tat and all that.
All is fair in Blood and Soil.
The point overall Is that the Jewish people have an eternal claim on the land of Israel.
The Arab Muslims have terminated the right to exist anywhere in that land to their own demise.
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.
David –
Thanks for clarifying that your comment wasn’t an attempt at parody, but your personal attack on me is without merit. I have certainly pointed out that Trump is a pathological liar and that his claim the election was stolen is his most destructive, but those are well-documented facts. I’ve also pointed out that those who believe him anyway are crazy and/or stupid, but that doesn’t make them any less human. I’ve never called them or anyone else “animals” or worse, as has your glorious leader.
Oooo scary threat there at the end Dave. The MAGAs are a bunch of cowards... the only bloodbath you'll be seeing is of your "billionaire" leader's financial empire. Have fun with that.
Yes, the people of Gaza are people without a country. They descended from nomads, and never gave up that roaming spirit.
They were given a thriving region in the hope that the receiving generation would take Gaza and build a thriving economy, just as Israel has done since gaining their land in 1947.
Unfortunately, the leadership of Gaza chose anything but creating an economy.
A challenge for others:
What has Hamas leadership done to build their economy? What products does the rest of the world rely on from Gaza? Has Gazans life improved at all since the land was set aside by the UN?
A simple fact about Israel: any computer product you've used in the past 20 years has Israel inside, due to the microprocessor and computational math capabilities. That technology was developed by semiconductor companies using Israeli talent. Intel first, and then Apple. In fact Apple's latest non-Intel processors were designed by an Israel company that Apple acquired in the last 10-15 years.
In contrast, Gazans leadership has focused all their energies on eradicating Israel. That is something the rest of the world does not need at all. It's too bad that too many in the rest of the world do not realize that.
> Decades ago, I asked my GWB-supporting friends "what happens if we invade Iraq and its citizens reject democracy?" They had no answer.
MC, are they really your friend? I mean, either you aren't a good reciprocal friend, or people tend to fake an inductive argument from authority when virtue signaling. The Iraq Liberation Act was signed by Clinton. A GWB fan would probably not know this as being about spreading of Democracy, but would have associated Iraq with WMD clearance, either staunchly supporting all action or after about 5 weeks have decided we were misled and pretty much opposed the war. Nobody would have had no answer though.
When Israel totally withdrew from Gaza, they left behind among other things a farm with very technologically advanced greenhouses that were being used to grow tomatoes for the European market. The Palestinians could have used those greenhouses as a basis for a thriving agricultural economy of their own.
That’s not what they did. In a fit of what can only be described as antisemitic spite, they destroyed those greenhouses because anything the Jews had built had to be eradicated.
And now there is something else that needs to be eradicated from Gaza: Hamas.
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