RSS
Hamas Massacre and Gaza War Shows Technological Superiority Can’t Bring Peace
An Israeli soldier stands guard at moshav Netiv HaAsara which borders the Gaza Strip, in the aftermath of the deadly October 7 attack by terrorists from Palestinian Islamist antisemitic terror group Hamas, in southern Israel, November 19, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Throughout the nearly two decades since the disengagement from Gaza, Israel has found itself embroiled in a protracted violent struggle against Hamas (which is supported by another terrorist organization based in the Gaza Strip — Palestinians Islamic Jihad).
Hamas has consistently focused its efforts on terrorizing Israeli civilians. For those living near the Gaza Strip in the area known as the “Gaza Envelope,” life has been unbearable for many years. Israel always responded to Hamas’ terror attacks on those communities with limited force, without ever achieving a decisive resolution.
Over the years, there have been 16 military operations or rounds of conflict in Gaza, averaging about one per year. In each case, the technological capabilities employed by the IDF became more advanced and sophisticated.
Iron Dome, an advanced short-range missile defense system developed in Israel, was put into operation in 2011 and has been highly successful at intercepting Hamas’ rockets. In 2021, the construction of a sophisticated technological barrier was completed that stretched approximately 65 kilometers along the entire length of the Gaza Strip. Israel invested three years and 3.5 billion shekels in this barrier, which was one of the most complex and advanced engineering projects ever conducted in the country. It involved a complex underground barrier with advanced sensing systems, an above-ground technological barrier with surveillance technologies, remote-controlled weapons systems integrated into an advanced detection system, maximum coverage cameras for the area, and command-and-control war rooms.
Yet on the morning of October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a massive, highly successful murderous attack on the southern IDF army bases and settlements bordering the Gaza Strip.
Using basic means of communication, such as handwritten messages and person-to-person oral contact, Hamas leadership managed to handle the entire operation’s communication channels and avoid early detection by Israel. By using simple measures, they successfully disrupted the advanced technological systems responsible for on-site detection and prevention, followed by partial interference with the IDF’s communication systems. These successes led to a mass infiltration by a large number of terrorists into the settlements and military bases, resulting in an unprecedented number of dead, injured, and hostages taken, including both civilians and IDF personnel.
The perception that technology alone can lead to military dominance reached its peak in the early 1990s with the emergence of the “Revolution in Military Affairs” (RMA) concept. This idea posits that military superiority relies on advanced technological solutions to address a wide range of threats and scenarios. It took root in American defense circles and influenced the strategies of several Western armies, including Israel’s.
From its inception, Israel has emphasized the acquisition of technological superiority as a means of countering numerical inferiority. Over the years, this strategy has become a cornerstone of Israel’s identity as a technologically advanced nation, earning it the nickname “Start-Up Nation.” It significantly affected Israel’s national security perception and its military. This perception is well reflected in the country’s innovative defense industry and the high number of Israeli technology start-ups in the defense sector.
One of the ultimate goals of advanced technological defense systems is to provide a real-time, comprehensive operational picture of the battlefield at any given moment. Efforts to achieve this goal involve the development of means that can “see” through walls or underground, advanced sensing systems capable of providing continuous battlefield coverage around the clock, improved data compression techniques, and more efficient transmission methods for large volumes of data. Additionally, it includes the utilization of artificial intelligence to assist in rapid decision-making, based on the large volume of data collected.
However, no matter how advanced technology becomes, it is highly unlikely to completely eliminate the “fog of war.” Moreover, the increasing reliance of advanced armies on technological systems creates a certain vulnerability. Alongside the advancement of information technology in recent decades, more significant points of weakness have become apparent. The most advanced tracking systems can be countered by simple measures, such as drones and explosive devices. Highly advanced sensors have limited capability to provide information about what is happening in underground bunkers and tunnels. Urban areas pose particular challenges as they contain large numbers of people and structures that all represent potential targets for tracking. In addition, there is the significant problem of the difficulty in distinguishing between non-combatants and adversaries.
A successful attack on Israel’s military information and communication networks can blind and silence its forces for significant periods, as indeed happened on October 7. The events of that day were the result of those limitations and serve as proof that even a modern military, armed with state-of-the-art equipment and technology, can be caught completely off-guard.
The conclusion of World War II heralded a change in the landscape of violent conflict worldwide. This change is reflected in the ascendance of asymmetrical conflict involving non-state actors, such as terrorist organizations, much like the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Asymmetrical conflicts are characterized by a growing involvement of the civilian population and a blurring of distinctions between the frontlines and the home front. These conflicts are often limited in scope, and traditional notions of victory in war or total defeat of the enemy are no longer valid.
One of the major components of asymmetric conflict is access to military technology. The more economically developed a country, the more advanced its military technology. This reality is clearly seen in the balance of military power between Israel and Hamas. By directing attacks against non-combatant civilians, the side in the conflict that holds the technological disadvantage — Hamas — aims to cancel out the asymmetry. As Israel holds such a clear technological advantage, Hamas cannot compete in a technological arms race, and it does not try. Instead, it resorts to simple and less advanced means that make it much more challenging for Israel to use its technological advantage.
An excellent example is Hamas’ use of incendiary balloons and kites, which it started launching towards Israel in April 2018 and which caused severe fires in the communities near the Gaza Strip. These simple means of warfare frightened residents and stirred public anger towards the IDF, which struggled to cope with them. As part of this trend, Hamas also began using cheap, readily available civilian drones with a wide range of applications, including military purposes such as intelligence-gathering and the carrying of explosive charges. Hamas has used drones like the DJI Matrice 600, which is capable of carrying a payload up to six kilograms and which can reach a maximum speed of about 65 km/h.
The primary battlefield on which the State of Israel combats terrorist organizations such as Hamas is an extremely dense and populated urban area, rife with enemy units that constantly try to hide from the IDF’s advanced sensor networks. They seek to inflict damage and quickly disappear into shelters or underground bunkers and tunnels.
Although technological supremacy is, and will probably remain, an important element of the IDF’s modus operandi, recent years’ experience teaches that the key to winning the war against terrorist organizations that employ the tactics discussed above will likely require full control of the territory. Though some degree of control can be achieved by means of technology, full control demands a substantial, sometimes massive, presence of “boots on the ground” — as the United States learned in its campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. Even a technologically advanced military force will always remain vulnerable when facing such warfare, and it is unlikely that a miraculous technology will emerge to change that fundamental reality. Over-reliance on technology in conflicts of this nature can, in certain circumstances, act as a dangerous hindrance to achieving the desired outcome, as seen in the events of October 7, 2023.
Nir Reuven is a researcher at the BESA Center, an engineer, and a former officer in the Merkava development program (the main Israeli battle tank). He has held several management positions in the Israeli hi-tech industry and is an expert on technology. Currently he is co-manager of the Sapir College Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center and lectures at Bar-Ilan University. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
The post Hamas Massacre and Gaza War Shows Technological Superiority Can’t Bring Peace first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
China and Egypt Launch Joint Military Drills Near Israeli Border Amid Rising Regional Tensions

China and Egypt have launched their first-ever joint air force drill, “Eagles of Civilization 2025,” at an Egyptian airbase. Photo: Screenshot
China and Egypt launched a large-scale joint military exercise this week near the Israeli border, described by Chinese media as a “historic” first of its kind, aimed at deepening military cooperation amid rising regional tensions.
The joint drills — dubbed “Eagles of Civilization 2025” — began Sunday at an Egyptian Air Force base about 100 kilometers (62 miles) west of the Gulf of Suez and are expected to run through mid-May.
According to Israel’s Channel 12, the drill features Chinese J-10C fighter jets, refueling planes, and KJ-500 early warning aircraft, along with Russian-made MiG-29s flown by Egypt.
This exercise “is the first joint training between the Chinese and Egyptian militaries, which is of great significance to promoting pragmatic cooperation and enhancing mutual trust and friendship between the two militaries,” the Chinese Ministry of National Defense said in a statement.
Egyptian officials said the joint drills, aimed at strengthening military ties, will combine theoretical and practical training to enhance combat doctrines.
“The training will also involve joint aerial sorties, planning exercises, and simulated air combat management operations to exchange expertise and enhance the skills of the participating forces,” an Egyptian armed forces spokesperson said in a statement on social media.
Some experts view Beijing’s growing relationship with Cairo as the country’s latest move to expand its military presence in the Middle East and Africa, challenging the United States as its influence in the region stalls. This move could also help China strengthen ties with regional partners as the country faces mounting economic sanctions from Washington.
While details about Egypt’s military buildup remain unclear, “satellite images have shown the movement of tanks and battalions that exceed the limits set by the Camp David Accords,” Mariam Wahba, research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), told The Algemeiner.
Under the peace treaty, Egypt can request permission from Israel to deploy more than the 47 battalions allowed. However, some estimates suggest that there are currently camps for 180 battalions.
“The Camp David Accords have long been a pillar of peace and stability in the Middle East,” Wahba explained. “A breakdown of the agreement would have serious implications, not just for Israel and Egypt but for the broader region.”
“It could embolden actors like Iran and its proxies to exploit tensions and could lead to increased militarization along Israel’s southern border,” Wahba told The Algemeiner.
Egypt’s military buildup, reportedly in response to Israel’s presence at the Philadelphi Corridor and concerns over a potential mass Palestinian exodus into the country, along with Jerusalem’s control of the corridor, could both breach the 1979 peace treaty.
Last month, China, Russia, and Iran held a three-day naval drill in the Gulf of Oman, conducting joint operations in Iranian territorial waters, strengthening their defense cooperation and bolstering their presence in the region.
China’s growing ties with Egypt come at a time when Egyptian relations with Washington are strained, following US President Donald Trump’s proposal to relocate Palestinians from the Gaza Strip — potentially to Egypt and other Arab countries — during reconstruction efforts after the war, a plan Cairo has strongly opposed.
“This is a reminder that our partners have options,” Former US CENTCOM Commander Gen. Joseph Votel told The War Zone. “China is positioning itself as a viable military supplier and strategic partner” in the region.
In a rapidly shifting Middle East marked by rising tensions and competing regional power blocs, China and Egypt’s deepening cooperation could reshape regional power dynamics, challenging American influence and diminishing Israel’s strategic flexibility.
Israeli defense officials have previously expressed growing concern over Cairo’s military buildup and armed presence in the Sinai Peninsula.
These concerns come amid escalating tensions between Jerusalem and Cairo since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, particularly over the Philadelphi Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border, where Egypt has demanded Israel withdraw its forces.
Earlier this year, Jerusalem accused Egypt of violating their decades-old peace treaty, while also raising concerns about Cairo’s expanding defense capabilities.
The post China and Egypt Launch Joint Military Drills Near Israeli Border Amid Rising Regional Tensions first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Pro-Palestine Demonstrators Blast Sanders as ‘Genocide Denier’

US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks to the media following a meeting with US President Joe Biden at the White House in Washington, US, July 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) has been targeted by left-wing protesters over his supposedly insufficient support for Gaza.
Pro-Palestine activists crashed one of Sanders’s “The Fighting Oligarchy” rallies in Bakersfield, California last week to grill the senator about his position on the Israel-Hamas war. During Sanders’s speech, activists associated with United Liberation Front for Palestine (ULFP) berated Sanders for his reluctance in accusing Israel of committing so-called “genocide” against the civilians of Gaza.
“Are you going to call it a genocide, when it’s a genocide?” the activist bellowed.
“And you defend Israel when Palestinians are being killed every single day and all you do is criticize Netanyahu! Israel does not have a right to exist or fight while Palestinians are dying,” she continued.
Other protesters then interrupted Sanders’s speech, condemning the progressive lawmaker as a “liberal Zionist,” accusing him of being “complicit with ICE,” and castigating him for voting in favor of the confirmation of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“Bernie, why don’t you let your fans know that you’re a settler, that you occupy Palestinian land?” the activist said.
Sanders does not possess dual citizenship with Israel. However, rumors about Sanders, who is Jewish, possessing Israeli citizenship have circulated around the internet since his 2015 presidential campaign.
In recent weeks, anti-Israel protesters have grown increasingly critical of Sanders over his refusal to adopt more adversarial rhetoric against the Jewish state. Last week, Sanders incensed progressives after authorities removed an activist which unfurled a flag reading “free Palestine” during a tour stop in Idaho.
During that rally, Sanders said, “Israel, like any other country, has the right to defend itself from terrorism, but it does not have the right to wage all out war against the Palestinian people” and “not one more nickel to Netanyahu,” triggering more outrage among his leftist supporters.
Sanders, who is among the most vocal critics of the Israel-Hamas war in the federal government, spearheaded a number of failed efforts to implement a partial arms embargo on the Jewish state, citing supposed “indiscriminate bombing” in Gaza. However, progressive activists have grown increasingly vocal about their dissatisfaction with Sanders’s position on Israel, complaining that the senator has isolated his criticisms to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and has refused to repudiate Israel’s existence.
The post Pro-Palestine Demonstrators Blast Sanders as ‘Genocide Denier’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Harvard Sues Trump Administration Over Massive Cuts Amid Campus Antisemitism Crisis

US President Donald Trump, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick attend a cabinet meeting at the White House. Photo: Nathan Howard via Reuters Connect.
Harvard University filed suit against the Trump administration on Monday to request an injunction that would halt the government’s impounding of $2.26 billion of its federal grants and contracts and an additional $1 billion that, reportedly, will be confiscated in the coming days.
In the complaint, shared by interim university president Alan Garber, Harvard says the administration bypassed key procedural steps it must, by law, take before sequestering any federal funds. It also charges that the Trump administration does not aim, as it has publicly pledged, to combat campus antisemitism at Harvard but to impose “viewpoint-based conditions on Harvard’s funding.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the administration has proposed that Harvard reform in ways that conservatives have long argued will make higher education more meritocratic and less welcoming to anti-Zionists and far-left extremists. Its “demands,” contained in a letter the administration sent to Garber — who subsequently released it to the public — called for “viewpoint diversity in hiring and admissions,” the “discontinuation of [diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives],” and “reducing forms of governance bloat.” They also implore Harvard to begin “reforming programs with egregious records of antisemitism” and to recalibrate its approach to “student discipline.”
Harvard rejects the administration’s coupling of campus antisemitism with longstanding grievances regarding elite higher education’s “wokeness,” elitism, and overwhelming bias against conservative ideast. Republican lawmakers, for their part, have maintained that it is futile to address campus antisemitism while ignoring the context in which it emerged.
Speaking for the university, Harvard’s legal team — which includes attorneys with links to US President Donald Trump’s inner circle — denounced any larger reform effort as intrusive.
“The First Amendment does not permit the Government to ‘interfere with private actors’ speech to advance its own vision of ideological balance,” they wrote in the complaint, which names several members and agencies of the administration but not Trump as a defendant. “Nor may the government ‘rely on the ‘threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion … to achieve the suppression of disfavored speech.’ The government’s attempt to coerce and control Harvard disregards these fundamental First Amendment principles, which safeguard Harvard’s ‘academic freedom.’”
The complaint continued, arguing that the impounding of funds “flout not just the First Amendment, but also federal laws and regulations” and says that Harvard should have been investigated by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to determine whether it failed to stop and, later, prevent antisemitism in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act — a finding that would have warranted punitive measures. Rather, it charges, the Trump administration imposed a “sweeping freeze of funding” that, it contends, “has nothing at all to do with antisemitism and Title VI compliance.”
Garber followed up the complaint with an exaltation of limited government and the liberal values which further academia’s educational mission — values Harvard has been accused of failing to uphold for decades.
“We stand for the truth that colleges and universities across the country can embrace and honor their legal obligations and best fulfill their essential role in society without improper government intrusion,” Garber said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “That is how we achieve academic excellence, safeguard open inquiry and freedom of speech, and conduct pioneering research — and how we advance the boundless exploration that propels our nation and its people into a better future.”
For some, Harvard’s allegations against the Trump administration are hollow.
“Claiming that the entire institution is exempt from any oversight or intervention is extraordinary,” Alex Joffe, anthropologist and editor of BDS Monitor for Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, told The Algemeiner on Tuesday. “It would seem to claim, at least by extension, that the government cannot enforce laws regarding equal protection for individuals — namely students in minority groups — and other legal and regulatory frameworks because they jeopardize the institution’s academic freedom.”
He continued, “Moreover, the idea that cutting voluntary government funding is de facto denial of free speech also sounds exaggerated if not absurd. If an institution doesn’t want to be subjected to certain requirements in a relationship entered into voluntarily with the government, they shouldn’t take the money. Modifying a contract after the fact, however, might be another issue … At one level the Trump administration is simply doing what Obama and Biden did with far less controversy, issuing directives and threatening lawsuits and funding. But the substance of the proposed oversight, especially the intrusiveness with respect to curricular affairs, has obviously touched a nerve.”
Harvard’s fight with the federal government is backed by its immense wealth, and the school has been drawing on its vast financial resources to build a war chest for withstanding Trump’s budget cuts since March, when it issued over $450 million in bonds as “part of ongoing contingency planning for a range of financial circumstances.” Another $750 million in bonds was offered to investors in April, according to The Harvard Crimson, a sale that is being managed by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
A generous subsidy protects Harvard from paying exorbitant interest on the new debt, as investors can sell most bonds issued by educational institutions without being required to pay federal income tax.
Other universities have resorted to borrowing as well, issuing what was reportedly a record $12.4 billion municipal bonds, some of which are taxable, during the first quarter of 2025. Among those which chose to take on debt are Northwestern University, which was defunded to the tune of $790 million on April 8. It issued $500 million in bonds in March. Princeton University, recently dispossessed of $210 in federal grants, is preparing an offering of $320 million, according to Forbes.
“If Harvard is willing to mortgage it’s real estate or use it as collateral, it can borrow money for a very long time,” National Association of Scholars president Peter Wood told The Algemeiner on Tuesday. “But it could destroy itself that way.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Harvard Sues Trump Administration Over Massive Cuts Amid Campus Antisemitism Crisis first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login