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Israel Needs a Large Army — Not Just Advanced Technology (PART ONE)
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) train the northern reserve paratrooper brigade to boost readiness along the northern border. Photo: IDF
What are the lessons for IDF force build-up following the Hamas attack on October 7 and the Iron Swords War? A recent article by Prof. Azar Gat concludes that “there is no need to increase the scope of the forces and the existing force build-up should be continued, the main [element] of which is investments in technologies that are the key to the advantage of the IDF on the battlefield and for the current achievements.”
We do not agree with this conclusion, and believe it to have negative strategic consequences. The continuing inability of the IDF to realize the goals of the current war is mainly the result of a lack of ready and available maneuvering units, a lack that military technology cannot compensate for no matter how good it is. If the IDF is to be able to fulfill its responsibilities, it needs more well-trained maneuver divisions to resurrect the territorial defense organization as well as maintain technological superiority.
More than half a year after October 7, the Iron Swords War is still going on. Before after-action investigations have been completed, experts have already begun to draw conclusions about key strategic aspects of the war.
One central aspect concerns the future force build-up of the ground forces. Should the number of divisions and brigades be increased? What level of readiness and competence must they have? How does the concept of territorial defense fit into the army? What is the right balance between investment in advanced technologies and the size of combat forces available at any given time?
In his recent article, Prof. Gat warns against drawing incorrect conclusions from the October 2023 failure. He notes that “Since Hamas’s attack and the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip, the public discourse has been impressed by the view … that the IDF is too small given the threats; that reliance on technology has led to dangerous neglect and reduction of the ground forces; that the air force is disproportionately funded at the expense of the ground forces; and that there is a need to increase the defense budget significantly and permanently, beyond covering the expenses of the war.”
In his view, “These claims are misleading and even damaging, both militarily and economically.” Gat also claims that the forces that were in the Gaza Strip sector on the morning of October 7, which included about 400 fighters and 12 Merkava 4 tanks, could have, had they been in position, thwarted the Hamas attack. Combat helicopters and helicopters on standby, combined with the forces of the standby units, would have completed the defeat of Hamas, according to Gat.
Gat’s bottom line claim is that there is no need to increase the scope of the maneuvering forces. It is necessary, he says, to invest more in resurrecting the territorial defense organization and continue building the existing force, the main elements of which are investments in technology that are the key to the IDF’s advantage on the battlefield and to the current achievements.
While we take issue with his overall conclusion, Gat is right in two key matters. First, territorial defense forces must be rebuilt so they can provide an immediate response to an all-out attack or targeted raid on a civilian settlement until the arrival of military forces. Many plausible scenarios, including a ground attack on several fronts or several sectors on the same front by many invading forces, would keep the military forces too busy to rapidly reinforce every civilian settlement in the areas being attacked even if the army is ready, and this is even more true if the enemy achieves surprise. Properly equipped and trained forces organized on a local basis in each settlement would be able to provide a reasonable response to a wide range of scenarios of this type until the army is able to provide forces to support them.
Secondly, Gat is absolutely right that a proper balance must be maintained between defense spending and the state’s ability to continue to maintain a growing and developing economy, for both civilian and military reasons. Maintaining a large well-equipped and well-trained army requires a well-balanced and strong economy. An overstretching of resources to defense could lead to an economic collapse.
One of the lessons learned by the IDF and the Israeli governments from the Yom Kippur War was that if the regular army had been larger, the enemy’s initial achievements would have been radically diminished. Furthermore, Israel’s ability to conduct a protracted war required an increase in reserve forces and larger stocks of ammunition, spare parts and other essential commodities. However, the extent of the increase in Israel’s military, which was 2-2x the 1973 figures, was too large to be financed by the Israeli economy. This was one of the reasons for the collapse of the Israeli economy in the first half of the 1980s.
Our dispute with Gat is about the optimal balance point. Gat claims that the current war proves that the size of the IDF’s ground force is sufficient, and that there is therefore no need to increase it. We believe, to the contrary, that the war proved and continues to prove that the size of the existing force is insufficient. Had it been larger, we would be in a better operational situation today, which would also have had a positive effect on Israel’s political situation.
Even discounting the effect of the surprise on the outcome of October 7, 400 soldiers and 12 tanks are not sufficient to hold a front that is about 60 kilometers wide. So the question arises: Why was this the size of the force that was left on that front? The answer is that over the past two years, many forces have been diverted to fight in Judea and Samaria (Operation Breakwater) due to a sharp jump in the frequency of attacks there and the need for a significant increase in forces to address the increase and reduce it.
We further ask: How many soldiers, tanks and other military equipment were deployed on the other borders of the State of Israel on October 7? Was the situation on the Lebanese border better than on the Gaza border? The answer is no. There too, the size of the force deployed across the front was tiny compared to what was required. That being the case, what would have happened if, on that day, not only Hamas had attacked Israel but Hezbollah as well? And what about the Golan Heights? After all, Hezbollah does not stand alone. Iran and its other proxies stand behind it.
Part of the solution is the regular recruitment of more reserve units, but this will not suffice — due, among other things, to cuts in reserve units that have concentrated reserve days among a relatively small group of people.
Responding to the events of October 7 as they occurred, or as they could have occurred in a much more severe manner (i.e., on several fronts at the same time), is not the end of the discussion. After mobilizing all possible ground forces of the IDF, Israel was facing war on only two fronts, and it immediately became clear that it lacked ground forces.
As long as the threat of a major Hezbollah offensive remained relevant, it was not clear whether the fighting in the north would remain at the level of low-intensity attrition or escalate to high-intensity fighting. The IDF was thus unable to concentrate enough forces to properly attack Gaza. Instead of attacking the Gaza Strip simultaneously in all, or at least most, of its sectors, the IDF was forced to carry out a sequential attack, an act that took a lot of time and had negative strategic and political ramifications.
Today, after more than six months of fighting against an enemy substantially weaker than the IDF, the IDF’s achievements are good, but not enough. The task of destroying Hamas and the organizations that help it remains uncompleted. Meanwhile, most of the reservists had to be discharged to ease the pressure on both their personal livelihoods and the national economy, so the size of the active fighting force has been greatly reduced. A larger ground force on October 7 would have made it possible to ensure a solid front against Hezbollah, including the possibility of a simultaneous all-out multi-sector attack across the entire Gaza Strip.
There are of course other considerations that prevented Israel from attacking the entire Gaza Strip at once (among them the need to leave quiet areas into which the population could be moved), and there are further reasons why the war was prolonged and taken from high-intensity warfare to the low-intensity warfare that is taking place now. However, the lack of sufficient ground forces was the main inhibiting factor. Had the IDF begun the war with more ground forces, the scale of the achievement by the time it became necessary to release the reserve forces, after about four months of mobilization, would have been greater and would have reduced the time needed to conduct the low-intensity combat phase in which we are now engaged.
Furthermore, the first offensive phase could have been conducted with larger forces that could have operated in several sectors at the same time. Had more units been available, the IDF could have sequenced their mobilization in turns in order to maintain a higher intensity of action over a longer period of time while conducting the multi-sector offensive.
Dr. Eado Hecht is a researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and a lecturer in the master’s degree program in Security Studies at Bar-Ilan University. Prof. Eitan Shamir is Director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
The post Israel Needs a Large Army — Not Just Advanced Technology (PART ONE) first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
The post US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.
Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”
The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.
President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.
In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.
The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”
“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks
IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.
Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.
A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery.
“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner.
“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”
According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.”
Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.
“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks.
Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.
The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations.
“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.
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