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The Gaza War Is Part of a Larger War with Iran; ‘Total Victory’ in Gaza Right Now Isn’t the Best Approach
An armored personnel carrier (APC) maneuvers near the Israel-Gaza border, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Israel, March 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israeli history must be retold as a sequence of three long historical wars. The Iron Swords War does not stand on its own. The campaign in Gaza is a critical transition stage, both conceptual and practical, during which Israel is moving from defense to offense in a long war with Iran’s proxies. To realize its achievements, Israel needs a pause of a few years during which the strategy and military power for the offensive will be formulated.
True learning is required at the political and military levels, and national reconciliation is required. Decisive emergency steps will have to be taken to build a military power that is more suitable to the broader war.
Israel’s historical wars
The Iron Swords War is stuck. Despite impressive tactical performances by the IDF, Israel is trapped between war goals that are far from being realized in the Gaza Strip, and attrition from which there is no way out in the north.
On the political level, as the IDF deepens its destruction of the dusty Gaza cities and the US presidential election approaches, Israeli isolation is tightening and increasingly threatens Israel’s economic future and place in the family of nations. It is true that Israel is persecuted by international institutions that are inherently hostile to it and that a progressive political trend with blatantly antisemitic characteristics is on the ascendant. None of that changes the serious consequences of the continuation of the fighting on the international and economic levels.
Israeli strategic discourse is also stuck between supporters of “absolute victory” and those pursuing a hostage deal. It is no coincidence that these camps overlap the public fault lines of October 6. The obvious is only more apparent — the leadership is unable to separate the political discourse from the strategic discourse, between the political and the military.
Sometimes, the best way to get out of a conceptual and practical impasse is to take on a new perspective. The Six-Day War established a misleading standard according to which wars last a few days and are built in one piece. The reality is different. Wars are historical phenomena that usually last quite a bit longer than days. They are also much more diverse.
In the Second World War, for example, there were at least three sub-wars in its European context alone. They were the struggle for control of Europe and its resources; the German campaign in Africa, which was designed to cut Britain off from India; and the war in the Atlantic, which was designed to isolate Britain from America.
The strategic history of Zionism is also made up of several long wars. The first was the struggle between the rival national movements in Palestine-Israel. Zionism won that struggle in the War of Independence. That conflict was also a historical transition from a war between national movements to Israeli-Arab wars. Ben-Gurion understood this on the eve of the war. In a brilliant preparation process, he completely changed the concept, organization, and means of the Hebrew Defense Force. Thanks to these preparations, the IDF was able to switch from defense to attack in April-May 1948 when it implemented Plan D and a series of offensive operations, the first of which was Operation Nachshon. An accurate understanding of the nature of the expected war and the appropriate organization of the IDF in preparation for it led to the defeat of a coalition of Arab countries.
Over the following four decades, Israel successfully faced the threat of Arab armies combined with terrorism. Although the Arabs changed their strategy from time to time (for example, during the War of Attrition in the Suez Canal), the State of Israel managed to repeatedly defeat the military element that threatened it. The Israeli-Arab war actually ended with the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement and the Syrian refusal to escalate the First Lebanon War in 1982 into a wider Israeli-Syrian war.
The blow phase of the Iran-Israel war
Since the days of the security strip in Lebanon and even more so since Israel’s withdrawal from it, the Jewish State has been fighting a third war: an Iranian-Israeli war through Iran’s proxies. This war has a religious background and a regional nature. Like all wars, this one has its own military character, different from that of the previous Israel-Arab wars.
Unfortunately, Israel has conducted this war over the past 25 years with the wrong strategy. That strategy is based on the assumption that Israel is the strong side – that it is a regional power capable of deterring Iran’s emissaries through its advantages in firepower and intelligence quality without removing the military threat. On the military level, we mistakenly assumed that our military power – especially our air power – was adequate, and that the addition of the defense leg and other minor adjustments were not required. Regrettably, there are those even today who embrace Israel’s ability to destroy the state of Lebanon, as if that were an effective military answer to the threat of Hezbollah.
The current war in Gaza must be understood as one campaign within that larger war. And it is not just any campaign. The current campaign in the Gaza Strip is the stage of Israeli recovery and awakening.
At the political level, the October Seventh Attack was the moment of awakening and recognition of the failure of Israel’s current strategy. This is a parallel moment to the awakening of Europe on September 1, 1939 to the fact that the policy of appeasing Hitler had failed. But a political awakening is not enough. From May 1940, it took Churchill four years to build the necessary military capability and confidence and harness American assistance to take on the Nazis. All the while, Britain suffered painful defeats before the conditions were met for an attack in Europe in June 1944.
On the military level, the IDF attack in Gaza dismantled the organized military power of Hamas and took a huge toll on all Gazans, terrorists and non-terrorists alike. It does not appear that the continuation of the attack contains the potential for further significant achievements. Therefore, the current operations in Gaza should be perceived not as a stand-alone war but as one campaign within a longer war. This is a critical campaign designed to enable a historic transition from a strategy of containment and deterrence to a strategy of removing the threat and breaking the Iranian stranglehold. In the theory of the military campaign, a campaign that enables the transition from defense to offense is called a “systemic blow.”
Churchill could not go on the attack in Europe in May 1940 but had to spend time and effort building the conditions for it, and the same applies to us. An army that built itself according to the concept of “deterrence rounds” and did not imagine a decisive war in Gaza cannot be ready for such a war overnight. What conditions do we need to create that will enable us to realize the achievements of the war in Gaza and prepare ourselves for an attack?
On the military level, it is necessary to build the IDF in a way that will enable a relatively quick and effective removal of the military threat in Gaza and Lebanon. The IDF must be built to realize this goal without being dragged into a long campaign of attrition that harms us and serves our enemies. What are the military barriers preventing us from conducting this form of warfare?
In the Gaza Strip, the barrier is mainly the IDF’s limited ability to locate and destroy the underground infrastructure on a sufficient scale and at a sufficient pace. The success of Hamas in dragging us into a long campaign of attrition is due to the disconnect between our tactical success above ground and Hamas’ ability to sustain its organization underground.
In Lebanon, the barrier has to do primarily with Hezbollah’s firepower and precision attack capability. Every military planner understands that in the face of the power of the enemy’s anti-tank missiles in the north, a power that has only increased and been perfected during the months of the current war, and in the face of the ability the enemy has developed to penetrate our air defense systems, the State of Israel currently does not have a decisive short war option.
Beyond these two points, there are, of course, the vital matters of replenishing supplies, refreshing and retraining forces, renewing intelligence, better preparing the civilian home front and national infrastructure, and other preparations.
At the national level and within the IDF as well, Israel must unite and renew its internal forces. A leadership that will renew trust must be chosen and appointed.
If we understand the current campaign in Gaza as a blow designed to enable a transition from containment and defense to attack and decisiveness, it will be possible to see its historical achievements:
The October 7th attack exposed the wider Iranian plot to the world. Iran’s attack on Israel on April 14 made Iran’s intentions even clearer.
The war united the new regional coalition under fire under American leadership against the Iranian threat. Regional normalization born out of the campaign in Gaza is a critical achievement for the decisive campaign.
The operation in Gaza set Hamas’ capabilities back years and created the conditions for the return of our abductees in a deal, thanks to our control of the Strip and our right of veto over its rehabilitation. It will also allow military freedom of action in Gaza in the future in a way that prevents the re-emergence of a threat of the same severity.
The conditions we created must be realized, not eroded. Now it is necessary to return the abductees, return the displaced to their homes, and use the time we have gained through blood to prepare for the decisive campaign. Like Churchill, we too need a few years to rebuild in order to overwhelm the military forces on our border while solidifying the regional coalition and using it to neutralize Iran’s interference. Unless the unexpected happens and we reach the Hamas leadership and release the abductees militarily, it seems that the potential of the current campaign has been exhausted.
Conclusion
National willpower and fighting spirit are of course necessary conditions for victory, but they are not enough. A professional approach to the act of war requires examining the relationship between strategy, leadership, and concrete military capabilities. To win the Second World War, Britain needed a change of leadership in the government and among the armed forces, changes in the professional military concept, and the building of concrete military capabilities that were more suitable than those developed before the war.
The Iron Swords War achieved a temporary removal of the Hamas threat, allowing for critical political and military learning and essential time. Israel’s economy must be restarted to support preparations for the next campaign.
Israel would be well advised to avoid doubling the size of the IDF as a traumatic response to October 7. Instead, we should be content with a moderate increase in the size of the forces and focus on the two crucial variables described above: the capabilities to locate and destroy underground infrastructure, and to suppress the enemy’s launch capabilities in the north against both our forces and the home front.
The course of preparation must be led quickly, decisively, and without delay. We are nine months into the war, still running out of resources, and not preparing for an attack. Far from it.
The next campaign in the Thirty Years’ War with Iran and its proxies should begin with the rapid and effective removal of the Hezbollah threat in the north through the occupation of southern Lebanon at the same time as the destruction of most of the enemy’s missile capabilities. The removal of the threat from the north will make it possible to divert most of our forces to the recapture of the Gaza Strip, if necessary, and the implementation of a plan to stabilize it without Hamas. When the time comes, it will also be possible to consider the Israeli interest towards the Syrian regime, which relies on a drug economy and Iranian support.
Striving for “total victory” here and now stops us from taking vital preparatory steps and delays both learning and healing. It depletes our strength; it does not enhance it. Continuing to pursue “total victory” right now is a dangerous mix of politics and strategy. Victory requires the right combination of spirit, strategy and appropriate preparation. The historical role of the Iron Swords War is to create the conditions for the formation of all three.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Eran Ortal recently retired from military service as commander of the Dado Center for Multidisciplinary Military Thinking. He is a well-known military thinker both in Israel and abroad. His works have been published in The Military Review, War on the Rocks, Small Wars Journal, at the Hoover Institution, at Stanford, and elsewhere. His book The Battle Before the War (MOD 2022, in Hebrew) dealt with the IDF’s need to change, innovate and renew a decisive war approach. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Pick for Intel Chief, Dodges Press Questions on Controversial Assad Views
Former US Rep. Tulsi Gabbard attends a campaign rally of Donald Trump at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US, Nov. 4, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jeenah Moon
US President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for intelligence chief, Tulsi Gabbard, faced scrutiny on Monday over her sympathetic views toward Bashar al-Assad, scurrying away from a press gaggle on Capitol Hill after being asked for her views on the Syrian president’s removal from power.
Gabbard, a combat veteran and former US congresswoman from Hawaii, was meeting with senators tasked with voting whether to confirm or deny her nomination to be the country’s top intelligence official. When asked by journalists for her thoughts on the overthrow of the Assad regime, Gabbard glanced up, smiled, and quickly left the room.
Exiting her Senate meeting, however, Gabbard made a brief statement in which she mentioned Syria but not Assad.
“I want to address the issue that’s in the headlines right now: I stand in full support and wholeheartedly agree with the statements that President Trump has made over these last few days with regards to the developments in Syria,” Gabbard said on Monday.
Gabbard has previously been labeled an Assad “apologist” over her repeated refusals to forcefully condemn the Syrian government during the country’s civil war, which began in 2011. Assad has been accused of war crimes during his regime’s brutal crackdown on rebel forces, which ultimately prevailed in toppling him on Sunday. The long-time Syrian ruler was also an ally of Russia and Iran, allowing the latter to use Syrian territory to send weapons to terrorist proxies across the Middle East.
In 2017, Gabbard held a private meeting with Assad in Syria and refused to condemn him afterward, saying that it is “important that if we profess to truly care about the Syrian people, about their suffering, then we’ve got to be able to meet with anyone that we need to if there is a possibility that we can achieve peace.”
In 2019, while running for the Democratic presidential nomination, Gabbard appeared to again give Assad the benefit of the doubt, saying, “The evidence needs to be gathered and, as I have said before, if there is evidence that he has committed war crimes, he should be prosecuted as such.”
Gabbard has also made controversial comments on Russia, claiming that American and Western “hostility” motivated President Vladimir Putin to annex Crimea. She also repudiated attempts to sanction Russia, stating that “Russian people are a proud people and they don’t want the US and our allies trying to control them and their government.”
Nonetheless, Gabbard has also espoused pro-Israel views. In the year following Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel last Oct. 7, she has often defended the Jewish state’s defensive military operations in Gaza and accused pro-Palestinian protesters of being part of a “radical Islamist organization.” She has also criticized a UN resolution which would have called for a ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas terror group, stating that “we have to be realists about the threat that continues to exist for the people of Israel. So as long as Hamas is in power, the people of Israel will not be secure and cannot live in peace.”
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US Lawmakers Celebrate Assad’s Fall, Stress ‘Vigilance’ in Monitoring Next Steps in Syria
US Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) speaks during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing at the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, May 21, 2024. Photo: Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
US lawmakers have celebrated the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria but also cautioned that many of the rebel Islamist groups who helped to oust the longtime president could pose further threats to the United States and its allies in the Middle East.
Assad fled the capital of Damascus on Sunday as a coalition of rebel groups stormed the capital, ending his family’s five-decade rule. The deposed leader, who has been accused of war crimes for his crackdown on rebel forces since 2011, was a partner of Russia and allied with Iran, which for years has used Syrian territory to send weapons to its terrorist proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon.
However, many Western observers have expressed concern that the leading Syrian rebel faction, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), is a group formerly allied with Al Qaeda and which is designated a terrorist organization by the US, European Union, Turkey, and the UN.
Following Assad’s fall, US lawmakers were quick to call for both optimism and vigilance.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, posted on X/Twitter that he hopes for a “better future for the Syrian people” following the fall of Assad, but warned about the potential threat of the terrorist group Islamic State (ISIS) in the region.
“As we bid good riddance to Assad, and hope for a better future for the Syrian people, we must remain vigilant regarding the threat of ISIS and continue to support our partners the Syrian Kurds. This is not a time to let our guard down,” Van Hollen said.
On Sunday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced the successful bombing of ISIS camps and fighters in central Syria, saying that the operation was carried out to “disrupt, degrade, and defeat” the terrorist group and prevent it from capitalizing on the fall of the Assad regime.
Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, expressed optimism at the new “opportunity” that Assad’s departure represents. However, he added that Syria must adopt a democratic process to select its next leader.
“While it is a time for opportunity, it is also a potentially dangerous time for the region,” Risch said in a statement. “Moving forward, it is imperative the Syrian people choose their next government and Assad faces long-overdue justice for his war crimes.”
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, called for a “peaceful transition” of power in Syria and warned the country’s new leaders to “avoid the chaos that often follows the fall of a tyrant.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) stated that the US must remain “vigilant” in protecting its allies and citizens across the region.
“While it’s welcome news to see the humiliation of Russia and Iran and the end of Assad’s tyranny in Syria, we must be vigilant about protecting our citizens, interests, and allies in the region,” hewrote on X/Twitter. “Distrust but verify the intentions of anyone that might come to power.”
A US State Department spokesperson said on Monday that the Biden administration was seeking ways to engage with Syrian rebel groups and was reaching out to partners in the region such as Turkey to help launch informal diplomacy.
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‘Antisemitic Intimidation’: Pro-Hamas Vandals Strike Jewish University of Michigan Official’s Home, Car
Vandalized car belonging to the wife of University of Michigan regents members Jordan Acker. Photo: Screenshot
Pro-Hamas activists at the University of Michigan vandalized the car and home of a Jewish member of the school’s board of regents early Monday morning.
“Divest. Free Palestine,” said the message the group graffitied on a Chevrolet Traverse owned by the wife of Jordan Acker, a Jewish lawyer who describes himself as a center-left Zionist and supporter of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Next to it the vandals spray-painted an inverted triangle, which has become a common symbol at pro-Hamas rallies. The Palestinian terrorist group, which rules Gaza, has used inverted red triangles in its propaganda videos to indicate Israeli targets about to be attacked. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “the red triangle is now used to represent Hamas itself and glorify its use of violence.”
Additionally, Acker confirmed with The Algemeiner on Tuesday, the protesters breached his property and threw what he believes were glass bottles filled with urine through his window.
“In the morning, I woke up to the sound of what appeared to be broken glass, and at first I thought one of my kids dropped a glass, but about 30 seconds later, the police rang the doorbell, and I came downstairs to find shattered glass all over our dining room and my wife’s car spray painted with pro-Palestine and pro-Hamas messages,” he said. “I was targeted because I am Jewish.”
The incident follows a semester of escalations by the pro-Hamas movement on the University of Michigan’s campus. In August, a group which calls itself the “Tahrir Coalition” roiled the campus with a demonstration aimed at sabotaging one of its biggest fall events. Some 45 students and non-students deluged the Diag section of campus for two hours, resulting in mass arrests by local law enforcement.
Weeks later, six people perpetrated a “Nazi like” assault on a Jewish student near the campus, kicking and spitting on him. Amid these developments, an anti-Zionist party which captured control of the student government during spring elections voted to defund student clubs, an ultimately unsuccessful measure its members hoped would force the university to boycott and divest from Israel.
More recently, the university, reportedly initiated disciplinary proceedings against one of its most outspoken and controversial anti-Israel groups, Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE), the result of which may be a suspension of up to four years.
Acker told The Algemeiner that he has tried to be a responsible and nuanced participant in the campus’ charged discussion about Israel and the future of the Palestinian people, conceding valid points to pro-Palestinian partisans for the sake of intellectual integrity and tempering polarization. However, doing so has not reduced the contempt anti-Zionists on campus harbor against him, and he believes they targeted his place of residence for seeing him as, above all, a Jew.
“I do believe that Palestinian rights are important, but I’m not willing to call for the destruction of Israel” Acker explained.
“I think they know there is nuance, but I don’t think they care. They’re focused on conformity with the idea that Israel should be driven into the sea, and as long as my answer is ‘absolutely not under any circumstances,’ they will continue to treat me as [an Itamar Ben-Gvir] supporter,” he added, referring to Israel’s far-right minister of national security.
Acker then noted that the vast majority of American Jews are to the left of the mainstream pro-Israel movement in America, which is largely supported by the Christian Evangelical community, and that the decision to protest — for example, outside reform “liberal” synagogues in his community — reveals that antisemitism is the primary motivation of most anti-Zionists.
“I had a conversation with a university professor who is deeply involved in this, and I asked him why his group did not protest at Evangelical churches. He looked at me kind of askew and asked, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, well look, there is no group in this country that is more empathetic and sympathetic to Palestinians and their rights than mainstream American Jewry,” Acker recounted. “The answer on this is pretty clear. There’s a substantial proportion of this protest movement, especially now, that is dedicated not to making Palestinian lives better but simply to harassing Jews.”
He continued, “There’s a group that protests outside a very liberal Ann Arbor synagogue every Saturday, without exception, and this has gone on for years. When I think about the people who attend a liberal synagogue, I know that they probably have very two-state solution, pro-Palestinian rights views. And yet, you know, they find the need to protest Jews on the holiest day of the week, right? It has nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with trying to make Jews feel uncomfortable in public spaces.”
The University of Michigan condemned the attack on Acker’s home and personal property as antisemitic in a statement published on its website on Tuesday.
“The vandalism of Regent Jordan Acker’s home early this morning is a clear act of antisemitic intimidation,” the statement read. “The University of Michigan condemns these criminal acts in the strongest possible terms. They are abhorrent, and, unfortunately, just the latest in a number of incidents where individuals have been harassed because of their work on behalf of the university. This is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. We call on our community to come together in solidarity and to firmly reject all forms of bigotry and violence.”
This is not the first time that pro-Hamas activists on college campuses have vandalized property in the name of anti-Zionism.
In September, at the University of British Columbia (UBC), a pro-Hamas group placed a shocking antisemitic display targeting Jews and law enforcement on the gate leading to the private residence of university president Benoit-Antoine Bacon. “Pigs off campus,” said the large banner which People’s University for Gaza at UBC (PUG) tacked to the property. Next to it, the group staked on the finials of the structure the severed head of a pig.
In October, when Jews around the world mourned on the anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, a Harvard University student group called on pro-Hamas activists to “Bring the war home” and proceeded to vandalize a campus administrative building. The group members, who described themselves as “anonymous,” later said in a statement, “We are committed to bringing the war home and answering the call to open up a new front here in the belly of the beast.”
Princeton University also saw a shocking vandalism for which an anonymous student group claimed responsibility in the same week. Targeting the building which houses the Princeton University Investment Company (PRINCO), it involved splattering red paint on the entrance door and graffitiing the perimeter of the building with the slogan “$4genocide.”
At Cornell University, in August, ant-Zionists vandalized an administrative building, graffitiing “Israel Bombs, Cornell pays” and “Blood is on your hands” on Day Hall. They also shattered the glazings of its front doors.
“We had to accept that the only way to make ourselves heard is by targeting the only thing the university administration really cares about: property,” the student culprits told the Cornell Daily Sun during an interview granted in exchange for a guarantee of anonymity.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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