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The chilling in Qatar argument started to look really ridiculous. A massive portion of Hamas leadership has died in the last year. Even the tiny fraction that is personally safe in Qatar are witnessing their family members killed en masse.
I also used to think that Palestinian resistance was futile and only harmed them more without any hope of liberation but events since the Hamas attack is making me reconsider that view. Israeli politics and society has been destabilised to an incredibly dangerous degree. If Netanyahu really forces an invasion of Lebanon it’s possible that we see the IDF reach its breaking point fighting on so many fronts, or at least have to make serious concessions on some of its fronts. Hamas tactics clearly have some hope of succeeding
Dead palestinians and destroyed houses do not advance any Hamas cause of annihilating the hated Jew. Hamas tactics only succeed in making Israelis feel bad about how much the rest of the world hates them. The Israelis would, in a world without Hamas or other Arabs explicating their genocidal intent against Jews, be the perfect example of the PFJ/JPF splits of Life of Brian.
The IDF has plenty of spare capacity to prosecute a highly kinetic war against multiple parties simultaneously. The IDF is, like all militaries, unsuited to long term police actions to pacify a region. The presence of nonisraeli peacekeepers is supposed to be the win condition for Israel, like PA in West Bank and UNEF in Sinai pre-Six Day War (this point is debatable but it is in effect a standing buffer). That PA in Gaza and UNIFIL in Lebanon are such failures is proof of the difficulty of policing actions against an intransigent enemy with no regard for their own civilians, and the general incompetence of peacekeepers to begin with.
I didn’t say anything about dead Palestinians effecting Israeli moods. They are battle hardened enough to not care at this point. But endless war in Palestinian Territories and Lebanon very much does. A lot of people are conscripted and the economy is severely strained.
Modern IDF has not proven itself capable of fighting anything other than severely resource constrained urban insurgents. It failed badly the last time it tried to act against Hezbollah, which has much more in common with a proper army than an insurgent group. There is little indication that IDF’s ground forces have actually increased in quality since the last war.
Israeli military depends almost entirely on western supplies and cutting edge technology. Israeli diplomatic standing depends on Americans bribing the shit out of everyone in the region to be friendly towards it.
Mid 20th century Israel had an orders of magnitude level tech and competency advantage over its surrounding primitive Arab neighbours who were in immense political chaos and backwardness. It doesn’t have such an insurmountable advantage anymore so it has to be much more careful on allocating its resources.
The main problem with the Israeli political chaos is that Israel is making many suboptimal decisions, prioritising Netanyahu’s political survival and the populace’s thirst for vengeance over Hamas. It is possible that Israel is going towards a point where it cannot afford such decision making.
This is cope. Hezbollah losses were twice as high as Israel ones during 2006 according to wikipedia, and that's with Hezbollah hiding behind civilian shields, having an extensive tunnel network to hide and move around in, and fighting on home territory. They also don't have an airforce.
Israel has one of the most advanced defense sectors on the planet. Part of why the west sells Israel weapons is because they want to buy Israeli military hardware for themselves. The types of arms that Israel buys are often highly precision-based and used to minimize battlefield casualties. Cutting them off from that wouldn't handicap Israel war efforts, it would just make them a lot more indiscriminate.
This is concern trolling. There's no country on earth where it would be viable for a government to do nothing in response to an Oct 7th style-attack, or to the thousands of rockets Hezbollah keeps firing at them. Complaining that Israel's response is "suboptimal" is just a way to launder the actual wish for Israel to simply not respond at all and accept being constantly under siege.
This is cope. I applaud Israel's proficiency in killing Arabs. However in the real world wars are not won by kill/death ratios. Israel had to give up its military objectives and withdraw. They lost. Israel is not the kind of country that can stay mired in a 1/2 kd ratio war/occupation for long.
Yes it is advanced, and also it is wildly not self sufficient and in parts very specialised. It functions as part of the American defense cinematic universe. They make very precise bombs to be thrown from F35s, with the assumption that the US will rapidly resupply them of artillery shells when IDF is running low. Many similar examples. Ultimately we are talking about a fairly small country.
This means Israel's actions are heavily constrained by Western public opinion and American grand strategy considerations.
No I have several Israeli friends who had been conscripted since October that I keep in touch with. I like those guys and this is genuine concern. And you seem to entirely misunderstand where my concern lies. The world is more dangerous than ever for Israel and they are acting more stupid than ever.
Defense cinematic universe. Cute phrase, might repeat in future.
There is no military now that is actually self sufficient in the way they wish to be, autarky is a impossible and leveraging comparative advantage is the ideal optimal solution. Hamas and Hezhollah employment of rocket and ATGM munitions are not autarkic, just as Israeli employment of Boeing-purchased JDAMs are not autarkic. But if Israel were to be entirely self sufficient, they just switch from precision weapons to whatever they have, meaning imprecision weapons. On a cost to probable kill ratio, an available resource of precision weapons fulfills multiple objectives, and if that resource is denied than the objective fulfilment prioritization matrix changes, usually to the detrimental of 'minimize civilian casualties'. Hamas might state a preference to kill only Israeli soldiers, but with the specific precision of their own hands they choose to kill civilians on livestream instead of rushing to kill more soldiers with their limited - and externally supplied - cache of arms.
With regard to Israeli munitions depth, cor all of Erdogans pretensions, premier Turkish contractor Rokesan is actually close to Israel manufacturers having jointly supplied Azerbaijan in the region and to a lesser extent having information exchanges in Libya. If the US stops supplying Israel, Rokesan is the most likely backstop, and Hanhwa is also sniffing around to supply. This must all be balanced against internal Israeli capabilities: they can manufacture their own precision or imprecision weapons, but taxing Israeli companies provides outsized purchasing power to obtain munitions externally compared to employing factory workers to crank out shells and bombs.
Israels military is uniquely unsuited for policing operations, which is the precise conflict style Hamas and Hezbollah are directing operations towards but that is because Israeli overmatch in direct actions has pushed attention solely to policing and peacekeeping. Israel could have pivoted and curbstomped Hezbollah in 200...6? but USA imposed a ceasefire and put in UNIFIL, which is technically a win condition by externalizing the policing responsibility. Israel rotations for the reservists have normalized, and Israelis on this board can confirm how many people are in sustained mobilizations - my own observations show intermittent mobilizations among different rear echelon units, with sustained operations confined to units already tasked with the respective areas of operations. I only know one guy in the 143rd, and he's not actually mobilized at the moment even though he flew back to serve, because his role is not specifically relevant to the current CONOPS.
Long term policing actions truly is the most irritating and difficult type of military/civil management exercise, and no country has truly succeeded at that. Ironically the absolutely trash tier Arab militaries - who are still trash tier against even the (slightly) degraded Israeli post-2007 military - are uniquely suited to long term policing actions, with a surplus of bodies to post on corners and a lack of consideration for smacking heads indiscriminately. Arab militaries are happy enough to subjugate their own populations now, and getting shekels to crack skulls is something few military men will object to.
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