DEBKA, April 20/15
Anxiety about the new terror tunnels they sense Hamas is excavating under their feet is no longer confined to Israelis living in proximity to the Gaza Strip, or the soldiers serving there.
Israel’s northern borderland dwellers, who can see Hizballah’s yellow flags in from their balconies, have the same concerns. Their reports of mysterious underground explosions are confirmed by thousands of Israeli troops conducting field exercises in the neighborhood. The soldiers attest to heavy earthmoving equipment, explosions, burrowing, and shaking ground on the Lebanese side of the border, giving the area the appearance of a huge subterranean building site.
The Lebanese Shiite Hizballah group, Iran’s Lebanese surrogate, has clearly taken a leaf out of its Palestinian ally, Hamas’ book, for a fully mobilized terror tunnel project against northern Israel. Its manpower, including engineering units, is working under the guidance of Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers to sink a large network of tunnels leading under the border into Galilee. They are working efficiently and at top speed with the aid of modern Western-made earthmoving equipment and foreign professionals paid top dollar to manage the project.
Israel seems to be curiously passive in the face of its enemy’s ambitious enterprise. Only last week, the Defense Ministry’s Political Coordinator Amos Gilad denied any knowledge of terrorist tunnels reaching Israel from Lebanon.
However, Brig. Gen. Moni Katz, commander of the IDF’s Division 91, which is responsible for security of the Galilee region, told a different story: “To me it is obvious that the other side is busy digging tunnels. I don’t need intelligence to tell me this. Intuition is enough. There is no denying that this is what they are up to. Can I say they have completed a tunnel?” The general went on to reply: “I must assume they have. I can’t prove it or say for sure a tunnel has crossed into our territory. But my basic premise is that this is so and it is up to us to make plans to fit this case.”
Putting those plans into practice – which would necessitate destroying the tunnels either before they were built or at their entry-points – faces four major difficulties:
1. Close surveillance and first-class intelligence are required to keep track of hostile tunnel projects starting from the planning stage, the recruitment of manpower, the acquisition of engineering technology and equipment and registering the quantity of earth displaced and removed from the underground burrow.
2. The digging process, which sound sensors should have no difficulty in detecting, is a relatively short and irregular process which can just as easily be camouflaged by surface activities.
3. Locating a finished tunnel at the stage when it is still unused and relatively quiet calls for pinning down a number of variables, such as the type of soil, the depth, length, breadth and lining material used in building the tunnel, humidity, weather conditions on the surface as well as its environment, whether urban or rural.
4. Locating such a tunnel – even when it is already in operational use by an enemy – poses another set of difficulties. In combat conditions, electronic listening devices would be drowned out by the fire and explosions of battle and, in the confusion of war, enemy troops would be hard to intercept as they moved in and out the tunnels.
A glance at the map shows that the danger of tunnel warfare should also be taken into account on Israel’s eastern front – where it would just as hard to detect as in the north and the southwest: The Arab populations inhabiting the West Bank and the Israeli side of the border – only hundreds of meters apart – are similar enough to keep counter-terrorism authorities on a high level of alert for the construction of tunnel links between the two territories.
Perhaps a succession of military chiefs should be held accountable for letting the tunnel terror peril develop to its current proportions. But it must also be said that no silver bullet has so far been invented to counter this primitive vehicle of terror, including the methods tried till now, such as buried microphones, optical fibers sensitive to seismic tremors, deep trenches along the border and an assortment of off-beat inventions.
In the view of our military analysts, any solutions would have to vary from sector to sector, adapted to the military and topographical features in each case and an intelligence assessment of the level of risk involved in counteraction. This effort would have to be directed by an interdepartmental, inter-agency administration directly answerable to the prime minister or defense minister.
yamit82 Said:
The British, tried this sort of thing by constructing the railway in the Mandate to bypass Tel Aviv. This had the negative effect of Jews learning all about road-building, and salvaging motor-vehicles to create one of the first technology centres in the eastern Med focused on automotive repair.
In fact United States would not want to deny Israel chains of supply for military needs because it’s not the 70s now. Israel can go to Russia or even China and get most of what it needs ‘by other means’.
Do you understand the word ‘strategic’? In IDF’s case it’s a long term commitment to a specific system/platform. Of all the vital platforms in the IDF, the weakest links are the AH-64, F-15 & F-16. Yet these are nearing end of their lives as systems though IDF had received some very late block systems. Israel could design and build its own by sourcing many subsystems and components elsewhere. EU may refuse, but probably won’t given collaboration of Israel and Russia would not be a clever thing to do since they are much closer to Russia than United States. Same thing with China. Chinese can make anything, but they have a problem with innovation and quality.
There is a formula for good military systems design, and the first item in it is AFFORDABILITY. F-35 fails this, if only because it’s been in the ‘works’ since the late 1970s.
They are working the system. The only way is to break the system though it is heading for a cliff by itself. The US economy can’t sustain the US Defense budget because it is unsustainable given its systems, both human and technology, are unsustainable by design.
As I think I said before, there are two types of warfare, asymmetric and stupid. What you propose is not asymmetric, but attritional, a confrontation Israel can’t win.
There are other ways.
Comment in moderation.. Wondering how long it would take
@ mrg3105:
Divide your reply into a few sections.
Can Obama or any president hurt Israel in the short term, 5-10 years ? Yes, A hold up on spares for Israel’s all American made Air Force can red line a high number in a short time, that alone gives America leverage and power over us but Half of the American military aid to Israel are for small cap items and there are hundreds of thousands of such items from munitions to combat boots and uniforms.
Should Israel continue receiving military assistance from America? No we should pay for what we purchase and then purchse where we can make the best deal in price and quality from any source willing to sell to us except those like Turkey who are openly antagonistic…. Yet as long as we have American strategic platforms we are locked into American supply and political pressure with implied or overt threats of penalties if we do not play compliant vassal. Besides the F-35 being a very even too expensive dud not suitable for Israel it will lock Israel even more tightly than ever before to the American supply chain and political pressure..
SEE MY ARTICLE ON THE SUBJECT SEVERAL YEARS AGO
https://www.israpundit.org/archives/26956
Problem here lies mostly with our toy soldier senior military leaders who have been coddled and wined dined by the pentagon for so long they think thjey are Americans…Even America can’t afford the junk they are producing and Israel certainly can’t nor should we. Our politicians need American fig leafs to cover their sorry perfidious assess when they screw up. Israeli military get cushy jobs post retirement in Americn academia, think tanks and high paying jobs for American military producers and contractors… That’s how they get the military to oppose the elected government and their decisions when America is opposed.
The influence peddling and corruption here is rife.
Israel can stop all this posturing and games by bringing up our strategic nukes annoucing and legislating laws stating that any perceived land invasion against israel by anyone will automaticly be targeted and nuked, Any missiles fired at us will be tracked and source of fire will be nuked…. We won’t even need a large standing conventional army only a strong border police force. Economic savings to Israel will be enormous and it will free us politically from American threats and pressure.
honeybee Said:
Smooth seas do not make skilful sailors. (not Popeye)
Re: US Armed Forces, ”I calls them the way I sees them” also, and I’m in position to offer proof of this here if you need it.
It is relevant because some argue that Israel should maintain good relations with the USA due to the dependence on military assistance, but I wonder if this is worth the while. Israel survived without buying the Abrams tanks and Bradley IFVs, and waited a long time before buying the Apache. The F-35s are unflyable because they are unaffordable to loose in combat.
What else can the Pentagon offer? Israel alreaady provides a significant capability enhancement to the US in cyber warfare, control systems, including for strategic missiles, warfare sytems hardware and software including for submarines, targeting technology used for artillery and drones, missile technology improvements, SIGINT, etc. The word is that United States narowly avoided several mass casualty terrorist events thanks only to the training provided to the FBI and state police forces by Israelis.
Israel has faced the threat of tunnel warfare for many years, yet the US has nothing to offer since most of the technology developed for underground sensing is actually developed in Israel, initially for archaeological site non-invasive assessment, and later for preliminary geological surveys. IDF actually has the technology to take to the offensive in the ‘tunnel war’, but the US is a hinderance as it would require the sort of activities that Egypt has undertaken recently on its side of the Gaza border which the World simply ignored. Hamas can be wiped out in a matter of days, if not for the diplomatic fallout, principally from the Obama Administration. And,yes, Obama is the CinC, so also part of the US Armed Forces. His security and Israel relationship decision making has been disparaged by most Republicans and not a few Democrat ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES of We the People.
@ Ted Belman:
No ad hominem but before you kneejerk reprimand me read all of our comments in context first. You shoot first when I am the target. Then you have alweays done that so no surprise. 🙁
mrg3105 Said:
” I calls them the way I sees them” !!!!! Popeye
@ Ted Belman:
No one disparages the men of USA Armed Forces in my presence. Mgr3105 is just as abusive.
Yamit, reign it in . You are getting abusive again. Stop with the ad hominem attacks. You too Honeybee.@ yamit82:
@ yamit82:
mrg3105 Said:
“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
? Friedrich Nietzsche
All the participants please go to Chit-Chat. There is something humorous on the site.
@ honeybee:
honeybee, I never said it was easy. I stated facts. It was nothing accidental abut it. It was clever of the American
USN to take advantage of a very bad situation and with good intelligence and planning were able to turn the tables on the Japanese. I did not get the information from Wikipedia. Oftentimes Wikipedia has incorrect information. It depends of who contributed to the information. Since some of the best schools do not teach AMERICAN HISTORY and when they do they teach it is superficially. I bought some books and made sure my kids, now grown ups learnt the history of their country. If we do not know our history we are in danger of loosing our liberties. Please no more arguing over none issues. Tomorrow the Sun will shine again. Is it worthy?
It is more about ego’s than facts and it is silly. BTW will every one correct the word DISCERNING. I and Not E.
I’m going to take a vacation.
yamit82 Said:
How can you know? You have not made your argument just unsuppported tripe in place of descernment and erudition.
You cannot know, because you chose not to take me up on the offer and insted attack me. We all make choices in descerning opportunities or handling others roughly in rejecting the opportunity.
And now you blame me for the choice you made?
yamit82 Said:
As a matter of fact I am trying to educate the US Army having failed withthe USMC. Tehy both have something in common – they don’t listen. As a result the USMC is no longer capable of performing its duty unter Title 10 law, and the US Army is facing gross incapability gap by being unable to translate the US Government Strategic Guidance for expeditionary warfare into an actual engineering design.
Let me say it more simply – the US Army is stuffed.
Yet SecDef Carter goes around urging the industry to serve up innovations while the Pentagon can’t afford the innovantions (for example) TRADOC wanted A DECADE AGO! Menahwile at Ft Benning some colonels are trying to figure out how to project force without actually having the ships to do so. At Ft Bragg the 82nd wants new airborne light tanks…as the USAF seeks to reduce the number of C-130s to that below the airlift capacity of the division.
So its down to the guys in Florida who like to play with their joysticks. After all, drones with missiles are so much simpler. Makes war just like a game Americans can play at home after work. Just snipe away at the bad guys…and kill a few innocents once in a while.
But there is no soldier in war more despised than the sniper, and the United States is now seen as a strategic global sniper.
Remember what Machiavelli’s advice was to princes?
So who else was a ‘strategic sniper’ in Jewish history?
yamit82 Said:
That is because you only read what you post 🙂
honeybee Said:
I wonder what Freud would say about your predilection for referencing to certain bodily functions.
yamit82 Said:
There you go making an ass out of u and me again Yamit82
honeybee Said:
It was a relatively easy task once the USN new the IJN order of battle and intended target.
They were able to ambush the ambushers, the surprise being all that much greater.
The breaking of the Japanese code was the essence of the USN ‘brilliance’ in this operation, as much as the German intercepts of the US liaison officer’s communications form the British headquarters in Egypt was the root of ‘genious’ for Rommel in North Africa. Whoever has more information often has an upper hand in warfare, as in other aspects of life
honeybee Said:
There is a joke about a man that walks into a butcher shop and asks the apparently secular salesperson if his meat is really kosher. The sales person points to a small picture of a rabbi on the wall and says, “this was may grandfather, the rabbi”, to which the prospective customer replies, “If your grandfather was behind the counter, I wouldn’t ask the question”.
I’m not making ‘light’ of the US Armed Forces. They are a joke without my help.
Was it your aunt who was at Tarawa in the first wave assault?
As it happens there were Australians at Guadalcanal (http://www.navy.gov.au/history/feature-histories/australians-guadalcanal-august-1942) and it was thanks to them the Marines actually got landed. And these smae Marines had to leave part of their (obsolete) artillery in NZ to pick up more provisions for “Operation Shoestring”.
Guadalcanal is portrayed as some sort of act of heroism in USA, but the Japanese never had a chance of throwing the Marines off it because their main effort was AT THE TIME towards Port Moresby to gain a a base for launching the invasion of Australia. Guadalcanal was an operation to protect the US-Australian logistic route, not to actually defend Australia.
Iwa Jima and Tarawa were necessary evils. They were bloody because of faulty US planning and understimating the enemy. Interestingly high frontal assault casualties are seen as heroic in US military history, but similar attacks by the Red Army on the Eastern Front are seen as ‘stupid waste of life’.
mrg3105 Said:
How can you know you have not made your argument just unsuppported tripe in place of descernment and erudition.
mrg3105 Said:
The best and only retort I can think of for the above statement is ” Piss Ant”.
@ mar55:
He knows shit the Battle of Midway was more luck than deseign…. Bad decesions by the Japs and lack of good Intel proved decisive!! Two Navies almost passsing each other in the night and the Americans found the Jap fleet befoe the Japs found the Americans. It was the tuirning point of the war in the Pacific. Losses of the Americans were horrendous as well but it gave America time to build new fleets as the bulk of what was left of the American Navay was directed against European theater.
mrg3105 Said:
You should volunteer as an educator 🙂 LOL But if your knowledge in American history beyond what can be easily accessed on wikipedia is as deep and extensive as what you seem to know about Judaism then you have nothing to teach!! There are enough[Blind Leading the Blind’s] without your personal addition and contribution. 😛
honeybee Said:
Must agree he reminds me of other pompous asses encountered in the past on this site. They never last long once pinned down to basics and clear unambigious ..language. 🙂 What does any of this stupid discussion have to do with the topic and the even more stupid and inane
commentary of mgr3105’s stated opinions on this threads topic…. Love armchair warriors and their pseudo analysis. Echhhh.
@ mar55:
Iam sorry mar55, mgr3105 is a pompous jerk. He doesn’t need to lecture me on American history.
mar55 Said:
You act as if this were an easy task. I can not think of any greater act of bravery then exhibited by USA Army Air then this desperate and eventually successful endeavor.
mrg3105 Said:
Are you making light of the USA Armed forces, my Uncles, Cousin and my Aunt fought in the Pacific. No Australians died at Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, or Tarawa.
I’m sorry honeybee. Generalities can be dangerous in the absence of facts.
@ mrg3105:
You are good. Your know your history and it is correct.
@ mrg3105:
The basic fact that you just mention is true.
The IJN naval code know as Magic referred to Midway Island by a code name. The American Navy did not know the intended target of the planned Japanese attack.
USN decided to narrow it down by using a code name for possible targets. Using the code name for Midway Island the island communicated that it was running out of fresh water because equipment malfunction. The Japanese took the bait and referred to the code name for Midway stating that they were having problems with their fresh water supply. That did it. The USN then knew the Japanese planned to attack Midway Island and were able to position their aircraft carrier northeast of Midway just in time to attack the Japanese carrier after they had launched their planes.
While Midway was under attack American dive bombers caught the Japanese carriers at a vulnerable time and quickly sank
three of the four Japanese carriers within minutes with the fourth one being hit and sank latter in the day. The USA lost one carrier.
SO MUCH FOR FOR THE IJN TASK FORCE UNDER ADMIRAL MAGUMO WHO ATTACKED PEARL HARBOR. Yamamoto was the planner for Pearl Harbor. Magumo was the executor.
honeybee Said:
Honeybee, I often find that Americans are more patriotic than educated, including about the United States.
At Midway, so named because its location is roughly between California and China, the United States Navy had only one new capital ship, USS Atlanta. The Congress was not profligate in spanding on the Navy until December 7, 1941. The USN would have been soundly defeated had it not been for the ALLIED ability to break Japanese naval codes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_naval_codes). This allowed the USN to set an offensive counter-ambush.
The reason the USN had to fight for the Midway Atoll had nothing to do with Australia, and everything to do with the atoll being within bomber distance of Hawaii. Had the Japanese been victorious, they could occupy the atoll and Pearl Harbour would have become the new front line in the Pacific, not Australia.
For actual defence of Australia twelve divisions were raised, of which two were already fighting Germans in North Africa by 1941, and had to be shipped back because the United States had no Army to speak of in early 1942. Even the 1st Marine Division that was shipped to Guadalcanal (Solomons) was a collection of personnel scraped together from virtually every Marine post in the United States.
What the United States gave Australia was something much worse, the sense of dependence and false security, which persists today.
This caused Australian underdevelopment in manufacturing sector that makes it a less viable developed economy than it may have been.
Australia also got some very poorly designed American tanks that were never used, but prevented manufacture of a better local design.
There is an important lesson in this for Israel, that it should not be overly-dependent on any one for those capabilities which assure its security.
Australians may yet be required to learn Indonesian if they keep listening to the USA.
The problem with United States is that it has a ‘open for business’ cultural mentality where everything is negotiable and ultimatelly for sale. What this means is that America can’t be trusted as a strategic (long term) ally. This is the lesson of Mitzrayim that turned from a lifesaver when it sold food to Yaakov and offered shelter, to a slaver that sought to destroy Yaakov’s family.
Yes Honeybee, you live in the modern Mitzrayim, and not the best part of that either.
@ mrg3105:
If it were not for the sacrifices of USA wealth, lives and material at Midway Island, the Australians would be speaking Japanese. !!!!!!! We gave Australia the time to arm themselves .
@ mrg3105:
Good call! I don’t like getting spanked or being put on endless moderation! 🙂
@ dove, mar55
unless this is somehow going to connect to an anti-tunnel strategy, probably should take this to chit chat
@ mrg3105:
lol……Are you kidding me? I have only experienced the opposite. People really complain if a Rabbi gets too long winded – and they better be interesting!
Some Rabbis use Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to ‘torture’ the congregants. Since they know they won’t see most of them for awhile it’s payback time. Some make you stand or sit toooooo long.
I changed my strategy. I think to myself……now I have been here at least twice a month for the past year so I will exclude myself from your ‘torture test’. If I am standing too long I sit down. If I am sitting too long I stand up because I know it’s a mind game that I do not appreciate and no wonder most won’t be back for a long time.
If your a tough Jew you should be able to endure….so we will keep you standing until you start to drop like flies so we can see who are the weaker ones….
If they only knew what I was saying in my mind…followed by, ok Hashem, I will gladly dump my sins overboard. 🙂
There is an expectation that a rabbi should:
speak at length
make the audience ‘feel spiritual’
be positive
not get into details that may make the audience seem like ignoramuses
include a bit of ‘kaballah’ (even if no one including the rabbi understands it)
start and end with a joke like a politician and Oscars presenter
For haredim, quote lots of sources, some too obscure to look up, and leave the audience in doubt what the shiur was about
@ mrg3105:
Good enough. We have not run into any problems recently.
Thank you. I am not quite happy with what new rabbis deliver either. I’m 75 years young and like things straight. The pick and choose is not for me. Some so called leaders nowadays instead of leading leave you like a ship afloat without any direction. I cannot speak for others but I like the old ways better.
@ honeybee:
I’ll talk to you on Thursday or perhaps Tuesday. Tomorrow doctor’s appointment. Wed. eye surgery I think Tuesday might be better. Take care. The post nasal drip (probably from allergies0 it goes to your throat and causes you to cough. The sneezing could be because in spring when every tree, bushes and flowers start to blossom it can produce sneezing. I have a saline solution (over the counter) and keep putting it in my nose until all what is in there starts to come out. All the thick stuff. Try it. Keep blowing my nose and, the fluid dries and the cough stops.
I had it a few weeks ago and nearly went crazy with it,
Go rest and take some Advil or something like that, it will let you sleep. After several sleepless nights I was really tired and upset.
The doctor can prescribe a nasal spray with steroids and it is very effective. At least will let you sleep.
Be well. Good night.
@Mar55
I am not and never aspired to be a rabbi.
Ask your question, but I don’t promise an answer, and if you get an answer, it may not be something you will like (the way current rabbis deliver).
@ mrg3105:
Take the offensive but, wait until they either finish or are almost finish.
You seem to be very well versed in religious knowledge. You actually enjoy it.
Do you think I might bring a question about Torah to you?
I go to a Torah classes at the shul I attend and once we came upon a question of something we could not figure out and the commentary was not of any help. The rabbi was away on a trip and it took sometime to get an answer.
I actually enjoy the class more than the social part of a very social congregation. It is fun or so they say but too much of a good thing makes me leave early.
mar55 Said:
Tunneling is a very old form of offensive warfare. It is both a tactic and a weapon system. The only way to combat this form of warfare, as with everything, is to take to the offensive.