Peloni: The question remains how this strategy might advantage Israel’s ability to achieve a decisive victory and to facilitate Gazan emmigration. While the use of these clans might possibly advantage the former, it would seem to be counterintuitive to support the latter.
Critics assail Israel for employing a strategy the U.S. used in World War II, Afghanistan and Iraq.
By John Spencer, WSJ, June 8, 2025
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed last week that Israel is arming local clans inside Gaza to fight Hamas. Critics immediately called the move dangerous and reckless. Former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman even claimed one of the groups receiving weapons has ties to ISIS.
I fought in Iraq and commanded U.S. soldiers on the streets of Baghdad, and I can tell you: This isn’t a desperate gamble. It’s a hard-learned, historically grounded strategy, and one of the most effective tools in asymmetric warfare.
In 2008 I was on the ground in Baghdad when American forces shifted their strategy to arm local gang leaders and tribal groups, some of which had previously attacked U.S. troops with roadside bombs, to turn them against al Qaeda in Iraq. We knew who we were dealing with. My soldiers and I met with men who had blood on their hands. But we also knew that defeating al Qaeda meant splintering its power base, undermining its support, and making local authority figures an alternative source of control.
That strategy, part of the broader “Sons of Iraq” movement, crippled al Qaeda’s hold on neighborhoods, helped stabilize cities, and bought space for broader security operations.
This approach isn’t new. During the war in Afghanistan, U.S. and allied forces armed local tribes and warlords to fight the Taliban. In World War II, the Allies provided weapons and support to resistance fighters and irregular militias across Europe, many with unsavory records—because defeating the Nazis took precedence over perfection.
Wartime alliances are rarely clean. They are judged not by ideology but by whether they advance the mission. In Gaza today, the mission is clear: Destroy Hamas as a military force and a governing power.
Operation Gideon’s Chariots is Israel’s new large-scale offensive aimed at dismantling Hamas’s remaining strongholds. It involves five Israeli divisions conducting coordinated clear-and-hold operations across Gaza, with the goal of permanently denying Hamas the ability to reconstitute militarily or politically in cleared areas.
The email from Markovsky is particularly venal
* The IDF is good but lacks the class based power of the Red Army. And the IDF is led by really stupid people. The Red Army was led by Troysky. Trotsky was in no way stupid like the IDF tops as opposed to the commanders below them
* Trotsky was a political hence military genius
* So Markovsky it is simply not comparable . His comment is really foolish.
* The proof lies in the Russian Civil War and ensuing destruction of the Pogromists of Ukrainian Jews in that context
I sure hope that Bibi knows what he’s doing. Even if the plan works for a while, it’s almost guaranteed to breakdown sooner or later….then what?
Email received from Alex Markovsky:
The concept being followed is clear and helpful up to a point. The clans all over the Arab world could fit the bill. However, after these clans have achieved their goals of local supremacy, there is no way to put the toothpaste back into the tube. Counting on even the slightest degree of loyalty is a losing game.
Somehat undermining my perspective on this Israeli decision, Spencer describes similar groups that the American forces worked with in Iraq and Afghanistan as :local gang leaders and tribal groups. However, I will stick to my point of view. “Tribal groups” are an ancient institution in the Arab world, going back in time on the Arabian peninsula centuries before the birth of Muhhammed. The local gangs” of which Spencer speaks in the sme breath as “tribal groups: are probably a reference to clans, which are somewhat smaller communities than tribes, with a similar organization. The “tribes” are mainly Bedouin communities, either nomadic or with nomadic roots. The clans are organizations formed in more settled peasant, or fellahin communities. All of the Arab groups “have blood on their hands” because warfare and the code of the vendetta is a constant in Arab society, going back thousands of years. Peace is not a normal condition in Arab society. But that does not make them “gangs” or “gangsters” om yhe sense that we use these terms in Western countries. In the West, these are organizations that have no legitimacy whatsoever in the eyes of most citizens, and are completely illegal, although they often acquire considerable power.
The Times of Israel revealed its anti-Israel bias by labelling the clans armed by Israel “gangs,” claimed tha they had only been formed a year ago and were robbing “humanitarian” supplies and selling them at a profit to starving Gazans, TOI denounced Israel’s arming of these “gangs” as a cynical, corrupt policy be the Netanyahu administration to help it starve the Gazans. Pure bulls___t/ These clans have existed for hundreds of years. Like the Bedouin tribes, they have always been armed and have always charged “tolls” from anyone, even Hamas, entering their territories. Israel should have allied itself with them years ago.
Clan strategy? Gazans leaving to where? This is a bad choice but is it only choice?
No clear answers