Peloni: This is an important analysis which describes a major strategic failing adopted by the IDF as it pursued what the authors describe as “the ‘small and smart’ force reliant on precision airpower, special forces, and technology-centric intelligence”. The consequence to this is that “Israel does not have the right force structure, defense technological industrial base, or alliances to ensure a longer-term victory”.
Israel must abandon the failed idea that technological wizardry will guarantee its security
by Michael Doran & Can Kasapo?lu | Tablet | May 13, 2024
“Infantry soldiers from the Givati brigade are put through their paces with new, high-tech weapons and computers at the army’s urban warfare training base,” in this IDF photo from 2005. Yael Bar Hillal/IDF via Getty Images
On April 29, 1956, two assassins, an Egyptian and a Palestinian, ambushed Ro’i Rothberg, the security officer of kibbutz Nahal Oz. Luring him into the fields, they shot him off his horse, beat him, and shot him again, ending his life. They then dragged his lifeless body as a gruesome trophy back to Gaza, where it was desecrated. Unlike Iran and its proxies today, however, Gamal Abdel Nasser, who ruled Gaza at the time, did not ransom Israeli corpses. The day after Rothberg’s murder, the Egyptian authorities transferred his mutilated remains to United Nations mediators who, in turn, passed them back to Israel for burial.
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