Inside Israel - A view from Naharia
Contributed by George Mellinger
Once again, I am privileged to be able to post an offerig from my friend Eric Bogomolny, who has been in touch with a Russian-Jewish friend who emigrated to Israel instead of the United States. This valuable account gives us a view of the war from the perspective of an Israeli located near the scene of action. Except for minor formatting, I have left Eric's writing intact, with my own comments afterward. A PC War? My conversation with a friend in Naharia.
By Eric Bogomolny
Alex and I went to college together back in Leningrad, now St.-Petersburg, Russia. He now lives in Naharia, a little town on the North of Israeli Mediterranean Coast. Majority of Americans probably have never heard the name of this town until a little over a week ago, when Hezbollah rockets started raining on it. Knowing that he and another college friend were living in Naharia, I naturally got a little worried when Hezbollah started shooting at their town, so I e-mailed them, asking how they were doing. The other guy went to Tiberias with his family, to stay with yet another college friend. Alex chose to stay in Naharia, and on Wednesday I finally got a reply from him. It was my first vacation day, and I was still at home. So we established a connection via MSN Messenger and had a lengthy conversation about how things were in Naharia and in Israel in general. Below is the summary of what he told me.
The damage: According to Alex, those Katushas do very little damage. They are pretty old and not very powerful, not to mention their inaccuracy. Of course, if one of those rockets hits your apartment, it will destroy it, but the rest of the building would remain pretty much intact.
The reaction of the population: My friend was actually pretty disgusted with the fact that the whole North of Israel was effectively shut down. That was also the cause of his general pessimism about our overall perspective in the current global conflict (I obviously do not separate the Israel’s war for survival from the wars we are fighting: we are fighting common enemies). After talking with Alex I actually came to appreciate seemingly useless calls for business as usual, including shopping, after 9/11: the life should not stop because of the enemy action. We should look at Londoners during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz for an example: they kept their bombed out shops and cafes open for business. In contrast, Naharia, according to Alex, turned into ghost town, even though many apartments, especially the newer ones, have their own bomb shelter rooms. This does not reflect well on the residents of Northern Israel. On the other hand, there is no reason to keep people not needed for defense in harms way unnecessarily. I would like to think that, when it becomes necessary, the Israelis will stand and fight. Otherwise we are all doomed: Israelis are very similar to Americans, and what applies to them, applies to us.
The military action: That is where the term "PC War", as in "politically correct", comes into play. According to my friend, the Israelis keep bombing and shooting at empty buildings, a la Clinton, in order to minimize Lebanese civilian casualties. They even go as far as notifying when they are about to bomb some building where they suspect Hezbollah might be, so that the civilians would evacuate. As a result, they damage the Lebanese infrastructure much more than Hezbollah’s capabilities. The only real way to deal with Hezbollah is to conduct a ground operation with full force, but they don’t do that because they don’t want to look as invaders and, most importantly, they don’t want to suffer casualties. As a side note, I saw the news this morning, and they said that the Israelis are preparing for the ground offensive. But that was CNN: my hotel does not have FOX. They also said that the Lebanese Army is going to fight the Israelis, which is totally beyond me: they should be joining the Israelis.
inThe competency of the government: Alex is very unhappy with their Defense Minister. He says that the guy is basically a high school dropout who just rose through the ranks of government bureaucracy and is just a political appointee without any experience in defense matters (he is not a career military guy). He probably served in the military, since it is mandatory, but a private can hardly be a Minister of Defense.
The media: The Israeli media is just as idiotic as ours. They just blabber their collective mouth without thinking of the consequences. For almost a week they reported every rocket hit with accuracy down to a street corner, in real time, both on TV and on the web. People who have even rudimentary understanding of military operations, let alone a real combat experience will immediately understand the meaning of this. If you are a Hezbollah terrorist launching rockets at Israel, you don’t need any forward observers: having a local news channel on along with something like Google Maps next to your rocket launcher will do just fine for your fire correction. It took a week for the Israeli government to stop the news media from being forward observers for Hezbollah. Can you imagine an ACLU lawsuit claiming a violation of the freedom of the press? The moonbats in this country would immediately scream: "Censorship!" At least, after a week the Israeli government stopped the craziness.
Why it has started and how it should end: This is something that probably we all would agree with. Alex said that the whole mess started because Israel is no longer feared by its enemies. If any Hamas rocket attack would have been treated as an act of war that it was, and triggered a massive retaliation in response, if the original Hamas kidnapping of a soldier triggered an immediate full force invasion of Gaza, none of it would have happened. But the Israelis have waited too long, while just pumping their chests. My own comment is that they failed to follow a Teddy Roosvelt’s doctrine: "Speak softly and carry a big stick". This kind of mess happens if you do just the opposite: speak loudly and carry a small stick. As for how this all will end, Alex was very pessimistic. He thinks that the most likely scenario is that the UN will impose the ceasefire, Hezbollah and Hamas will return the bodies of the soldiers, and the periodic attacks by Hezbollah and Hamas will continue, slowly chipping away at Israel’s dignity, will and long term chance for survival. That, by the way, applies to the rest of the Western World. I am not ready yet to share my friend’s pessimism, but he does make good points. The right way to deal with Hezbollah is, of course, a massive ground invasion, not just by Israel, but by an international force, including the Lebanese Army, in order to clear out Hezbollah. But of course, there is no international force capable or willing to do the job. UN forces in Lebanon routinely just drink tea with Hezbollah terrorists. The only force capable of defeating Hezbollah, other than fully committed Israeli Army, is US military. I don’t see that happening at this time. So, if Israel does invade, it will be condemned as an aggressor. The Lebanese Army will actually fight against IDF, even though the IDF will be doing their job for them, just because it is Israel. IDF should go in and clear out Hezbollah anyway. We’ll see if they will really do it.
There you have it. My friend is there, in the thick of it. While we were talking, he said that there was an explosion somewhere in the area. It probably wasn’t too close, since I did not hear it. I am still much more optimistic than my friend. But if we lose our will to fight, Robert Ferigno’s Islamic States of America will become a reality. I hope it does not happen.
I must disagree with Eric about sending an international force, for philosophical and practical reasons. It would only serve to further legitimize a bad idea of UN Armies which has never led to anything good. Philosophically, I believe any country should be responsible for its own defense. I would not ask Italian or Swedish boys to fight for Israel, no more than I want Gurkhas guarding our border with Mexico. From a practical perspective, I would not trust them. An international force will serve only to hinder Israel from doing what needs to be done. Terrorists and Guerrillas are not to be disarmed and evacuated somewhere to regroup and rest, but must be killed. And an international force, will serve as a neutral, protective shield for the defeated terrorists. One might even ask where one could find a force from countries which are not overtly unsympathetic to Israel. Macchiavelli has warned us that using such troops is unwise, because they will prove ineffective or disloyal. Such an international dependency also strips the pride and responsibility of self-defense from Israel, and encourages future dependence, and subservience to international authority. When Israel has yielded practical sovereignty to that international body, will they be able to reject another international force invited next time by Hamas?
And if international force is an euphemism for United States, it is still a bad idea, for that will only strengthen the impression that Israel is not a sovereign country but an American puppet. And if Israel is not to stand as a truly independent and sovereign country, then why bother? Instead, The United States can make a much more useful contribution. While Israel solves the Hezbollah problem, which it can do, as the Hezbollocks are learning, we should be seizing the opportunity to extirpate the root problem in Iran. That will better serve both Israel and ourselves. See my earlier post on Strategic distraction.
-Rurik
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