Israel will prevail in this war

Intangibles are some of the primary reasons why

PART 2: Analysis by W. Thomas Smith Jr.

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO I was in Israel and on the Palestinian Authority-controlled West Bank, specifically embedded with a company of Israel Defense Force (IDF) paratroopers in the then-embattled town of Hebron, less than 14 miles south of Bethlehem.

It was Holy Week 1997, during clashes between the IDF and Palestinian militants: Primarily members of Yasser Arafat’s PLO, the Syrian Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and throngs of young men they had recruited to throw rocks, bricks, and Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers.

Moving down one of the streets littered with broken glass, large rocks, chunks of concrete, and the occasional live round or empty shell casing, was a patrolling Israeli Parachute Infantry squad, me in the mix, walking next to a young IDF lieutenant.

All at once one of the paratroopers turned to me and said in English: “So were you in the American Army?”

“Well, sort of you might say,” I responded. “I was in the U.S. Marine Corps.”

With that, the soldier’s eyes widened. He then uttered something in Hebrew to the other members of the squad. A few turned to look at me. One of them – chest out, shoulders back – then boasted: “We are tough like U.S. Marines! Don’t you think?”

I smiled. “Yes, of course you are,” I said.

The young soldier’s words spoke volumes to me then as they do today.

Years later during the War in Iraq where I was embedded with U.S. Marines in Al Anbar Province from Fallujah to the Syrian border and later with U.S. Army Cavalry troopers patrolling some of the toughest neighborhoods in-and-around Baghdad, I recognized the same “We are tough like … ” sentiment from our own Marines and soldiers.

Fact is they are all tough and extremely confident in themselves, their combatant capabilities, and the men on their right and their left, particularly in the infantry and special operations units like Israel’s paratroopers, the elite Sayeret Matkal, the UK’s SAS (which is also now reportedly supporting the IDF on the ground), U.S. Marine Infantry (including Raiders), Army Rangers and Army Special Forces, Navy SEALs, and all of the other elite ground combat and special-operations force (SOF) units fielded by Israel and the West.

From where does this toughness and confidence originate? It all begins with strategic and tactical leadership: Senior corps, division, regimental, and battalion commanders down to the company grade commanders and small-unit platoon, squad, and fire team leaders.

Like their U.S. and British counterparts, Israeli Army units are not only well led, but they have seemingly endless resources (they are very well-funded) thus well-equipped. They are well-trained, again well-led, in most instances experienced, and consequently confident. Then there is tradition: And make no mistake TRADITION [my emphasis] is the lifeblood of any well-trained, well-equipped, well-led infantry or SOF unit.

These tangibles and intangibles will – as they always have – translate into success on the battlefield. That’s why Israel will ultimately win.

What about Hamas or even Hezbollah. Different animals entirely. Yes, they are well-funded, almost 100-percent by the Iranian oil industry and the ruling mullahs, and for the most part Hamas and especially Hezbollah are fairly well-trained. We witnessed those Iranian-funded resources and that Iranian and Syrian-supported training in the first few hours of this war. But tradition – remember the lifeblood of any elite unit – is sorely lacking among both. Neither Hamas nor Hezbollah see tradition as necessary at least not to the extent of Israel and the West. And effective ground-combat leadership is virtually non-existent.

Fact is terrorist leaders, if we can call them leaders, don’t LEAD at all. They DIRECT from the rear or they sacrifice their own lives in their suicidal direct-action operations.

That said, if there is an Achilles Heel in Western armies (to include that of the Israelis) it is the absolute value of human life. Though that’s actually a positive dynamic except in the sense that it means we – Israel and the West – always enter the arena with an altruistic sense of fair play, restraint, and with one-hand tied behind our backs.

In other words, we don’t deliberately target civilians – women, children, and the elderly – nor do we strike music festivals, shopping malls, and apartment buildings then hide behind human shields (i.e. residential neighborhoods inhabited by the innocent).

Hamas and Hezbollah do. They wage protracted military campaigns both offensively and defensively precisely the same way they conduct single-person suicide-bombing operations. To the enemies of Israel and the West, NO LIVES MATTER: Not theirs. Not their women. Not their children. Much less the innocent civilian relations of their enemies.

Nevertheless, Israel will win on the ground. They already control the air. The ground offensive to include the destruction of Hamas’ command-and-control as well as extremely risky hostage-rescue operations won’t be without tremendous cost. It already has been. But in the end – barring the expansion of the war into some sort of yet unfactored nuclear realm from some other nation-state, GOD forbid – Good (or righteousness) will ultimately prevail. It almost always does.

Someone once said (and it’s been widely and wrongly attributed to Edmund Burke): “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Good men are today doing something. It will bear battlefield success to be sure. But it takes time and unfortunately a lot of innocent and combatant blood.

Is it necessary? I’m reminded of the words of the late American social commentator Eric Hoffer, who in 1967 said, “I have a premonition that will not leave me: as it goes with Israel so it will go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the Holocaust will be upon us. ISRAEL MUST LIVE!”

Israel will.

 

– W. Thomas Smith Jr. is a decorated U.S. Marine Infantry leader, counterterrorism instructor, and a retired S.C. Military Dept. officer. He was embedded with U.S. Marines and U.S. Army cavalry during the Iraq War, and he has logged time in Israel, Lebanon, Syria, the Balkans and elsewhere around the world. Visit him at http://uswriter.com.