Blitzkrieg in Gaza
Why the Israeli invasion will likely start fast & furious, but also end dire & disastrous
Israel is poised to invade Gaza, with pressure mounting from every side, internal and external, to make their move quickly and decisively.
Israeli citizens are utterly freaked out by the October 7th attacks, not only losing what would be the American proportional equivalent of over 60,000 of their people, but thousands of hostages taken and held inside Gaza.
Arguably even worse, Israeli decades-long confidence in their strength and overall sense of security is shattered given the failure to foresee and stop Hamas’ border attacks, compounded by their ISIS-level savagery.
Israeli enemies on every front are increasingly enraged and closing in. Hezbollah along the Lebanon border and Palestinians throughout the West Bank are launching sporadic attacks, while Iran has made overt threats.
Biden and his administration have meanwhile given Israel carte blanche to defend itself, albeit with cautionary caveats regarding minimizing Palestinian casualties and making post-9/11 strategic mistakes.
Although many consider his recent visit a diplomatic victory, the benefits escape me: Meeting only with Israelis, hugging Bibi, billions more in aid, the message is: “Go for it! (And try not to waste too many Palestinians...)”
With more than 200 hostages of multiple nationalities, genders, and ages, Israeli soldier and civilian still held in Gaza, the Israelis are in an intractable situation: How to negotiate with people you vow to soon kill?
The recent release of American mother-daughter hostages (from my own home town of Evanston, IL), apparently brokered by Qatar, reveals even more of the complexity of an assault soon to be live streamed on the Web.
By demonstrating “mercy” and a “willingness to negotiate,” Hamas is stoking public opinion. They know Israel will soon invade, and, like their initial attack, are realizing their goal of further enraging the Arab world.
Few doubt Israel will go ahead and invade. Many have already pointed out the risks and futility of such a dire military action, rolling right into a trap set by Hamas, but invade they will, despite the overt set up and concerns.
Given such inevitability, the next question becomes how Israel doing it. If you were an IDF strategist, how would you play it after you bulldoze inside?
1) Go in slow: Measured, exploratory attacks to get the lay of the battlefield, see how Hamas responds, maybe even try to minimize civilian casualties and save some hostages, then figure things out from there
2) Blitzkrieg: Go all-in and all-out with a sudden and massive show of force to overwhelm Hamas defenses, score a decisive early advantage, and hopefully minimize a long, drawn out urban war of attrition
My hunch is 2) — the Israelis will move quickly and brutally, not giving Hamas time to react. The price will be many early Israeli casualties, soldier and hostage, along with tons of collateral damage and horrible PR.
But the advantages might be seen as warranting such a blitz: Flatten everything in front of the advancing troops, rapidly gain control of big swaths of Gaza City, and torch/gas the tunnels before they can be blocked.
Coordinated air strikes, drone attacks, special ops, and infantry advances will try to blaze pathways through the urban hellscape waiting and ready for the invaders, with armor rolling in through the rubble where possible.
The creation of a major Israeli bridgehead and staging area within Gaza itself, a bit like the American Green Zone in Iraq, seems expedient, but will compound its own vulerabilities to the temporarily occupying army.
Despite the hostages, the tunnels will likely be flamed-out and even gassed. But as lessons from Viet Nam, Sri Lanka, and numerous other conflicts have revealed yet haven’t been learned, the defense will prove resolute.
Hard to imagine any result of such urban warfare where Hamas is, as the Israelis hope to accomplish, “completely destroyed” — and even if they are, any governing body set to replace them being any better for anyone.
Even worse, millions of Palestinians won’t remember the Hamas that triggered the invasion, but the Israel that conducted the invasion, leaving the enclave in rubble, millions displaced, and thousands dead and injured.
Tragically, whether or not Israel invades surgically and methodologically, or blasts their way in with a highly coordinated, multidimensional onslaught begs the question of the wisdom of invading at all.
The Israelis no doubt feel that they have no choice. But they most certainly do. Tribal arguments as to who is on the correct side of history rage, but are irrelevant at this moment in time. The imminent invasion is a mistake.
Let’s see how it actually plays out, Hezbollah is already prepping tens of thousands of rockets to rain down on Tel Aviv and Haifa…. The West Bank is already seething. Another major escalation is not what the region needs.
