1969. The War of Attrition. Israeli and Egyptian forces face each other on opposite sides of the Suez canal. Both countries are on a war footing. However, Egypt has tens of millions of her population from which to draw her armies? strength, while Israel has but a tiny fraction of that from which to field a superior force. When Egypt is at war, Egypt's economy pretty much carries on as usual. When Israel is at war, Israel's economy suffers. It is almost like Israel has to hold her breath while fighting off her enemies. There is a necessity for such a total focus on defense, to ensure immediate survival, that all other basic needs must wait for victory to be attended to again.
Egypt's strategy was to create a drain on Israel's economy and armed forces through prolonged conflict that would eventually allow Egypt to overwhelm a weakened Israel. As usual, Egypt failed. Despite this, the principle was, and remains, valid.
Since her rebirth, Israel's entire military strategy and armed forces have been centered around the absolute requirement for decisive, lightning-fast victories over our enemies. Israel largely has to fight and win her wars with what she has when that war begins. A protracted armed conflict means a quickly diminishing supply of war material, hand-in-hand with the quickly diminishing industrial and economic capacity to replace it. This very rapidly leads to a reduced ability to fight effectively. Then, Israel will be looking at defeat; perhaps another Holocaust.
The Germans were the most cultured people on the planet, and we really didn't do anything much to upset them before they started putting us into ovens. We have been humiliating the Arabs and Moslems for half of a century. If you thought the Holocaust of the Nazis was the height of evil, wait until you see what the Arabs and Moslems are planning. They will make the Nazis look like the good Christians that so many claimed they were.
We are currently losing a war of attrition with our Arab and Moslem neighbors. The shekel has fallen, unemployment is rampant, the bottom has fallen out of the high-tech sector, and 250,000 foreign goyim hold Israeli jobs that our 250,000 unemployed Jews don't. Reserves have been called up, the army is stretched thin, and police and border police units are working inhumane hours to keep one step ahead of our unrelenting foes. This is unsustainable. Not only is the toll of murdered Jews rising, but also our ability to respond militarily is gradually lessening as this continues. Our enemies are winning.
Three issues contribute to this.
First is the lack of clarity in the realm of public discourse. Israel is like the man who is asked, "So, do you still beat your wife?" The context of the question puts the man who never beat his wife at a severe disadvantage. When Israel is asked to choose between the Labor party's "suicide now," versus the Likud's "suicide soon," it is easy to feel like the only thing to legitimately disagree over is the timetable for national suicide. That not committing national suicide is a perfectly reasonable option doesn't get a lot of airtime.
Israel's intelligentsia, having dominated the media and educational system for 50 years now, have infected Israel's core of traditional Jewish culture and values with their bizarre mix of anti-Jewish ideas - the "more Christian than the Christian," Hellenist, Bolshevist chulent served up as pseudo-morality from "Jewish by birth, Goy by choice" Israeli politicos. It is more of an illustration of exile-induced pathology than any sort of useful guide to reality. The dangerous misconceptions they promote only make it more difficult to deal with a reality that is already dangerous enough. All Jews of good will must speak and act out against misguided policies that provide our enemies with any additional means to pursue our destruction - whether arms, money, land, or any sort of aid and comfort.
Second, Israel is still ready to fight yesterday's war. We are prepared to fight off Arab armies from our borders, as we have successfully many times before, but much less well prepared for how to deal with the armies of terrorists that have already broken through (by invitation) our lines and are operating behind our front lines, in our heartland. These include Arafat's PLO, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda, and the millions of unlawful combatants that will support them when they attack.
Israel has dealt successfully with multi-front wars before. A major advantage of Israel has been her ability to use internal lines. For example, Israel can move tanks from her northern front to her eastern front much faster than Jordan could move tanks to Syria or Syria could move tanks to Jordan. It is much faster to cut through the middle than to have to go all the way around the outside. But, how well will this work when (taking a cue from the IDF) Hamas decides to bulldoze or pile cars in the roads in Israel that the tanks need to travel on? How well will this work when major intersections that reservists need to travel through to get to their units are blocked by Arab school children standing arm in arm, singing "we shall overcome" for CNN? How well will this work when not one or two armed terrorists infiltrate a community strapped with AK-47's and bomb-belts, but when every community is infiltrated from (again taking their cue from the IDF) three different directions by dozens of terrorists with AK-47's, grenades, and bomb-belts? How many soldiers will want to leave their wives and children to join their units to fight Egyptian tanks, when there are 30 Arabs gunning people down and throwing grenades in their own neighborhood?
It is a terrible thing that we have allowed Arabs to murder hundreds and hundreds of Jews recently in the Land of Israel. But, the existential danger from the PLO, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and the rest of the Jihad people inside the land of Israel, is that they will significantly detract from Israel's ability to defend herself from her external enemies when they attack. Don't be upset that I am bringing these few examples to light. The Arabs already know them - and many more. That is what they are training for night and day - not just to murder a few Jews here and there. They are making progress towards their long-term goal of destroying Israel. While on a good day we may slow them down a bit, we are not doing anything to improve Israel's chances for long-term survival. They are slowly winning.
In the early days of modern Israel, our people fought with the specter of the Nazi Holocaust hovering above their head, and did whatever they had to, in order to ensure the survival of our People and State. The full spectrum of Jewish genius was applied whole-heartedly to our survival as never before. We demonstrated an amazing adaptability, creativity, and audacity in our tactics and strategies, which left the Arab world reeling, and the rest of the world in awe. The exploits of our heroes from those days are still taught in war colleges all over the world, and should be sung of by our children by the campfire as we sang by the sea long ago with Moses. Today, we face a threat every bit as grave, and our People cannot afford 6 million more casualties before we decide we need to fight for our survival again.
Lastly, Israel has gotten used to victory. We are much more comfortable than we should be, considering that we are surrounded by hundreds of millions of Arabs and Moslems, who are working tirelessly for our destruction, have countless trillions of oil dollars to spend on our destruction, and are acquiring nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction, with Israel in mind as the primary target. Our enemies have changed tactics, but not their strategy. We have begun to adapt to their new tactics. We have never addressed their strategy. Our enemies have learned more from their losses than we have learned from our victories. We should not wait for another October Surprise to realize that we should be acting like it was 1967 and not reacting like it was 1973. Imagine 1973 with an Egypt and Syria in possession of weapons of mass destruction aimed at Israel. Or just wait, and you won't have to.
We cannot continue doing the wrong things without expecting terrible consequences. We need to look beyond expecting that the correct things we did before will work now, in a dramatically different context. We must never forget that we can lose. The State of Israel has survived up to this point, because we were crystal-clear in identifying the threats to our existence and fairly uncompromising in our response to them.
One imminent threat to Israel's existence is the current war of attrition, which is destroying our economy and concomitantly our continued ability to defend ourselves adequately. Only last week the Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz was complaining that he could not guarantee the safety of the country with his proposed budget for next year. Our response must be uncompromising and unapologetic. We must achieve a decisive victory, quickly. If we do not, then a few million Israelite mothers, fathers, grandparents, and children will face the terrible consequences of our inaction. Those of us left will look back on the Nazi Shoah as "the nice Holocaust."
Time is running out. We have the tools necessary for the job. Will we choose to offend the whole world and live? Or will we choose to continue to lay prostrate, expecting the world?s pity again, as the world "tut-tuts" and watches another million or two of our brethren go up in smoke?
--------------------------------------------------------
Elder of Zion is a senior level executive with a privately held multinational. He is responsible for various operations, including governmental oversight, media manipulation, banking, and global AIDS distribution. In his spare time he occupies contested territories and oppresses innocents; usually peace-loving arab children named 'jihad,' who were just out working on their rock collections.
Egypt's strategy was to create a drain on Israel's economy and armed forces through prolonged conflict that would eventually allow Egypt to overwhelm a weakened Israel. As usual, Egypt failed. Despite this, the principle was, and remains, valid.
Since her rebirth, Israel's entire military strategy and armed forces have been centered around the absolute requirement for decisive, lightning-fast victories over our enemies. Israel largely has to fight and win her wars with what she has when that war begins. A protracted armed conflict means a quickly diminishing supply of war material, hand-in-hand with the quickly diminishing industrial and economic capacity to replace it. This very rapidly leads to a reduced ability to fight effectively. Then, Israel will be looking at defeat; perhaps another Holocaust.
The Germans were the most cultured people on the planet, and we really didn't do anything much to upset them before they started putting us into ovens. We have been humiliating the Arabs and Moslems for half of a century. If you thought the Holocaust of the Nazis was the height of evil, wait until you see what the Arabs and Moslems are planning. They will make the Nazis look like the good Christians that so many claimed they were.
We are currently losing a war of attrition with our Arab and Moslem neighbors. The shekel has fallen, unemployment is rampant, the bottom has fallen out of the high-tech sector, and 250,000 foreign goyim hold Israeli jobs that our 250,000 unemployed Jews don't. Reserves have been called up, the army is stretched thin, and police and border police units are working inhumane hours to keep one step ahead of our unrelenting foes. This is unsustainable. Not only is the toll of murdered Jews rising, but also our ability to respond militarily is gradually lessening as this continues. Our enemies are winning.
Three issues contribute to this.
First is the lack of clarity in the realm of public discourse. Israel is like the man who is asked, "So, do you still beat your wife?" The context of the question puts the man who never beat his wife at a severe disadvantage. When Israel is asked to choose between the Labor party's "suicide now," versus the Likud's "suicide soon," it is easy to feel like the only thing to legitimately disagree over is the timetable for national suicide. That not committing national suicide is a perfectly reasonable option doesn't get a lot of airtime.
Israel's intelligentsia, having dominated the media and educational system for 50 years now, have infected Israel's core of traditional Jewish culture and values with their bizarre mix of anti-Jewish ideas - the "more Christian than the Christian," Hellenist, Bolshevist chulent served up as pseudo-morality from "Jewish by birth, Goy by choice" Israeli politicos. It is more of an illustration of exile-induced pathology than any sort of useful guide to reality. The dangerous misconceptions they promote only make it more difficult to deal with a reality that is already dangerous enough. All Jews of good will must speak and act out against misguided policies that provide our enemies with any additional means to pursue our destruction - whether arms, money, land, or any sort of aid and comfort.
Second, Israel is still ready to fight yesterday's war. We are prepared to fight off Arab armies from our borders, as we have successfully many times before, but much less well prepared for how to deal with the armies of terrorists that have already broken through (by invitation) our lines and are operating behind our front lines, in our heartland. These include Arafat's PLO, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda, and the millions of unlawful combatants that will support them when they attack.
Israel has dealt successfully with multi-front wars before. A major advantage of Israel has been her ability to use internal lines. For example, Israel can move tanks from her northern front to her eastern front much faster than Jordan could move tanks to Syria or Syria could move tanks to Jordan. It is much faster to cut through the middle than to have to go all the way around the outside. But, how well will this work when (taking a cue from the IDF) Hamas decides to bulldoze or pile cars in the roads in Israel that the tanks need to travel on? How well will this work when major intersections that reservists need to travel through to get to their units are blocked by Arab school children standing arm in arm, singing "we shall overcome" for CNN? How well will this work when not one or two armed terrorists infiltrate a community strapped with AK-47's and bomb-belts, but when every community is infiltrated from (again taking their cue from the IDF) three different directions by dozens of terrorists with AK-47's, grenades, and bomb-belts? How many soldiers will want to leave their wives and children to join their units to fight Egyptian tanks, when there are 30 Arabs gunning people down and throwing grenades in their own neighborhood?
It is a terrible thing that we have allowed Arabs to murder hundreds and hundreds of Jews recently in the Land of Israel. But, the existential danger from the PLO, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and the rest of the Jihad people inside the land of Israel, is that they will significantly detract from Israel's ability to defend herself from her external enemies when they attack. Don't be upset that I am bringing these few examples to light. The Arabs already know them - and many more. That is what they are training for night and day - not just to murder a few Jews here and there. They are making progress towards their long-term goal of destroying Israel. While on a good day we may slow them down a bit, we are not doing anything to improve Israel's chances for long-term survival. They are slowly winning.
In the early days of modern Israel, our people fought with the specter of the Nazi Holocaust hovering above their head, and did whatever they had to, in order to ensure the survival of our People and State. The full spectrum of Jewish genius was applied whole-heartedly to our survival as never before. We demonstrated an amazing adaptability, creativity, and audacity in our tactics and strategies, which left the Arab world reeling, and the rest of the world in awe. The exploits of our heroes from those days are still taught in war colleges all over the world, and should be sung of by our children by the campfire as we sang by the sea long ago with Moses. Today, we face a threat every bit as grave, and our People cannot afford 6 million more casualties before we decide we need to fight for our survival again.
Lastly, Israel has gotten used to victory. We are much more comfortable than we should be, considering that we are surrounded by hundreds of millions of Arabs and Moslems, who are working tirelessly for our destruction, have countless trillions of oil dollars to spend on our destruction, and are acquiring nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction, with Israel in mind as the primary target. Our enemies have changed tactics, but not their strategy. We have begun to adapt to their new tactics. We have never addressed their strategy. Our enemies have learned more from their losses than we have learned from our victories. We should not wait for another October Surprise to realize that we should be acting like it was 1967 and not reacting like it was 1973. Imagine 1973 with an Egypt and Syria in possession of weapons of mass destruction aimed at Israel. Or just wait, and you won't have to.
We cannot continue doing the wrong things without expecting terrible consequences. We need to look beyond expecting that the correct things we did before will work now, in a dramatically different context. We must never forget that we can lose. The State of Israel has survived up to this point, because we were crystal-clear in identifying the threats to our existence and fairly uncompromising in our response to them.
One imminent threat to Israel's existence is the current war of attrition, which is destroying our economy and concomitantly our continued ability to defend ourselves adequately. Only last week the Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz was complaining that he could not guarantee the safety of the country with his proposed budget for next year. Our response must be uncompromising and unapologetic. We must achieve a decisive victory, quickly. If we do not, then a few million Israelite mothers, fathers, grandparents, and children will face the terrible consequences of our inaction. Those of us left will look back on the Nazi Shoah as "the nice Holocaust."
Time is running out. We have the tools necessary for the job. Will we choose to offend the whole world and live? Or will we choose to continue to lay prostrate, expecting the world?s pity again, as the world "tut-tuts" and watches another million or two of our brethren go up in smoke?
--------------------------------------------------------
Elder of Zion is a senior level executive with a privately held multinational. He is responsible for various operations, including governmental oversight, media manipulation, banking, and global AIDS distribution. In his spare time he occupies contested territories and oppresses innocents; usually peace-loving arab children named 'jihad,' who were just out working on their rock collections.