Gaza,  Israel/Palestine

Israel’s Strategic Failure In The War Against Hamas

By Anglophobe

Note : Anglophobe offers a summary of  a critical account of Israel’s military strategy over the past 15 months written by a former  Labour Party Government Minister

 

In an article in Ma’ariv, one of the three main Israeli daily newspapers, former Israeli Minister Chaim Ramon analyses the actions and policies of those he says are responsible for the resounding strategic failure of the war against Hamas, and denounces most of the reporters and commentators in the mainstream media who have abandoned every vestige of journalistic ethics and have become fanatical anti-Bibi propagandists. They allege that Netanyahu is solely responsible for the failure, because he “refused and refused” to introduce a PA force or international forces into the Strip to replace the Hamas government, and “actively banned discussions on the issue of the day after.” In response Ramon states that Chief of Staff Halevy and Defense Minister Gallant bear central responsibility for the strategic defeat in the war against Hamas.

“The army begged for a clear strategic objective. It didn’t get it.” Netanyahu’s critics allege.

But the truth is that the government set a clear and compelling primary strategic objective – topple Hamas’ civilian government and eliminate its military capability (and it’s a great shame that since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2007, no government has set such a war objective). They claim that the war plan was not presented to the cabinet but was “agreed upon in the war cabinet.” Only someone who has no idea what the decision-making process is on military matters could make such a claim. The government and cabinet do not have their own military headquarters that can draw up war plans for them. The General Staff is in charge of planning operational plans to achieve the goals set by the government, and then it must present them for government approval. Moreover, as someone who has served in quite a few cabinets, Ramon attests that the vast majority of the operational plans that the General Staff presented to the cabinet were accepted as such, as seen and heard. After the 7th October it became clear that the General Staff did not have an operational plan at all for a large-scale ground maneuver in the Gaza Strip. In other words, the General Staff did not even think of making a plan for a comprehensive war against Israel’s most aggressive enemy. As a result, the war plan, which was supposed to be prepared for years and on the basis of which the forces should have been trained, was hastily prepared by the General Staff in the days after the massacre, and no alternative plan to the one that was formulated was presented to the political echelon.

Halevy formulated a combat strategy of “entry and exit,” in which the IDF would occupy an area, defeat the Hamas forces there, and then withdraw. However, after the army left an area in which a victory had been achieved, Hamas would immediately return there and reestablish its military power and civilian control over that area. As a result, the IDF was forced to fight again and again, and pay a heavy price in blood, in areas where it had already achieved victory in the past. Even when it was clear that this was a failed strategy, Halevy and Gallant insisted on continuing with it. Halevy and Gallant’s war plan effectively guaranteed that the IDF would not be able to defeat Hamas (in this context, it is important to note that the soldiers in the field, up to the rank of Brigadier General, demonstrated their supreme heroism and inflicted significant tactical damage on Hamas). Even the American Chief of Staff Charles Brown and retired General David Petraeus publicly criticized Israel’s war plan. Netanyahu’s critics focused most of their criticism on the fact that Netanyahu did not advance a political plan for “the day after” and refused to bring “other forces into the Strip, or Fatah from within the Strip.” This is a delusional claim, but because Gallant and Halevy pump it out over and over again through their media spokespeople, it is important to refute it once and for all. Gallant was intensely engaged in replacing Hamas’ civilian government and finding a distribution mechanism for humanitarian aid that would not be under Hamas control. Unfortunately, Gallant and Halevy opposed the full occupation of the Strip and the establishment of a temporary military government that would deal with providing the population’s essential needs (even though this is the only viable way to defeat military Hamas, topple civilian Hamas, and to remove humanitarian aid from Hamas). Instead, Gallant promoted a number of illusory “day-after” plans that had no chance of succeeding from the start: creating an alternative leadership “headed by local elements who are not hostile to Israel” (mid-December); entrusting governmental responsibility to the “existing administrative apparatus in the Gaza Strip” (early January); a “Northern Gaza pilot” in the Zeitoun neighborhood, based on Gazan merchants who would be the “new centers of power” and who would be protected by local “armed men,” i.e. members of armed gangs (early February); The introduction of a multinational force into the Strip, consisting of armed elements from three Arab countries in the region (end of March); the division of the Strip into “humanitarian bubbles” within which Palestinian elements not affiliated with Hamas will be given responsibility for distributing humanitarian aid in specific neighborhoods and will be armed with small arms so that they can stand up to Hamas (mid-May).

Gallant’s various plans had two common characteristics: they were all completely disconnected from reality and all of them failed miserably. The anti-Netanyahu critics try to excuse the failure of Gallant’s fantastical plans with the false excuse that “the one who thwarted (Gallant’s) pilots… was Netanyahu.” But what thwarted Gallant’s pilots was their encounter with reality. In fact, Netanyahu gave Gallant a free hand to advance most of his plans and expressed support for them. Although the Prime Minister strongly opposed the transfer of PA forces to the Strip, it is important to remember that Halevy and Gallant never proposed it. In any case, Netanyahu was not the one who thwarted the plans that Gallant promoted. Indeed, the pilot was carried out and Gazan merchants in the northern Gaza Strip received humanitarian aid directly through Israel in order to bypass Hamas. The “day after” narrative that Gallant and Levy have been spreading over the past year to excuse their failure has always been nothing but deception, because it is not possible to transfer power in the Gaza Strip to an external or internal force, before a military defeat of Hamas. And since Halevy and Gallant’s war plan from the start did not strive for a quick defeat of Hamas and in fact did not strive for a decisive victory at all, any other force, internal or external, that Israel could have used to control the Gaza Strip, would have been eliminated by Hamas. This is not an estimate. This has already happened in practice, and more than once.

For example, one of the fanciful plans that Gallant promoted, with Halevy’s support, was to transfer civilian control of the Strip to clans like Dormush and Abu Amra. This attempt ended with Hamas beheading the leaders of these clans because they had conducted secret negotiations with Israel, and as a result, all the clan heads swore allegiance to Hamas. In contrast, Gallant and Halevy’s “North Gaza” pilot was a resounding success – for Hamas. The Gazan merchants to whom Gallant and Halevy transferred the goods paid a 20% tax to Hamas (the terrorist organization earned half a billion dollars from the sale of humanitarian aid to the Gazans). These funds were used by the terrorist organization to preserve its civilian rule and to recruit new terrorists to its ranks. As a consequence, the IDF stopped Galant’s merchant pilot. The end result of all these failures by Gallant and Halevy and Netanyahu, the current situation in the Gaza Strip, is that Hamas has two functioning brigades (with about 8,000 skilled fighters), another 10,000 additional militants (some from the Gaza Strip and clans), and thousands more recruits. And Hamas has full civilian control. Incidentally, Hamas’s recruitment rate is higher than the rate at which the IDF is eliminating its terrorists. Netanyahu’s critics claim that establishing mechanisms to oversee food distribution, as Ramon proposes, requires a full occupation of the Strip, which would require a huge deployment of forces, house-to-house takeover, and dealing with guerrilla warfare on a scale far removed from anything Israel has faced in the past. But if they believe that the IDF would have such difficulty replacing the Hamas regime, how can they simultaneously believe in the fantasy that there is a PA force, a local Fatah force, or an international force capable of replacing the Hamas regime? Throughout the past year, Ramon has advocated that Israel should retain security control in the Strip for years to come, but transfer civilian control to the PA (after it undergoes reform) in the near future, which will work in close coordination with friendly Arab countries. But before civilian control can be transferred to another entity, there must be an interim period in which the IDF completes the elimination of Hamas’ military force and removes Hamas’s grip on civilian rule and the distribution of humanitarian aid.

The claim is that “if it were up to (the General Staff)… they would have gone for a deal in May and turned north.”

But what would a deal in May have meant? Hamas would now control the entire Strip, including the Rafah Crossing and the Philadelphi Corridor, Hamas forces would be in much better shape, and Yahya Sinwar and Muhammad Deif would still be alive; Hezbollah forces would be deployed in full force along the border with Israel; Hassan Nasrallah would not have been eliminated, nor all the other Hezbollah leaders; the Syrian army’s weapons and strategic installations would not have been destroyed; Iran’s air defense system would not have been critically damaged, and Iranian influence in the region would have remained stronger than ever. In May, Ramon strongly opposed the phased hostage deal, which is the worst of all worlds. He called for a one-stage deal, because Hamas would only release about 20 hostages alive in the first phase, and all the other hostages would have become Gilad Shalit or Ron Arad. There was then zero chance that the terrorist organization would fulfill the second phase of the deal (at that time few held this position).

Now, after Hamas’s power has been eroded, its leadership has been eliminated, and its allies have been severely damaged, the chance that Hamas will fulfill the conditions of the second phase of the deal is still low, but no longer zero. Since we are facing a complete strategic defeat, and since there is no hope in continuing the war, it must be stopped and the hostages returned, a move that has enormous social value.