Israel Matzav

In the next war, Hezbullah will invade the Galilee and the US will abandon Israel

Some frightening assessments from the IDF regarding the next war with Hezbullah were made in an article written by Lt. Col. Robi Sandman that assessed the results of the Second Lebanon War. The article won an award from IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi.

The IDF assessment is that Hezbullah had better intelligence and better motivation than the IDF. But what's more frightening is the IDF assessment of the next war.

In the article, Sandman claims the IDF is currently structured in a way that it will not be able to prevent thousands of fighters - from Hizbullah or Syria - from infiltrating deep into Israel.

The next war, he wrote, will likely include Hizbullah sending hundreds of teams comprised of 4-5 fighters each, armed with anti-tank missiles and sniper rifles, into the Galilee.

"We need to recognize that the IDF with its current structure cannot provide a response to the unbelievably well-equipped force that is rising up to destroy the State of Israel," he wrote.

These hundreds of squads will be able to rely on local Israeli-Arab infrastructure in the Galilee, Sandman wrote. He recommended that the IDF immediately establish small, elite reconnaissance squads capable of countering this threat.

Sandman also warned of the possibility that in a future conflict, the United States might not help Israel as it had in the past. During the 2006 war and the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the US airlifted advanced weapons and ammunition to Israel to refresh dwindling stockpiles.

Sandman warned of two main catalysts for a possible lack of support. The first was what he called the decreasing influence the Jewish community had over the US government.

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The second was a possible change in government and subsequent policy that "could leave Israel without an ally."

As a result, Sandman recommended that the IDF ask the US to establish additional warehouses with emergency stockpiles of weaponry in Israel, even "if Israel has to pay for their maintenance."

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His second recommendation was that Israel and the US hold joint training exercises to prepare for the possibility that the IDF will one day be under threat and require American troop support.

"This type of support will be important one day in an emergency, but could also serve as a deterrent for enemies when planning an attack," he wrote.

I hope you all had the Jews of the State of Israel in mind in your prayers yesterday. As if we didn't know it already, it sounds like we need even more hope from God.

By the way, for those who didn't figure it out already, this ties in quite closely with Iran. One of the things that is likely to happen if Israel attacks Iran is that we will be attacked by their proxies, Hezbullah and Hamas.

I guess it takes a lot more than the six months that Netanyahu has been in office to turn around the gross neglect of the IDF that took place during the Olmert government.

By the way, I disagree with the IDF assessment that the US may not support Israel in the future because of "the decreasing influence the Jewish community had over the US government." That's a nice way of avoiding saying the truth: The Jewish community in the US is not nearly as united in its support of Israel as it used to be. And now the likes of J Street are giving it cover to claim it supports Israel when its support is actually weak.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:40 AM