The necessary fixes the IDF needs for the long wars of the coming decade - opinion

• Published date: 28 April 2024
• Author: DAVID M. WEINBERG
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The IDF chief of staff at the time was Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz

According to Amir Rapaport, publisher and editor of the military industry-leading Israel Defense magazine, Gantz accepted the relative weakness of the maneuvering capabilities of the ground forces as a given. He did not think that the IDF would need to fight conventional army forces in the foreseeable future, nor have to conduct large-scale ground maneuvers in enemy territory.

Obviously, Gantz and his predecessors and successors (Shaul Mofaz, Dan Halutz, Moshe Yaalon, Gabi Ashkenazi, Gadi Eisenkot, and Aviv Kohavi) – all of whom were party to this grand conceptual error to one degree or another – were dead wrong. It is today quite clear that Israel will likely fight several wars in enemy-held territory over the coming decade.

Responding to Gantz's mistaken plan in 2013, Dr. Eitan Shamir and Dr. Eado Hecht of the BESA Center warned that "Neglect of the IDF's ground forces poses a risk to Israel's security. There are real battles ahead against well-entrenched Hamas and Hezbollah armies." But back then nobody was listening.

Today it is clear that the IDF needs to knock back the Iranian proxy armies and jihadist militias camped on our borders. It needs to go house-by-house and tunnel-by-tunnel to ferret out and eliminate terrorist cells in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. It may need to "decommission" Iran's nuclear enrichment and bomb-making facilities.

Consider the situation in Lebanon. To rout Hezbollah and destroy its missile stockpiles in the coming war, Israel will have to reconquer southern Lebanon. Even with the Israel Air Force working intensively from above (including massive leveling of Lebanese infrastructures), Israel could be facing months of real and unrelenting ground combat in the deep valleys and steep mountains of Lebanon where Hezbollah is well dug in.

(The Iranian-built and -funded terror army sits on a tunnel and bunker array that reportedly makes the Hamas military infrastructure in Gaza seem like child's play.)

Given America's stampeding retreat from overseas commitments, the creeping repeal of an American protective diplomatic umbrella for Israel by presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and the newest restrictions on use of US weaponry – Israel may be fighting truly alone.

UNDERSTANDING THIS is particularly relevant as Israel prepares to replace its military and intelligence leadership.

Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Aharon Haliva has just resigned for his role in the...