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2009-01-28 Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Top IDF reserve officer: Israel passed up 'historic opportunity' to wipe out Hamas
A high-ranking officer who served in a key role in the Israel Defense Forces' Southern Command during the IDF operation in the Gaza Strip has said that Israel missed an opportunity to defeat Hamas.

Brig. Gen. Zvi Fogel, who served as Southern Command artillery commander during the Gaza campaign told Haaretz Tuesday that he thought Israel had "lost a historic opportunity to defeat Hamas" when it decided not to broaden the offensive in the Gaza Strip. He also noted that a forceful response is essential in reaction to Tuesday's killing of an IDF tracker, explaining that absent such a response, the IDF will lose the deterrence factor that it established in the Cast Lead military campaign.

Fogel added that, "between the second weekend of the operation on January 10 and the inauguration of U.S. President Obama on the 20th, we had enough military personnel to broaden the offensive and to make additional significant gains. We were close to defeating Hamas."

Fogel said that Hamas had built a defensive network that employed tons of explosives, but in many places, Hamas was surprised at the direction from which the IDF approached. At the same time, Hamas didn't manage to inflict the kind of losses among Israeli forces that it had hoped. "This created tremendous frustration among Hamas," he said, "and that was when we should have expanded our operation. We were on the move and they were at the breaking point."

Fogel also said he regretted that Israel had not more forcefully hit the tunnels that Hamas has used to smuggle weapons from Egypt to Gaza. He estimates that a quarter to 50 percent of the tunnels were hit, but said that if the IDF had caused greater damage, Hamas' weapons program could have been set back by years instead of months.

Fogel's views are shared by other senior officers in the Southern Command and also among the commanders who fought on the ground in Gaza.

Unlike the others, however, he is a reserve soldier, and is therefore allowed to express his personal opinions. On the other hand, many on the IDF General Staff disagree with Fogel's point of view. The opposition of both the defense minister and the IDF chief of staff to an expansion of the military campaign influenced the cabinet in its decision to halt the operation.

Brig. Gen. Fogel returned to active service with the Southern Command a year and a half ago, in order to help develop the IDF's plan of attack in Gaza, along with GOC Southern Command Maj. Gen. Yoav Gallant and the commander at the time of the IDF Gaza Division, Brig. Gen. Moshe Tamir. Fogel noted that the work of the top brass in the Southern Command during the fighting was "exemplary."
Posted by tu3031 2009-01-28 09:52|| || Front Page|| [11139 views ]  Top

#1 "Now, war is too important to be left to the politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought."
Posted by Col. Jack Ripper 2009-01-28 10:42||   2009-01-28 10:42|| Front Page Top

#2 I think the operation was at the point that the IDF couldn't do any more damage to Hamas without inflicting huge numbers of civilian casualties. While that is Ok with Rantburgers, the rest of the world might actually take action against Israel.
Hamas was hurt, most of the equipment was destroyed and most objectives were accomplished. Hamas had gone to ground by that time and the ones that were left were dispersed in civilian areas dressed as civilians.
Not much else the IDF could do without leveling Gaza.
Politically, I think they called it off at the right time with the note that ANY rocket or mortar fired from Gaza will bring immediate pain. The added threats to Syria were a nice touch. The Arabs have been put on notice that Israel is done playing tit-for-tat and being a punching bag. They are ready to do the punching now.
Posted by DarthVader 2009-01-28 10:47||   2009-01-28 10:47|| Front Page Top

#3 I think that destroying the remaining tunnels would have been useful, relatively easy, and doable without large-scale civilian collateral damage.
Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2009-01-28 11:35||   2009-01-28 11:35|| Front Page Top

#4 Inflicting huge numbers of civilian casualties is NOT ok with this Rantburger.

But let's be clear: when a civilian population actively aids, abets and supports their fighters, then they suffer along with their fighters. The people of Gaza overwhelmingly support Hamas. They elected Hamas to be their leaders, they provide men, money and sustenance to their military, they allow their land and buildings, even expressly civilian buildings like schools and hospitals, to be used by Hamas for military purposes, and they stand by Hamas even after Hamas has been flattened.

Well fine. As an American I'd stand by my military if it got whacked in a war.

But I'd also expect our enemy to have a less than completely charitable view of my conduct in that regard.

I don't support expressly targeting civilians. But Hamas and the Gazans want to be a country and to be recognized as such by the rest of the world. They've complained that the world won't recognize the election of Hamas, etc. Fine -- you want the rights and privileges of being a country, you get the responsibilities that go with it.

And one of those responsibilities is, you share in the pain and misery that your government and military create.

Hamas gunnies and hard boyz challenged the Israelis. They fired mortars and rockets at expressly civilian targets in Israel (world opinion, please note, didn't much care). They drew a line in the sand and the Israelis stepped across and whacked them. That's what happens when a government and a military start a war, and then lose it.

The world didn't much care about German civilians on May 8, 1945. The message was simple then: start a war, live with the consequences.

The Israelis, to their great credit, took substantial measures to avoid killing civilians. But the Arab world is indeed on notice: start a war, live with the consequences. And next time, that might include a lot less care to avoid civilian casualties. I'm not sure the Gazans got the message. It's hard for me to care.
Posted by Steve White 2009-01-28 11:41||   2009-01-28 11:41|| Front Page Top

#5 Might be more to the IDF strategy than meets the eye. IED's and things of that nature need a degree of attention when by-passed or while not in use.
Posted by Besoeker 2009-01-28 12:17||   2009-01-28 12:17|| Front Page Top

#6 Let's remember a few dispositions of the Geneva convention:

1) Reciprocity: If you target enemey's civilians (eg Coventry, Sderot) your own civilians become a target. And there is no such thing as reuirement of proportionality: if it had been applied and given that in 1944 Germany was unable to do more than very small scales bombings on the United Kingdom and none on America it would have been impossible to bomb it and soften it before D-DAY.


Second: Nobody told that you have to smile and to allow the enemy to shoot you at leisure (and still less give him time for killing your civilians) becuase he is hiding behind his own civilians. What the Genava Conventions say is that you are allowed to say "Sorry", use all your might and after the combat sort civilians from bad guys, heal the former and shoot the later. These makes war crimes not pay and goes a long way for reducing their number.

3) You are a civilian as long as you try to stay away from combat. If you shoot (obvious), act as an oberver for artillery or air strikes, spy or purposefully stay in the area in order to restrict the enemy from using its full firepower you are no longer entitled to the protection given to civilians.
Posted by JFM">JFM  2009-01-28 12:26||   2009-01-28 12:26|| Front Page Top

#7 Same game, same rules, different ballpark.


Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2009-01-28 12:40||   2009-01-28 12:40|| Front Page Top

#8 steve it's alright with the majority of the rest of us because the civivlians are the ones who elected them into power and knew what their objectives where in the first place so that pretty much puts the in the same thought process or have the same agenda as Hamas does. tough shit they wanted it they got it
Posted by rabid whitetail 2009-01-28 12:45||   2009-01-28 12:45|| Front Page Top

#9 The civilians are actively supporting, supplying and helping Hamas kill innocent Israelis. Therefore, they are targets as well and terrorists. That is more of what I was referring to as civilians being OK. Destroying the city of Cairo because they root for the other side, not OK.
The "civilians" of Gaza ceased to become non-combatants the day they elected Hamas and helped support them kill Israelis.
Posted by DarthVader 2009-01-28 13:01||   2009-01-28 13:01|| Front Page Top

#10 I keep hearing that logistics is the most important factor in military success. Gazans are demonstrably the logistics arm of Hamas and therefore should be legitimate targets.
Posted by AlanC 2009-01-28 13:20||   2009-01-28 13:20|| Front Page Top

#11 Also, the IDF got the opportunity to plant lots and lots of spies in the strip to pinpoint targets for the inevitable rematch.
Posted by mojo 2009-01-28 14:22||   2009-01-28 14:22|| Front Page Top

#12 Another one who doesn't get the point---you can eliminate Hamas without a much broader elimination.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2009-01-28 14:33||   2009-01-28 14:33|| Front Page Top

#13 Meh, so stop killing the civilians.
Start dehousing them.
Posted by .5MT 2009-01-28 18:37|| www.cybernations.net]">[www.cybernations.net]  2009-01-28 18:37|| Front Page Top

#14 ISRAEL FORUM > EGYPTIAN FM: HIZBOLLAH, HAMAS AND IRAN COOPERATE TO PROVOKE CONFLICT.

* OTOH, ISRAELI MIL FORUM > FORUM POLL asks Posters whether the BORDERS OF ISRAEL + NEIGHBORING ARAB/MUSLIM NATIONS [including for Paleos] SHOULD BE RENEGOTIATED = RE-DRAWN???
Posted by JosephMendiola 2009-01-28 19:49||   2009-01-28 19:49|| Front Page Top

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