The following by Prof. Efraim Inbar and Dr. Max Singer is reposted here with permission:
Operation Pillar of Defense:
In Support of a Ground Offensive
by Efraim Inbar and Max Singer
BESA Center Perspectives Paper
November 19, 2012
For nearly a week, Israel has been under attack from terrorist elements in Gaza, primarily Hamas. As the Israeli air force and navy respond with surgical, targeted strikes on Hamas facilities, the government is weighing the possibility of ordering a ground offensive too.
I agree with re-blogged article.
According to this update, PM Netanyahu has rejected the "peace" negotiated by Egypt's Morsi and is now meeting with Secretary Clinton who will apparently pass his conditions along to Morsi who will then see what he can do about Hamas. The longer this continues, the better for Hamas et al.
Israel, with her Iron Dome defense and her air strikes in the Gaza Strip, has done quite well. However, purely defensive measures won't end the problem. Air strikes have worked well to soften up targets, but when terminated will no longer be effective against an enemy to which reinforcements in manpower and weaponry are available. Guarantees from Egypt and even the United States? Worthless unless they put boots on the ground in Gaza and keep them there and active for the foreseeable future; that seems unlikely. Even should they promise to do so, circumstances are likely to change and their promises broken accordingly.
Israel's interests would be poorly served by agreeing to anything likely to amount to a temporary truce so that her enemies can rest and replenish; the longer such a truce lasts, as replenishments continue, the worse for Israel.
It is said that if Israel uses ground forces in Gaza she will thereby forfeit international support. That support is already lukewarm and is likely to be of short duration, at best.
I sincerely hope putting troops on the ground in Gaza won’t be necessary. A lot of good israelis will die. The density population of Gaza and those narrows streets are not well designed for tanks. It will get ugly. In the end the Israelis will do what they have to do. I don’t believe there will ever be peace in that area of the world.
In any case, the IDF seems to be incapable of “surgical airstrikes”, witness the horrible 1969 IDF attack on the USS Liberty, which killed 34 US sailors, and which has never even been acknowledged by Israel. And then there’s the 2010 “surgical airstrike” on the Freedom Flotilla which resulted in 10 dead, inspite of NO weapons in the flotilla. Ironically, one of the people on the flotilla was a survivor of the 1969 USS Liberty attack.
Would you call the death of Rachel Correy “a surgical bulldozer attack”?
“…surgical, targeted strikes on Hamas facilities…” makes my daughter, the Doctor, laugh. “That writer has never been in an operating room” she snorts. I haven’t either, but apparently blood flies in all directions. It’s not TV folks.
But the myth of “surgical air strikes” continues, in spite of plentiful evidence of the high rates of collateral damage that result.
Again, what does “Israel aggregation” refer to?
What is “Israel aggregation”?