For your perusal, my latest INTO THE FRAY column:
GENERALS, GIMMICKS AND GOBBLEDYGOOK
(Kindly consider “liking”, sharing, tweeting – please use hash-tag #IntoFray)
Are “Commanders for Israel’s Security” aware of the deadly defects in their ill-conceived program, but persist in promoting it anyway; or they are unaware of them, and are promoting it out of sheer ignorance?
It appears this week on the following sites (in alphabetical order):
ALGEMEINER: https://www.algemeiner.com/2017/01/19/generals-gimmicks-and-gobbledygook/
ISRAELI FRONTLINE: http://www.israelifrontline.com/2017/01/fray-generals-gimmicks-gobbledygook.html
ISRAEL NATIONAL NEWS: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/20068
ISRAEL NEWS ONLINE: https://israelnewsonline.org/into-the-fray-generals-gimmicks-and-gobbledygook/
ISRAEL’S VOICE: http://www.israelsvoice.org/2017/01/20/fray-generals-gimmicks-gobbledygook/
ISRAPUNDIT: http://www.israpundit.org/archives/63620897
MEDIUM: https://medium.com/@martinsherman/into-the-fray-generals-gimmicks-and-gobbledygook-a2cd71bdcb7#.yv5irh1q8
JEWSDOWNUNDER: http://jewsdownunder.com/2017/01/20/fray-generals-gimmicks-gobbledygook/
JEWISH PRESS: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/columns/into-the-fray-martin-sherman/generals-gimmicks-and-gobbledygook/2017/01/22/
An excerpt:
[After Gamal Abdel Nasser’s death] the ability of the Arabs to coordinate their political and military activities has diminished. Even previously this ability was not great – now it is even less. There is no need to call up our forces, even when threats are made and enemy forces are deployed along the [post-1967] cease-fire lines. Before the Six-Day War, every Egyptian troop movement into Sinai compelled Israel to call up reserves on a significant scale. Now, there is no need for such a call-up as long as Israel’s lines of defense are in place along the Suez Canal…Israel’s military strength is sufficient to prevent the opposing side from attaining any military objective and political realities prevailing between the superpowers is not conducive to a renewal of fighting as it was in 1969-1970…Accordingly, Israel has freedom of action to deal effectively in preventing another round of fighting, should Egypt wish to open fire again. – Yitzhak Rabin, “The slow road to peace,” Ma’ariv, July 13, 1973.
This hopelessly erroneous assessment of the prevailing political and security parameters in the Middle East was made by none other than the man who served as Israel Defense Forces chief of staff at the time of the Six-Day War…Significantly, it was made barely two months prior to the outbreak of the traumatic 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Rabin was proven disastrously wrong about everything… The Israeli public would do well to keep this firmly in mind when evaluating the merits of a campaign launched — or, more precisely, re-launched — this week by a group known as “Commanders for Israel’s Security” (CIS), reportedly comprised of around 250 retired security experts from the IDF, Israeli intelligence organizations and police. In a costly media blitz, which included a full page advertisement, in Arabic, in the leading dailies and prominent billboards on major h
ighways, warning ominously of the perils of annexing Judea and Samaria, CIS urged
the Israeli government to:
Undertake immediate measures to “separate” from the Palestinians; unilaterally declare readiness for far-reaching territorial concessions in Judea and Samaria; forego, a priori, any claims to sovereignty beyond the current security barrier…
In an attempt to enlist public trust, CIS highlighted the years of accumulated security experience of its members, suggesting that their past record ensures the unimpeachable validity of their recommendations. There is, of course, little to back up this far-reaching, and somewhat haughty, contention. After all, recent history is replete with instances in which the most senior military officers and security officials have proven themselves to be fatally fallible…
