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With the UN calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip an article written by Gary Brecher and first published in 2012 by NSFWCORP (now part of Pando), lessons from Gaza - suggesting that Palestinian durability may beat Israel's high-tech weaponry, remains remarkably relevant today.
What's going on in Gaza is war, but not the kind any commander from the past would understand. On paper, Israel should be winning easily, because they've got the weapons, the numbers, the organization. The weapons Hamas is firing into Israel are primitive things, unguided rocket artillery, the kind that couldn't hit the ground if it wasn't for the law of gravity. On the other side, the Israelis get the best weaponry the US can give them.
But it's not that simple. Israel may win this battle, but it's lost the war already. You see that in the confusion the IDF shows about what to do. They've tried stomping hard on Gaza. In late 2008 through early 2009, "Operation Cast Lead" sent IDF troops and planes smashing into this tiny overpopulated slum. They killed 1400 Palestinians, and it didn't do much but make everybody sick to their stomachs - including even some Israelis, once they got over their initial gloating.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fnj on Monday July 14 2014, @12:08AM
Yeah, I don't have any questions, but I have some corrections.
The NLF guerillas (loosely and incorrectly referred to as VietCong colloquially) didn't have any advanced heavy weapons such as tanks and planes, but they had a vast profusion of perfectly effective light weapons, a scourge of RPGs, and plenty of mortars and all but the heaviest artillery.
North Vietnam, co-involved in the war, had plenty, notably an array of AA weapons which the Third Reich would have been proud of, heavy artillery, rocket launchers, MiG-15,17,19,&21 jets, helicopters, light, medium and heavy tanks, self-propelled guns. Some of their units and weapons crept into the ground war in the south, and are what kept things going after Tet. Far from "nothing", their Air Force contested their airspace to the end, winning approximate parity in air-to-air kills even as they had to build it from nothing.
The NLF, as an effective force, was WIPED OUT by Tet, when they committed effective mass suicide. Yeah, they gave a DAMN good account of themselves, but they had no mystical way to deny their own destruction; the forces arrayed against them were too much. The US chose to prosecute North Vietnam to a negotiating table, at which they won a satisfactory draw and walked away eagerly.
North Vietnam then took three years to build up and cynically launched an all out conventional attack on the south led by tanks, which the US did not choose to resist.
You want to view that as "the peasants won", I can't stop you.