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Lessons from Gaza: High-tech Military Power Less than it Seems

posted by azrael on Sunday July 13 2014, @09:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the can-only-get-worse dept.

AnonTechie writes:

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.

 
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  • (Score: 1) by arslan on Monday July 14 2014, @02:38AM

    by arslan (3462) on Monday July 14 2014, @02:38AM (#68743)

    If this was the Nazis or Imperial Japan, they would have long occupied the place and wiped the floor with every man, woman and baby. This is not about their high tech military might not capable, its more than capable. Its the people and politics that is holding it back, and thank goodness so, otherwise the slaughter/genocide would happened long ago.

  • (Score: 2) by redneckmother on Monday July 14 2014, @03:55AM

    by redneckmother (3597) on Monday July 14 2014, @03:55AM (#68761)

    If my historical sources serve correctly, they would preserve the child-bearing-age women, and repopulate the conquered areas with more "docile" subjects.

    --
    Mas cerveza por favor.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 14 2014, @07:52AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 14 2014, @07:52AM (#68805)

    If this was the Nazis or Imperial Japan, they would have long occupied the place and wiped the floor with every man, woman and baby.

    Surely that's the reason why absolutely all people in half Europe is german, and all the population in Manchuria is japanese.

    Don't be silly.

  • (Score: 2) by tathra on Monday July 14 2014, @10:33PM

    by tathra (3367) on Monday July 14 2014, @10:33PM (#69095)

    ...they would have long occupied the place and wiped the floor with every man, woman and baby.

    according to the bible, thats what they're supposed to do. the only thing keeping them from doing it might be that they know they'd lose all their international support if they did what their god tells them to do:

    But as for the towns of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. You shall annihilate them--the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites--just as the Lord your God has commanded, so that they may not teach you to do all the abhorrent things that they do for their gods, and you thus sin against the Lord your God - Deuteronomy 20:16-18

    ironically, jews and muslims worship the same god, so they'd be killing them to prevent them from "teach[ing] ... all the abhorrent things that they do for [Yahweh]". naturally the commands from their god to commit genocide shouldnt apply to followers of other abrahamic religions, but you try telling somebody that their understanding of their religion is flawed; its usually not pretty.