Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and other Related Conflicts in the Middle East (read the rules in the first post)

Minm

Junior Member
Registered Member
Iran is waiting on the sidelines for now. You know how when Great White sharks attack seals? They take a huge bite out of the hind quarter and wait for the thing to bleed to death first before making another bite because a thrashing seal may end up hurting the shark. It is kinda like that.
Iranian involvement needs to be the deterrent to stop Israel invading Lebanon. If Iran starts attacking Israel now, their oil sales will collapse and they won't achieve much. If they get involved to support Hisbollah against an Israeli attack, they'll have the sympathy of the world rather than being seen as a troublemaker. It's also much easier to send weapons and men to Lebanon and Syria.
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
I think the more simple reason is that Hezbollah is simply doing too much shit, it's not a situation that can continue, even if Israel is unprepared.

By now, there's estimates of at least a few hundreds dead and several dozen tanks destroyed at the hands of Hezbollah. If Israel doesn't respond, their sovereignty will be called into question. I mean, without naming names, just imagine if a certain group inside China started shooting at the PLA and destroyed dozens of tanks, and Beijing just chooses to do nothing.

Rather than similar to the Ukraine war (which would be more similar to a hypothetical US-Iran war), the more accurate comparison would be the Chechnya war, since the Palestinians, like the Chechens, don't have any remotely good heavy weapons.

Similar to that conflict, the goal of the Palestinians is to tire out Israel forces and bring international sympathy to help them. And while Russia is/was very difficult to exhaust due to its unique circumstances, it's imho much more possible to exhaust Israel, in terms of ammo, recruits and economy.

Yes, Hezbollah have been a real thorn in Israel’s side with its constant little jabs, but the solution to that problem surely isn’t to go active thrusting your nose into their fist to try and bruise their knuckles.

This is very similar to the situation Russia finds itself in Ukraine, where NATO ISR are directly involved in Ukrainian kill chains targeting Russian soldiers. That is a blatant hostile act worthy of active self defence against, but do you see the Russians gearing up to open up a bigger can of worms for themselves by looking to open up a second front against NATO directly?

And Israel has been doing far from nothing against Hezbollah. It has been giving as good as it gets and can’t do much more short of invading.

Hezbollah have been inflicting heavy losses on Israel because of its forward deployment stance. If Israel opens up the distance, their losses will massively diminish to a much more sustainable level. That would be the smart play, to minimise their losses in the north and come back and deal with Hezbollah once they are done with Hamas. Not go opening up a second front when you are making a laughing stock of your military. The only way invading Lebanon makes sense is if the objective of that move isn’t military, but political and diplomatic as I outlined before. Otherwise Israel is being led by a bunch of over emotional idiots who are letting their egos make their decisions instead of their brains if they honestly think they can handle a two front war without overwhelming US direct involvement.
 

_killuminati_

Senior Member
Registered Member
The IDF has been fighting like amateurs this entire war so far, infantry huddling in IFVs rather than dismounting to screen their armour, hence all the footage of Hamas RPG teams being able to line up easy shots and even managing to run up and attach munitions directly to Israeli armour.

Even when they do dismount, Israeli infantry clump together behind cover and suffer mass casualty events whenever Hamas manages to get into a flanking position.
Would screening really help in this urban and congested environment with destruction and debris all around? IDF really doesn't know which hole Palestinian fighters will pop out of. I know the field of view will be better if infantry was on foot, but I think they would suffer heavy casualties from RPG's and direct gunfire.

In light of this, Israeli looking to open up a second northern front against Hezbollah would seem like madness at first glance, but there is some reason to this madness if you think about it.
Despite Hezbollah possessing better strength than the Palestinians, the environment at that front is not as difficult as in Gaza. It isn't destroyed concrete jungle with tunnels everywhere.

The biggest wild card is Iran. They have been unusually mute throughout this whole war so far, and I cannot make up my mind on whether that is a sign of weakness or maturity on their part.
Iran gave stern warnings to Israel to not launch a ground invasion of Gaza; Israel launched it anyway but Iran, apparently, did not respond with anything major.
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Iran is waiting on the sidelines for now. You know how when Great White sharks attack seals? They take a huge bite out of the hind quarter and wait for the thing to bleed to death first before making another bite because a thrashing seal may end up hurting the shark. It is kinda like that.

Except Iran hasn’t taken so much as a tiny nibble at Israel yet. It’s just sitting back and waiting.

As I said, I can’t decide if they are being super smart, or if maybe they are starting to get a little scared of starting shit now that things seem to be going their way diplomatically and economically and they actually have something precious and fragile that they could loose if they act rashly.

It’s easy to risk everything when you have nothing much left to loose, it gets harder the more you have to loose.

It would be ironic, but unsurprising indeed if the thing that has managed to get Iran to moderate its behaviour isn’t American threats or Israeli assassins, but a peace deal with Saudi Arabia via China and military exports from Russia. With the prospect of massive economic development on the horizon. Funny how diplomacy actually works if the mediator isn’t utterly biased.
 

_killuminati_

Senior Member
Registered Member
Similar to that conflict, the goal of the Palestinians is to tire out Israel forces and bring international sympathy to help them. And while Russia is/was very difficult to exhaust due to its unique circumstances, it's imho much more possible to exhaust Israel, in terms of ammo, recruits and economy.
With direct US aid flowing in daily, now bypassing Congress, money and ammo doesn't seem to be a major issue. Recruits could be a problem though I don't believe IDF has lost anywhere near 100K soldiers. Maybe 30K tops; is that enough to worry about new recruits? The only major problem I've seen with IDF recruits was of the internal turmoil from earlier this year where the soldiers were refusing to serve due to issues with the government and protests.

As far as I understand, they used optically-guided SRBM, which can hit moving targets anyway. The problem, as is always with ASBMs, is that either you have really fresh&precise targeting data, or it's a miss.
Also, ships are quite slow moving, so optical guidance should be easy. But I am not sure how you can optically guide a ballistic missile travelling at Mach 9.
 

_killuminati_

Senior Member
Registered Member
Except Iran hasn’t taken so much as a tiny nibble at Israel yet. It’s just sitting back and waiting.

As I said, I can’t decide if they are being super smart, or if maybe they are starting to get a little scared of starting shit now that things seem to be going their way diplomatically and economically and they actually have something precious and fragile that they could loose if they act rashly.
Probably a mixture of both. And even if Iran chose to actively participate in the war, I doubt it would use it's conventional military. Rather it would pursue a more clandestine doctrine, the likes of which were employed in Iraq recently, or how Pakistan dealt with NATO in Afghanistan.
 

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Except Iran hasn’t taken so much as a tiny nibble at Israel yet. It’s just sitting back and waiting.

As I said, I can’t decide if they are being super smart, or if maybe they are starting to get a little scared of starting shit now that things seem to be going their way diplomatically and economically and they actually have something precious and fragile that they could loose if they act rashly.

It’s easy to risk everything when you have nothing much left to loose, it gets harder the more you have to loose.

It would be ironic, but unsurprising indeed if the thing that has managed to get Iran to moderate its behaviour isn’t American threats or Israeli assassins, but a peace deal with Saudi Arabia via China and military exports from Russia. With the prospect of massive economic development on the horizon. Funny how diplomacy actually works if the mediator isn’t utterly biased.

Either way it benefits China’s position. It’s almost as if long term geopolitical planning actually pays dividends. So crazy, right?
 

Gloire_bb

Captain
Registered Member
Also, ships are quite slow moving, so optical guidance should be easy. But I am not sure how you can optically guide a ballistic missile travelling at Mach 9.
Iranian smaller ones aren't that fast during terminal guidance. They pay for that with very small detection window (which is probably we saw them miss against simple targets. Small mistake with aim - and splash).
Yes, they're relatively simple because of that(but "good", KISS kind of simple), and still a pain in the ass to deal with.

Chinese, Russian (and soon US) high-speed ASBMs are radar-guided.
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Would screening really help in this urban and congested environment with destruction and debris all around? IDF really doesn't know which hole Palestinian fighters will pop out of. I know the field of view will be better if infantry was on foot, but I think they would suffer heavy casualties from RPG's and direct gunfire.

No offence intended, but you do realise that infantry screening for tanks doesn’t mean infantry forming a meat shield around the tanks right?

The point of dismounted infantry screening tanks is that infantry should be advancing with the tanks, checking every door and window for hostile. Someone pokes an RPG out of a hole, you have 10 times the chance of spotting it before it shoots with your squad dismounted than all crammed inside IFVs replying on just the commander/gunner to spot and engage threats.

And even if an enemy does pop off a shot, your infantry should have a better chance of making them pay a blood price for that shot.

The biggest and most unforgivable amateur mistake the Israelis are making is in forgetting that tanks can’t win and hold ground. How can you be sure the ruined buildings you just drove past isn’t full of Hamas fighters without someone going in and checking?

Urban jungles are possibly the worst places to fight in for an attacker because there is no real zero loss strategy. Israel’s giant strategic blunder was in bombing everything into rubble first and making it even harder for their troops to secure the place.

With a building, at least your troops can breach it, clear it and secure it to deny it to the enemy. Building by building is how you win urban warfare. It’s slow and bloody work, but at least it can be done with enough patience and blood.

But how the hell do you do that with a pile of rubble? A guy with balls of steel can go climb into a pile of rubble and blast you at point blank range with an RPG. Are you prepared to send guys down every rat hole in every pile of rubble? What Israel has done was turn a hard and costly fight into an impossible one for themselves trying to cheat the butchers bill.

Despite Hezbollah possessing better strength than the Palestinians, the environment at that front is not as difficult as in Gaza. It isn't destroyed concrete jungle with tunnels everywhere.

Does fighting Hezbollah mean Israel don’t have to fight Hamas in Gaza anymore? Why start a new fight when you have already bitten off more than you can chew with the fight you are already in?

Iran gave stern warnings to Israel to not launch a ground invasion of Gaza; Israel launched it anyway but Iran, apparently, did not respond with anything major.

That’s my point. So did Hezbollah, who also failed to live up to its threats, and now Israel is openly talking about invading Lebanon.

Show weakness to a bully and you invite attack, that is obvious. What isn’t obvious is whether inviting Israel to attack was the plan all along.
 

_killuminati_

Senior Member
Registered Member
Intending to Attack the West Bank, IDF Soldiers Instead Looked for Protection After Being Hit by an Amir 1 Bomb

Moving IDF jeep struck by Kornet fired by Hamas(?). What was IDF thinking bringing this unarmored vehicle to Gaza?

Al-Qassam sniper factory. Looks like they are making the guns and ammo inhouse.

Armored vehicles of all types and infantry positions hit by RPG. 0:43 shows RPG shot through a very narrow door.

IDF infantry and tanks targeted by RPG. Armored vehicles being towed away. 2:10 shows the level of damage a Yasin RPG can do on a tank.

Houthis attack Norwegian tanker and Panamanian container ship
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