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

Helius said:

You joke, but I reckon people saw the Golda biopic that just came out they all got a little refresher on how the IDF took a severe beating from the Arabs on Yom Kippur because just like now they were wholly unprepared and didn't have enough men.

I'm willing to bet you a buck that's what's on the back of everyone's mind, so now they're making sure nobody would throw this poster at them and ask why they aren't calling in everybody -

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Nailed it, they are mobilising so much because their leaders are still thinking about how to fight ‘yesterday’s war’.

Reservists are just the western approved term for conscripts, especially in Israel’s case.

So many of them will be a liability, not an asset. Especially when you can’t even equip them properly and need to order plates and carriers off AliExpress.

At best they just sit around in barracks or get sent off doing make-work and literally eat up supplies; worst case they get totally underfoot of the professional soldiers and cause a lot of friendly fire incidents and get killed and captured in large quantities by Hamas and Hezbollah once the real fighting starts.

If you look at just how many friendly fire incidents between Israeli armed forces there have already been, imagine how bad it can get with jumping civilians in poor quality kit, crappy comms and bad/no optics doing street fighting in a deeply hostile environment all but blinded due to concrete dust from all the bombings. It will be a total clusterfuck and do further damage to the IDF’s already battered reputation.

plawolf said:

Nailed it, they are mobilising so much because their leaders are still thinking about how to fight ‘yesterday’s war’.

Reservists are just the western approved term for conscripts, especially in Israel’s case.

So many of them will be a liability, not an asset. Especially when you can’t even equip them properly and need to order plates and carriers off AliExpress.

At best they just sit around in barracks or get sent off doing make-work and literally eat up supplies; worst case they get totally underfoot of the professional soldiers and cause a lot of friendly fire incidents and get killed and captured in large quantities by Hamas and Hezbollah once the real fighting starts.

If you look at just how many friendly fire incidents between Israeli armed forces there have already been, imagine how bad it can get with jumping civilians in poor quality kit, crappy comms and bad/no optics doing street fighting in a deeply hostile environment all but blinded due to concrete dust from all the bombings. It will be a total clusterfuck and do further damage to the IDF’s already battered reputation.

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Supplies from the US for transfer are not infinites, they have digged in their reserve already in the past year. A lot of soft equipments have been already given to equip foot soldiers.

Sure that they have stable supply chain in place but probably not to sustain full waged war if their borders start to be messy. Don't know about how deep Israel ammo reserves are, they have been using ammo all years long in the past 10 years picking Palestinian,Syrian but also Hezbollah targets.

Temstar said:

These two aspects are a bit contradictory and it's something that I don't get. Israel is mobilizing an unsustainable percentage of their population. During the Yom Kippur War Israel ran out of war supplies within two weeks and had to be sustained by massive US resupply effort in

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, Soviet did likewise for the Arabs. This time around Israel is mobilizing an even bigger force. Even if at the moment they are not yet moving forward with group operation that many troops being active is eating up supplies at high rate. If this becomes a long war it won't be sustainable unless US again undertake a massive resupply effort. But weather the will and capability is still there after year and half of supplying Ukraine is unknown.

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What if Israel matter justify raising tax for US? I think US still has lots of money, just not used well. Tax is a hard sell but with Israel lobby on media it just might work.

But yes this is a great point. Ultimately it will be up to US to finance this. Every day China make this drag longer, every day US is paying for 1 million troops in combat. This will burn American budget real fast.

tankphobia said:

Historically aiding Palestinian cause by even just accepting refugees have not led to the best outcomes for those countries, namely Jordan and Lebanon suffered greatly from it.

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That's not the reason.

Arab societies are pre-modern politically.The are neither democratic nor nationalistic. There is no concept of "Arab nation" just the Islamic Ummah. When considering Arab politics apply the dynamics of Europe in the Middle Ages during the Crusades - competing feudal vassalage with overarching Catholic ethics plus holy war of Christendom against the infidels.

All Arab populations are structured along tribal hierarchies where tribes and clans compete with each other for power and influence. Modern political and social institutions are like a mask that they adopt for the sake of communicating with western culture. They want to have armies as efficient as modern western states so they adopt a mask but underneath the traditional natural political dynamic subverts everything. "Arabs lose wars" because they wage two wars at the same time, one against external opponent and another within their own ranks. When Arabs were united under Islamic leadership they fought very effectively.

Islam is so prevalent culturally because it is the only political narrative that is socially binding. Without Islam they would immediately revert to local cults which result in permanent tribal war. Islam arose in that vacuum because it provided a unifying element which quickly outcompeted opponents. This is also why there is such attraction to the notions of Caliphate because it provides overarching structure and stability without interfering with traditional tribal culture.

Palestinians are both a foreign tribal element and problematic ideologically because Palestinian cause is secular and nationalistic. So they are rejected by the existing societal tribal structure and they are rejected by religious and political authorities. Nationalism in particular is problematic to any political authority that governs through military dictatorship or religious authority because it replaces both of them.

Egypt was willing to consider Palestinian cause because Nasser was a nationalist and promoted Pan-Arabism as an ideological movement. Nasser died in 1970 and his successor Sadat, who was a military officer, shifted Egypt toward military dictatorship that continues to this day.

Currently Egypt is undergoing a population boom that already exceeds economic growth or environmental capacity of the country. This caused the instability during Arab spring. They physically can't afford to accommodate 2m very young, impoverished and radicalised people who have been influenced by jihadist ideology since birth. Hamas is off-shoot of Muslim Brotherhood which Egypt considers to be a terrorist organisation, along with Hamas because it threatens the military dictatorship.

Jordan and Lebanon are also wrong examples. "Palestinians are troublemakers" is Jewish propaganda.

Jordan had a coup attempt during Black September because Jordan formally annexed West Bank (hence the name) in 1949 and Palestinians considered themselves part of the society so they were trying to remove a leadership that they viewed as collaborating with an occupying force. Also population of Jordan proper in 1952 was 600k so population of WB would be larger in size. Total population for Palestine in 1952 is estimated by UN at 900k. Palestinians were also organised along nationalistic and secular lines while Jordan is a tribal monarchy. Monarchy was backed by US because it secures the most vulnerable border for Israel - hence the special ally status.

Lebanon was unstable throughout its entire history because it is a small, vulnerable, artificial creation with competing socio-political groups that was stabilised by economic growth in the 1950-60 period. Once refugees came in the economic situation worsened and with that the stability was gone.

The entire region is a basket case. Israel is just as politically unstable as all the other countries and is de facto a military dictatorship just with democratic facade. Look at who heads most of main parties - former military or intelligence officers.

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This is useful for gauging escalation risks.



Iran is fortunately out of the equation with clear declaration that Israel must attack Iran first. Iran is ceding all action to its proxies.

Positions 3-5 are Shia militias in Iraq.

Hezbollah however declared entry into war if IDF enters Gaza which makes it almost inevitable as IDF must enter Gaza at some point. They are likely delaying that moment not just because of the need to prepare mobilised reservists but also to prepare for Hezbollah's response.

This explains USN carriers in the theater. IDF doesn't have the capacity to suppress Hezbollah and fight Hamas and Syria at the same time. As IDF mobilises air force took the burden of countering Hamas and Syria so they don't have the numbers e.g. sufficient ground crews to achieve necessary number of sorties to counter Hez missiles.

Hez is no plausible threat to the CSG any more than CSG has a plausible chance to eliminate Hez missile positions before they enact significant damage to Israel.

The scale has 15km division. The darker shade to red marker is approx. 200km and lighter shade is 300km.
Red dots indicate IDF airbases.



Hezbollah is confirmed to have two main SRBMs: Fateh-110 (200 or 300km dependent on variant, 450kg warhead) and Zelzal-2/3 with GPS upgrades (200+ km, 600kg warhead) as well as large numbers of rocket artillery with 50-100km range.

SRBMs can at least disrupt operations of all bases in Tel Aviv region and closer dependent on how effective Israeli air defenses are.

There is definitely intense back-channel communication to achieve restraint. The US seems to be pushing Israel toward solutions which stretch military response over time hence comments on "long war".

Also:

Israeli war cabinet composition

• Prime Minister - Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud)
• Minister of Defense - Yoav Gallant (Likud)
• Minister without portfolio - Benny Gantz (National Unity)
• Minister without portfolio - Gadi Eizenkot (National Unity)
• Minister of Strategic Affairs - Ron Dermer (Likud, ambassador to the US 2013-2021, US-born, moved to Israel in 1996)

The government was approved by Knesset 68/120 for. Gantz and Eizenkot are both generals of IDF.

Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid, 24 seats) refused to join unity government until Religious Zionist Party (Bezalel Smotrich) and Otzma Yehudit (Itamar Ben Gvir) are ejected. So far this hasn't happened probably because Netanyahu still fears prosecution and maintaining the coalition protects him personally.

At the same time Ben Gvir is threatening protests in West Bank due to him being excluded from he cabinet. He controls the newly formed National Security portfolio and a newly formed paramilitary National Guard, augmenting the Police, directly subordinate to him.

TK3600 said:

Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt all have consistent position for once. This is in no small part thanks to China's mediation effort. Nothing like this happened before. This is why I am still optimistic. Israel is under immense pressure right now. You can tell from their disproportional mobilization level. This is why I think negotiation has a somewhat good chance.

When Muslim world stopped fighting each other, they can work together. They all condemned Israel's extreme violence. I am not expecting them to put more action than words. However, as long as they do not back stab each other, that is enough. This is sufficient to put severe anxiety in Israel. What is worse China is putting pressure on them. They are not used to having a superpower working against them, only for them. US and EU just depleted most of their stocks to Ukraine, not much to give. The carriers are pretty cool, but that is not very helpful on the ground. US is in no mood to enter Middle East again.

Even if Israel reject China's offer, it is worth a try. Even if they refuse they know the pressure is there, and will be more cautious in their action. China do not have to enter the war personally, simply working overtime coordinating Muslim nations is making a big difference.

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Israel has to think REALLY REALLY careful what they are going to next and the US has to STRONGLY advise them against going emotional because their situation in the Middle East could go from neutral to horrible in weeks, apart from a three front war in Gaza, Lebanon and in the West Bank, Israel and the US could find themselves in the center of a Middle East uprising, like the guy in the video I posted said, if millions of Muslims go to streets in Egypt, for example, the government would have no other option than to listen or they will face a revolution in the streets themselves.

MarKoz81 said:

Hezbollah is confirmed to have two main SRBMs: Fateh-110 (200 or 300km dependent on variant, 450kg warhead) and Zelzal-2/3 with GPS upgrades (200+ km, 600kg warhead) as well as large numbers of rocket artillery with 50-100km range.

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To have an idea what Hezbollah further has in its arsenal, look no further then last months' military parade in the Yemen capital, minus the long range stuff:

— // Sixth day of the war, October 12th, status update and major events:

– Israeli death toll has surpassed 1300.

– Palestinian death toll is now higher than the Israeli death toll, for the first time since the start of the conflict, at 1600.

– Almost all Hamas activity outside the Gaza strip has been neutralized, except for periodic incursions into Zikkim and Sufa. It looks like we are headed towards the Israeli ground operation soon.

– The Israeli emergency government was officially formed. A cabinet meeting was held regarding the impending invasion of Gaza.

– Sporadic rocket attacks, very small in size compared to previous days.

– Relentless bombing campaign of Gaza continues, no more clean water and electricity at all.

– Iranian Foreign Minister visits Iraq and Lebanon.

– Several false alarms on the Israeli border with Lebanon.

– Iran's 92nd Armored Division is seen moving on the road from Ahvaz to Khorammabad, headed towards the border with Iraq.

All in all, today was a quiet day, especially compared to the past few days.

@Middle_East_Spectator

Two more things:

1.

US attitude to Israel and role of Jews in American politics


GBAO survey 2020 (n=800):

View on settlements in 2020 (2018)
unrestricted construction - 17% (23%)
confined to settled areas - 40% (49%)
suspend all - 42% (27%)

Poll had no option for "dismantle".

Political settlement Israel and Palestine
Israeli annexation of Palestine - 15%
single state, democratic - 13%
two states - 72%

Jerusalem Post, 2016:


"Troy also looked at what he describes as “the disproportionate frenzy surrounding the Jewish vote,” when bearing in mind that Jews comprise just 2 percent of the US electorate. The reason for such intense scrutiny is the outsize contributions of Jewish donors to US political campaigns, with Jewish donors contributing a whopping 50% of funds received by the Democratic Party and 25% to the Republican Party, Troy says. "

So 26% of Jewish population provides 25% of funds to Republican Party, likely with disproportionate share of that from 7,5% i.e. Orthodox. This is extreme commitment. At the same time Democrats are more vulnerable to loss of support as they depend on Jewish donations more and the propaganda apparatus about Israel in US media is tilted in favour of Orthodox/Conservative viewpoints.

US foreign policy toward Middle East is literally a circus. Clown world indeed.

2.

List of lost equipment

Posting this in case losses grow during combat in Gaza and elsewhere:


IDF combat equipment losses:


This is at least one company of tanks and three companies of APCs - an entire mechanized battalion was lost, but probably will be recoverable b/c Hamas likely didn't expect to capture heavy equipment and didn't destroy it properly. Additionally 10 pieces of engineering equipment and 23 other vehicles (trucks/jeeps) were lost.

Hamas so far has lost 31 vehicles and 9 boats.

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Also it is probably worth noting that so far most media outlets report a figure of just 360 thousand reservists being called up, not more as was previously suggested in this thread. Combined with 170k active forces it is still 530k which is more than in any conflict in Israel's history. In comparison Yom Kippur war had slightly over 400k.


"That a major operation is coming is hardly in doubt. Already, near the border, there are massive, overt Israeli troop and tank deployments, and the country has called up 360,000 reservists. But there are tactical arguments over how any operation should start, whether it will begin massively or with raiding parties, how best to coordinate Israel’s overwhelming strength in land, sea and especially air power, said Yaakov Amidror, a retired major general who served as national security adviser to Mr. Netanyahu in an earlier government and has spoken to government officials."

"Some senior officials questioned whether the army is capable of effectively conducting a fierce war against a decently equipped and trained guerrilla movement in a built-up area that is their own, the defense officials said. But a failure to respond effectively to Hamas could create an “existential danger” for Israel, losing its deterrence in the larger Mideast[...]"

Also according to reports in the 6 days of operations IDF air force dropped 6 000 bombs on Gaza. This amount really doesn't seem reasonable and i've seen comments suggesting that IDF is treating it as a psychological operation to convince population of Gaza to vacate targeted areas and to give the impression to the Israeli public that they are responding with overwhelming force proportional to the situation. In other words they're largely displacing anger and wasting ammunition while causing completely unnecessary damage to civilians and infrastructure.

It may be angry hysteria caused by the failure of the first day of fighting or it may be a crude plan. We will know only once ground operations in Gaza strip begin, but that may likely trigger Hezbollah to respond. Interesting days ahead.

MarKoz81 said:

Two more things:

1.

US attitude to Israel and role of Jews in American politics

branch	% Total population (Pew, 2013)	% Republican support (Pew,2020)	% Democratic support (Pew,2020)	% Republican in total Jewish population	% Democratic in total Jewish population	Approval of Trump's policy to. Israel
Orthodox	10	75	20	7,5	2	86%
Conservative	18	28	70	5	12,6	52%
Reform	35	18	80	6,3	28	36%
other	6	-	-	-	-	-
unafilliated	30	22	75	6,6	22,5	26%
non-religious	n/a	19	77	-	-	24%
total				26	71	40%

GBAO survey 2020 (n=800):

View on settlements in 2020 (2018)
unrestricted construction - 17% (23%)
confined to settled areas - 40% (49%)
suspend all - 42% (27%)

Poll had no option for "dismantle".

Political settlement Israel and Palestine
Israeli annexation of Palestine - 15%
single state, democratic - 13%
two states - 72%

Jerusalem Post, 2016:

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"Troy also looked at what he describes as “the disproportionate frenzy surrounding the Jewish vote,” when bearing in mind that Jews comprise just 2 percent of the US electorate. The reason for such intense scrutiny is the outsize contributions of Jewish donors to US political campaigns, with Jewish donors contributing a whopping 50% of funds received by the Democratic Party and 25% to the Republican Party, Troy says. "

So 26% of Jewish population provides 25% of funds to Republican Party, likely with disproportionate share of that from 7,5% i.e. Orthodox. This is extreme commitment. At the same time Democrats are more vulnerable to loss of support as they depend on Jewish donations more and the propaganda apparatus about Israel in US media is tilted in favour of Orthodox/Conservative viewpoints.

US foreign policy toward Middle East is literally a circus. Clown world indeed.

2.

List of lost equipment

Posting this in case losses grow during combat in Gaza and elsewhere:

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IDF combat equipment losses:

type	total	destroyed	captured	damaged
MBT	15	4	10	1
Merkava Mk4M	10	2	7	1
Merkava Mk4B	4	1	3	-
unknown Merkava	1	1	-	-
APC	55	2	52	1
Namer	25	-	24	1
Azcharit	10	-	10	-
M113, M106	14	1	13	-
Nakpadon	1	-	1	-
Nagmachon	1	-	1	-
IMV
Wolf	3	1	2	-
HMMWV	12	-	12	-
David MDT	10	-	10	-

This is at least one company of tanks and three companies of APCs - an entire mechanized battalion was lost, but probably will be recoverable b/c Hamas likely didn't expect to capture heavy equipment and didn't destroy it properly. Additionally 10 pieces of engineering equipment and 23 other vehicles (trucks/jeeps) were lost.

Hamas so far has lost 31 vehicles and 9 boats.

--------

Also it is probably worth noting that so far most media outlets report a figure of just 360 thousand reservists being called up, not more as was previously suggested in this thread. Combined with 170k active forces it is still 530k which is more than in any conflict in Israel's history. In comparison Yom Kippur war had slightly over 400k.

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"That a major operation is coming is hardly in doubt. Already, near the border, there are massive, overt Israeli troop and tank deployments, and the country has called up 360,000 reservists. But there are tactical arguments over how any operation should start, whether it will begin massively or with raiding parties, how best to coordinate Israel’s overwhelming strength in land, sea and especially air power, said Yaakov Amidror, a retired major general who served as national security adviser to Mr. Netanyahu in an earlier government and has spoken to government officials."

"Some senior officials questioned whether the army is capable of effectively conducting a fierce war against a decently equipped and trained guerrilla movement in a built-up area that is their own, the defense officials said. But a failure to respond effectively to Hamas could create an “existential danger” for Israel, losing its deterrence in the larger Mideast[...]"

Also according to reports in the 6 days of operations IDF air force dropped 6 000 bombs on Gaza. This amount really doesn't seem reasonable and i've seen comments suggesting that IDF is treating it as a psychological operation to convince population of Gaza to vacate targeted areas and to give the impression to the Israeli public that they are responding with overwhelming force proportional to the situation. In other words they're largely displacing anger and wasting ammunition while causing completely unnecessary damage to civilians and infrastructure.

It may be angry hysteria caused by the failure of the first day of fighting or it may be a crude plan. We will know only once ground operations in Gaza strip begin, but that may likely trigger Hezbollah to respond. Interesting days ahead.

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Yup a 3 front war is something the IDF must avoid at all costs. Granted, these 3 are considered poorly armed compared to IDF however fighting on 3 fronts significantly reduces the effectiveness. I believe this is also why the US is planning to park one if not 2 CSGs just a few miles away to prosecute tactical assitance in the event that these other fronts open up or if actual state actors get involved but let's all hope it doesn't escalate to that.

Update on one of the kidnapped “Chinese” people:

Israel-Hamas war: mother of kidnapped woman says daughter is Israeli, not Chinese

Liora Argamani says her daughter Noa was born in Israel, not Beijing, as indicated in a previous Israeli embassy social media post
Noa, 26, is believed to be among dozens taken by Hamas militants during weekend assault on Israel

The mother of Noa Argamani, a woman believed to have been taken by Hamas militants during a raid in Israel, who was widely reported as a Chinese-Israeli born in Beijing, said she was in fact an Israeli native.

“ would like to correct this with you, she wasn’t born in Beijing, she was born in Israel,” Liora Argamani said in an interview with the Post on Wednesday.

In a post on Sunday on its official Weibo account, the Israeli embassy in China identified Noa as a Beijing-born Chinese-Israeli woman snatched by “Hamas terrorists”.
China will help citizens leave Israel-Hamas war zone ‘if safety is guaranteed’
10 Oct 2023
[A fireball erupts during Israeli bombardment of Gaza City on Monday. Photo: AFP]

News of Noa’s kidnapping – and her supposed ties to China’s capital – had been widely reported by international and Chinese media.

In response to media enquiries about Noa’s nationality, China’s foreign ministry said on Monday it was “verifying the situation”.

The social media notification had been amended on Thursday evening to remove the place of birth.
Noa, who turned 26 on Thursday, was said to be among the scores of people taken by Hamas militants during a surprise assault on Israel on Saturday that included a raid on an outdoor music festival near Gaza.

The attacks have left three Chinese dead, with two others missing and several injured, according to Wang Wenbin, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman.

“She is not Chinese, she does not have a Chinese passport,” said Argamani, 61, who is known as Li Chunhong in Chinese. She married Noa’s father, Yaacov Argamani, 69, years ago in Israel, where they still live.
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She said Noa had never lived in China and had only visited the country a few times, mostly to her mother’s hometown of Wuhan in central Hubei province.

Argamani said she contacted the Chinese embassy after Noa had been taken on Saturday, and as “a Chinese and a previous Chinese passport holder” she hoped the embassy could help.


“But [my daughter] is not Chinese, and the Chinese embassy has very good reasons to refuse. If it refuses, I will not object,” she said.

In major emergencies such as wars, Chinese embassies are responsible for the safety of Chinese citizens abroad, according to the country’s first consular protection regulation, which just took effect in September.
In some previous situations, Chinese officials have offered to help evacuate citizens of other countries from conflict zones, such as Sudan where armed conflicts had broken out between two rival factions.

Argamani said no one had been able to contact her daughter since she was snatched, and there was no information on her whereabouts.
[A screengrab from a social media video clip shows Noa Argamani as she was taken hostage by Palestinian militants. Photo: Weibo]
A screengrab from a social media video clip shows Noa Argamani as she was taken hostage by Palestinian militants. Photo: Weibo

A video clip of her sitting and drinking a bottle of water has been circulating on social media. The source of the video remained unclear.

“We do not know where it is from, but we feel a bit more at ease in the heart, seeing [that at least] these people can give her some water to drink,” Argamani said.
Noa was among 130 Israelis taken hostage by Hamas, many of whom were elderly and children, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed to the Post on Thursday.
As the conflict intensifies, the death toll has climbed, with more than 2,500 people confirmed dead and thousands more injured, according to figures from authorities on both sides.

Argamani said that as of Wednesday, she had heard nothing from Chinese officials or the Chinese community within Israel.

The Organisation for Assistance to Chinese Businesses in Israel told the Post on Monday that the local Chinese community wanted to help but did not know what it could do.

Argamani said her daughter’s college friends had been staying with her and her husband to offer comfort.

Noa is an engineering student at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in southern Israel. A university spokesman told the Post on Tuesday that it would offer help and emotional support to the family.

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