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Subject: Rockets in the night
battar    10/30/2007 2:56:59 PM
Can someone explain the tactical objective in firing rockets over the border from the Gaza strip, and how this objective is meant to be achieved? I suspect that the idea is not so much to attack Israel as to make a political statement at to thier own people. Since there is a warning system which alerts citizens when rockets are fired, logic whould suggest that firing them at ungodly hours in the middle of the night would increase the nuisance value. The British did that in WW2 - in the last year of the war, they would send one or two Mosquito light bombers every night to drop a bomb or two on Berlin - the idea was not so much to create destruction as to make the air raid sirens go off and not let anyone get any sleep. I'm not trying to give the Palestinians ideas, but understanding my wife seems easier than understanding the logic of Gaza.
 
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Herald1234    What's too understand?   10/30/2007 5:10:58 PM
I'm too incompetent to blame myself for my own problems. I know! I'll blame the Israelis. I'll fire rockets at the Israelis instead of using the money I extort from the bleeding heart socialists, by playing the victim card instead of building hospitals, providing good government, educating my young properly to take responsibbility for their own future in their own hands. When the Israelis react in self defense, I'll blame them for causing me to fire rockets at them in the first place, because by simply living and trying to go about their own business, they mock me in my own existential ineptitude.
 
BANDIT thinking. That is HAMAS' thinking.
 
You don't try to understand bandits. You KILL them.
 
Herald 
 
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Shirrush    No sweat!   10/30/2007 5:20:57 PM
You don't really have to understand Mrs. Battar every time, all the time. Just apologize profusely for being who you are, and keep feeding her compliments in a timely manner. Expensive jewelry helps too, and not getting caught screwing around is a must. And don't forget the flowers on Friday...

As to understanding the Palestinian lofted-trajectory terrorism, it's not really that hard. It's called the "moqawama strategy", and here you have it explained in a most articulate fashion, to his useful idiots, by a true enemy, 'Azmi Bsharra (may his name be erased, of course!).
The real problem is not understanding how it works, but finding a a way to defeat it without losing our souls in the process. IMO, since their goal is to erode our social cohesion, we'd better start with strengthening that, and that means first of all getting rid of Olmert, the Bibi, and all the klepto-Thatcherite gang. Then, we'll have to find a way to exert the ruthlessness that's necessary to make the price of the Moslem's little game unacceptable, while obviously avoiding to "serb out" at them. Difficult, but not impossible.

 
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Herald1234    You have got to be kidding?   10/30/2007 5:44:01 PM
That incoherent logical nonsense was articulate?
 
The delusions from which that knucklehead proceeds make no sense. Even from a limited liberation ideology military viewpoint his premises are nonsense. Popular struggle? Agianst what? Colonialist settlers? Israel isn't going anywhere. He thinks by social dislocation he will sap Israeli will and fragment the Israeli polity and supplant it with his own?
 
Obviously he's never heard of the escalation ladder and "Never again". At some point the pain threshhold will be reached and the attacked Israeli polity will quite violently react.
 
That will not be a good thing. It isn't a question of the Israeli soul then. It becomes Israeli survival. You don't ever want to push a people who faced extinction once and battled back from it, that far again, ever. Israelis justifiably believe they have nothing to lose when so pressed, and will do whatever is necessary.
 
And  under those circumstances, I wouldn't blame Israel at all. 
 
Herald
 
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Shirrush       10/30/2007 6:05:05 PM
Read it again, Herald.
I have clearly stated that this piece is written on behalf of the useful idiots on the Left, and as such it comes coated with the usual Marxist mumbo-jumbo, which you can easily skip to get to the point, which is:

What do we mean by moqawama? We mean that the occupation must pay a price, to the extent that it is incapable of withstanding it morally, materially, emotionally, politically, economically and socially.

The goal of moqawama is not to defeat the occupation militarily. The goal of resistance is not to defeat the occupation in a decisive battle, nor for that matter to pull the occupation into a decisive battle. The goal of resistance is to make the occupation pay the price of its occupation in conditions that those under occupation are capable of withstanding, but taking the continuation of the struggle into consideration at the same time...

The Palestinian people have already proven that they are capable of making their enemy pay a steep price. I say to you that the Israelis have paid a high price.

And don?t let cynical people say that the [Palestinian] military operations do not have any influence. On the contrary--they do. Israel, as any other state that respects itself, has the primary task of preserving the security of its citizens. That is the justification for its existence as a state that monopolizes the means of violence. If it is unable to do that, it has an elementary problem.

But this is not sufficient for strategic accounting. The real question is how does [Israel?s inability to provide security to its citizens] translate politically? What is the political effect of this upon the enemy? Does it lead to a decisive battle where someone?s back will be broken?...

...The goal of the national liberation movement must be to splinter the occupiers? society in order to decrease its capacity to withstand the price being paid.

Anything unclear here as soon as you have translated "occupation" into "the existence of Israel"? From my standpoint, I can see the enemy strategy is working, in combination of course with a number of other societal factors and a clear absence of leadership, and the Israeli society is indeed breaking apart. The Bsharra creep is right on noticing Israel's inability to defend its citizens. Sderot's seven years under fire are emblematic in this regard.

 
 
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Herald1234    ??????????????????   10/30/2007 6:33:23 PM
Kill HAMAS where you find them.
 
Use the escalation ladder and dislocate the enemy polity.
 
Pain for a pain. Eye for an eye. The Palestinians understand when you turn their own knife back upon them. Do it to them as they did unto you, but do it without any subtlety. The Palestinian mind is sometimes so subtle that it is absolutely obtuse. You have to beat them over the head with the obvious. Put them in the dark and cut off their sewage service for starters and point out that it is HAMAS who is responsible for making you do it. That makes no sense from our point of view, but it is THEIR logic, so use it against them.   
 
Seperate the Palestinian people from the Palestinian terrorists. As Dennis Mahan the 19th Century American military theoretician, father of Alfred Thayer Mahan said:
 
"Get inside your enemy's mind and impose your will upon the way he thinks. Once he thinks the way you want him to think, his defeat is assured."
 
Once the Palestinian people associate HAMAS [and al Fatah] actions as the cause of their decaying situation, then they will finally blame the correct people for their problems.Wrong reasons for it, but correct outcomes; and what do we care about how they are forced to reach the correct conclusions, as long as we get what we want? 
 
Herald   
 
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jastayme3       10/30/2007 9:23:00 PM

Can someone explain the tactical objective in firing rockets over the border from the Gaza strip, and how this objective is meant to be achieved? I suspect that the idea is not so much to attack Israel as to make a political statement at to thier own people.
Since there is a warning system which alerts citizens when rockets are fired, logic whould suggest that firing them at ungodly hours in the middle of the night would increase the nuisance value.
The British did that in WW2 - in the last year of the war, they would send one or two Mosquito light bombers every night to drop a bomb or two on Berlin - the idea was not so much to create destruction as to make the air raid sirens go off and not let anyone get any sleep.
I'm not trying to give the Palestinians ideas, but understanding my wife seems easier than understanding the logic of Gaza.
The Raison de Etre(I hate spelling French words but that's all right) of the PA is the destruction of Israel. If a long period of time goes by without something that can be interpreted as war happening, then Israel has been tacitly recognized and the PA loses it's reason for ruling.


 
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jastayme3       10/30/2007 9:36:50 PM



Can someone explain the tactical objective in firing rockets over the border from the Gaza strip, and how this objective is meant to be achieved? I suspect that the idea is not so much to attack Israel as to make a political statement at to thier own people.

Since there is a warning system which alerts citizens when rockets are fired, logic whould suggest that firing them at ungodly hours in the middle of the night would increase the nuisance value.

The British did that in WW2 - in the last year of the war, they would send one or two Mosquito light bombers every night to drop a bomb or two on Berlin - the idea was not so much to create destruction as to make the air raid sirens go off and not let anyone get any sleep.

I'm not trying to give the Palestinians ideas, but understanding my wife seems easier than understanding the logic of Gaza.


The Raison de Etre(I hate spelling French words but that's all right) of the PA is the destruction of Israel. If a long period of time goes by without something that can be interpreted as war happening, then Israel has been tacitly recognized and the PA loses it's reason for ruling.


They cannot possibly defeat Israel in the field. The only thing they can do is keep pressing their claim until they get a lucky break.
However if they do not take active steps to "press their claim" then no one will take them seriously. It would be like the Patrician of Istanbul(The last Roman official?)claiming the entire Meditteranean Rim in the name of the former Emperor-it would be amuseing to talk about in a coffeeshop, but would have no bearing on real life.
However as it is, it is likly to have "no bearing on real life" in any case.
But that does not matter as it justifys the authority of the Palestinian chieftains.
Which is really the important thing.

 
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jastayme3       10/30/2007 9:45:14 PM
All this is assuming they are thinking in realpolitic terms the way historians imagine. Even Western politicians don't really do that as much as history books sometimes imply and Arabs emphasize face more.
So think like a schoolboy. If you get into a fight it doesn't really matter to you who "started it"-you would be more angry at him if the thought came into your mind that he might be right. Nor does it matter if you know you will lose. What does matter is making sure you at least leave a bruise. So that everyone knows you made a good show of it.

 
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Ezekiel       11/1/2007 6:09:15 AM
How do you take down an elephant if you are much much smaller???
 
Little by little
 
The use of terrorism as the main tool in an attrition warfare was introduced on the world stage by Arafat (who by the way was trained by KGB). The phased plan is not something new to the ears. Slowly but surely you gain strenght and momentum, as we see perfectly in the case with the palestinians. Whom have shown that terror is a useful and effective tool. Beginning with world recognition through sensationalized attack followed with mass propoganda and sympathetic networking within cultural/academic/political world has garnered the Palestinians legitimacy far more then could have been expected 4 decades ago. With the signing of Oslo came the ability to accumulate actual physical strength as we saw after the collapse at camp david and 1500 Israeli lives later, Israel then provided the Palestinian even more justification to believe in the terror weapon, with disengagement. Now with the Hamas takeover the repercussions of such a disastrous policy is plain to everyone or at least the Israeli's being daily rocketed, and the soldiers that are fighting an enemy far more advanced militarily then they were prior to the ethnic cleansing of gaza of Jews.
 
It is a sad and pathetic narrative to witness, and is only getting worse... due to the Israeli publics willful ignorance on a massive scale. The Israeli's themselves have bought into the Palestinian propoganda, and if not the public the elites have. This brings us to the fact that Israel still has not comprehended the meaning of sovereignty...and until they take their solemn obligations for the safety and security of their citizenry and the soil seriously, Then it can be assured that this struggle is going to get alot worse before it will get better for Israel.
 
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Herald1234    True immorality.   11/1/2007 6:42:58 AM
If Israel doesn't break the Palestinian terrorist gangster bandits loose soon from the Palestinian people, Israel will face a grim dilemna-the Palestinians political extinction, or Israel's. There is still time to avoid that horrible choice, but the longer that Israel delays, the worse the cost for everyone becomes. At the decision point of no return,which will be all too soon, Israel will be forced to decide between expulsion or surrender. Gaza is the test case. No matter how craven the intelligentsia, surrender will never be acceptable, so that leaves expulsion; if Israel does nothing now. 
 
That outcome, dislocation and eviction, will be hard to sell-even to the United States. It will be especially hard to sell if the Clintonista regime resumes its misrule. You think things are bad for Israel with the current gang of bunglers in Washington now?
 
The clock is ticking. Israel must defend herself and assert her national sovereign rights and to hell with the bleeding hearts. In the end, doing nothing will mean that millions of Palestinians as well as thousands of Israelis will needlessly suffer. You can't expect the thugs in the PLA to do the right thing. So do it to them.
 
Herald          
 
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