This is one of the most surprising articles I’ve read in the NY Times in a long while. It’s about the Israeli military’s total lack of preparation for the October 7th attacks. I can’t really believe how bad it was. This was just not something most people ever thought could happen. They’re supposed to be the best military with the best intelligence in the whole region. My God.
Here is a gift link for you to read the whole thing which I highly recommend you do. The administration just approved a$147.5 million emergency shipment of military aid. Wherever you come out on this issue, I think everyone can agree that the US should be very concerned about its ongoing military support for the country. And I would hope that it would convince even the hawks in both countries that Netanyahu has got to go. The buck stops with him.
A short excerpt:
The full reasons behind the military’s slow response may take months to understand. The government has promised an inquiry. But a New York Times investigation found that Israel’s military was undermanned, out of position and so poorly organized that soldiers communicated in impromptu WhatsApp groups and relied on social media posts for targeting information. Commandos rushed into battle armed only for brief combat. Helicopter pilots were ordered to look to news reports and Telegram channels to choose targets.
And perhaps most damning: The Israel Defense Forces did not even have a plan to respond to a large-scale Hamas attack on Israeli soil, according to current and former soldiers and officers. If such a plan existed on a shelf somewhere, the soldiers said, no one had trained on it and nobody followed it. The soldiers that day made it up as they went along.
“In practice, there wasn’t the right defensive preparation, no practice, and no equipping and building strength for such an operation,” said Yom Tov Samia, a major general in the Israeli reserves and former head of the military’s Southern Command.
“There was no defense plan for a surprise attack such as the kind we have seen on Oct. 7,” said Amir Avivi, a brigadier general in the reserves and a former deputy commander of the Gaza Division, which is responsible for protecting the region.
That lack of preparation is at odds with a founding principle of Israeli military doctrine. From the days of David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister and defense minister, the goal was to always be on the offensive — to anticipate attacks and fight battles in enemy territory.
In response to a series of questions from The Times, including why soldiers and officers alike said there had been no plan, the Israel Defense Forces replied: “The I.D.F. is currently focused on eliminating the threat from the terrorist organization Hamas. Questions of this kind will be looked into at a later stage.”
Unbelievable.