Forty-one years ago this week, on Saturday, October 6, 1973, Syrian forces launched a surprise attack against Israel on the Golan Heights, while Egypt simultaneously attacked Israel across the Suez Canal.
Though Israel won that war, the national
trauma of the first three days remains deep in the Israeli psyche. Everyone knows that Moshe Dayan was so concerned
that he recommended an unconditional surrender, and Prime Minister Golda Meir, according
to foreign reports, ordered that Israel’s so-called doomsday weapons, Jericho
missiles with nuclear warheads, be prepared and armed for a possible “Sampson in
the Temple” last ditch stand.
Israel never surrendered, and the Jericho
missiles, which had been armed according to Golda’s orders, were stood down.
But despite winning the war on both fronts
convincingly, the memory of “almost losing” explains why today Israeli’s are
very concerned about the events in Southern Syria, where the Al Qaeda
affiliated terrorist group Jabhat Al Nusra has captured now controls the “UN no
man’s land” buffer area between the Israeli and Syrian parts of the Golan
Heights. Tuesday’s attack from Lebanon by Hezbollah against an IDF patrol just
added to the tension.
The reason for concern is that this is
fulfilling a chilling prediction that Israeli Chief of General Staff, Lt.
General Benny Gantz, gave last year on the high probability of a renewed war in
the North.
Here are some of his observations:
The Middle East is experiencing a period
of what he called “instability squared,” which has completely unsettled the
regional order.
From dealing with an arena of functioning
regimes, Israel, according to Gantz, now finds itself having to deal with
states that are breaking up into secondary components, existing “at sub-state
level but possessing significant operational capabilities.”
War will remain what it was. The high
friction with the enemy and the uncertainty will persist, but a gradual change
in the modes of combat will take place. The IDF will confront an enemy
possessing advanced capability, decentralized and camouflaged, and operating
from within a civilian population.
The next campaign, according to Gantz, could
open with a precisely fired missile that will hit the General Staff building in
the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv; or with a cyber-attack that will cripple
everyday services, from traffic lights to banking; or with the detonation of a
bomb in a kindergarten by means of a booby-trapped underground tunnel; or with
a mass charge of Arabs at an Israeli town adjacent to a border.
Gantz then went on to detail a scenario in a
specific arena: He spoke of a terrorist attack on the Golan Heights, where,
after almost 40 years of total quiet, the border is now gradually becoming
distressingly unstable.
For its
part, Hezbollah will fire volleys of rockets into Galilee, and jihadist
organizations will continue trying to penetrate from the Golan.
The
accuracy of the missiles will be greatly improved, Gantz added, “and if
Hezbollah chooses to hit a specific target almost anywhere in Israel, it will
have the capability to do so.” Hundreds of Hamas activists will try to overrun
IDF checkpoints on the border with Gaza.
Israel will try to avoid inflicting
casualties on enemy civilians, but will not be able to be completely successful.
Given the
serious damage that will be caused to the Israeli home front and the
international pressure for a cease-fire, Gantz observed, “The hourglass gets
turned over from the moment a war erupts. Israel pays a heavy price, in all
senses, for every hour in which routine life is adversely affected. The clock
obliges the IDF to work fast.”
Gantz referred to the outbreak of war in the
North as a forgone conclusion, with only the timing unknown.
With the
recent events – that “timing” may be very, very close.
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