Pretty much everyone paying any attention to the news (for what that is worth, nowadays, and that is not very much), knows by now of the very serious escalation in the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict, which kicked off today. As of this moment, details are still pretty sketchy, and there is still a very deep fog-of-war, but there is no question this was a devastating surprise attack which has left all of Israel reeling from its swiftness, ferocity, savagery, and effectiveness.

Before I continue, let me just say that I have been in contact with my good friend and longtime contributor to this site, The Male Brain. I am very relieved to report that he and his family are safe and well, though understandably a bit rattled, given the way things went down this morning. I would appreciate prayers and blessings directed his way from our readership.

I have been tracking the conflict closely through Telegram, which gives pretty up-to-date videos and pictures – though, you have to apply a lot of filters on what you see. In an interesting quirk of fate, the very same pro-Russian Telegram channels I follow, are often strongly pro-Palestinian as well – though not always, the Slavyangrad channel is a very good exception in this regard.

Here is what we know, what we might know, and what might happen over the coming days and weeks – the last bit being my own analysis, admittedly based on very limited evidence.

Element of Surprise

In terms of what we do know at this point – well, essentially, Hamas militants, certainly in their hundreds, quite possibly in their thousands, launched a highly successful surprise assault on Israeli settlements, towns, and even cities on the borders of the Gaza Strip. In short order, they succeeded in seizing a number of Israeli positions in the south of the country, particularly in Sderot and Ashkelon. They managed to seize a number of settlers and soldiers as prisoners, and shot and killed quite a few others.

Hamas militants started out by launching 5,000 rockets – that is their claim, the Israeli side claims it was “only” 2,000 – to overwhelm, disorient, and shut down the Israeli Iron Dome defensive system. They very evidently succeeded – there are videos on Telegram of Iron Dome missiles going completely haywire, unable to intercept anything:

By about midday, Hamas forces claimed they had taken control of multiple settlements and had expanded their zone of control substantially beyond Gaza:

(In reality, they took control of roughly 13 settlements and penetrated about 30Km beyond the borders of Gaza.)

The Israeli military and government were initially shocked, and seemed thoroughly paralysed. Videos and photos filled up Telegram showing panicked Israelis fleeing from apocalyptic scenes of death and destruction. Hamas claimed to have captured multiple Israeli soldiers, and released videos and photos purportedly backing up those claims:

There are even claims by Hamas that they captured an Israeli Brigadier General, Nimrod Aloni, leader of a particular IDF unit:

I should note, however, that Dawn Pine tells me the IDF has issued no such confirmation. It is still very much up in the air exactly how many prisoners Hamas has taken.

What is beyond dispute, however, is that Hamas’s goal WAS to take prisoners and launch a demonstration of force and frightfulness designed to cow the Israeli population. They also intend to use those prisoners as “human shields” and bargaining chips to force Israel to release Hamas militants from prison.

This is not up for debate – the official media arm of Hamas has said as much, and we now have (rather hard to watch) video evidence of Israeli civilians taken captive by Hamas, subject to their tender mercies (read: outright abuse) as the militants take them back to Gaza:

The IDF, however, has not been idle. As of this writing, the IDF claims it has taken back most of the settlements captured by the Palestinians. Special forces are clearing out the settlements one by one:

All in all, it has been a very busy, and very sad, day for Israel. Having visited it all the way back in 2014, and having written extensively about my experiences there, all I can say is, I feel very sorry for the Israelis, who are in shock as a nation, and especially for the families of the hundreds of slain Israelis.

I will get to the Palestinians in a bit, but for now, it is worth taking a moment to understand the ramifications of what has happened.

A Failure to Anticipate

The first thing to understand is that today represents a COLOSSAL failure of the Israeli government, at every level.

This post from Slavyangrad tells us what the Israeli government thought, just before the attacks started. In light of what happened today, this seems almost unbelievable, given the reputation and well-known capabilities of the Mossad and Shin Bet – but The Male Brain confirmed this is true:

For what it is worth, Hamas claims they anticipated an incoming attack from the IDF next month, and struck first. In this regard, they are simply applying the well-known Talmudic doctrine, which the Israeli intelligence services use regularly – “Rise and Kill First”.

In so doing, Hamas has simply shattered the reputation of Israel’s government, intelligence services, and military. It does not matter how quickly the IDF works to regain the lost territories – the fact is, their reputation is in the crapper now.

And that is critical, because reputations take a lifetime to build, but mere moments to destroy.

Moreover, the timing and date of this particular assault is HIGHLY symbolic. Some readers may recall the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which is the closest Israel has ever come in its post-WWII history to being outright exterminated. That war started on October 6th, 1973, and lasted until about October 25th. Bear in mind, today is October 7th (also the Neo-Tsar’s 71^st birthday, coincidentally), so the fact that Hamas launched their attack almost 50 years to the day of the start of the Yom Kippur War – the darkest period in modern Israeli history – is very important.

The story gets a bit chaotic from there, to be honest, but there is no doubt or question that Israeli intelligence services and the government suffered from a CATASTROPHIC failure to anticipate any of this.

Lessons from Banderastan

The extreme failure of Israeli intelligence services has resulted in catastrophic consequences for Israel’s image, on multiple levels. Here, for example, is a video of a burning Israeli Merkava MBT – the pride and symbol of the IDF’s ground forces – surrounded by celebrating Arabs boasting about capturing the crew:

Moreover, we have seen new and innovative tactics, highly coordinated and well-planned, from Hamas, which clearly caught the IDF well and truly off guard. Here, we see lessons from the Banderastan War, coming home to roost in Israel.

In my view, based on what we have seen today, the IDF has no idea what it is up against, because it has never fought this kind of war. They will adapt, eventually, of course, as they always do, but for now, they are in a new world and they do not have a map.

For example, Hamas used cheap and simple quadcopter drones, carrying grenades, to incapacitate and destroy multi-million-dollar tanks:

They also used paragliders to get over the border wall built to stop intruders from Gaza – which is a rather cunning tactic, given those paragliders are very difficult for Israeli air defence to spot and shoot down in time:

Do not be surprised if we see this same exact tactic being used by the Ukies against the Russians very soon.

We also saw videos, released by Hamas, showing bulldozers smashing through the Israeli border wall and permitting more of their fighters through:

Let us give the Palestinians their due – they used low-tech, simple, cheap, effective solutions to defeat one of the most advanced and capable military forces in the world. This is an impressive achievement, when viewed dispassionately and objectively.

Clearly, the Hamas planners looked at some of the tactics adopted by the Ukies against the Russians in Banderastan, and adapted them to their own situation. They used small-group infiltrations, rapid advances, overwhelming firepower (at least initially), and the use of surprise attacks, to achieve total supremacy in the initial phases of their operation.

The IDF, for its part, may not have learned the lessons the Russians have figured out, in some cases very much the hard way, with respect to electronic warfare, air defence, and drone warfare. In fairness to the IDF, the distances they have to deal with are CONSIDERABLY shorter than what the Russians do in Banderastan – as I have pointed out many times, I have visited Israel, and it is a country where you could literally drive its entire length and width in a single day. It is barely 424Km from tip to tail, and barely 15Km wide at its thinnest point. This is a VERY difficult country to defend, as the IDF knows all too well.

Overall, though, if we look at what happened to the IDF in the 2006 Lebanon War, and in the current hostilities, we see a picture of a force that, like the Americans who supply them, seem to rely heavily on expensive technologies and special forces, but cannot quickly react to a fast-moving, nimble, lightly armed force of militants using cheap and simple technologies.

The nature of the intelligence failure that led to this debacle will undoubtedly result in substantial soul-searching, and more than a few heads rolling eventually. That is very much a Good Thing. When fork-ups like this happen, those responsible for failing to protect their people must be held accountable. We shall see, however, whether this leads to fundamental changes in Israeli defensive strategies and postures – Martin Van Creveld, perhaps the greatest military historian alive today, has been criticising the IDF for years for becoming a sclerotic, hidebound, innovation-averse organisation, wedded to increasingly outmoded and ineffective doctrines, and therefore incapable of dealing with the nature of the modern battlefield.

The Broader Geopolitical Picture

What, if anything, changes now, with respect to the region?

Well, let us get one thing straight immediately:

There was never any real possibility of the Hamas militants continuing their campaign for any great length of time. Conquering territory against a modern mechanised army, which has air support and satellite overwatch, takes logistics, supplies, and a serious manufacturing base. Hamas categorically DOES NOT have this. They could have maintained this kind of offensive action for a couple of days, at most, before the IDF kicked in their teeth.

Already, we see the IDF reclaiming all of the lost territory, and killing the militants who stormed Israeli settlements in the process.

That, however, is only the physical level of war. The moral level, which great military strategists from Napoleon Bonaparte to Col. John Boyd taught as being by far the most one in war, belongs firmly to Hamas tonight.

Make no mistake, the Western whore-media are spinning furiously in favour of Israel right now. This is the signature characteristic of these people – they go where their masters tell them. Back in the 2000s and 2010s, the Western (((media))))))))) used to shill for the Palestinians constantly – but today, they are all-in for Israel.

But that does not matter to Hamas. They have won a critically important victory in the eyes of their Arab and Iranian supporters. Already, Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon are threatening to open a second front, if Israel goes for a ground operation in Gaza – which they almost certainly will.

Israel, for its part, says it is ready for a two-front war. We shall see about that.

The point of this attack was to show the IDF as weak, incompetent, indecisive, and slow. Regardless of whether any of that is true – and some of it is not, at all – the fact is the attack succeeded in creating an image in the minds of the ordinary people of the Muslim world, who hate Israel, that it is.

But the broader geopolitical picture actually remains largely unchanged.

This is hugely embarrassing for Israel, to be sure. It will knock the Netanyahu government back considerably, and weaken it, at least for a while. But none of that changes the fact that, as far as the other Arab governments in the region are concerned, the Palestinians are nothing more than a useful pawn.

That is the literal truth. Not ONE Arab government gives two shits about the Palestinians. They regard them as useful idiots to be used as moral weapons against the Israelis. If they actually did care about them, the Jordanians, for one, would let the Arabs in the West Bank into Jordan – because that, really, is where they belong. Similarly, if the Egyptians or Saudis cared in the slightest for the Palestinians, they would accept them in as Arab brothers – but they do not, because they do not like or want the Palestinians.

A Tangled Web

The truth is, those other “brotherly” Arab states consider the Palestinians to be little better than unwashed, uneducated monkeys – and, given what the average Arab is like, that is saying something.

As for Iran, the Persians see Israel as their existential enemy, to be sure – but there is a complex web of relationships now that I think will stop them from trying to erase Israel off the map.

This takes some explaining. Over the past decade, Israel has gone to great lengths – under Netanyahu, no less – to build good relations with the Saudis, Egyptians, and other former enemies, for mutual self-interest and protection against the great enemy of the Sunni Arabs.

That is to say – IRAN.

But – of late, Iran is now friendly toward Saudi Arabia, thanks in no small part to efforts by the Chinese, backed by the Russians, to broker peace between the warring parties of the Middle East.

So now we have this very odd situation where Israel and Iran are enemies, but Israel and Saudi Arabia are sort-of-friends, and Iran and Saudi Arabia are also sort-of-friends.

This is a very tricky web to unravel – but it means war in the region is probably less likely to happen than most people think. That complex web of interconnected alliances and friendships is a GOOD thing, and is a very positive development after decades of American “divide-and-conquer” tactics in the Middle East.

Conclusion – Only One Possible Ending

None of this changes the fact that Israel just got absolutely hammered today – and now their people are out for blood. This is not surprising. You would be, too, if people who hate you and want you dead, decided to come raiding your neighbourhood, killed your wife and dog, and took your children captive.

Here’s the thing, though – the Palestinians can say literally the exact same thing to justify their own responses. And they, too, would be morally in the right.

There is simply no “right” or “wrong” in this situation. My view of the Palestinians can AT BEST be described as apathetic, but I will be the first to point out that, if you leave 2 million people in the world’s biggest open-air concentration camp, with no hope of escape or economic development, trapped in poverty for their entire lives… well, that tends to piss people off.

That being said, Israel has always, on balance, been quite restrained relative to what it could do to the Palestinians. But, probably, no more. I think those days are rapidly coming to an end.

The demographic trends are very clear. The segment of Israeli society that is reproducing the fastest, is the one made up of ultra-Orthodox and conservative Talmudic Jewish sects. These people form the basis of the electorate that brought the current, VERY right-wing, governing coalition to power. That is the part of Israeli society least interested in tolerating a Palestinian presence, or a two-state solution, over lands they consider to be theirs.

Already, this has had significant impacts on Israeli society. Christians are being persecuted in Israel as Jewish-supremacist policies make themselves felt. In a generation, perhaps two, the ultra-Orthodox types will dominate the electoral and political landscape.

At that point, there will be no accommodation possible with the Palestinians.

As for the Muzzies themselves – well, they have betrayed every single peace deal the Israelis have ever tried to put forward. The Israelis have tried peace negotiations many times, and have failed, every single time. When Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres struck peace deals with Yasser Arafat, the latter betrayed them – and Rabin was assassinated by a hard-right Jewish fundamentalist for his troubles, to boot. Ehud Barak tried land-for-peace deals as well, only to see his plans fail as Arafat went on what President Clinton at the time called “magic and mystery tours” to avoid the hard work of actually building toward peace.

The harsh reality is, if the Israelis truly want to wage “pitiless war”, in the sense that our own LTC Tom Kratman would phrase it, then there is very little to stop them. If they want to go about imposing their own Endlosung on the Palestinians… well, the other Arab states might huff and puff about it, but ultimately, they loathe the Palis and would happily see them finished off as a people, in exchange for seeing Israel becoming a pariah on the world stage.

There is no mutual two-state solution possible in the Middle East. This war ends with one side exterminating the other. Note, this is not what I WANT – it is a very horrible solution to an existential problem for both the Israelis and the Palestinians. I am simply stating the obvious fact: this is what WILL happen, one way or another, whether the rest of us like it or not.