Home Israel Why Israel is Losing the Military and Media Wars
Home Israel Why Israel is Losing the Military and Media Wars

Why Israel is Losing the Military and Media Wars

Every now and then bewildered Israeli politicians and outreach professionals call conferences to wonder why the Hasbara is failing and why Israel can't get its story across. They are given the usual advice of hiring more PR firms, finding innovative ways to get the message through, using the internet in smarter ways and of course that all time favorite, rebranding Israel. Naturally they follow this advice, only to call another conference a year later wondering why nothing has changed.


The answer is simple enough. Defensive PR, like defensive warfare, never works. And Israeli PR and Israeli warfare has been on the defensive for decades now. If you break down Israel's message to a single sentence, it's "We didn't do any of the things we're accused of." That is the kind of message you expect to hear from criminal defendants, and it's a message that impresses no one. The only thing it does is produce a debate about the validity of the accusations themselves, which is to PR what Stalingrad was to the Russian front.

The recent Aftonbladet case represents a classic scenario that demonstrates why Israel's defensive PR is doomed to fail over and over again. The Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet published an article claiming that Israeli soldiers were killing Palestinian Arabs in order to harvest their organs. The Israeli government pointed out that the article presented no evidence whatsoever, that no such thing had ever happened and demanded a retraction from the newspaper and condemnation of it by the Swedish government. The only thing Israel accomplished was to popularize the false allegation thus creating a debate over whether or not Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian Arabs to harvest their organs. Pleased by his newfound fame, the author of the article has only escalated his allegations and gone on to do a tour of the Arab world. Leftist propagandists can only watch the fallout and chuckle, because once again Israel has been suckered into playing the mug's game of defensive PR.

Defensive warfare of any kind is reactive. For the last few decades Israel has run itself ragged because it has been reactive. And by reactive I mean that Israel keeps responding to attacks against it, rather than taking the offensive. In the Six Day War, Israel responded to Nasser's planned assault, by preempting him and taking the offensive. The result was Israel's finest hour. In the Yom Kippur War, Israel waited and watched, and was nearly destroyed.

Few nations can afford to be purely reactive and play defense alone, Israel least of all because it is outnumbered by larger and more numerous enemies who can wear it down through sheer brute force. And that is exactly what has been happening on both the media and the military front. The terrorist campaign, planned, financed and executed first by the USSR, and then by the Arab and Muslim world, has worn out Israel both militarily and politically.

Israel's greatest asset was its innovation, its mobility and brilliance. Qualities that are best employed on the offensive. Instead Israel has been restricted to the defensive, constantly retreating, giving up both physical and ideological territory to its enemies, while wondering how much to give up in order to stem the bleeding. Which is the one reaction certain to put it even further on the defensive.

Israel wants a solution to the conflict. So do its enemies in both Islam and on the left and far right. A final solution. Each attempt by Israel to offer a solution has only brought Israel closer to that final solution. The more Israel has tried to show its goodwill, the more it has gotten stuck on the defensive. The goal of successive Israeli governments is no longer to be a great nation or a strong nation, but to be a nation that everyone likes.

The fallacy there is that "everyone" consists of a billion Muslims and a sizable number of leftists who view Israel's very existence as an insult to their deeply held beliefs. And then there are the Western business interests who think Ahmed would be much friendlier to them if Israel weren't in the way. And Russia which cultivates wars in the Middle East the way gardeners cultivate flowers. Finally there's the rest of the world which isn't too keen on embracing losers who keep apologizing for their existence and cutting their own country to pieces in order to win the favor of the terrorists trying to wipe them off the face of the earth.


To boil down the problem simply enough, the more Israel goes on the defensive, the weaker it becomes, not just militarily, but politically as well. Reactive conflicts are hugely draining. They require endlessly watching for an attack and then trying to counter it. The advantage in such a scenario is always to the attacker who has more lead time to plan an attack, and room to retreat if the attack fails.

Strike and vanish into the desert, and then strike again, was the classic raiding strategy of the Arab bandit, including a charming head chopping fellow named Mohammed. The British General Orde Wingate, who helped pioneer much of the doctrine of the future IDF, responded to such attacks in the mandate era, by taking the battle to the enemy with small, fast moving and mobile units. To go on the offensive.

The following section from the official Wingate site says it best;

While impressed with the devotion & willingness to sacrifice in the Haganah, Wingate was exasperated by the defensive nature of the Jewish forces. He realized that they could not halt the violence with their defensive tactics of fortified settlements. The policy of restraint meant the Haganah was ceding the initiative and mobility to the Arab guerillas.

The British were trying to balance an active defense with mobile sweeps & strikes, with holding important static positions in order to maintain effective government control. Mobile columns & patrols were sent out to deny the rebels any sanctuary and to hunt them down. They became consistent and routine in their movements and their actions. With the enemy often indistinguishable from their civilian base and troops often quartered near Arab civilian areas, "it was very difficult to keep operations conducted in a largely hostile civilian milieu secret, and so the element of surprise was lost; at the same time, reliable information about the enemy was hard to come by."

Commented one Jewish official on a big sweep by British forces, "They marched over hills and valleys, and in the end emerged with some rusty Turkish pistols and a few empty rounds of ammunition...The Arab gangsters just hid their arms and mingled with the population of the villages. Not only did the huge British army find absolutely nothing, it discredited and ridiculed itself in the eyes of the whole population." In 1938 General Archibald Wavell, the temporary acting commander of British military forces in Palestine, was forced to admit these and other actions such as aerial bombing had only "a temporary effect."

Wingate envisioned carefully selected, small and mobile units of volunteers to fight aggressively and unconventionally...

"There is only one way to deal with the situation, to persuade the gangs that, in their predatory raids, there is every chance of their running into a government gang which is determined to destroy them, not by exchange of shots at a distance, but by bodily assault with bayonet and bomb." This new unit was to carry the war to the enemy, taking away his initiative and keeping him off-balance. And so it was, "to produce in their minds the belief government forces will move at night and can and will surprise them either in villages or across country." The force would be a mixed British-Jewish one operating under his command, moving primarily at night in areas of guerilla activity with the allies of the night: deception, surprise, shock.

Since then Israel has forgotten Wingate's lessons that helped make the IDF into the fearsome force that it was. Instead Israel has reverted to the fortified settlements and cities, the home guards maintaining watch... as well as the British assault teams thundering across the desert in a spectacular show of force that accomplishes absolutely nothing. And this applies not only to Israel, but to the United States post-2004 as well.


You cannot win through defensive tactics. You can only bleed. And Israel is bleeding badly. The nation that once executed Entebbe, rescuing hostages on another continent, can no longer even rescue one of its soldiers held captive within its own borders. The country that was once hailed as a symbol of rebirth has been internationally demonized. And the worst part of it all is that Israel sat back and let it happen.

Israel is too small to be able to keep on bleeding indefinitely. Its soldiers and citizens have tired of always being on watch, and always waiting for an attack. Its citizens and its defenders around the world are tired of being expected to answer increasingly outlandish charges. This cannot go on forever. Israeli leaders understood this, but they drew the wrong lesson, determining to go even further on the defensive by cutting deals with the enemy. They were wrong. Disastrously wrong.

To survive against larger enemies, a small country must be quick, it must be feared, it must use surprise and cultivate an aura of inhuman abilities. Israel used to be all of these things. Now it is none of these things. But if it is to survive, it must become those things again.

Israel does not have a terrorism problem, it has a defensiveness problem. Israel has the capability to destroy every terrorist group within its borders in a matter of a month. Israel does not have a PR problem. Its PR problem is created by an ongoing conflict with terrorist groups, who have extensive sympathizers abroad. Destroy the terrorist groups, regain control over the disputed areas, and the PR problem shrinks to a fraction of its former size. More importantly it ceases to have any useful meaning.

The media war against Israel, the lawfare and the other various non-military tactics require an investment of resources. For those resources to be worth investing, there must be a visible payoff. The more Israel stays on the defensive, and its enemies make territorial and political gains, the more those tactics seem to be paying off. Reverse that scenario, and the resources will be reinvested somewhere else because they are not achieving tangible results.

It has been demonstrated that the demonization of Israel is not significantly altered by the nature of Israeli tactics against terrorism. Whether Israeli tanks smash through Arafat's compound, or Israel builds a non-violent defensive border wall-- the demonization of Israel remains constant. That is because the demonization is not a moral response to specific policies, but an ongoing state of hostility directed against Israel in support of Muslim and Marxist terrorists. The only way to stop the demonization is to remove the incentive for it, by removing the terrorists.


The Oslo Accords did not lessen the global demonization of Israel. Instead after a brief honeymoon, it significantly worsened it. That is because the propaganda war was closer to achieving its purpose. The more Israel has compromised, the worse its international status has become. That is because by compromising, Israel demonstrated its weakness to both its enemies and allies, emboldening its enemies and making its allies reevaluate its ability to survive. The more Israel has gone on the defensive, the worse the terrorism and the demonization has become. That is only natural. If you retreat, the enemy's fire will increase in severity.

To many Jews and Israelis, and sympathizers with Israel as a nation battling Marxist and Islamist terror, the problem seems impossible. The political and military situation is a Gordian Knot of tangled complexities. Which is why it takes an Alexander or a Wingate to cut the knot. Israel's media and military problems are born of a defensive strategy that have allowed the country to be tied into a Gordian Knot. To survive Israel must go on the offensive to cut the knot and save itself, or be choked to death by the rope its enemies have tied around its neck.

Comments

  1. Israel needs to be more aggressive in their PR and in everything else I think.

    Swedish men have a problem with impotence and it come to the fore in their international relations, which are the only relations they can have.

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  2. Anonymous23/9/09

    We are infected with the defeatism of Oslo, a serious mental condition. Of course, the West generally has surrendered without an official Oslo to mark their decline. I frequently write comments in various Israeli media outlets on the general theme of ''the best defense is a good offense'' & while I get quite a few positive responses, I also get a large number of criticisms that I am a war-monger. Somehow, even among the highest echelons of the IDF, we have forgotten what the word ''preemption'''means.

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  3. Anonymous23/9/09

    And to add to my previous comment, I often have occasion to discuss this ''defensive posture'' with supporters of Israel who write comments in various publications. Specifically, I should mention The Economist which almost weekly runs an anti-Israel article while pretending to be objectively reporting a factual analysis.
    ''Our'' side presents facts, actual history, rational arguments to counter the large number of comments demonizing Israel. My point to these well-intentioned Israel supporters is that you cannot counter irrationality with rational arguments.

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  4. Paul, England23/9/09

    Absolutely first-rate article. Thank you so much.

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  5. I agree with what you say in principle. Now tell me how you propose to do it. Next tell me whether it is something we can do now, or whether we need to replace the government establishment to do it.

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  6. MyName23/9/09

    "To finish terrorists off in one month" how exactly? Yes it is possible to kill all known terrorists, deport their families and demolish their houses in one to two months; but is that possible?

    I guess a worldwide pandemic with mortality rate of 10%-15% would provide a reasonable operational quiet. But what of IDF soldiers? Will they carry out such policy? What about internal fifth column (not the Arab minority, but the leftists)? This all seems to require a different kind of society, a different kind of people - absent some kind of monstrosity so enourmous the very existence of Israel would come under doubt. Blowing up Azrieli center won't do - and it'd mean much more harm than 9/11 was, in relative terms.

    Then again, after such a monstrosity no targeted raids woud be made, but rather a carpet bombing, causing the mass exodus of all Arabs, Israeli Arabs included. The very threat of it would be enough - exactly because the Arabs would believe that this time, the Jews will do it, for real.

    So, no targeted option seems plausible to me, only total ones are.

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  7. Shiloh23/9/09

    So true Daniel. Now if our leaders could read this and wake up.

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  8. Anonymous23/9/09

    Thank you for this article--now we need to send it to our politicians here in Israel, or better yet, to the ordinary people in the hopes they will run our corrupt government out and replace it with "real" Israelis.

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  9. Anonymous 1,

    indeed. When the game is rigged, playing as if it's an honest game, is a quick formula for losing.

    Israel and its defenders keep playing by formal rules, its opponents have no rules, only sheer packed masses of hate.

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  10. goyishrebbe,

    What it requires is a major change in mindset. To stop being defensive and go on the offensive. The Israeli government has adopted the wrong mindset, but it's more than just a government, it's the entire establishment. It would take radical political changes, or a grave crisis, for that to change.

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  11. MyName,

    the government succeeded in finding soldiers and police who would carry out deportations of Jews. They did it by sidelining more religious and Jewish soldiers, checking to see who had a problem, punishing some who disobeyed, and moving around the Generals. The results were destructive, but feasible.

    They also did that in the face of domestic protects. So again feasible.

    It's not a question of a particular terrorist atrocity to respond to, because Israelis are numbed to terrorist atrocities, but a change of mindset and culture, that in Israeli culture might not take that long if the government chose to orchestrate it from the top down, as they did with the settlers.

    And it would be a good deal easier to sell, but it's a common sense approach to dealing with the problem.

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  12. Shiloh and Anonymous 2

    amen

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  13. Anonymous23/9/09

    How come your articles make so much sense? Where are all the brilliant Jewish minds in Israel? Are they all asleep, numbed, paralized? From a vibrant fighting country they have morfed into a mentality of getto dwellers, attacked non stop by pogromchiks and their lefty enablers, unable to defend themselves. I think it started with Oslo and Rabin's utherings at every terror attack: this will not derail the "peace talks", and so on until today. Even Arik Sharon who in his youth was such a fighter, became a living corpse befitting his behaviour during the terrible years of daily mass murder. He was attacking empty buildings as retaliation for the destruction of people! In the begining he still had some of the old Arik berating Bush not to make Israel the Czechoslovakia of the 21st century, but after being chastized he became a good and faithful dogy, he even had the audacity to think that if he expells Jews from the south he will be able to keep Yehuda and Shomron. Didn't he know that this is not the way it works for us?? You retreat once and that's it you have to retreat to the sea. One of the curses in the Torah is that we won't know whether we come or go, so there it is the reality today.

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  14. the brilliant minds in israel are not in power, or badly compromised and tied down if they are

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  15. Fantastic article! You present the history of Israel, the problems, and most importantly the solutions to the problems in an easy to understand way. Thank you.

    Absolutely right on changing the mindset. If Muslim terrorists claim they are influenced and acting based on their religion and culture Israelis should fight based on their religion and culture (religious Zionism).

    Schools should teach Zionism 101 or something. Israeli citizens should make patriotism important and popular. Personally, I think it all begins in the election booth--pro-Israel politicians in/anti out. Eventually politicians will get the drift and change.

    Virtually all politicians everywhere base their policies on which way the wind in blowing. If religious Zionism becomes popular enough politicians will start coming around.

    Israel does indeed have what it takes to fight its enemies. The soldiers know the desert, the language, and are used to the climate. They're not on unfamiliar territory and don't really need as much prepartion as, say, the US troops in Afghanistan in the mountains.

    The military could definitely play on the beliefs Arabs have about Israelis having almost superhuman powers. Exploit that to the max. There must be a lot of gullible Palestinians because Hamas lately seems to be spreading outlandish lies about Israeli-bred rats that can only attack Palestinians.

    Why not exploit the fears of the simple?


    You're right about defensive PR. It doesn't work because much of the world views Israel negatively anyway and are more than willing to believe lies. Trying to rationalize with irrational people is useless.

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  16. Anonymous23/9/09

    Brilliant Insights.

    can you run for president, please?

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  17. Anonymous23/9/09

    The trick Islamist and Leftists have been using for years specially in Europe, is the same the Church used for many years.
    Accuse Jews of something (whatever) and let them try to prove its wrong!
    Poor Israel never accuses anyone of anything which is wrong, and instead tries to prove the accusations are false. this can go on and on forever.
    Israel must keep remind the world of the evil Europe and Islamic countries and any country that attacks Israel, have done and the evil they are doing now, to other countries and people in the world. not only to Jews but to other people as well. This constant reminding should be also taught in schools, the same way that Islamist and Leftists teach students in colleges and universities anti-Israel and anti-Jewish ideas (propaganda)It should become the goal of all Israelis to fight this global attack of enemies againt Israel and Jews. I wish Israeli governemnt would also cooperate in this but they seem to be always doing what you have notices. defending against accusations. Why not making European Leftist accusers answer this question of why they support Islamism and supporting Islamist dictators? why do they want an Islamic government stablished in Gaza? Why do they support an Islamic government like Hamas that has made wearing Hijab mandatory in courts and schools starting this September? Some famale Moslems lawyers complained to Hamas about this rule but then didnt' dare to challenge it. Why aren't Leftists defeding these female lawywers against Hamas Islamic dictatorship? is it only for the oil the Arabs sell Europe?

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  18. Anonymous - the sadness of it is, Israel doesn't even have to make false accusations. All that's needed is to START TELLING THE TRUTH dammit!

    Israeli leftist elites want their "peace partner" so badly, they can't tell a word of truth for the fear the Arab/Muslim reputation will get damaged by it. And the West plays its own appeasement doublethinking game. Here just now Obama demanded Fakestinians to stop their anti-Israel incitement while spreading the incitement himself by insisting on illegitimacy of Israeli settlement in the Land of Israel. All is needed, is some creative wording and renaming.

    So the lying narrative got engraved in peoples minds, and in the international diplomacy's discourse. Most people will just say what the others want to hear, anyway, out of fear not to fit in.

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  19. Sammish24/9/09

    I once made a comment in a blog suggesting that Israel should start to act as any other country when it comes to war, engagement with terrorists, global politico-criminal or pseudo-political terror Islamic parties (Hezbollah, Hamas). Did I get some bad venting on this idea?
    What I meant is to get the stick and start beating people up until they no longer move. In a sense I was advancing that Israel should not worry excessively about its moral image in the world. If we really react as the Arabs do, then there would be no problem at all). The issue is that Israel will never win the global mediatized PR propaganda war, and you Sultan Knish made amply clear and it is a fact. Thus it will comes a time when Israel needs to break away from its "high ethical identity complex" and say to the world, now we are ready to join the fold, which is to say... "You mess with me I will break your back".
    I do not know when this time will come, I would hope it would be now, but let's face it we might have to wait until another trigger happens. I agree the results would be much better if we are constantly beating people up for their naive and stupid pseudo-military actions of resistance as they like to call it. I mean beating people hard....
    The Arabs leaders know far too well that they cannot reason nor talk to their own people who want them dead and their heads slit, salted and shown at their city gates. These leaders take an army with tanks (sorry no embedded journalists, not even any journalist for that matter) they dig a big hole put all people there (no matter who, children, women, men as long as they have a link with the bad people) and cover the hole and that settles the problem once and for all. Nobody sees anything and nobody knows anything. And nobody in the West wants to know anything.
    Now I know this is basically an inhumane way to deal with belligerents, but it is the only language the Arabs leaders know how to articulate when they deal with threats and opponents (internally and externally). There are no discussions, no debate and no compromise. Tribal mentality at its best. Social Darwinism of the survival of the fittest at play...
    Why can't Israel play this kind of game? Why is it that Israel has to worry about what people think about it? ...Why have this "complex" of high moral standing when the outside world is itself a place of chaotic and unethical standards to the worse possible world....
    All this jazz about Israel worrying so much how it looks to the world remind me of a story I read somewhere about LBJ (Lyndon Johnson) when he was running of office in Texas in some gubernatorial race. He publicly accused his opponent of having sexual relations with pigs. This is true, perhaps his opponent was a hog farmer and one has to remember we are in 1950's rural USA. One of his aid asked him about this weird accusation.
    He asked: "Did he really have anything sexual with his pigs"
    LBJ: "Not that I know of"
    The aid: "Then why accuse him of it."
    LBJ:" Because from now on, he will have to spend all his time denying it."
    The enemies of Israel will stop at nothing in creating new updated fictitious bloody evil myths and crazes to fit the times, for they know they are bogus and geared at undermining the state and its people. It is psychological warfare played in the global internet mediatized forum and for which Israel has no way of overcoming, let alone winning.
    If the delusional Iranian PM can utters : "Israel should be erased from the map of the world." Why can't any Israeli or Jewish leader scream: "Iran should also be mowed down to the ground for a new Persian Empire to emerge". If we are speaking about PR then what better way to counter it.. instead Israel calls on other nations to bring the PM to his senses....I do not understand, this is the only language he knows of and he and his people mean what they say...
    Something has to give here....

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  20. indeed, something has to give and israel has to start fighting, or it's doomed

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  21. I don't know if it's true or not but I once read (I believe an Israeli news site) that at one time, before Sharon changed and turned on Israel, he would insult Arafat at every turn. He was never at a loss for insults and digs.

    There is indeed value in PR wars and psychological warfare.

    Maybe that was while he was still in the military, I'm not sure but I agree with the last comment.

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  22. indeed that's exactly what he did, he put arafat on the defensive

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  23. Since this seems to be an unapologetically Zionist crowd, here's a question:

    In last December's Gaza conflict, how many civilians died on the Israeli side, and how many died on the Palestinian side? Since 2000, how many Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israel, and how many Israelis have been killed by Palestinians?

    When your hasbara can explain the numbers (however you choose to slice them) without sounding sub-human, you will win the PR war.

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  24. Islamist,

    And your point is? Far more Americans than Germans died in WW2.

    A better question would be how many Jewish civilians would be dead, if there were Jews conducting a terrorist campaign slash uprising inside even "moderate" Arab countries such as Egypt or Jordan.

    I won't even ask how many an Islamist regime would have killed. But considering that Arab countries expelled their own Jews who hadn't done anything simply because Israel became a state, the result would have made Hama look like a walk in the park.

    As for Gaza, not that many more died in armed fighting in civilian areas, compared to the Iranian regime's killings of its own citizens in unarmed post-election protests.

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  25. And so your response is "Everybody else is doing it!"

    My problem with Israel is not that it is significantly worse than any of the other governments in the region, but that it's defenders keep trying to pretend that it is so much better.

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  26. If your only talking point revolves around casualty counts, then you have no point because that casualty counts don't reveal moral standing, particularly when it is Hamas that draws the war down into populated areas.

    And no my point isn't that "Everybody else is doing it." My point is that if the sides were reversed, we wouldn't be getting the kid glove treatment that Hamas is getting, but the full on Hama treatment, which as a "proud Islamist" I assume you're familiar with.

    Israel is indeed better than the Arab regimes in the region.

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  27. Sammish25/9/09

    I am pondering why the debate about what is ethical or non-ethical always ends up with the head count of causualties of war. This means that the party having less casulties is somehow the evil one or the party at fault and the party who bear the brunt of the number of deaths is the victim of war. Quantitative measurement of dead head count as a measuring moral and ethical yardstick. If we take this premise and look as the war history the results maybe entirely different. The victors always end up suffering the most casulties.

    Therefore I am sorry it does not hold for a lot more than few cases of war. The battle of Stalingrad is only one case, the battle of Verdun is also another, where the Russians suffered tremendous numbers of casulties 7 to 1 and the allied forces at Verdun was about 2 to 1.

    Again, there is no point in bringing forth a claim that does not hold to the test of time or the all known cases of war and clashes. The ProudIslamist may only deploring the effect of war, the suffering and the loss of lives, yet he is using it to advance that someone(Israel) is at fault. Every decent and rational human being will tell you that war is wasteful and wrong because of its effects, even Israelis will tell you this. Unfortunately there are poeple who know fairly well that the odds are against them in terms of casulties of war, yet they still try to beat the odds...why? I do not know? Therefore why try indirectly to convince the world that Israel has an unfair advantage. But everyone in the world knows that. There are no mysteries here. It is this advantage that has kept Israel from succumbing to defeat, and perhaps eradication....

    It could be that Hamas in its desperate and twisted need to play for the moral high grounds, is willing to undergo a high dead head count of its citizen soldiers for a cause that has no bearing on morality of war. I would say if this is what Hamas wants, then let it be.... The results of January/february Gaza Castlead was we all know them have shown that no nation or anybody has given Hamas the "high medal of valiant honor and moral standing."

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  28. When one side counts its dead in single digits - in sixes and sevens - and the other counts its dead in the thousands, then yes, casualty counts are a certain indicator of who is the oppressed, and who is the oppressor.

    I could go on and refute everything that has been said point-by-point, but I know that it would mean nothing to the commenters here, who are all already immovable in their convictions.

    I will just say that everything being said on this blog, and everything being said by the commenters here, was also said by the South African Conservative party in the 1980s, about blacks and the ANC.

    "We are the humane ones, because if the situation were reversed,
    they would tear us apart."

    "We fight with honour, they fight like cowards, and so their death toll is their fault."

    "We have offered them self-government. They have offered us violence."

    And so on . . .

    The main difference is that Apartheid South Africa had no benefactor to whom it could always turn for diplomatic, economic, and military support.

    One day, neither will Israel.

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  29. Anonymous26/9/09

    Forget the propaganda. Israel has to start taking the offensive. At the time when Israel was suffering from attacks, all Israel had to do after each terrorist atrocity was to amalgamate parts of the disputed territory into Israel proper. The argument being that Jewish lives once lost could not be brought back. Once Judea and Samaria was totally within Israel proper, near Arab lands could be the target. Arabs respect strength - terrorism would have stopped. Their allies the Leftists would have been told to lay off Israel, as the game was too dangerous.

    In war, victory is all that matters. Jews, whether in Israel or the West, have made liberalism their only policy. Its bad enough that they have put Israel in jeopardy, but by their support for Muslim immigration, they have put the West in danger as well.

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  30. Islamist,

    Over a thousand Israelis have been killed by Arab terrorism since 2000. And that's not counting "random" violence, stabbings and rapes, and such that are racially motivated, but not classified as terrorism.

    Meanwhile over half a million Japanese civilians died in WW2, and less than 2000 American civilians.

    So you fail yet again.

    The rest of your comment is nothing more than

    "I can't think of any other arguments to make, so I'll call everyone else names and make absolutely groundless comparisons to South Africa."

    Tell you what chum, you want to compare someone to South Africa, try looking in a mirror. When Mecca ceases its apartheid of non-Muslims, then we can talk.

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  31. Dp111,

    Victory indeed is what matters as far as survival goes, and taking territory and similar approaches have been proposed and should have been implemented.

    Liberal Jews however, like liberal Christians, have no investment in the survival of Israel, just as Western liberals have no investment in the survival of their given nations.

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  32. Dear Sultan,

    Again with the tu quoque, as if the bigotry of Saudi Arabia justifies yours. . .

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  33. The bigotry of your "holy Islamic city" is in stark contrast to our holy city, as Muslims and Christians have not been barred from Jerusalem.

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  34. sammish - "It is psychological warfare ... for which Israel has no way of overcoming, let alone winning."

    RIDICULE is the answer. Don't ever respond to the accusations directly; INSTEAD ridicule the accuser from the POV of incredulity of his accusations.

    Be short and to the point. Don't prove you're right, come from the assumption of it. Here's how:

    Islamist - re: "head count":

    the proper response is to ask, Do you compare head count of police vs thugs and murderers it kills, too?

    Presumably police looses much less heads in THAT conflict.

    Sulten - re: "holy city":

    isn't the very name for it the Arabs use, Al-Quds, just a broken Hebrew name for it, Ir A-Qodesh, and is even meaningless on its own, in Arabic?

    Not only do they pretend the City is theirs, the impostors call it by its broken Hebrew name and want us not to see the incredible rediculousness of their preposterous claims to it.

    Arabs are from ARABIA,

    Jews are from JUDEA.

    QED.

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  35. Proud Islamist -

    so when the crazed killers in insane assylum stage a revolt (killing six or seven guards), which is later put down by force which kills a thousand of them - BECAUSE THEY ARE CRAZY AND JUST WON'T STAND DOWN - what then? Of course you'd cry "excessive force", and 500 other innocent lunatics were unfortunately killed too, which IS a tragedy (although they voted the crazies in on the last insane elections) - but what if the crazies shell the nearby city by rockets and mortars constantly? Do the citizens have to die while police prepares "measured response" which puts more citizens - and police - in more danger?

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  36. Will48,

    In general I agree. Debating is mostly a waste of time, and it's easier to use their fraudulent but effective tactics against them.

    Sometimes I choose to actually debate them to show their complete bankruptcy of arguments and ideas.

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  37. Sultan,

    of course, of course.

    I'm just saying, allusion and assumption is a powerful suggestive technique which helps get the point over quickly and efficiently.

    I mean, DO debate them - by ridicule, assumption and allusion. Like with the casualties counts and the police vs. thugs analogy.

    And the Arab/Muslim Supremacists use it all the time. Take just this one incredible invention of theirs: using the word Palestinian as a proper noun.

    It makes me wish we'd not used the name Israel at all and instead called it The Jewish State of Palestine, as per the UN resolution (I know, it's no bearing on the real Israel story, but the World refuses to know THAT).

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  38. Ideally Palestine should be scrubbed entirely. I use Palestinian Arabs whenever possible.

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  39. Very clever analysis of the present situation. I wish one of those days I could find time to translate it into french.

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  40. that would certainly be appreciated

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  41. Everything you have said is 'spot on'. I have always held the personal-yet-politically-incorrect view that Israel should have relocated all Arabs when it was created in '48 and again after the '67 war. I understand there was discussion of this in 1948 (by the PM?) but it was voted down. This was the biggest mistake Israel ever made. In the current world, unfortunately, Israel is too reliant on the USA and has to 'cowtow' in order to get weapons, etc. The best thing they could do is wean themselves off this reliance (including manufacturing their own arms and airplanes and going as oil-free as they can) and then proceed to take care of business. I too miss the old Israel... that of kibbutzim and sparse luxuries; of a people driven to fight and survive instead of going shopping at the mall for designer jeans. I'd like to see Israel go back to her roots and kick the living s--t out of the Arabs and their buddies. I'm hoping...waiting... for the day that I wake up to the headline "Israel stages surprise raid on Iranian nuclear sites" and "Iranian nuclear sites decimated by Israeli air force". If only....

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  42. Sultan, this is a spot on article, echoing many thoughts I've had and those of others. i think Caroline Glick has written something along these too.

    Unfortunately jews and the West have internalised themsleves as always wrong. This self-criticism is actually one of the by-products of a thinking, thoughtful society, but in the face of threat it should certainly give way to at least the realisation that we are worth preserving, as human beings first, then perhaps as Westerners etc. Why? Simply becaseu we, too, are human, and we, too deserve the right to satnd up for ourselves and protect our interests the same as other peple have always protected themselves and disdain to let themselves be bosses around.

    the spirit of compromise however, that establishes the necessary negotiating skills in an established society does not necessarily build this sort of awareness.

    The sort of independence you talk about is the kind demanded by buiders of a society, not so much by those who maintain it (or run it into the ground).

    What you say about independence is right and dynamically expressed.

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