Get the job done
“The conflict Iran will try to wage” (May 31) by Ilan Pomeranc lays out some potentially devastating military scenarios and one can only hope that Israel is prepared to meet all these challenges in the way he suggests. The fact that the head of IDF Military Intelligence, Maj.-Gen Aharon Haliva, has expressed some serious concerns regarding Iran’s strategies lends weight to Pomeranc’s article.
My concern is that if things unfold as proposed by Pomeranc, Israel needs to start now with a very proactive program of advising the governments of various friendly countries as to Israel’s strategy in future conflicts. We have seen that in prior times of crisis, be it 1948, 1967, 1973 etc., that friend and foe alike were happy to sit back for 72 hours, waiting to see if the nuisance of a Jewish problem would be dealt with by the Arab armies.
Only when things turned against the Arab forces was there a mad rush to the UN for a ceasefire to be implemented. Time and again Israel was prevented from achieving overwhelming and decisive military victories, and we live with those results until today.
It needs to be a firmly adopted policy by Israel, that all future conflicts will only end when Israel has completely destroyed the enemy – infrastructure and combatants alike. Such should be the case in dealing with Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. The drip, drip of the terrorist warfare cannot be allowed to continue.
Israel, by just maintaining this status quo, has not produced any significant results in decades. They fire hundreds of rockets at Israel, Israel blows up unoccupied training camps, tunnels, etc. and then it starts all over again; it’s the same strategy, same result and the same game.
The world needs to be put on notice; we are a sovereign nation and will act accordingly. If any country wants to help, fine. Otherwise get out of the way. That includes the US, which continues to try and reach agreement with Iran. Washington must understand that Israel is not the 51st state of America.
In dealing with Iran, there can be no half-measures. Israel will need to have the objective and the will to ensure the total destruction of the current Iranian regime and their nuclear program; no ceasefires, no quarter given.
All of the above presupposes that Israel will have the necessary tools with which to get the job done. If not, we are in serious trouble because the Iranians are coming for us.
Because Israel strives to conduct any military action with the utmost sensitivity and moral standards toward civilian populations, I suggest the following: Israel cannot wait to start dropping leaflets and “rooftop knocking” while in the middle of a major conflict. Any major war that requires surprise attacks or immediate action on multiple fronts will not give Israel the luxury of giving the civilian population advance warning and then having to sit back while the warnings are acted upon.
Too many missiles and rockets will rain down on Israeli cities and towns while we wait for the civilian populations to get out of the way. Tell the Arab civilian population groups in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and in Arab cities in Judea and Samaria, if they live or work among the weapons caches and terrorist groups, they are primary targets 24/7.
This should be a daily warning to them. It is their choice to be human shields or not. They can no longer sit on the fence waiting to see who will be victorious.
MANFRED LEVENTHAL