Yourish.com

This Ha’aretz article purports to be about a missile defense, but it’s chock-full of what Ehud Barak thinks is wrong with the current processes of the IDF, and how they can be fixed. This is why I point out that the IDF is a thinking army, and why I maintain my optimism about Israel’s defense capability.

Though Barak has declined to say so explicitly or to point an accusing finger at anyone, he has been unpleasantly surprised by what he has discovered about the Israel Defense Forces’ preparedness in the weeks since his return to the Defense Ministry. At a meeting Tuesday with reservists from an armored brigade, one tank gunner told him that his current reserve duty is the first time he has seen an actual shell in five years. “No one will wait five years before the next exercise,” promised Barak, who believes that live-fire exercises are critical, as they are the closest thing to real combat.

Last week, Barak met with a group of brigade commanders and was surprised to hear some of them say that during last summer’s Lebanon war, they had faced difficult dilemmas when they weighed the “value of their missions” against the danger to soldiers’ lives. Barak, like other former generals, has been critical of some units’ failure to stick to their missions during that war, and he told the brigade commanders that this is not an issue they should even consider during wartime. A single brigade commander, he explained, lacks a clear picture of the entire front, and must therefore act on the assumption that his superiors have good reason for their orders.

Each commander, he added, must behave as if the outcome of the war depends on his actions alone.

Barak has also met recently with several of the retired officers who led the army’s in-house probes into the Second Lebanon War. Based on these meetings and his studies of the material, he has concluded that the biggest problem was the enormous difference between a real war and counterterrorism activity in the territories, coupled with the lack of an “institutional memory”: Israel’s last real war occurred 24 years ago, and the IDF no longer has any officers who remember what that was like.

Operations to arrest wanted terrorists, for instance, are often halted in the middle if a soldier is wounded, as evacuating him is considered to take priority. In war, however, such conduct would be beyond the pale: An assault must continue even if the unit suffers casualties.

It sounds like Ehud Barak can fix things, if he doesn’t start running for office right away and sticks to managing the defense portfolio.

This is why Iran wants the bomb:

Iran yesterday showed off for the first time a new fighter jet said to be modelled on the American F-5 but built using domestic technology, state media reported.

The Azarakhsh (Lightning) jet-one of the first to be home-produced by Iran-made a successful flight in the central city of Isfahan in a ceremony attended by Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar and other officials.

[…] The development of the plane was first announced in September last year, when military officials said that it was “comparable” to the US F-5 fighter jet.

From the Daily Alert editors:

The F-5 is a 1960s-vintage jet. Prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Iran’s air force possessed some 160 F-5 fighters.

Welcome to the 1960s, Iran.

All sarcasm aside, this is why Iran wants nukes. Because they’re not able to build their own cutting-edge jets, and we won’t sell them any (though Russia has no such compunction; however, Russian jets always seem to lose when confronted with American jets piloted by Americans or Israelis).

Actually, not all music. But you can no longer play the violin, the piano, or the flute.

I lead a group of 26 musicians – we play traditional Palestinian music. But for the last two months we haven’t been able to work.

This group, Hamas, believe they are the leaders of Islam. The violin, piano, flute, all these instruments are banned. Only the drum is allowed. They say any other instrument is not mentioned in the Koran.

[…] Hamas have already beaten one of my singers for singing for Fatah. He was attacked at the wedding where he went to perform.

We had to send him to Israel for hospital treatment.

We have to keep our traditional music because it is Palestinian. People without traditions are not civilised, they are nothing.

But hey, the other two Palestinians on the BBC website say that life in Hamas is okay. It’s the evil Israelis who are behind all the misery.

The Western media try to paint Hamas as the source of all evil. But Hamas are Palestinians as well. They are not strangers from another planet.

A friend of mine had his wedding party a few days ago. It was mixed male and female, not a traditional wedding. It went ahead as normal, so our way of life has not changed.

However, since the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped [last year] we have had less electricity. We only get between 12 and 14 hours a day.

We get it from an Israeli company and Israel decrees how much electricity we need – they want to make us suffer.

Uh-huh. They want to make you suffer. That’s why they supply electricity at all. The cognitive dissonance of the eternal Palestinian victimhood survives.