The above article... seems a sad yet truthful comment. My own war was fought by me over my father's factory(s). I often imagine myself as charging the enemy but at my age not likely. So....'There but for the grace of g-d I go.'

The article misses one point. Israel is demonstrating all its high tech weapons but is not mass producing most of them. What happens if 10,000 hamas fighters all equipt with large numbers of anti tank missiles rush the area where most of the Israeli soldiers are sleeping? Note that the greatest victory the moslems had against the roman forces in Syria occurred via a surprise night attack on the 6th day of the battle.

' He who runs away lives to fight another day . ' ( or else hide behind technology )

' you are strong ,but there are others stronger than you ' .

in the beginnings of defensive shield to root out west bank terror, the idf got off to a slow start. I RECALL ariel sharon going into the field, got out maps and point the way for idf soldiers to do the job with a friendly boot up the ass.

peres, olmert and bibi were and are utterly incapable of doing what sharon did. However, they could embolden idf troops with stories from desperate times and Jewish/Israeli heroics. But they fail at this miserably.

sometimes the civlian leadership has to give the idf a boot up the ass to get them going. they have been so constrained as Lieberman pointed out they seem like peace now operatives.

failure to engage the hamas group at the fence is serious. who were they? Were they sympathetic to hamas or were they cowards? their actions were unacceptable. idf should find out why they did not engage.

idf training has to root them out completely. otherwise what kind of fighting force is this.

i well understand that bibi inspires no confidence in the idf troops. i have no confidence in him period.

the 21st Century!

This is what happens when lawyers make the decisions and soldiers fear the lawyers more than the enemy.

Some of us have been preaching this since the early 90's when Shulamit Aloni said that boots on the Golan were a redundancy in the age of missiles, or something to that effect.

Those of us watching this conflict from afar, and who have participated in it up close and personal, see a startling inability of IDF forces to route Islamic foes at the squad or platoon level.

There is no doubt that the nature of large scale conflict in the 21st century is dependent on technology, combined arms and air power but sooner or later, HAMAS, Hezbollah or someone else is going to utilize human waves to overwhelm the aforementioned tactics and the IDF is in a poor state to go mano a mano.

What are the causes? Well, a Jewish aversion to loss of life, over reliance on technology and putting soldiers under a microscope for every perceived use of force infraction are sure contributing.

A shame too as this is the force that, once upon a time, was the embodiment of fighting prowess at the individual soldier level.

It seems that the vaunted IDF is not nearly as tough and as valiant as israelis like to pretend ,or imagine it to be ,this fine article by Yoav Keren should be a wake-up-call . Israel just can not afford to get it wrong .

,Most of us seem to enjoy technology .but there is a trap ,a rub. . Much of technology is simply unnecessary and surplus to requirements ,for example in some supermarket chains in Israel ,there is increasingly more and more technology at check- out points, when a simple nice lady working at the check-out will suffice.Technology is also potentially harmful because it can make workers redundant, and men need to work .Technology has been a wonderful aid to the I.D.F. and to other militaries ,technology can be a marvellous asset ,but we should be careful not to get too addicted to technology ,not to idolise it,G-d forbid. Technology exists to serve us, we should not serve it ! I am not a military expert, but as Yoav Keren correctly states ,in battle there is no substitute for boots on the ground and bayonets and rifles and bllod and guts. Technology can only do so much ! and when technology has a glitch and lets us down ,what will we do ? so emply technology wisely ,but understand its limits too ,in other words it can not do everything !

Unfortunately, it is all but too obvious that what was once the winning characteristics of Zahal, aggressive, led-from-the-front combative spirit is not present any longer except in the small elite commando units. The undisciplined, scruffy looks of even elite brigades, such as Golani or the paratroopers is a testimony to the laxness that prevails. No other western army allows its soldiers to chose how to wear their beret, or to roll up sleeves or not, or not to stand to attention when ordered to. Zahal soldiers used to look fit, tall, sleeves rolled up, beret to the right, standing upright, and inspiring respect. who would be deterred by a Nahal Haredi soldier? Or a fat-bellied officer? Or paratroopers looking pale and dishevelled? If the motivation is dead, bring back good staff sergeants to drill that lot into shape. Instil what was once Zahal spirit: after me, charge !

it seems Israel has lost the will to completely crush an enemy. Well directed rocket fire has replaced carpet bombing, which completely crushes an enemy both mentally and physically. Overwhelming machine gun, rifle and mortar firepower has been replaced by the squad, being extremely careful of their directed fire. It may be a total change on how Israel engages an enemy or it may be how the IDF is afraid of their own lawyers.

If the IDF ever came up against a proper professional army ,it would be in trouble.

Tell someone to risk their lives? There is an app for that

This is the reason that we are no match for Iran because Israel probably has around 100 offensive missiles and a similar number of defensive Arrow missiles.
Iran has invested billions into their missile programs and have many many hundreds at least missiles that can reach any part of Israel.

If we have 100 Arrows and they fire 200 missiles, just by numbers we lose and as there is no land border unless we have enough missiles that can hit Iran we are sitting ducks.

Iran also doesn't need a nuclear weapon, all they need is 1 good shot at the Dimona reactor and we have a radiation leak that will make large parts of the country uninhabitable for many years to come which will probably cause economic collapse.
No need for the destruction of Hiroshima if you can achieve the same thing in a less complicated way and Hezbollah have thousands of missiles that could hit Dimona because politicians looking to avoid conflicts have turned a blind eye and let them build up an arsnel.

We these days spend so much on missile defenses which are actually not that effective because the enemy has more missiles than we can shoot down and at the same time there is less money for offensive weapons so we can sit around and let them shoot at us but there is no money to shoot back.

in all warfare, armies with superior technology won the war.

this does not mean that fighting soldiers have lost their importance.

the posters below forget that israel has been fighting iran in the north
for a number of years. it is iran that is the major enemy that must
be defeated. gaza will never be defeated as long as iran's radical
shia regime rules.