MUST READ: SECURITY LESSONS FROM THE ISRAELI TRENCHES

Security Lessons from The Israeli Trenches
By Thomas H. Henriksen
A half-century of counterterrorism

Reflecting on last summer’s Hezbollah-Israel border conflict reminds us just how long the Jewish state has had to fight for its existence against enemies that have now become our foes. American practitioners of counterinsurgency have too often studied the lessons of U.S. forces in the Vietnam War or the British in Malaya while neglecting the very relevant experiences of the Israel Defense Force over the past several decades in combating terrorism and insurgency.

Located in the heart of the Middle East, Israel’s combat theater much more closely resembles America’s challenges in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Horn of Africa in terms of culture, history, and political/religious persuasion than that of communist-inspired guerrillas in Asia several decades ago.

Since its founding in 1948, Israel has faced terrorism, insurgencies, and attacks from sub-state actors operating with non-Western goals and values, along with conventional wars and existential threats from aspiring nuclear nations such as Iraq and Iran. Israel’s versatility and adaptability in successfully combating threats not only has defended the survival of the embattled nation but also has made it an intriguing case study. As such, the Israel Defense Force’s military actions have been — and are — a laboratory for methods, procedures, tactics, and techniques for the United States, which now faces the same Islamist adversaries across the planet.

Years before the United States launched its retaliatory airstrikes on Qaddafi’s Libya, al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, or the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, Israel had staged commando raids and counterstrikes against terrorist networks and sovereign states that facilitated their assaults. It conducted a contemporary version of the international preemptive strike when its Air Force famously destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 after a failed Iranian air force effort to accomplish the same goal the previous year. Although Operation Babylon initially elicited international opprobrium, it was later judged beneficial to halting Iraq’s nuclear ambitions. In 1985, the iaf mounted another less well-known long-distance airstrike necessitating midair refueling against the Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters south of Tunis. This attack eliminated several key plo figures.

These long-distance Israeli strikes should have served as a model for what would be required of the United States. The extended-range hostage rescue by the Israeli Defense Force at Entebbe airport in July 1976 preceded a similar but unsuccessful American foray into Iran just four years later. In the Israeli case, terrorists hijacked an Air France commercial jet bound for Paris from Tel Aviv, after a stopover in Athens, on June 27, 1976, and rerouted it to Uganda. Upon reaching Entebbe, the four hijackers — two from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and two from West Germany’s Baader-Meinhof gang — enjoyed the collaboration of Ugandan President Idi Amin.

Provided intelligence from the idf’s a’man (the Hebrew acronym for Agaf Mode’In), its intelligence branch, the Sayeret Mat’kal (the General Staff’s own reconnaissance commando unit) mobilized, rehearsed its plans, flew 2,500 miles, and struck at the Entebbe airport, rescuing more than 100 passengers and crew with a minimum loss of life.

But Israel’s dramatic rescue did not serve as a model for the United States. In April 1980, Washington launched its own deep-penetration raid to rescue 52 American hostages who had been seized in the U.S. Embassy takeover in Tehran five months earlier. The spearpoint of the effort called for a mix of Delta Force, Green Berets, and U.S. Army Rangers. Despite lengthy preparations, the 600-mile flight ended in disaster at its Desert One rendezvous when three of the Sea Stallion helicopters mechanically broke down and a fourth was destroyed in an accidental crash at the site. The costs also included eight U.S. lives, captured documents revealing the names of Iranians willing to help the rescue team, and an American humiliation.
To be sure, not all Israeli operations have ended so happily or mythically as the Entebbe venture. Palestinian groups have ambushed idf patrols, rained rockets down on Israeli civilians, and killed bus riders or café-goers with suicide bombs with regularity. But in its grinding counterinsurgency operations and its counterterrorist sweeps, Israel’s missions could furnish abundant lessons and even warnings for American strategists willing to observe and profit from them.

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Pertinent Links:

1) Security Lessons from The Israeli Trenches