It’s been thirty-five years now. Pound for pound, I imagine the IDF is still the toughest fighting force in the world. They can’t afford not to be.
28 thoughts on “Remembering Entebbe”
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It’s been thirty-five years now. Pound for pound, I imagine the IDF is still the toughest fighting force in the world. They can’t afford not to be.
Comments are closed.
Actually Rand, they are pretty lousy compared to the US.
There reputation is largely built on the old adage: “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King.” They are truly blessed in their enemies.
I used to believe as you till some friends in the SF community set me straight.
Not to take away from their victory at Entebbee.
More anon.
What do people in the science fiction community know?
S-pecial F-orces.
Most specifically a friend of mine who used to be the Chief Firearms Instructor for SOFD-D aka Delta.
Actually Rand, they are pretty lousy compared to the US.
“Pretty lousy” is a term so ridiculously vague as to render it meaningless.
I am quite curious as to what your friends in the “SF community” told you about the IDF’s weaknesses.
Please enlighten us.
Well, the Science Fiction community (I assume we’re talking about Neal Stephenson) thinks the Intel Developers Forum is pretty lousy, probably because he thinks Windows is vastly overrated compared to BeOS, Linux, and other operating systems, as explained in his book “In the Beginning Was the Command Line.”
If the subject is Special Forces versus the Isreali Defence Forces, the IDF is Israel’s overall military, so it would be like Special Forces saying the US Army is lousy (too many new recruits destined for the motor pool).
Isn’t the whole nation conscripted into the IDF? So it would be like comparing SEAL Team Six to average Americans, amirite?
I was referring to the institution as a whole, not special forces. Obviously our special forces are better than the IDF, but the American military as a whole?
The key phrase in your post is “pound-for-pound.”
I don’t know if you’re correct on this, but I think we’ll all agree that the US Armed Forces and the IDF are in a league of two.
The IDF didn’t stand out in their last war but fighting war to our standards is impossible even for us.
The National Review article needlessly politicizes the remembrance. The unit commander and chief architect of the Entebbe raid was Ehud Barak, who went on to become a Labor Prime Minister and is currently Israel’s defense minister in Netanyahu’s coalition govt. Call Barak a centrist or a leftist (or call him a flip flopper between those two positions), but he advocates the pro-peace politics criticized in the article (and he takes a pro-Obama position as well), yet he remains the IDF soldier and scholar that he was 35 years ago. In short, I think the defense of Israel doesn’t lend itself to the politicization that the author of the National Review piece attempts.
Wouldn’t surprise me at all if the American military as a whole is better pound-for-pound, since we are comparing volunteers and conscripts.
The IDF, indeed, much of Israel itself has gone wobbly over the past 2 decades. The founders and original settlers of Israel were Holocaust survivors. They were real fighters because they knew from personal experience that surrender was not an option. Israel today has many of the same problems as the U.S. Too many SWPL-types who have had it all handed to them on a platter.
The IDF, indeed, much of Israel itself has gone wobbly over the past 2 decades.
Operation Cast Lead wasn’t carried out by a “wobbly” IDF.
Netanyahu’s recent election and the utter collapse of the Israeli “peace” movement would seem to belie your contention here.
Wouldn’t surprise me at all if the American military as a whole is better pound-for-pound, since we are comparing volunteers and conscripts.
This is a bit misleading. Israel has a professional army of volunteers as well as units made up of conscripts. It also has a huge reserve force.
How do Israel’s professional cadres compare with those of the United States, pound-for-pound? I think this is a very difficult question.
Let’s call it a draw.
I found a tie-breaker by Googling “Hotties of the IDF” and then “Hotties of the SF”. The SF hotties were all dressed like aliens and some of them had forehead ridges or blue skin.
The IDF wins again!
Bob-1, according to wikipedia (yes, i know) the raid was led by Yonatan Netanyahu, who was the only Israeli soldier killed during the raid. His younger brother is Benjamin Netanyahu.
From the website of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government:
http://www.pmo.gov.il/PMOEng/History/FormerPrimeMinister/EhudBarak.htm
Colonel Barak was a key architect in the June 1976 Entebbe Operation for the rescue of passengers on the Air-France aircraft hijacked by terrorists and forced to land at the Entebbe airport in Uganda.
Here’s a nice remembrance of Jonathan Netanyahu:
http://www.jr.co.il/articles/yoni2.txt
The three men, Yoni, Bibi, and Ehud Barak, have a history that is bound together. Here are two quotes from the above remembrance:
—
One operation he did not take part in was the storming of a
hijacked Sabena airplane and the freeing of hostages in 1972.
He desperately wanted to, but the unit commander, Ehud Barak,
said no, because Bibi was taking part with his team, and the
rules said two brothers could not take part in the same
operation.
“He wasn’t too happy, not because I went, but because he
couldn’t go,” recalls Bibi. “He said that he should go,
that he’s going to join the assault force. I said you can’t,
because I’m going in there with my own soldiers. He said,
well then you stay out. I said I can’t: They’re my soldiers,
I have to lead them. He said then we’ll both go. I said that’s
not a very good idea, because what happens if both of us get
killed – what about our parents?”
Four years later, it was Yoni’s turn to lead a more famous
assault operation against terrorism. The maneuver was wildly
successful, with only one military fatality: Yoni.
—
“We were in the first plane that landed, with the Mercedes and
two Land Rovers,” says Amos Goren, who rode in the Mercedes
sitting behind Yoni.
“From the point we landed until the terrorists in the room with
the hostages were eliminated, took about three or four minutes.
From the time we opened the initial fire until that was
completed… it took maybe a minute.”
Goren, a bullhorn in his hand, had been running towards the
building with Yoni when he lost sight of him. It was Goren who
yelled to the hostages in Hebrew and English, “Koolam lishkav!
Everybody lie down! We are the Israeli army!”
Ten seconds later, the room was secured and the second-in-command,
Muki Betzer, received word over the radio that Yoni had been hit.
“That’s when we knew of it initially,” remembers Goren, retelling
the story he has told hundreds of times in the past 25 years.
“The next we heard of [Yoni’s death] was when we landed in
Nairobi. We were resting in the plane – I was actually sleeping
in the front seat of the Mercedes – and Ehud Barak,who was in
the airplane that flew above [Entebbe], joined us there. He came
onto the plane, and he was the one who told us. He told me
personally as I was sitting in Yoni’s seat.
“I was referring to the institution as a whole, not special forces. Obviously our special forces are better than the IDF, but the American military as a whole?”
Oh, hell yes! Not even close!
Rand, My SF buddy said the Hungarian Army was a more professional, more formidable fighting force.
Remember, we are talking about the chief firearms instructor for the most elite Special Forces outfit on the Planet. Been in over thirty countries and has trained both Isrealis and Hungarians not to mention about everyone else in the western world. He has seen a breadth and depth of things martial others can only imagine.
The Izzys are lousy at things like PMCS, pretty lousy shots by western standards. What saves them is they have superior equipment, a decent air force but mostly the fact they are fighting Arabs which as a whole, are an absolute joke as an effective fighting force.
Arabs in a stand-up fight are a joke. The best Arabian Forces are Iraq and Jordan. Iraq only by virtue of us training them.
By the way, that first raid – the one on the Sabena flight, was carried out by 16 Israeli commandos — the leader (one of the 16 who stormed the plane) was Ehud Barak, and another was Benjamin Netanyahu. The point is that the three men fought together, then Barak and the younger Netanyahu vied for political office (and tried different approaches to peace, and still disagree), and yet they are working together on defense matters.
Mike, I have a friend who in the Hungarian army in the 1990s who said it couldn’t have been a bigger joke. Maybe things changed in the preparation to join NATO. Or maybe you are kidding about the Hungarians?
Easily checked facts: they sent 300 soldiers to Iraq and all returned by 2005. A similar number (between 300 and 400) are in Afghanistan. It is hard to see how the vast majority of Hungarian army could have any combat experience, and wouldn’t they need experience if your claim is correct (assuming you are serious).
Well, they say your ability to effectively wage a large scale battle is reliant on your ability to communicate, maneuver, and fight. Israelis have a number of advanced reconnaissance systems that serve as the eyes of their military commanders who can coordinate assets best suited to a threat, they have the ability to maneuver combined arms and mechanized infantry in a concerted fashion to maximum their impact, this further enhances their ability to fight in a effective manner by bringing all the necessary assets to bear on a particular threat. Sure they use their fair share of U.S. military hardware to maximize their fighting potential; just like many other nations do. But they have plenty of their own in house hardware that has years of proven service out on the battlefield. The losses amongst their UAV’s are miniscule compared to the predator drones we use. Their Merkava main battle tank would be more than capable of hanging with any other nations contemporary main battle tank in my opinion. Not can it slug it out on an armored battlefield but it also serves as a armored personnel carrier, forward command and control station, and medical evac ambulance. Not only that but the IDF has honed one of the most effective and vicious fighting styles for personal self defense: Krav Maga. Sure we can split hairs and argue if they are pound for pound the best but you definitely gotta admit that they have vastily more experience waging war on the modern battlefield then 90% of other nations of the world.
….and again, they are fighting Arabs. That point cannot be underestimated.
“Mike, I have a friend who in the Hungarian army in the 1990s who said it couldn’t have been a bigger joke. Maybe things changed in the preparation to join NATO. Or maybe you are kidding about the Hungarians?”
No, things have changed. In the 90’s you were still dealing with a lot of crap from cold war era. Most eastern block armies WERE a shambles at that time for obvious, historic reasons and No, my buddy wasn’t kidding.
Part of the problem with Hezbollah a few years ago was they did have a bit of training. The Iraninas, agan who suck by comparison to a modern western army, trained them. The Iranians are still better than most Arab armies and some Iranian soidiers do know how to fight a bit.
arab armies like the Syrians for example, are a combination of several factors of suck:1) Political strucutre is aligned to retain power, not produce an effective fighting force. 2) Monkey-model, old, poorly cared for Soviet era equipment. 3) Primitive Soviet tactics that pale compared to western combined-arms tactics. 4) No NCO corps to speak of 5) Fatalist Arab attutide tha makes wonderfull suicide bombers but lousy stand-up soldiers.
I have a bunch of friends who stayed in who ended up fighting in Iraq in the GW. I was in during Desert Storm. I have heard many, many stories about the difficulty training the Iraqis in what we would consider simple tasks and tactics and remember Iraq was proabally the best Arab army, with the possible exception of the Jordanians, having stood up to the more numerous Iranians for 8 years. And it isn’t just teaching the task, it is as much instilling the proper warrior ethos and values. Values like doing PMCS, following lube orders and taking care of your gear.
Again, I am not belittilng the accomplishments of the IDF or Rand for his assertion. I used to share it untill some people who really knew their shit squared-me away.
Again, I have great respect for the Sayeret and their accomplishment at Entebbe. The Izzys are largely Jewish and have amny very smart and clever people that are innovative in their thinking.
Still by western standards, lhey lack a proper warrior mindset in things like equipment maintence and tactics. Some of their small arms tactics make me cringe in disbelief.
If I had their forces and was dictator fo a year over there, I would take their Army and instill some actual, western style discipline, end the familiarity between the ranks, and instil some meat-eating warrior ethos.
The raw material is there, the technology is there but they could better utilize it.
If the IDF was as well-trained and motived as an average U.S. Army line unit, I would lose no sleep, they cold steam-roll their way to Tehran if necessary.
“I have a bunch of friends who stayed in who ended up fighting in Iraq in the GW.”
Should read: “I have a bunch of friends that stayed in the Army who ended up fighting Iraq duirng OIF.”
Gedilya – No, I don’t agree that US forces and the IDF are in a league of two. Maybe I don’t agree because I’m British.
Quite so, Fletch. In most of the world’s nations, the “Army” is basically El Presidente’s personal goon squad. The organization is oriented entirely toward keeping the top dog on top. Defense of the realm against outside attack is waaay down the to-do list. There are only a handful of nations that have real fight-other-armies-and-kick-their-asses military organizations. The U.S. is number 1 on that list. The Brits and the Israelis are also there, as are the Canucks and the Aussies. The French at least have The Legion. Some of the Eastern Europeans have shown some good moves in Iraq and Af/Pak. Most of Western Europe, though, has degenerated to joke status. With a few very minor exceptions, for example, the German army in Afghanistan has been operating as though it’s engaged in adventure tourism, not warfare.
One more; would anyone like to go up against the Nepalese Army on their own turf? 🙂
Gedilya – No, I don’t agree that US forces and the IDF are in a league of two. Maybe I don’t agree because I’m British.
Fair enough.
“I would … end the familiarity between the ranks”
Why precisely? That may be actually a strength. Not to mention that it suits traditional Jewish culture better.