Israel is looking to World War II in its Gaza fight, and it risks taking lessons from the wrong war

Source: Insider

Israel is looking to World War II in its Gaza fight, and it risks taking lessons from the wrong war

Analysis by Sam Fellman and Sonam Sheth

• Israel faces long odds of ending Hamas, and even if it succeeds it's faced with a difficult dilemma: What comes next?
• The US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan but ran into trouble when it tried to rebuild their governments.
• "The Israelis have a similar problem here," a military expert with RAND told Insider.

Israel's military is leveling the tiny Gaza enclave with the overwhelming force of a nation that, much like the US in 2001, vows never again to be blindsided by a massive terrorist attack.

Hamas, Israelis feel, must be destroyed.

But beyond the certainty many Israelis feel about ending Hamas, there lies an uncertain future and a political dilemma Israel has avoided addressing — a predicament that hamstrung a superior military power, the United States, in similar conflicts.

"The Achilles heel of the US operation in Iraq and Afghanistan was that we had the game plan for the invasion more or less worked reasonably smoothly," Raphel Cohen, the director of the Strategy and Doctrine Program of RAND Project AIR FORCE, told Insider. "The problem was what came next and that was where we ran into trouble. The Israelis have a similar problem here."

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Read more: https://archive.li/W9h65

Original Insider link (paywall): https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-risks-taking-lessons-for-gaza-fight-from-the-wrong-war-2023-11

Alternate link: https://news.yahoo.com/israel-looking-world-war-ii-120001405.html