”Our generation of officers who were mobilized to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] after the [1973] Yom Kippur War, now experienced the dramatic change in the map of the Middle East that leads to no less a dramatic change in the map of threats.” This statement was conveyed to Al-Monitor by a very high-level Israeli officer, a member of the IDF’s General Staff, who took part in building up the army’s forces and in directing Operation Protective Edge.
“Everything has to be changed,” he said, “including the very language we speak. Even when we talk about tilting the balance, we have to redefine what that means. Any military intelligence branch director who observed the Middle East five, 10, 20 years ago, saw flags. For every state, a flag. Under each flag, an army, a regime, a government or a ruler who made all the decisions. Today, when an Israeli intelligence branch director looks at the Middle East, he sees dozens of flags. Today, one could plant a lot of flags on the Syrian map alone.
“While we speak” (Aug. 27), the officer said, “Jabhat al-Nusra, an organization affiliated with al-Qaeda, is storming the city of Quneitra in the Syrian Golan. In the afternoon they wrested the border crossing between Israel and Syria from [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad’s hands, and now they are trying to conquer the city itself. This is a totally new reality. Once upon a time, there was one address in Syria. Today, there are dozens. In order to win [in the past], you had to beat the Syrian armored divisions. And that is something that the IDF knows very well how to do. The army is built for that. Today, the story has become far more complicated, elusive, difficult and shadowy.”
The officer said, “What terror did was, first and foremost, to recognize IDF’s superiority in the acknowledged spheres: air, sea, and land. So they created a new underground medium, tunnels, building them as a new combat space under their control. And they squeezed their activity into villages, cities and towns. In Lebanon, Hezbollah dispersed its strength among 200 villages. In Gaza, it is crammed into the crowded urban space. Almost every multistory building has a Hamas headquarters. They counted on the assumption that Israel wouldn’t touch a 14-story residential building filled with civilians on flights three to 14, while the three lowest flights are occupied by Hamas headquarters.
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