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Old 07-24-2005, 03:28 AM   #6 (permalink)
bigross86
401 Ikvot Habarzel
Military Professional
 
Join Date: 08-07-03
Location: Ra'anana, Israel
Posts: 3,148
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1. Israel is losing the media battle (e.g. battle of Jenin and the alleged "massacre") - lack of media embeds prevent the IDF from getting their story out first and then are in a situation where they lose the initiative to Palestinian reports, however accurate they are.
Israel can't embed reporters, due to the Censor's need to overlook everything before it's reported. The same applies to foriegn reporters.

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2. The IDF has had a cultural bias against officer education (they don't require bachelor degrees for commissioning, they don't have a war college, their command and staff college doesn't carry a lot of prestige); instead, they have a heavy emphasis on operational experience, which has stilted creative thinking/approaches to their COIN against the Palestinians.
Israel can't make a Bachelors degree a requirement, since all Israeli's join the service at 18-19 years of age, which doesn't leave much time out of high school. All Israeli male serve for three years and get out as a Staff Sgt. If you wanna become an officer, you have to go through OCS, sign on for another year, and you're commisioned as a Segen Mishne, or Second Lieutenant. Israel doesn't have a War College per se, but it does have many studying and training facilities, and unfortunately, due to Israel's unique geographic location and geopolitical situation, experience is more important than education in most cases. The cases where it doesn't is what they try to cover in OCS.

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4. Israel has developed some great technologies/systems that are extremely effective during engagements with insurgents (live UAV feed to wrist mounted displays, the D9 armored bulldozer, the ability of the Merkava to carry infantryman, excellent hatch protection on their APCs [vision blocks]); however, while these are effective in battles and reduce casualties, they don't translate to success beyond the battlefield.
What success beyond the battlefield is needed? We're not trying to sell APC's on the civilian market.

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5. The IDF has gained some good urban operations experience, such as the necessity of having a strong linguistics capability in infantry units in order to take advantage of immediate intel possibilities (e.g. a captured insurgent radio), the need for snipers in a countersniper role to overmatch insurgent marksman/snipers, the need for assault guns (MBT gun) for precision overmatch vs. less powerful strikes from attack helos.
These have been around since way before the beginning of the Second Intifada. In fact, some of the things you state here on your list have been S.O.P. for near twenty years, if not more.

If you have specific questions, I'll try to help. I'm joining the IDF in a week and I have friends who have already been in for quite a while.
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