Why Israel’s conventional operations are successful but it is unable to repeat that in hybrid war

Israel has responded only with violence against violence, hunting down leaders of terror groups raiding across borders and never really attempting to isolate the terrorists within their own society through good cultivated relationships with non-partisan elements

IDF handout image shows the ongoing ground operation against Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Reuters file

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This was while I was researching speaking at a recent webinar that I realised the paradox. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), iconised everywhere for its great prowess and tactical acumen, owes that to it scoring some great successes in war through history of the second half of the 20th century. Beginning in 1948, the fledgling IDF, made up of a couple of revolutionaries, came out victorious when the Arab nations, emerging from an elongated period of colonialism, could put together no resistance in the first Arab-Israeli conflict.

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In 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal and perpetuated an international crisis to threaten the survival of Israel as a nation. The issue was resolved through the Tripartite Invasion by France, the UK, and Israel, resulting in Israeli occupation of Sinai and Gaza for six months; the latter then opened navigation through the Straits of Tiran.

Then came June 1967, and Israel was once again hemmed in by what Abdel Nasser of Egypt probably felt was a refurbished and trained set of armed forces. Buffeted by threats from multiple fronts and the blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba, Israel once again went proactive. Moshe Dayan, the Israeli Defence Minister, became a veritable national hero as he masterminded the early morning airstrike on Egyptian airfields, which led to the capitulation of the Egyptian Army in six days.

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1973’s famous Yom Kippur War was masterminded by Anwar Sadat with the concept of ‘sharara’ or the spark to light fire in the Middle East. The intent was to draw attention of the international community to what was being considered a forgotten issue—the continued occupation of the Sinai by Israel, after 1967. The IDF was taken by surprise by one of the most meticulously conceived and executed politico-military deception plans. Initial setbacks may have resulted in abject surrender, but Israel’s survival instinct and the zeal born out of the existential threats that existed all around led to a surprise turnaround.

Based upon General Ariel Sharon’s brilliant manoeuvre through an inadvertent gap of two kilometres between the two Army-level thrusts of the Egyptian Army, it led to the IDF placing a division worth of armour behind the Egyptian Armies and severing of the road to Cairo—the logistics feeder. That was the end of the Egyptian advance, which Sadat anyway had restricted to a ten-kilometre depth into the Sinai.

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That was the last of Israel and IDF’s decided victories; it was also the last time that a pure conventional war was fought between Israel and its various adversaries. 1978 witnessed the commencement of a half-baked peace process. It did achieve a near-permanent peace between the two adversaries—Israel and Egypt—but also became the point of departure from where the nature of confrontation altered quite drastically.

Although it did not move in favour of or against the Arabs in any decided way, from 1979 onwards, a new elephant in the room upset many equations in the Middle East. This was Iran, till the Revolution, a starkly pro-US and pro-Israel nation, intermittently ranged against Saudi Arabia. From 1979, after the Shia Revolution, it became Israel’s greatest enemy, to the extent of forcing a rapprochement of sorts between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Iran perceived the Arab support for the Palestinian cause as lip service and conceived a wholly new concept of war to take the conflict with Israel to another level and another dimension.

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As a war broke out between Israel and Lebanon in 1982, the first Arab-Israeli confrontation after 1973 resulted in Iran setting up its proxy force in Lebanon—Hezbollah, a replica of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) set up by Ayatollah Khomeini. The 80s saw Iran deeply embedded in the war with Iraq. When it ended after eight long years, the world was in transformation, with the Cold War over and the bipolar world a relic of the past. Conventional wars became passe, and hybrid wars were in fashion with terror at the core.

The IDF, right from the 80’s, was in confrontation with the proxies of Iran—Hezbollah and Hamas. The latter was founded in 1987 in the wake of the Palestinian youth-led stone-throwing pushback against Israel, better known as Intifada 1. With Iran much keener to inherit and assume the mantle of confrontation with Israel, the only active Arab nation ranged against Israel was Syria. The Levant area became the scene for confrontation between Israel and the Iranian proxies, and that is how wars have been since. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was under Qassem Soleimani, who handled all military and security issues beyond Iran’s boundaries.

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Only in 2006 did Israel go to war with Hezbollah; the result was indecisive, contributing to the rising confidence of Hezbollah. The terrorist mode was also adopted by Hamas in Gaza and sometimes the West Bank. The new concept of violent confrontation through the mode of ‘forever in war’ adopted by the radical groups kept Israel on tenterhooks. It responded only with violence against violence, hunting down leaders of terror groups raiding across borders and never really attempting to isolate the terrorists within their own society through good cultivated relationships with non-partisan elements.

The conflict has gone on and been passed on from one generation to another. Iran has in the interim adopted (since 1992) a concept of offensive use of missiles and rockets. The IDF admits that 130,000 such missiles and rockets exist in Lebanon and Gaza in the possession of the proxies. The potential of war without having to cross boundaries had thus reached a point of no return.

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This is with the above backdrop that Israel’s failure to execute a war-winning strategy yet again in 2023–24 has to be seen. For all these years, the IDF’s armour component has never fought in built-up areas. The degree of surgical efficiency with which Ismail Haniyeh has been taken down in Tehran does not get applied any longer in the field. This has led to mass bombings and civilian casualties.

Such a degree of desperation by a regular force under arms has not been witnessed for many years, and victory too has been elusive. We have witnessed the IDF’s failure before, in 1973 and to an extent in 2006. In 1973, it was quickly made up by the great generalship. That is something the IDF seems to be sorely missing. The politico-military elite of Israel was steeped in great military culture; the days of Moshe Dayan and Ariel Sharon come to mind. No longer, and the scale of atrocities is inexplicable. But for US backing, the IDF cannot stand up to any querying on this at an impartial hearing. The war cannot go on forever. Stamina on both sides is running out. The intensity may be lowered, and the same would then fester. The hybridity factor is just too complex and too intense to fully comprehend; it is likely to remain around without a result for fairly long, with bouts of enhanced intensity.

India has lessons in this. Our approach to proxy hybrid war has been far more pragmatic and sensible. We need not be self-critical. All the public perception of appreciation of Israeli machismo has not fetched Israelis any dividend, only perpetuation of conflict. India’s concept, more balanced and benign, is designed to end conflict in our favour. We have a wily adversary, and asymmetry is much less than that existing between the IDF and the non-state Hamas/Hezbollah.

Yet our relative control is far higher. One may lift an accusatory finger with reference to Jammu. Multiplicity of threats, an inability to comprehend conflict progression from conflict termination, taking eyes temporarily off the scanner, and a not so energetic outreach program have probably been the cause of resurgence. It will be controlled very soon, no doubt, but in the case of Israel, the systemic change in the IDF’s concept of warfighting from 1973 to 2024 has been too deep for an early retrieval. Hamas will exploit this, although it will suffer, and will make the Palestinian people suffer along with it.

The writer is a Member of the National Disaster Management Authority. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author.