Yoav Gallant On Dan Senor's podcast: Bibi's October 11th Blunder

[Yehuda57]

[Months ago, @Yehuda57 brought up that there were ways Bibi caved to American pressure and could have fought the war better, for instance delaying Rafah for months, and not attacking Hezbollah at the start of the war, as was leaked at the time (by Bibi's team) as being a huge disagreement. Then recently], YEhuda57 referred to an interview former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant, who was recently fired by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu gave to the highly respected Dan Senor podcast, in which he claims that he and other military experts urged activation of the [Nasrallah and Radwan leadership elimination, almost the entirety of long range missile elimination, and the] Walkie-Talkie [& 15000 radio] operation on October 11th, explaining the tactical reasoning, which prima facie seem extremely compelling to be the right thing at the time.

@ExGingi, despite his distrust of Gallant, [claimed to] puts the personal issue aside and makes a compelling argument as to why carrying out the operation at that time, [but proceeded to cite lengthy histories of who Gallant is, his longstanding political feuds with Netanyahu which are irrelevant to the purpose of this discussion. ExGingi then continued to explain that] based on information known at that time, might have been too risky, which might be the reason Netanyahu didn't go along with the plan AT THAT TIME.

@Yehuda57 keeps on arguing that based on that which is known today, carrying out the operation at the time WOULD HAVE BEEN highly successful, and therefore it was the right thing to do, and the ONLY [primary] reason Netanyahu didn't carry it out was because he didn't want to anger the US administration, and wanted to spite Gallant [didn't trust Gallant] (thereby making a very serious accusation of putting [allowing] personal vendetta ahead of his job [to cloud his judgement] as the leader in charge of the safety of the residents of his country). @Yehuda57 brings no proof or evidence for this. [other than the obvious: When there is a disagreement as to which road to follow, very rarely do you get to see how the road NOT taken would have panned out. Here, we did get a very good look with Israel enacting the very plan that had been in place, only more than a year later. Of course, that is not 100% indicative of the same success had it been executed at the time, but it clears the "beyond a reasonable doubt" bar, and IMHO has signs of even greater success than was achieved than when they finally *did* do it.

Which is the key point. Knowing that, EVEN IF we say that based on the supposed

Despite making factual and logical based arguments made by @ExGingi]

Netanyahu did indeed make the correct decision at the time, the facts we know know tell us that Gallant's opinion AT THE TIME has proven to correct, despite working off the same sets of facts. Thus, any reasonable person could declare:
 clearly avoiding the personnel questions, @Yehuda57 accuses him of takin said position just "because that would mean uttering the words "Gallant was likely correct in this very specific instance"." [Even if I understand why Bibi made the decision AT THE TIME.[

As for this line:
Wheras it is actually @Yehuda57 who is the one making this something about specific people, rather than objective consideration. (This might be an early warning sign of BDS/NDS, an incurable severe mental condition).

I'll suffice to say I don't even know what NDS would mean, so I'm unsure what/who I'm deranged by

No. Because we don't know what could have or would have happened (are you deliberately ignoring the KNOWN risks that I enumerated, including the risk of IAF failure (if not worse))?

See above, we can't KNOW for certain, but we can believe beyond any reasonable doubt. We know the intel was solid, the plans were in place, they did work, they would have worked.

[If by IAF failure you mean because of reservists refusing to report based on your previous posts, by Oct 11 that was already well known to not be an issue with unprecedented numbers of reservists reporting for duty with no refusals.]

What are YOU willing to admit?

That it is perfectly understandable that Bibi distrusted Gallant at the time, however unfortunate a mistake it proved to be. The American appeasement is likely understandable, though much less forgivable, especially given his posturing as the guy who has the guts to stand up to America/the world.
 

Does hindsight come from where that giraffe is licking?

I'll forgive the personal jab just because it's a joke I've made about myself numerous times.

[Yehuda57]

So why don't you tell us what you DO belive you know about Bibi, regardless of where you get your information from. You can't claim ignorance, and then imply that Bibi acted in what could be tantamount to treasonous motives "too pissed off by Gallant" being a consideration.

I believe he is a master politician, likely one the greatest of the modern age. He is equally narcissistic, like I believe a wise man once said on this forum, "even more than Obama". I believe, like most politicians, power trumps most other considerations, and his desire to maintain leadership often leads to awful blunders. He has made incredibly good and bold decisions for the country, ones I've been proud of, and made some huge blunders as well.

You can't claim ignorance, and then imply that Bibi acted in what could be tantamount to treasonous motives "too pissed off by Gallant" being a consideration.

Why not? Gallant describes a disagreement about strategy that contemporaneous reporting bears out was indeed the case. I find it compelling - almost everyone here jumps on me to tell me how bad Gallant is/was and how untrustworthy his opinion was. But the facts as we know them now seem to me to prove him correct *in this one instance*. The fact that Bibi wasn't able to see that at the time was likely in part because of his distrust of Gallant, which while understandable, turned out to be a big error

[Yehuda57]

For a different mashal, just because I happened to find a million dollars in the woot boc, does not mean that it was the right decision to borrow 10k to buy 100 of them.

You repeated my point. Good outcomes don't = good decisions, and vice versa. But that's not the case here. A more apt mashal is if the CEO of Woot told you at the time that if you buy 100 of them you will find 1 million dollars, but you choose not to trust him, and then a year later we discover he was telling you the truth.

[yfr bachur]

Let me ask you a question, and I believe we've been sincerely debating this thus far with intellectual honesty.

Do you believe that Yehuda57 is consumed by leftist bibi hate? Do you believe that he's against judicial reform?

No, but possibly captured by the slurs of the anti bibi camp, even if he doesn't realize it or have any animus at all.

[yfr bachur]

You repeated my point. Good outcomes don't = good decisions, and vice versa. But that's not the case here. A more apt mashal is if the CEO of Woot told you at the time that if you buy 100 of them you will find 1 million dollars, but you choose not to trust him, and then a year later we discover he was telling you the truth.

Hard disagree on the mashal.
You seem to be fixated on the point that you seem to think Gallant and/or Bibi KNEW it would work, and Bibi choose to operate a different way out of hate for Gallant, or "political" reasons etc...

My point (and I think ExGingis too) is that they KNEW nothing. They had to make the decision based on whatever information they had at the time. And based on the information available at the time, all admit that Bibi made the correct decision. Whatever we've learned since is irrelevant.

[Yehuda57]

Hard disagree.
You seem to be fixated on the point that you seem to think Gallant and/or Bibi KNEW it would work, and Bibi choose to operate a different way out of hate for Gallant, or "political" reasons etc...

My point (and I think ExGingis too) is that they KNEW nothing. Whatever we've learned since is irrelevant.

Again misstating my position. At the time they did not know. You can't ever know. But before Oct 7 they had a plan. A plan they were ALL confident would work. Then the time came and Bibi said no and Gallant said yes.

Whatever the reasoning, we now KNOW that the plan was a good one, it would have worked, because it DID work. The plan Bibi knew about and was confident in worked when he tried it

[yfr bachur]

Again misstating my position. At the time they did not know. You can't ever know. But before Oct 7 they had a plan. A plan they were ALL confident would work. Then the time came and Bibi said no and Gallant said yes.

No one debates that they were confident the walkie-talkies and 📟 would have exploded.
It's everything that comes afterwards.
Geopolitical risks tha Gallant just waves his hand and says "irrelevant".
Remember the US moving entire carrier fleets to be near Israel to deter other actors from joining in the fun of hitting Israel when they are down. Who could it be that they were detering? What would have been if IL would have run the WT and 📟 operation, and the US reacted by saying, "oh, you want a wide regional conflict...you are on your own "?

[yfr bachur]

Lets take this "was it the right decision" discussion into a related topic.

No one needs a commission of inquiry to tell them that ST was immediately caused by an epic operational failure of the IDF, which was caused and preceded by an epic intelligence failure.
A long term look shows that Hamas was enabled to get to that point by Bibi's strategic decision to allow Hamas to retain power and strength in Gaza, in order to forstall a reconciliation between the various Palestinian factions that would lead to increased international pressure on Israel to come to a final status agreement with the PA. (For this BTW, the leftists on whatever commission is formed will try to have him hung in thentown square) This in turn was, at least in part, based on A. the analysis by the intelligence community that Hamas was no longer interested in war, just sabre rattling, and wanted to stay in power (and get rich etc...). B. the assumption that the mossad and shin bet would be able to provide sufficient warning in event of a Hamas attack.

Now that ST happened, and the assumptions and analysis of the intelligence community that Bibi relied upon when formulating his strategy visa vi Hamas were proved to be incorrect, was Bibis decisions wrong?

[yelped]

Again misstating my position. At the time they did not know. You can't ever know. But before Oct 7 they had a plan. A plan they were ALL confident would work. Then the time came and Bibi said no and Gallant said yes.

Whatever the reasoning, we now KNOW that the plan was a good one, it would have worked, because it DID work. The plan Bibi knew about and was confident in worked when he tried it

To summarize, your whole argument is that Bibi wasn't sure that the plan would work, that's why he didn't implement it at the time, while you are sure it would have worked then, because it worked later?

[Yehuda57]

To summarize, your whole argument is that Bibi wasn't sure that the plan would work, that's why he didn't implement it at the time, while you are sure it would have worked then, because it worked later?

Bibi was sure it would work pre Oct 7 even if he wasn't 100% certain (which no plan ever can be). For political reasons, he became unsure and didn't go through with it. We now know that was wrong based on objective reason. No matter how understandable the decision was at the time, we now know that Gallant was actually correct in this regard.

[Yehuda57]

No one debates that they were confident the walkie-talkies and 📟 would have exploded.
It's everything that comes afterwards.
Geopolitical risks tha Gallant just waves his hand and says "irrelevant".
Remember the US moving entire carrier fleets to be near Israel to deter other actors from joining in the fun of hitting Israel when they are down. Who could it be that they were detering? What would have been if IL would have run the WT and 📟 operation, and the US reacted by saying, "oh, you want a wide regional conflict...you are on your own "?

You're getting into a politics vs military argument, which we likely have very different views on. ExGingi, however, doesn't (usually).

[yelped]

Bibi was sure it would work pre Oct 7 even if he wasn't 100% certain (which no plan ever can be). For political reasons, he became unsure and didn't go through with it. We now know that was wrong based on objective reason. No matter how understandable the decision was at the time, we now know that Gallant was actually correct in this regard.

You keep on repeating that but I don't see how that makes it true.

[Yehuda57]

Now that ST happened, and the assumptions and analysis of the intelligence community that Bibi relied upon when formulating his strategy visa vi Hamas were proved to be incorrect, was Bibis decisions wrong?

Again, if this is your claim, fine. But then you could still say today "turns out Gallant was right at the time" even if Bibi made the right call in your opinion.

But the intel failures were regarding the motivations and goals of Hamas. The intel on Hezbollah was about factual things on the ground, like locations of people and missile, and an infiltration and sabotage of their supply chain.

[Yehuda57]

You keep on repeating that but I don't see how that makes it true.

Because no one has provided an objective fact that shows that it would not have worked.

Couldn't rely on the intel? Turns out we could.
Couldn't rely on the soldiers? Turns out we could.
Would cause missiles to rain on Tel Aviv? Turns out it didn't.
America would not support Israel? Turns out they will.
And on and on.

Again, it's rare that you get to see both endings of a choose your own adventure in real life. Obviously the situation a year later is different, but like I said above, there's arguably more reason to say it would have been better at the beginning of the war than the middle. We saw what happened when they say in the border allowing missiles to rain and then what happened when they unleashed the plan after being forced into it.

Not only did Israel not suffer, it neutered Hezbollah, undressed Iran, and led to Syria's collapse. Imagine going to war in Gaza on *that* backdrop?

[yawn]

"turns out Gallant was right at the time"

In his assessment of the likely military success of the operation.

Bibi made the right call

To wait for a more appropriate time

[yfr bachur]

Lets try this one last time.

You (and Yoav Gallant) have an assumption, not based on anything other than your gut feelings, that if Israel activates its walkie-talkie/beeper plan on October 11, than every other event action and decision (both by Israels friends and foes) that has occurred in the year and a half since would have been exactly the same, and therefore Gallants plan was right in hindsight.

Our rebuttal is twofold. One, you have no right to make that assumption, it is more likely than not that many, many things would be different. Two, those making the decisions at the time did not KNOW what any of these events actions and decisions would be, and therefore the only possible right plan/decision that could be made is the one that was correct based on the known facts and various risk assessments on October 11 - which you yourself have already admitted was the Bibi decision!

[yawn]

I think we've had a very productive and informative discussion. I'm pretty sure I understand everyone's viewpoints, and I don't think anyone is objectively wrong.

What I'm curious about, is the view that Israel cares too much about Americas opinion. I would love to be convinced that I am wrong, because I don't want to believe that Israel is hamstrung by whomever America elects. But it keeps coming back to Iran for me. The way I see it, at some point Israel will need to deal with the threat of a nuclear Iran. They don't seem to have the munitions to do it themselves. Without American support, there isn't much they can do. By that logic, ticking off America seems self-destructive.

Why am I wrong?
A) It is in Americas interest to have Israel deal with Iran regardless, for fuel/Saudi/other geopolitical purposes, and will help Israel regardless? (Maybe but Israel loses the ability to assess on their own when Iran is near breakout, and is beholden to America intel)
B) Ignoring America's foreign policy demands in the current war won't be enough to severely complicate ties? (May have been true 10 years ago, but legitimate forces on the far flanks of both parties are no longer pro Israel, so I owuldn't be so confident.)
C) Israel can deal with Iran on it's own? (The facts I've seen don't bear that to be true, but who am I)
D Whatever I'm missing.
I'm not looking to debate here. I am genuinely curious. When people who generally seem intelligent and aren't blowhards otherwise, say something repeatedly, it makes me wonder if I'm missing something.

[Chuchum Ainer]

Lets try this one last time.

You (and Yoav Gallant) have an assumption, not based on anything other than your gut feelings, that if Israel activates its walkie-talkie/beeper plan on October 11, than every other event action and decision (both by Israels friends and foes) that has occurred in the year and a half since would have been exactly the same, and therefore Gallants plan was right in hindsight.

Our rebuttal is twofold. One, you have no right to make that assumption, it is more likely than not that many, many things would be different. Two, those making the decisions at the time did not KNOW what any of these events actions and decisions would be, and therefore the only possible right plan/decision that could be made is the one that was correct based on the known facts and various risk assessments on October 11 - which you yourself have already admitted was the Bibi decision!

Would you say the same about the Shalit deal? Tachlis, the decision was based on the known facts and various risk assessments.

So yeah, "they" can get it wrong.

[yfr bachur]

You don't even need to get to the Iranian issue.

Think about where Israel would be today without the US military aid. Basic Munitions...
Think about where Israel would be today without any protection of a veto in the Security Council over the last few decades.
What does an Israel under international sanctions and boycotts look like?

[yfr bachur]

Would you say the same about the Shalit deal? Tachlis, the decision was based on the known facts and various risk assessments.

So yeah, "they" can get it wrong.

Hard disagree.
The deal was forced upon the Israeli Govt by pressure.
It went against ALL known facts and risk assessments.