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

[ExGingi]

The major difference is that Lebanon is the war Israel had been preparing for for 2 decades, and Bibi knew they had the Intel on the rocket locations, leadership whereabouts, and the beeper/radio operation.

This is exactly the attitude that failed on Shmini Atzeres, the arrogance and hubris discounting the enemy's capabilities, and over estimating Israeli preparedness.

[Chuchum Ainer]

This is exactly the attitude that failed on Shmini Atzeres, the arrogance and hubris discounting the enemy's capabilities, and over estimating Israeli preparedness.

An attitude they've been taking vis a vis Hamas, not Hezbollah

[Euclid]

Yup. Same question for the American elections and cabinet. And all the other things people on here opine about, with recognition that it's all armchair commentator talk.

Not any different than a sports fan saying how they could have done it better than the coach/player.

[Chuchum Ainer]

Not any different than a sports fan saying how they could have done it better than the coach/player.

The difference is that sports players are not elected. It actually makes sense for us to talk about and judge elected officials/politicians, as they actually need to win the support of us common folk in order to stay in power. Unless they're Bolsheviks.

(entire post is tongue in cheek)

[Yehuda57]

It's beyond me why Israelis struggle so much with elections and cabinet picks, when they have such a great choice of expert competent candidates to man all the positions right here on DDF!

Funny, you never said that about Biden or any other Bolsheviks who clearly had access to intel nor available to you

[yfr bachur]

Israel had definitely planned for attacks on Lebanon long before Oct 7. Same for Iran.

True. but not multi front wars, with serious threats to the home front from palestinians both in IL and Yosh, while there were 100s of hostages.

I also find it hard to believe the lightning destruction of Syrian infrastructure was truly all a post Oct 7 plan.

A target bank is a target bank. Especially if there is zero AA threat.

Even Hamas, the actual attack really wasn't very sophisticated, (which only underscores how ridiculous the failures were in intelligence, strategy, and security)

That's what happens when they army and inteligence brass is so full of themselves that they forget all the lessons learned from the YK war.

Bibi was clearly in the loop at that point, in the transcripts of the first call he got that morning he asks to activate all assassination plans on hamas, which clearly there weren't, but the plans for Nasrallah and Lebanon he did know about.

Which is a result of the previous... The army and inteligence were so in denial about the info they had, that they didn't even think it was worth while to have a plan!!! Even the US has plans on file to invade random countries across the world, including, famously, Canada. Epic, epic, failures of the defense establishment.

The defense that he couldn't trust the army to deliver is pretty strong, but even that seems to boil down to being too cautious and paralyzed by his and the IDF's failures.

By all rights, he should have fired the lot, from Gallant on down, the morning of October 8.

The risks of attack by all those you mentioned was on oct 7-9. Not so much 11.
And if Israel would be under attack by all those you mention, it would only make sense to take out the first foe you can, all the faster. Do you not remember the massive morale boost after the three days of devastaing attacks on hezbolllah? The respect from the rest of the world? And that was even before they took out Nasrallah.

The army was flat footed. There was still a risk, especially if they widened the war. Go back, remember what it was like. For months! every yishuv in Yosh was fully garisoned with dozens+ of soldiers bec the risk of copy cat attacks from the WB arabs. It took time to organize that. They didnt know 100% that the radios would work, they surmised, estimated... they didnt KNOW.

It's beyond me why Israelis struggle so much with elections and cabinet picks, when they have such a great choice of expert competent candidates to man all the positions right here on DDF!

Not any different than a sports fan saying how they could have done it better than the coach/player.

That's exactly what Gallant is doing. He's Monday Morning Quarterbacking his own game where he fumbled the ball badly, and blaming the coach for not agreeing to run the crazy hook and ladder Statue of Liberty play that he drew up to beat the other team in the division which is going to be playing Monday Night football.

[ExGingi]

Funny, you never said that about Biden or any other Bolsheviks who clearly had access to intel nor available to you

When Bolsheviks have access to intel that is a problem, not a solution.

Puppets are an entirely different discussion.

[Chuchum Ainer]

True. but not multi front wars, with serious threats to the home front from palestinians both in IL and Yosh, while there were 100s of hostages.

And so therefore what, they shouldn't use the plans they had? None of that changes the facts that Israel was fighting a two fromt war, and declined to pursue one of those fronts, the one with the plans.

The army was flat footed. There was still a risk, especially if they widened the war. Go back, remember what it was like. For months! every yishuv in Yosh was fully garisoned with dozens+ of soldiers bec the risk of copy cat attacks from the WB arabs. It took time to organize that. They didnt know 100% that the radios would work, they surmised, estimated... they didnt KNOW.

And again, so they shouldn't use those plans? What changed that they did finally decide to use them? (And, according to Gallant, at a much less opportune moment. And, according to what anyone can see, after hezbollah had a spent over a year digging in and preparing for an Israeli assault)

Re the Monday morning quarterback. He's faulting the coach for not using his plan when he suggested it, the same plan the coach did end up using, and which was widely successful. That's not Monday morning QB.

[aygart]

Many here seem to be forgetting the tremendous amassing of troops at the Lebanon border before they began any of these operations. How would these operations have ended without such an amassing of troops? Even with the amount of troops that were there, what would have happened had the operation not gone as successfully as intended? The beeper operation took out large portions of their command structure. Would a radio operation have done the same or would that have gotten more of the lower end of their ranks? What were the risks I could have potentially happened after such an operation with the army not entirely prepared and ready for action at the Lebanon border?

[Chuchum Ainer]

Many here seem to be forgetting the tremendous amassing of troops at the Lebanon border before they began any of these operations. How would these operations have ended without such an amassing of troops? Even with the amount of troops that were there, what would have happened had the operation not gone as successfully as intended? The beeper operation took out large portions of their command structure. Would a radio operation have done the same or would that have gotten more of the lower end of their ranks? What were the risks I could have potentially happened after such an operation with the army not entirely prepared and ready for action at the Lebanon border?

You posted some points and questions to ponder, without a maskanah, I'll do the same

1) The vast majority of the successful Israeli attacks had nothing to do with IDF ground forces, the beepers, walkie talkies, and massive air runs were all carried out by the standing army/intelligence community, not the reservists

2) Hesbollah was attacking Israel then with impunity. The fact their 70k organized "soldiers" didn't rush the border has nothing to do with respecting Israel for escalating, and everything to do with fear of the 300k reservists rushing to face them.

3) The proper campaign against Lebanon started !after! many of the reservists were sent home.

4) Another change between Oct 11 and the dawn of the beeperplosions was that hezbollah had time to further hide their missile stockpiles.

5) Today, with a fake ceasefire in place, which hezollah and the Lebanese army are not carrying out (hard to say breaking, considering hezbollah isnt a party to it), Israel is studiously avoiding pursuing Hezbollah further. Whats the excuse now?

[Just A Jew]

He's Monday Morning Quarterbacking his own game where he fumbled the ball badly, and blaming the coach for not agreeing to run the crazy hook and ladder Statue of Liberty play that he drew up to beat the other team in the division which is going to be playing Monday Night football.

Just want to take a break from all the theoretical nonsense to appreciate this.

[yfr bachur]

Just want to take a break from all the theoretical nonsense to appreciate this.

Glad you liked it. 

[yfr bachur]

Went back and read the posts from Oct 11, just to remind myself what was going on then (roughly post 700 and on)
It would seem to me that the original hostage release plan put together onthe fly was not the invasion of gaza, it was a seige that was meant to bring hamas to capitulation, but world pressure broke Israel’s ability to carry it out to fruition. If so, theres no way that Bibi is opening a second front at that point

[ExGingi]

Went back and read the posts from Oct 11, just to remind myself what was going on then (roughly post 700 and on)
It would seem to me that the original hostage release plan put together onthe fly was not the invasion of gaza, it was a seige that was meant to bring hamas to capitulation, but world pressure broke Israel’s ability to carry it out to fruition. If so, theres no way that Bibi is opening a second front at that point

And there was also the Shmulevitz fiasco that was brewing then, but only became publicly known months later, and supposedly caused a call-off of a military operation on Al-Shifa hospital where the vast majority of hostages were believed to have been held in the early days.

[ExGingi]

break from all the theoretical nonsense

This

[Chuchum Ainer]

Went back and read the posts from Oct 11, just to remind myself what was going on then (roughly post 700 and on)
It would seem to me that the original hostage release plan put together onthe fly was not the invasion of gaza, it was a seige that was meant to bring hamas to capitulation, but world pressure broke Israel’s ability to carry it out to fruition. If so, theres no way that Bibi is opening a second front at that point

And there was also the Shmulevitz fiasco that was brewing then, but only became publicly known months later, and supposedly caused a call-off of a military operation on Al-Shifa hospital where the vast majority of hostages were believed to have been held in the early days.

How does this track with your assertion that Oct 7 was a paradigm shift moment for Bibi? If he suddenly understood that you can't just keep Hamas deterred, but would need to destroy them at some point for Israel to be safe, would he not say the same for Hezbollah?

[Yehuda57]

Just want to take a break from all the theoretical nonsense to appreciate this.

It's a nice piece of writing, but as ChuchumAiner pointed out above, not at all analogous

[ExGingi]

How does this track with your assertion that Oct 7 was a paradigm shift moment for Bibi? If he suddenly understood that you can't just keep Hamas deterred, but would need to destroy them at some point for Israel to be safe, would he not say the same for Hezbollah?

In Yiddish they say: דו מאכסט זיך, צי דו ביסט?

In English: stop trolling.

[yelped]

Does this actually mean anything other than trying to get on Trump's good side? Is anything actually going to change?

https://aclj.org/israel/pompeo-abbas-and-palestinian-authority-play-anti-israel-pay-for-slay-shell-games-

[yawn]

Didn't hear the pod, but 3 things come to mind.
One of the stated goals of the war was recovering the hostages. Sending the best troops into Lebanon wouldn't have been acceptable to the public. (Back then we were kind of expecting Entebbe style rescues.)
The justification for Lebanon was the months of bombing in the north. It might not have been smart to invade a sovereign country because of the actions of people with whom they share a sponsor.
Was the level of success in Lebanon, (especially the leadership strikes,) a result of months of surveillance and tracking? Does that happen in November?

Listened to the pod, and most of what I said above I take back.
What this came down to, assuming the likelihood of success was what Gantz said it was, is the age old politician vs. general argument. From a military perspective it made sense, from a political one not so much. It's an argument we've had here a billion times, can Israel tell America to pound sand.
I think on 10/11, when Biden was still talking like he cared about Israel, it would've been counterintuitive to defy him, but there is definitely a case to be made.

On a side note, monday morning quarterbacking is usually done after a defeat, when you examine what went wrong and what you couldve done better. When you have been successful to a large degree, it's hard to MMQB without the fallacy of the predetermined outcome. We don't know what would've happened differently from 10/11-today if that strike happened, and you have to be willing to give up everything, the good and the bad, to second guess that decision.