Observation: Israel lucky Majdal Shams was invaded today
Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 15 May 2011

Just as Israel was blessed by the fortuitous Second Lebanon War, we have
been blessed today by the infiltration of the border near the Golan Druse
village of Majdal Shams today.

It is the nature of the Israeli psyche that all the arguing in the world
would not have convinced the Israeli brass and ex-brass now politicians that
change was needed in the IDF.

This is, after all, a society where the common excuse for ignoring safety
rules is that “nothing happened” even though the rules were violated.

So if not for the Second Lebanon War the IDF would today be only a shadow of
itself in terms of critical ground force capabilities (tanks and other
forces were being slashed), training (units didn’t know how to operate their
weapons or had next to no ongoing experience using them) and battle
operations (the emphasis on evacuating wounded not only hampered the
missions – it turned out making evacuation harder).

And if today ended with only what transpired in the Gaza Strip and Lebanese
border, there is every reasons to believe that the IDF would not be ready
for what may come this Fall.

So we are indeed blessed.

Many years ago there was a line that for Israel “every test is a final
exam.”

We are blessed that today we also have “pop quizzes” with considerably less
critical consequences when we fail to do our best.

So while DM Ehud Barak may spin that he is not concerned by what happened,
he also noted that the IDF will learn from the experience.

And indeed the IDF and the rest of the system will.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(Mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il
Website: http://www.imra.org.il