Israeli Defence Force

SA Jewish ‘Struggle’ history … continued!

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Lately, and especially in my little town of Hermanus is a complete storm in a teacup over a very likeable young man by the name of Benjamin Rattle – Ben to his mates. I’m in the beer brewing game, so too is the Rattle family so we interact with them often as part of the three main ‘local’ beer suppliers to Hermanus.

Now, Ben finished high school not long ago and was pretty much part of the young millennial crowd in Hermanus, well liked in the surfer circles, working briefly for his Dad’s brewing company, he – like many of his age set out to discover the world and being Jewish figured a good start would be to resolve his Israeli citizenship and do his national service in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). An option open to Jews the world over and perfectly legal and perfectly legitimate in a recognised statutory defence force abiding by all the international conventions – which whether some believe it or not the IDF falls part. 

Whist performing his national service, he – like other dual national Jewish South Africans in a similar situation with commitments in the IDF, suddenly found his country under attack and he was deployed to Gaza for counter offensive operations. All good so far, he’s not some religious nut-job whose bolted to the Middle East to exterminate Arabs in some fanatical sense of wiping them off the planet … he’s a simple national serviceman performing his duties, and whilst in service his circumstances changed and have led him to war.

Like any national servicemen, and many of us in South Africa who have military experience as being National Servicemen will know – pride in service is central, so too family in support, and Ben’s Dad served in the South African Army as a conscript, and like all military vets he knows the importance of this – so like thousands of national servicemen before him, Ben took to a couple of photos of himself on duty and some with his folks whilst he’s in uniform (his parents obviously proud and concerned for their son at the same time) and put these images up on his social media accounts.1

Now, back in his ‘Old Country’ in South Africa a small muslim action group named the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) enamoured with the South African government’s open sympathy with Palestine and armed movements like Hamas whose stated intention is the annihilation of jews, took to pressing charges of genocide and illegally serving in a foreign army against Ben Rattle at a local Cape Town Police station … using his Instagram and social media pictures in the public space as ‘proof’ positive of his “crime”. 2

This in turn pricked journalists to get hold of Ben, who allegedly told them to hop it, as a Jew in defence of his country he’s doing nothing wrong and that the South African government should focus on its own problem of millions of its own destitute Africans living in shacks in similar if not worse conditions than Palestinians, and should stop meddling in affairs that don’t really concern them 3 Ben’s alleged position no different from that of the Israeli government – so nothing new here. 

All this, and a silly petition calling for South African soldiers in the IDF to be prosecuted with only 1,200 signatures –  spun our very partisan African National Congress government into action, and Nadeli Pandor, our Minister of International Relations and Cooperation for South Africa, who was in the USA urgently trying to convince them not to sanction South Africa for its “covert” but very overt sympathies and support of Russia and other rogue and terrorist states and organisations – and for the Americans this also includes Hamas and Iran.4

Pandor’s line with the Americans is that South Africa is just a leader in human rights and supports arbitration and negotiation for conflict resolution, our Mandela magic ethos and we are ‘neutral’ that’s all – and the Americans aren’t buying it, and she can’t figure out why. However a few weeks earlier in March, she declares all South Africans who are on dual national status serving in the Israeli Defence Force (and that includes Ben) will be arrested the minute they re-enter South Africa – on the basis that there is legislation outlawing South Africans from serving in “foreign” armies without “permission”. 5

Nadeli Pandor, our Minister of International Relations and Cooperation for South Africa nailing her colours to the mast.

Somehow the ANC thinks that’s the morally good thing to do, leaving their senses again as they fail to recognise that by our shared history and perfectly legitimately, there are literally hundreds of thousands of South Africans who have held dual British and South African citizenships and have served in the British Armed Forces and many of her Allied forces from 1910 – through two world wars and continue to do so to this day. There are thousands of South Africans of Jewish decent who have served in the Israeli Defence Force from its inception, over 500 WW2 military veteran South Africans were recruited to fight in the Israel War of Independence in 1948 alone 6 and Jewish South Africans continued to serve in the IDF and still do so to this day. 

Not even by birthright mind, there are even thousands of South Africans who have obtained dual citizen status after serving in the British Armed Forces (BAF) under the Commonwealth agreement after 1994 and South Africa’s re-admittance to the Commonwealth, many recently serving in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars – and many still in service in His Majesty’s Armed Forces. Most of them serving in the BAF because it simply offered better career growth opportunities for someone seeking a military career than the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) could ever offer, and I can almost guarantee none of them got permission from the ANC government to serve in the BAF.

There are entire groupings of South African’s in the current British Armed Forces, they even have a honour roll of South Africans who died in action in British uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan and there are current South Africans who have received high accolades and British bravery decorations – their families very proud of them. 

As the President of the South African Legion of Military Veterans in the UK, I personally know of five close friends of mine who served in both the South African and British militaries, and not just Britain, I’ve a close friend who served in the South African Navy and is now an Admiral in the Royal Australian Navy and as to the diaspora of South Africans the world over  – one of my Australian nephews is currently in the Australian Navy serving as a Ensign with the very Aussie surname of “van der Merwe”.

Over and above that the French Foreign Legion which has seen South Africans join it over the years to obtain French and EU citizenship and even in the USA, there are many dual National South Africans currently serving in their armed forces.

So, somehow the ANC and the hapless Nadeli Pandor have just managed to put thousands of South Africans world over in statute and legitimate forces under threat of arrest  if they visit or emigrate back to South Africa based on some obscure and previously ignored legislation – and knowing military veterans and their families – to a man they will in all likelihood stand behind a fellow statutory force military brother like Ben Rattle and tell the ANC and Nadeli Pandor to ‘hop it’ (its a military thing – a value we all share).

What the ANC, and Nadeli Pandor did by bringing genocide accusations against a legitimate and mandated statute military is they “took a side” and stepped away from the ANC’s only real legitimacy as the worlds even handed “reconciler” and peacemaker – a reputation reached by Nelson Mandela in 1994 when he stood up and accused F.W. De Klerk and the National Party of been in an “illegitimate and internationally discredited government”, and this reputation of Mandela is now utterly in tatters in 2024, with an ANC heading up a corrupt kleptocracy and becoming more “discredited” in the international community by the day – certainly in all the “western” European democracies and NATO countries.

So what happened next, to demonstrate just what thin ice Nadeli Pandor is on, the United States of America’s government turned around to her and her cronies and warned South Africa that if they so much as arrested one South African serving in a legitimate foreign statute force and specifically in the Isreali Defence Force, South Africa would face sanctions and severe “consequences”. 7 This coming from one of South Africa’s largest trading partners, it’s as if the ANC just have no conception on how an economy works and besides electricity we can afford yet another significant assault on it – so much for addressing poverty, unemployment and wealth gap issues which beset the economy and are critical issues crippling the country.

On a personal level, the ANC and their Muslim cabal are acting like a bullies, taking on simple soldier like Ben Rattle, a man who does not even hold a commission or non-comm warrant and plays no part whatsoever in the IDF’s military planning – strategic or operational, he’s merely doing his duty on a tactical level and what is commanded of him – and he has no moral quandary with that, it’s his ‘religion’, his ‘people’ and his ‘country’. In addition he plays no part in Isreali politics and yet finds himself thrust into the limelight. Unhinged individuals living in his hometown of Hermanus have even taken to targeting his Dad’s brewery business calling for boycotting it and its product.

Unhinged, because many years ago Germany’s elected government decided to blame Jews for the world’s woes, and the result was that their ‘mass’ population took to targeting Jews and Jewish business – because the government tacitly agreed with their actions and supported them – suitably empowered this eventually led to a proper genocide, millions of Jews murdered by ordinary Germans who had completely lost touch with their perfectly reasonable religious values and adopted state sponsored socialist ones instead. Our ANC government does not seem to understand the sweep of history very well – and as socialists themselves they are empowering our ‘masses’ to so the same – same as the Nazis did, no different – and its starts with accusing normal law abiding Jews of committing crimes against ‘society’ as they define it – which is exactly what has just happened.

As to the sweep of history – the ANC seems to have lost its senses completely, Jews in South Africa, as a persecuted peoples under Afrikaner Nationalism, played a key role in ridding the country of Apartheid – from within the ANC and external to the ANC, and their involvement is much bigger than you think.

As South African Jewish World War 2 military veterans –  Joe Slovo, Wolfie Kodesh and Rusty Bernstein even founded umkhonto we sizwe (MK) – Joe Slovo becoming MK’s Commander in Chief, other South African WW2 Jewish veterans became Zionists and actively resisted Apartheid, Leo Kowarsky (a founder of the Torch Commando and then the Progressive Party – the modern day Democratic Alliance), Cecil Margo (Margo  a WW2 SAAF bomber pilot goes on to become a founder of the Israeli Air Force and returns to South Africa eventually to become a Supreme Court Justice), Gerald Gordon, Leo Lovell, Jock Isacowitz – who becomes a founder of the Torch Commando and then the Liberal Party of South Africa along with fellow Jew, military veteran and liberal – Leslie Rubin.8   

Not just military veterans, as a result of the Police raid  on Liliesleaf farm in Rivonia in 1963, alongside Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and Ahmed Kathrada – also arrested are two predominate Jewish MK members Dennis Goldberg (a “mensch” to his people) and Arthur Goldreich – Goldreich a devout Zionist in addition. They both land up in the dock and eventually in prison alongside Nelson Mandela charged with High Treason.9

Other Jews are also key anti-apartheid activists, Jews like Ronnie Kasrils, Hymie and Esther Barsel, Eli Weinberg, Yetta Barenblatt, Ray Alexander Simons, Hilda Bernstein, Ruth First, Ronald Segal, Norma Kitson, Baruch Hirson, Brian Bunting, Harry Schwarz, Sam Kahn, Isie Maisels, Arthur Chaskalson, Sidney Kentridge, Joel Joffe, Shulamith Muller, Denis Kuny, Jules Browde,  Ray Alexander, Benny Weinbren, Solly Sachs, Leon Levy, Harold Wolpe, Ben Turok, Paul Trewhela, David Bruce, Pauline Podbrey, Raymond Suttner and even the die hard life long anti-apartheid democrat and campaigner that was Helen Suzman.10

SAJBD President Gerald Leissner and Chairman Mervyn Smith (pictured here with ANC President Nelson Mandela, SAJBD National Congress, 1993) were instrumental in the Board’s taking a decisive stance against apartheid during the 1980’s. Reference SA Jews under Apartheid – A very old debate resisted by David Saks.

According to the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) – Jews made up just 2 percent of the white population of apartheid-era South Africa, but they constituted at least half of the country’s white anti-apartheid activists. Given this extraordinary history, the ANC have really not only lost a sense of their own history but also a sense of who has traditionally supported them and the South African history of the “struggle” completely. 

It is absolutely disgraceful that South African Jews and their children, who have a long and proud ‘struggle’ history in South Africa, now find themselves a marginalised and targeted group in South Africa again – even by our own ‘democratic’ government.

Regardless what we think of the current Palestinian and Isreali war and our individual politics – regardless whether we support Muslims or Jews in our personal lives, we must stand by our values as the world’s miracle nation – the reconcilers and peacemakers, and to do that we need to lead by example and we cannot “take a side”. With that in mind we as South Africans, and even as military veterans, can do a lot better than the current ANC, its cabal and especially its hapless, conceited, ignorant and frankly dangerous foreign minister.

Written by Peter Dickens

Footnotes

  1. Middle East Eye: South African activists file criminal complaint against citizen accused of fighting for Israel – PSC submitted 13 images from what they claim to be Benjamin Rattle’s Instagram accounts (MEE/Instagram)  ↩︎
  2. Ground-up: Criminal complaint lodged against Benjamin Rattle, a South African serving in the Israeli military -Rattle’s social media posts appear to show him standing in front of destroyed buildings and rubble in Gaza. 4 April 2024 | By Matthew Hirsch on-line reader: https://groundup.org.za/article/criminal-complaint-lodged-against-benjamin-rattle-south-african-serving-in-israeli-military/ ↩︎
  3. Ibid ↩︎
  4. Daily Maverick: Naledi Pandor is treading the Pit Botha path to diplomatic oblivion: 7 April 2024 on-line reader https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-04-07-naledi-pandor-is-treading-the-pik-botha-path-to-sas-diplomatic-oblivion/ ↩︎
  5. Naledi Pandor: “South Africans fighting for Israel will be arrested” Africa News – on-line reader 14 March 2024 ↩︎
  6. The influence of Second World War military service on prominent White South African veterans in opposition politics 1939 – 1961. A Masters submission to Stellenbosch University – 2021 by Graeme Wesley Plint ↩︎
  7. Daily Maverick: US legislators threaten ‘consequences’ if SA arrests citizens for serving in Israeli army – By Peter Fabricius 17 April 2024 ↩︎
  8. The influence of Second World War military service on prominent White South African veterans in opposition politics 1939 – 1961. A Masters submission to Stellenbosch University – 2021 by Graeme Wesley Plint  ↩︎
  9. Dr. Garth Benneyworth “Trojan horses” Trojan horses ↩︎
  10. South African Jewish Board of Deputies – SA Jews under Apartheid – A very old debate resisted by David Saks – 02 January 2020 ↩︎

From a Persisting to a Raiding Strategy

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A current overview of changing Israeli fighting doctrine in Gaza

20 April 2024

By: David Brock Katz

Overtaking the headlines on 8 April, which stated that Israel had pulled all its ground troops out of southern Gaza for “tactical reasons”, was the report of a massive Iranian strike of over 300 drones and missiles directed at Israel from Iranian territory. Iran’s “retaliatory” bombardment signified a significant strategic departure for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Instead of using its proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthis, Iran attacked Israel directly for the first time in its history. In a similar fashion to the world’s initial reaction to 8 October, the attack garnered immediate condemnation from many quarters, thereby buying Israel a short respite from the constant media attacks surrounding the conduct of its war in Gaza. Despite Iran’s deadly intent, the missile attack leaves a massive credibility gap in the Iranian capability to inflict harm on Israel via the air. All but a few of the 300 missiles were either shot down or crashed on their own accord, inflicting minimal damage. Israel can claim a massive victory for its Iron Dome system and celebrate the fact that the Jordanians and Saudi Arabians accounted for several of the Iranian missile losses. However, it seems that the USA has again restricted any Israeli counterattack, which squanders a rare opportunity to neutralise some Iranian military assets. 

Quite simply, Biden and his administration have put the brakes on Israeli military actions. Israel has lost the ability to deploy its military at the operational and strategic level of war without the USA’s permission. Losing this independence of action poses a significant problem for Israel’s successful execution of the war in Gaza. The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) in Gaza deployed 18 brigades in December 2023 (about 90,000 troops) and then trimmed down to 5 brigades at the end of March. The IDF now fields a single brigade in Gaza, leaving Khan Younis and Gaza City unoccupied. Undoubtedly, the decision behind the IDF’s hasty withdrawal is not for any sound military reason. Instead, the IDF has succumbed to European and belated pressure from the USA to drastically change its tactics as world opinion has turned decidedly against the Israelis. The original IDF plan of occupying Gaza in its entirety and eliminating Hamas as a military and political force lies in tatters. 

Initially, Israel adopted a persisting strategy, placing a large number of boots on the ground, deliberately advancing at a slow, careful pace into the heart of Gaza. The IDF skilfully concentrated its forces using combined arms teams down to the lowest tactical level. They carefully accumulated overwhelming firepower at the focal points, sometimes only advancing mere meters in a given day. With great tactical skill and impeccable doctrine, the IDF produced innovative tactics to overcome most of the attacker’s disadvantages in dense urban areas. The Urban environment overwhelmingly favours Hamas. New IDF tactics are under tight wraps, but Israel’s allies are watching closely and will undoubtedly incorporate these combat innovations into their urban warfare doctrine. At least up to December, the Israelis made slow but significant progress in defeating Hamas in the field as well as destroying vast tracts of the tunnel system. The IDF badly mauled Hamas at a relatively low casualty cost, inflicting an estimated 30-50% loss on its fighting power before forcing them to withdraw to Rafah to conduct what would have been their last stand before destruction.  

Despite registering significant gains at the tactical and operational levels, Israel IS steadily losing the propaganda war. The world’s outrage at the atrocities committed by Hamas on 7 October began to recede almost immediately. If Israel ever had a chance to strike using a persisting strategy (occupy territory and boots on the ground), it would have had to execute with lightning speed. A cautious approach led to it being caught offside by the capricious support it had initially garnered on 7 October. Israel chose to minimise IDF and civilian casualties, and the sands of time have run out. The media’s constant barrage of civilian casualty figures, as reported by Hamas, has alienated many of Israel’s USA and European backers. The breathtaking hypocrisy of mainstream media has drowned out lone voices of reason, such as Douglas Murray. A discredited Norman Finkelstein, sidelined even by the Palestinians and now comparing Gaza to a concentration camp, has found new vigour and appreciative audiences. Rochdale in the United Kingdom has elected George Galloway, long consigned to the looney left fringes, as Member of Parliament on a pro-Hamas and virulently anti-Israel ticket. Friends, it would seem, are few.  

Israel has to contend with an increasingly frayed relationship with the USA. Support among younger Americans for Israel is rapidly fading. President Biden has insinuated that if the Israelis do not curtail operations in Gaza, then the supply of American arms will come under threat. There are lessons to be learned by those desirous of conducting an independent foreign policy free from American influence. A homegrown defence industry that supplies the lion’s share of one’s military needs is a fundamental prerequisite. Surely, Israel regrets abandoning the Israeli Airforce Industries Lavi Jet Fighter program in favour of the USA’s F-16? The USA no doubt had a significant role in eliminating the Lavi as a possible competitor in the lucrative arms trade industry. Israel cannot independently conduct its operations in Gaza without the USA’s implicit or explicit approval. That is the price of dependence on the USA for the supply of essential arms and munitions. Ukraine faces a similar dilemma of relying on the West to supply essential military equipment for survival. When the time comes, Ukraine will have little choice but to comply with the West’s version of a peace settlement. Israel has withdrawn from the south of Gaza and significantly reduced its troop numbers there, not of its own choice, but on instruction from the USA. 

So where to from here? The IDF has abandoned a highly successful persisting strategy, where it placed boots on the ground, occupied territory, and advanced methodically and innovatively by using combined arms warfare to eliminate Hamas’s fighting power in the north of Gaza. The military endgame was in sight. All that remained was to capture Rafah and remove Hamas in its entirety. Israel, succumbing to American pressure, now has no option but to resort to a raiding strategy. The IDF will attempt to remove Hamas targets through precision ground and air strikes surgically. The danger of this strategy can already be seen, with close to 2,000 Hamas fighters infiltrating their way back into Gaza City in the absence of Israeli ground forces. History has shown that wars cannot be won using a raiding strategy exclusively. Targeting Iranian, Hezbollah and Hamas operatives outside of Gaza to weaken the terrorist superstructure is also not a strategy which will eliminate Hamas. The hope of a more friendly future US government is uncertain and, at best, many months away. The release of hostages, if any are alive, seems remote. An emboldened Hamas continued to hold out for the best terms for a ceasefire. The Israeli retaliation for the Iranian attack was a very measured and even-handed response and an extensive counter-attack currently remains off the cards. Israel faces tough months ahead.

By Dr. David Katz