Why Israel Still Can’t Defeat Gaza’s Guerrilla Fighters w/ Jon Elmer

well we want to turn our attention to Palestine which our last guest left up on on there in her last sentence and the ongoing struggle of the resistance which has not been crushed despite the huge amount of military power that has been directed towards them interesting phenomenon something that deserves more discussion so for that discussion we are honored to be joined here by John Elmer who's a contributing editor at the electronic inata John thank you so much for being with us thanks so much for having me guys well great to have you here and I think you know this is a question a lot of people are asking of course the Israeli Defense Forces said we've cleared out north Gaza we've cleared out Central Gaza we control the whole thing uh and then now we're back fighting in many of the places they allegedly totally had under control and we see the bombs we see the money we see the planes so there's obviously something asymmetric happening here that's allowing the resistance to remain resilient despite this huge military force it's a big question I guess to start on but that's where I wanted to start I mean how is it even possible that despite the tens of thousands of tons of bombs in some of these areas they still seem to be a very effective fighting force yeah absolutely effective fighting force they don't seem to be degraded in any way and as you said the Israelis claimed that they had control over these areas sometimes as far back as November and they go back into somewhere like jabalia in the last few weeks and get hit really hard with all different types of operations uh with all different types of communications that seem to show their command and control is still perfectly intact uh they're still using appropriate weapons they're able to move through their tunnels completely um us intelligence estimates say that their the camb Bri Gades the main fighting force are 75% intacted still um so what you have is just Mass I mean you have a genocide you have mass destruction of Palestinian life targeting civilian populations who themselves are resisting and resilient in a way that's impressive um but then you have a fighting force that is not degraded and is still able to meet the Israelis anywhere the Israelis are which is something that's true for pales Ians all over the West Bank Jerusalem uh and the Gaza Strip they're able to meet the Israelis wherever they are in with whatever tools they have in some cases in the West Bank that's throwing stones um and in the Gaza Strip it's with anti-tank missiles that were created by the cassam Bri Gades it's rockets that were built in Gaza um we saw today a drone dropping a a homemade uh Grenade on Israeli forces uh we see sniper operations daily and none of these things matter the Israeli uh casualty numbers that we're seeing incidentally interestingly uh to go along with all the other Israeli lies they lie about their casualties um in an effort to keep morale within their state up um and because they know that if they were to see the Israeli population were to see how destructive this war has been um on Israeli Soldiers the popularity would be even less than it is which according to Yeo arono their leading newspaper uh only only 10% of Israelis think they're winning the war now eight months on 40% think Hamas is winning um so those kind of numbers coming from a place with a military censor um with a news media that looks a lot like the United States just you know not reporting on the war in Iraq or Afghanistan except from American soldiers point of view the Israelis have the same thing so they're not getting a complete picture of the fight and they still know they're losing so um yeah and I think just the resilience of the population is something that I always want to point out especially if we're going to talk about the resistance because um the resistance is from the population they're part of the population they say they fight in the same trench as their population and the population is more in support of them today um than they were on October 6th so it's obvious within the Palestinian political mil that resistance is what um leads to popularity uh in their communities you know on uh I I had you on my on dispatches uh a few weeks back and it was an excellent episode I encouraged people to check it out at some point not now because not during the live stream but when the live stream's over um it was a really good conversation sort of breaking down the the military resistance and what it's um accomplished and what it's doing and you know I remember a just after October 7th and as like the months went on there was a lot of conversation and I was in Lebanon most of that time there was a lot of conversation about well how long can Hamas last how long can the gassan brigades last and no one really knew it was just kind of guesses and so people were throwing out numbers like six months they're prepared for six months then you hear they're prepared for nine months then you I mean you had some people who on the zus side had some wishful thinking saying oh they're they've only got a few weeks um worth until they're out of like weapons and food or something so we're approaching eight months and now you know I've been asking this people this question again and what I'm hearing at least here in Lebanon is you know no one really knows but they seem to be doing okay obviously Gaza is not doing okay but the military resistance is not sending out alerts of like you guys were about to be extinguished and I think their ability to fire back in these spaces where the Israelis are saying oh we've destroyed all of Hamas there uh is a testament to that and now people are throwing out numbers and again no one really knows but based on the confidence that Hamas uh military seems to have you know two years three years maybe that they could you know keep doing this I don't know if that's true however the Israelis are saying that they see this going into the end of the year and then you've got some people saying they could see this happening into a you know new Trump Administration if Trump were to win the presidential election and I guess I'm curious you know people are wondering um and this is also just like asking you to guess too but it does at least at the very least like what are your thoughts on how long the Palestinian resistance has been able to maintain uh its ability to fight up until now and seems to be able to keep going for at least a while longer yeah and Israel can't stop the war right now because if they do they'll lose and they can't see it like that and so they've extended their plans I mean the Americans gave them till early January to fight and obviously these red lines have been plowed through uh for months now um there the Abu oeda the spokesperson for the cassam Brigade said that they're they're ready to negotiate uh an end to the war but also they're ready for a war of attrition and um they're still fighting as a national Army um but were that to be degraded they could fight as a Guerilla force uh indefinitely so there's no time when the Palestinian resistance is going to stop fighting that's not a scenario that's going to happen um we we can we're looking constantly for signposts of um any kind of uh grading of their capacity uh seeing them using weapons that they wouldn't otherwise use if they had full stocks and we don't see anything like that yet um the Palestinians were patient they prepared this uh operation this attack on October 7th that dismantled the IDF they planned it for years um and they knew they had a fight on their hands it's a National Liberation struggle and and there's no amount of Destruction uh that will stop this war Israel has to negotiate an exchange of prisoners um and handle some kind of diplomatic solution that deals with uh the situation in Lebanon that deals with ansar alah in the Red Sea uh there's many components to this fight that don't show any signs of slowing up and uh dragging out the war is really Israel's way of preventing a defeat because if they were to withdraw and negotiate for their prisoners uh it would be seen as a loss within their society so they're actually literally let their people die if not killing them uh rather than negotiating a solution uh to this conflict that would allow thousands of Palestinian prisoners to be freed um and for Israelis to be able to move back into the areas in the south in the Gaza envelope that are completely abandoned just like they are in the north completely abandoned Israel's buffer zones are for the first time in its history inside of its country it's lost its strategic depth uh there's lots of reasons uh from an Israeli perspective why you would want to have a diplomatic solution to this fight but they just don't seem capable of that at all uh within their current government structure within their current military structure you know the loss of Faith uh loss of face of their institutions on October 7th to just abandon their people uh to that catastrophic defeat that they suffered at the hands of the cassan brigades um their attempt to restore faith in the institution is to carry out this brutal genocide that we're watching um where they believe that they could respond to military defeats like their Soldier being captured in jabalia last weekend um by the very next day massacring families inside tents uh it it's just brutal and it's a long history of Israel responding to military defeats by massacring the civilian population um but there's all kinds of things happening in Israeli society that show that they can't carry out this war they're not able to carry out a war of attrition in the same way the Palestinians are um the resilience of the resistance the resilience of the Palestinian people who are all with the resistance um that equation is a lot stronger than a settler colonial state who have significant uh percentages of their population holding second passports and can leave the country and will leave the country um the the thought that Israel can repopulate the north um the way that Hezbollah has been attacking with just a fraction of their capability um as the same as the Gaza envelope who's going to go live in the Gaza envelope after Israel showed everybody that they'll just abandon you in the tunnels rather than negotiate to release you for elderly Palestinian prisoners or Palestinian children who in any other country wouldn't be in a jail and are held in military prisons inside Israel um they've completely lost their way even from you know from their own point of view um and so the the Palestinian resilience is far greater than the Israeli resilience a war of attrition is not going to be something that helps the Israelis out of this situation you know you mentioned this a little bit at the top and I was hoping you could talk more about it I mean the indigenous weapons production that is happening there in Palestine which I think we've seen you know quite a bit of obviously in the videos that have come out but you know the advanced nature of it the tandem charges and the Yassin RPG all these different pieces like this is not just someone cobbling something together in their garage here uh I mean it seems that this is a major part of how the resistants had prepared for this kind of Confrontation is that they've developed an indigenous capability to produce Advanced Weaponry yeah and they can use the weapons that don't explode that are dropped by the Israelis constantly to restock those supplies but yeah the thing that the the genius move that the Palestinian resistance did was instead of having sophisticated weapons that had to be smuggled in they built their own weapons um copies of historically successful weapons they didn't try to reinvent the wheel they perfected it and they've done that with the tandem charge uh anti-tank uh weapon the yasine which allows their fighters to move through tunnels because they're light um and move out into the streets move through the alleys and Target tanks from a distance uh a very intimate distance and that weapon mass-produced is worth far more than more sophisticated weapons um that are more cumbersome to move around um and so the Fighters have set up a supply of weapons that are perfect for the fight in the Gaza Strip and Israel is seeing that right now they don't seem to have any shortage of these weapons despite the fact as you said that some people thought the war would be three months some people thought six months and now Cam's telling us they're ready for a war of attrition um they're not willing to give in at this point um and and and give in to this to the uh ceasefire negotiations um they're making the ceasefire negotiations be determined on the battlefield using weapons that they've developed over the last 25 or 30 years in with a a philosophy of getting these weapons in the hands of each of their Fighters rather than having a few specialized units um they have them in the hands of all of their Fighters and their Fighters can operate on a cell-based uh Network um and strike from very intimate distance and make these weapons even more successful than they are um in their training manuals because they're able to move so close they know the area they know the refugee camps they're using the destruction that Israel has brought um as fighting positions and that has helped the resistance so Israel's even doesn't even have a good internal strategy um let alone their overarching um you know dismantling of Zionism that we're watching in front of the entire world the legitimacy of their project is forever destroyed um and these war crimes uh charges and just what the world has witnessed will stick with them forever you know John I want to zoom out for a moment and talk regionally um because as we saw yesterday Nikki Haley former ambassador to the UN uh visited the Gaza envelope area visited I think West Bank settlements and then went to the north and signed some Israeli bombs with the state with the the statement finish them which was so genocidal and disgusting um because those bombs we know are basically aimed at children intentionally uh but all that's to say she was in the north signing that bomb and at the end of the day after Israel's finished in Gaza whatever it means to be finished they're going to have to deal with the situation in the north and of course their you know Hezbollah says that they've attached their war with Israel in South Lebanon with uh Israel's genocide in Gaza the genocide ends hbal will stop firing it's not clear that that's the what the sort of narrative Israel is going to be okay with they're going to want some sort of Victory narrative out of that and there is a fear that they'll want to escalate into a bigger War because you know there is this thinking in some circles in Israel that first of all you know it's it's like the longer we wait to take on his Bella they're stronger the stronger they're going to be but they're already too strong um and they're kind of being held back at the moment by The Americans on that front uh because the Americans don't think the Israelis can win but I guess I want to ask for your analysis on what the Israelis I mean we nobody knows what they're going to do they're quite illogical and unpredictable but maybe they're not suicidal I don't know um but if Israel were to engage in some sort of broader um war on Lebanon what would what might that look like for Israel oh I mean hezb has the ability to attack with Precision missiles all over Israel in a way that the Palestinians simply do not the Palestinians are besieged in an enclave that they have been besieged in for an entire generation hasbalah is the exact opposite hasbalah has thousands of Cadre that have fought for the last decade they fought in Syria they train in Iran um they have all the connections to the outside world that are necessary for bringing in these kind of weapons um Israel provoking a an open war with Hezbollah would change the state of Israel forever people just simply not want to live in that state uh once they realize what uh capacity hasbalah has so um but people are saying they're not going to move back into the north unless there's a fight in the north even people were saying uh on that 60 minutes with lesie stall uh she went up to Matula and the settlement head said that 40% of people won't move back to those communities if there's a negotiated settlement they demand a war um and that war is just going to be so destructive for Israel that I think um well it'll hasten the the decline of their state and um that's the reason at least in part why the Americans don't want the Israelis to do that because I think the American assessments of Hezbollah are a little bit more sober than the Israelis who are um you know dealing with generation long now defeats defeats and 2000 defeats in 2006 uh Rules of Engagement that are determined by Hezbollah in the north um and so there's a lot of uh you know military Prestige that has been robbed of the Israelis by Hezbollah um and it's in that window that the the the Palestinians in Gaza have fought the Palestinians watched the 2006 defeat um they prepared in the same way the same use of tunnels the same uh to protect their fighters to store their weapons um and so these lessons between Palestinians and Hezbollah have been exchanged back and forth for multiple Generations now um it it's hard to see the way that Israel uh benefits by attacking Hezbollah the entire state of Israel would just be living in bomb shelters um because Hezbollah has missile capacity um that Israel has never faced before and they have it in enormous numbers we don't know the exact numbers but even Israeli and American estimates suggest that the country of is is would never be the same if there was a war with Hezbollah just frankly um it's just the truth somewhat speculation but can you hear me now M but you're fine now yes perfect uh sorry about that but you know it's this is also speculation I was saying you know but it seems like there's almost a downstream effect here and how we also view the US military because I mean obviously there's a lot of the same Weaponry f35s f-16s but similar kind of military strategy as well and it feels that the exposure of the Israeli military here in this context is also maybe saying something about sort of the broader Western military machines that hold themselves out as all powerful you know omnipotent and can Crush anyone that perhaps that isn't as true as as it sounds when the the weapons contractors are talking about it yeah and you could see that on October 7th Israel had this billion dooll Iron Wall that they bragged about for years that they were building they built it down into the ground to try to stop the tunnels that were going underneath they have this entire signals network uh above with computers connecting automatic machine guns the whole deal it was dismantled by uh off-the-shelf drones dropping uh camade Munitions on top of them and completely turned them dark the Israelis didn't have any command and control for the entire day of October 7th in fact they didn't have it for some days after they were still fighting in the envelope on the Friday after the Saturday attack so almost an entire week later um and yeah and Israel's been shown to not be the Ally that they were thought to be the uh Imperial Outpost in the Middle East um because they're a liability they're a liability to the American project at this point they're dismantling the entire uh post-world War II architecture that has served the Americans so well um and then on just on their fighting prowess you have just like straight up American soldiers making fun of the Israelis for their pathetic uh training and capacity on the battlefield and all of these things are embold emboldening Israel's enemies it it it doesn't make there's no deterrence happening here it's quite the opposite if you can't defeat has if you can't de defeat uh Hamas in a besieged territory where they're building their own weapons um you're not going to stand a chance against a much larger force uh a much better Armed Force a much better prepared force uh in Hezbollah and so I think the Americans are trying to hold Israel back um you know because they see them as the 51st state in that sense and they don't want them to destroy themselves and that's why on October 7th the Americans immediately dispatched uh aircraft carriers um Advanced surveillance put drones up in the air uh gave Israel assets air defense assets uh intelligence assets um because they needed to focus on Hezbollah and to try to keep that front in check and and you know the the Israelis have needed the Americans at every stage of this when Iran attacked it ended up just by Straight numbers ended up being three quarters American and their allies protecting Israel um they need Israel needs airlifts literally daily airlifts of weapons from the United States to fight this war they need tens of billions of dollars from Congress repeatedly over and over again um to fight this population that's undergoing a genocide that has been blockaded for uh 20 years you know people growing up in Gaza have never left Gaza they've never seen a Jewish person because the Israelis just policed from the outside like a prison guard um and still once they moved in as soon as they moved in it was just defeat after defeat for the Israelis on tactical levels on strategic levels it's been a catastrophic failure for Israel and that's why they keep uh they keep going it's the you know sunk cost fallacy they believe that they if they just fight a little more they'll get one more uh Brigade and if they get that one more Brigade maybe they'll find their their captives and all of that is just ridiculous it's not true it hasn't even been close to happening Israel hasn't achieved even uh modestly achieved any of its goals uh in this war so Israel looks like a liability their countryes in disarray they call themselves beleaguered um all all from the resistance uh in Gaza which has inspired resistance from Hezbollah and of course of course resistance from Anar Allah in Yemen which is just heroic resistance when you consider what the yenis have been through for the last decade at the hands of Saudi American uh military blockades themselves it's the people who are blockaded themselves that are coming to the defense of a country that's being blockaded um and so there's a lot of elements to this conflict that go on Beyond Gaza that are just simply out of Israel's hands at this point um without some kind of a proper dipl atic solution that Israel just doesn't seem to have any capacity for that kind of sober strategic thinking and they just keep uh you know digging themselves a deeper and deeper hole um so that their state is in question and their state is in question the legitimacy of Israel as it should have been decades ago is clearly in question in large parts of the world um it's hard here I'm in Canada it's hard in North America sometimes when you're uh inundated with the media and you think think Israel is in a strong position the entire world sees what Israel is doing um they see them as the killers of children they don't see them at any military success at all and it started with October 7th when they were completely dismantled their Gaza division was dismantled literally in minutes uh within a half an hour their Gaza command completely crumbled their command and control didn't function at all soldiers were fighting and taking body armor off other dead soldiers to fight this isn't the state that uh that that Americans believed were getting these tens of billions of dollars every few years um to outfit themselves technologically um their constant training it was all just shown to be a ruse and uh what's been shown to be successful are uh copies of Soviet uh and Chinese weapons um from 50 years ago that have been improved upon by the cassam Bri Gades and um a devastating effect plus the tunnel Network that uh Palestinians literally dug with their own hands over the course of 20 years um to protect their fighters to allow their fighters to move around and to make occupation of Gaza impossible in any way they can't hold any territory at all and so they Massacre the civilians in the hope that that will somehow put pressure If you starve them to death if you uh bomb them in tent camps with American munitions that they call a small diameter bomb that was dropped in the middle of a group of tents that number tens of thousands it's just a horrific scene in Rafa um and and this is uh America made in America it's a made in America defeat of the Israelis and it's a made in Gaza victory for the Palestinians and I think that that's something that history will uh will point to for a long time War colleges will study this for generations to come and Liberation struggles will see what is possible um and like uh your previous guest said we don't get to despair uh when when the Palestinians under these brutal circumstances can show us Victory well John we really appreciate you here and you're covering all of this very closely and very consistently at the electronic inata so I hope everyone is checking you out there John Elmer contributing editor at the electronic inata thanks for so much so thanks so much for some of your time here in the freedom side thanks so much for having me

Channel: BreakThrough News

Views: 162,418

Keywords:

Id: BTJPyUGxLbk

Length: 26min 3sec (1563 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 03 2024