Brigadier General Ofer Winter who was sent home instead of being promoted to a higher post in the IDF Command served as the commander of the 98th Paratroopers Division, military secretary to the Defense Minister, Chief of Staff of the Central Command, Commander of the Givati Brigade, Commander of the Northern Brigade in the Gaza Strip, Commander of the 646th Brigade, Commander of the Duvdevan Mistaravim Unit, and commander of the Givati Reconnaissance Battalion. On Tuesday he published an analysis of the Israeli government and security establishment failures in Operation Iron Swords, offering his suggestions as to how the past mistakes can be mended and turned into resounding victory against Hamas.
It should be noted that his article was published by Ma’arachot, the IDF’s professional content house for the military and national security.
In “From a Local Problem to an Existential Problem: Diagnosis and Strategic Treatment in the Iron Swords War,” Winter argues that the security system misdiagnosed the strategic problem Israel was facing in Operation Iron Swords, and therefore the way it chose to handle it and the operational moves of the IDF so far not only did not solve this problem, but made Israel’s situation much worse than it was when the war broke out.
This is how Iron Swords has been perceived in the eyes of the Arabs, according to Winter:
- The Israelis suffered a heavy blow despite all their symbols of power.
- The Israelis deployed all their fighting equipment, but were unable to bring the enemy to a situation where he asked for a ceasefire, and certainly did not destroy him.
- Yahya Sinwar received the global status of a kind of modern Saladin (the Kurdish general who chased the Crusaders out of the Middle East), due to the very fact that Israel is negotiating with him.
- The Israelis provide the Gazans and Hamas with generous humanitarian supplies, putting legal restrictions on themselves, and therefore are unable to exercise their true power.
- In the international arena, instead of Hamas and Gaza being isolated – Israel is isolated.
- Lebanon is not deterred, and Hezbollah deepens its attacks against Israel.
- The Iranians are undeterred as proxy operators and have directly fired hundreds of missiles at Israel in a single night.
“The enemy has learned very well the limitations and constraints of the IDF, and its plan has been built in a way that utilizes them to its advantage,” Winter continues. “To face the challenges, the security system needs to change and act contrary to the enemy’s expectations, and not continue to crash like waves on a breaker.”
According to Winter, to defeat the enemy, it is necessary to damage his command-and-control system. The fact that Sinwar continues to give orders to his forces for nine months and echoes messages to the entire world, stems from the IDF’s limitations and constraints on the ground.
A necessary condition for the survival of the enemy is his logistical supply. The enemy built his supply plan in advance based on the civilian population, understanding that Israel would be required to provide extensive humanitarian assistance. In Hamas’s view, wherever the population remains – its logistics are guaranteed.
The security system must move the population to an area defined according to the Israeli interest, to which humanitarian supplies will be transferred – and nowhere else. This, after the IDF will make sure that only civilians who have gone through an inspection and screening process can stay there.
Hamas dragged the IDF into fighting in the urban areas and prepared ahead of time to make it difficult for the IDF to harm its operatives. Hamas is using the civilian population as a human shield – which brings international pressure on Israel. Moving the population into one, large humanitarian space will make it possible to reduce harm to bystanders, while using all the IDF’s fire capabilities against the terrorists and reducing the harm to our forces.
Finally, Winter deals with the challenge of international legitimacy, writing, “From my personal experience I came to know that the Americans understand well when things are explained to them in a reasoned and clear manner, and to my understanding, this is also the source of the strong relationship between the two countries.
To be honest, I didn’t fall off my chair in response to the above analysis – first, because it’s not the first time these very observations and proposals have been made; and second, because Winter avoids the nitty-gritty part of turning his suggestions into reality in the middle of the battlefield. Indeed, Winter himself says, “I will not be able to list all the operative actions that must be taken in order to deal with the constraints and problems, but it is possible to change the face of the war from one end to the other through a few actions.”
I expect that the most crucial prerequisite operative actions would be to send home the entire senior IDF staff, the very people who severed Winter’s career in mid-swing.
