Today, Israel acknowledged (Hebrew) that a drone, likely launched from Lebanon by either Hezbollah or Iran, entered Israeli airspace from Gaza. It was eventually shot down by the Israeli Air Force. What’s interesting is that the drone flew south over the Mediterranean, then headed east over Gaza and entered southern Israel. The IDF, with full control of airspace over its own country, Lebanon and Gaza, didn’t bring the drone down until well after it had entered Israel.
Presumably, the IDF had quite a long time to decide what to do with this object. It surely would’ve wanted to bring it down intact in order to study Iran/Hezbollah’s technology and capabilitiest. Yet with all Israel’s advanced weapons communication skills it still had to destroy the drone with a missile.
There have been prior incidents of this sort in which Hezbollah launched such drones (and once a balloon) into Israel. Hezbollah has also crashed armed drones it was testing. In this blog, I reported an incident in which my Israeli source claimed a Hezbollah-Iranian drone crashed inside the perimeter of an Israeli airbase. In that story, Israel claimed that one of its own drones crashed.
At any rate, what this proves is that what goes around comes around. The Obama administration sits like the Cheshire Cat with an enigmatic grin on its face regarding its vaunted drone targeted-killing program. We see ourselves as king of the skies. This is our method, our only method of engaging with Islamists and almost our only method of dealing with the Muslim world. Israel too has used drones to invade sovereign Muslim nations like Sudan and Egypt and assassinate “undesirables.” Of course, it has done the same in Gaza.
The problem with all arms races is that the stronger party only maintains a monopoly for a period of time. After that, the insurgent nation invariably catches up and sometimes surpasses the stronger country. Truman thought he had a nuclear monopoly until Stalin detonated his hydrogen bomb in 1949. Our generals threatened Mao with oblivion until he got his own bomb in 1964.
Iran may be a country that is militarily inferior to Israel or the U.S., but it is a nation filled with initiative and ambition. Developing an advanced drone is not nearly as complicated as developing WMD. For decades, the west has had an advantage over Arab and Muslim nations in terms of the armaments at their disposal. But this can’t last forever. As long as we view the only cards worth playing as threats and force, Iran will respond by upping the ante just as the Soviets and Chinese did during the Cold War. Our edge can only last so long and take us so far.
Iran is telling us that while you think you may hold all the cards, two can play at this game: you have drones, we have them. You have WMD, why shouldn’t we? You kill us, why shouldn’t we kill you? It’s a dirty, nasty game. But we’re the ones playing with matches and liable to get burned.
Eventually the student surpasses the teacher. When that happens, when Iran proves that it has the capability to cause almost as much damage to us as we to them, we will then stand slack-jawed and wonder how this could be. And we will have only ourselves to blame.
Since Nasrallah has not admitted that the drone came from Hizballah or from Lebanon, and Nasrallah invariably boasts his successes with a large grin, one would have to assume one of two options:
Either it came straight from Iran, or it is an Israeli practice manouvre checking out defensive home front capabilities.
And since such a small craft would not have refuelling capabilities it could not have made the journey from Iran, thus only the Israeli option remains.
Sorry, don’t buy it for a minute.
Ok — target practice. Why don’t they say that?
shmuel: “Since Nasrallah has not admitted that the drone came from Hizballah or from Lebanon”
Apparently he has indirectly alluded to it:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4289309,00.html
“Hezbollah-affiliated channel Al-Mayadeen claims drone that infiltrated Israeli airspace belongs to Shiite terror group.”
So while Hezbollah have not directly commented on this, it is using Lebanese media sources to indirectly crow long and hard about it.
Think about it: if this was Hezbollah then it has just signalled to Israel that it possesses drones that can reach Dimona, and it appears that Israel had no idea that Hezbollah possessed such technology.
Food for thought indeed e.g. what if Israel started a war and then was suddenly confronted with 50 or 100 of those drones all heading towards Dimona from all points of the compass?
How many could it intercept, and what damage could be done by those that did get through?
Right, just when they’ve spent billions on Iron Dome to prevent missiles from Gaza, now there’s an entirely new offensive weapon threatening them. A weapon they knew about & should’ve anticipated, but didn’t.
RS: “Right, just when they’ve spent billions on Iron Dome to prevent missiles from Gaza, now there’s an entirely new offensive weapon threatening them. A weapon they knew about & should’ve anticipated, but didn’t.”
Exactly right.
It is a simple truism that every advance in weaponry will elicit a change of tactics to counter it.
Which appears to come as a constant source of surprise to the IDF who – apparently – have the most unwarranted contempt for both Hezbollah’s abilities and leadership, and a thoroughly unearnt faith in their own cleverness.
Couldn’t that be an Israeli stunt to get an pretext (or one among others) to attack Iran ?
Drones are becoming as common as houseflies even inside the US. It’s just another day. Has anyone pondered the possibility that it’s a US drone? After all, Obama is so fond of them.
It’s probably an Iranian drone, and if so, why should anyone be surprised by it?
Israeli warplanes violate south Lebanon airspace
SIDON, south Lebanon: Four Israeli warplanes violated Lebanon’s airspace Sunday circling the country’s regions, the Army said in a statement,
“At 10:10 a.m., four warplanes belonging to the Israeli enemy violated Lebanese airspace entering from above the village of Kfar Kila and conducting aerial circular maneuvers above all Lebanese areas,” the statement said.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2012/Oct-07/190455-israeli-warplanes-violate-south-lebanon-airspace.ashx#ixzz28dEDYWcq
Could this be the beginning of another Israel-Lebanon conflict?
Press TV (Iran) is reporting it’s a US drone. This is almost fun.
And in the meantime, while all you guys are babbling on about downed drones, 121 people are reported dead in Syria.
I never knew you were a Syrian human rights activist. Can you show me anything that would prove you cared about Syrian human rights before the current civil war became a perfect diversionary tactic for hasbarists like you. What? You think you’re the first to use this tactic here? Alas, not. Only the 10th. But do come up with some fresh tactics as we’ve usually seen anything people like you can come up with here at least a few times before you bring it to us.
No matter how harsh your diatribe may be, the fact remains:
While you’re demonizing and obsessing over Israel, thousands of people are being slaughtered right next to it.
You mean our time spent here “demonizing and obsessing over Israel” could be better spent fretting over Syria? As horrendous as the civil strife is or becomes in Syria, it does not offset, devalue or diminish the value of the work of calling out Israel. In a world of horrendous things present and past Israel has accumulated enough horrendous experience to warrant full time attention without distraction. From a human rights perspective alone — Israel remains a rich vein to mine and somebody has just got to do the legwork.
While thousands of people are dying in Syria, Palestinians and Israelis are dying too. If you’re so deeply touched by Syrian suffering then start a blog as I’ve done & stop mouthing off here in a feeble attempt to distract from the issues at hand.
‘Palestinians and Israelis are dying too’
How many Palestinian civilians died this year? How many Syrians? What’s the ratio? It’s a completely different world.
Davey,
The civil right infractions going on in Israel/Palestine are minute compared to the horrors going on in Syria or Iran. If Tikkun Olam is a universal value – then it should be applied wherever the most help is needed. Israel is far from that place.
That’s it. I’ve had enough. You’re done in this thread. My comment rules demand that comments be on-topic, which yours are not.
If I wanted to write a blog about Syria I would. But I chose to write a blog about the Israeli-Arab conflict focussing primarily on Israel & Palestine. If you have a problem with that you can go suck an egg as far as I’m concerned.
Publish another comment in this thread & you’ll be moderated.
(last distracting comment, promise)
@Jay Green “Civil rights infractions?” 64 years of dispossession, violence, territorial aggrandizement and vicious assaults on civilian populations (1400 dead Gazans in Cast Lead), theft and cultural extermination can not possibly be encompassed by “civil rights infractions.” Besides — this blog is not about Syria nor is thie thread.
Richard: “Presumably, the IDF had quite a long time to decide what to do with this object. ”
That’s one mighty big presumption, Richard.
If you were the IDF high command then the very last thing you’d want to do is to ALLOW an unidentied aircraft to get as far as the Negev Desert before you took your first shot at it.
After all, what if it was toting a stand-off missile under its wing, range unknown?
If that were the case (and, remember, for the IDF this was an unidentified aircraft) then you might be carefully lining up to bring it down over uninhabited desert and then – ooooops! – before you can hit the firing teet it lets fly with a missile that starts streaking towards Dimona…….
Nobody would run that risk.
The simplest explanations are usually the best e.g. the reason why that drone got as far as the Negev is because the IDF was caught with its pants down, and is now frantically trying to come up with excuses to cover its arse.
No question there was a screw-up & the vaunted 4th best military in the world will be embarrassed despite all the fake encomiums being offered by Barak about how the boys did a great job protecting the homeland, etc., etc.
This is why I said it’s fun. We have to wonder why, with all that technology and all that US money going to the IOF, they didn’t see this little guy until he was in their backyard.
The IDF/AF jet that shot down the drone appears to be an F-16. F-16s have Gatling guns. They could have “blipped” it with the hope that the few rounds would have taken out the motor. All it would have taken was skill….
More fun.