The former Israeli ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, has rejoined the IDF at the age of 69: “Rejoining IDF, Ex-Envoy Michael Oren Warns: ‘We’re Fighting the Wrong War,’” by Debbie Weiss, Algemeiner, August 5, 2024:
Oren rejected claims that Israel was not operationally or logistically prepared for a full-scale war with Hezbollah, asserting that Israel had untapped resources ready for deployment. “We have conventional means that we’ve never used before, and we could use them now, like our submarine force,” he said, declining to elaborate further.
Oren knows things about the IDF’s weaponry, including “untapped resources” that are now “ready for deployment” and “conventional means” that have “never [been] used before.” He mentions Israel’s fleet of submarines, that even now may be in the Persian Gulf, prepared to destroy all of the oil terminals on Kharg Island, through which 90% of Iran’s oil exports now flow.
Kobi Levy, a resident of Kfar Blum who is part of the rapid response team alongside Oren, hailed the former envoy’s decision to dust off his uniform for the first time in over a decade. Oren fought in the First Lebanon War in 1982 in the Paratroopers Brigade.
According to Levy, many lawmakers and politically-affiliated groups, including the Brothers in Arms anti-government protest group, have briefly visited the kibbutz for what he termed “photo ops and empty promises.”…
Oren, on the other hand, has put his life on the line by joining that rapid response squad as the oldest member of the team, performing whatever tasks are assigned to him. What’s more, being stationed in the north, he has used the occasion to “see firsthand” the conditions there, where 80,000 evacuated Israelis have still not returned, and likely will not come back until the IDF turns its full attention to pushing Hezbollah back from the border with Israel.
A remarkable man, this Michael Oren, historian, essayist, diplomat, and now, at the age of 69, a volunteer in the IDF, serving in a special response squad on the northern front with Hezbollah. It’s a dangerous place for the IDF. Oren is convinced that the threat of Hamas in Gaza has been sufficiently reduced so that the IDF should now turn its main attention away from what he describes as “the wrong war” against a tactical threat, Hamas, and direct its attention to meeting the much more powerful strategic threat to Israel’s survival from Hezbollah, with its Iran-supplied arsenal of 200,000 rockets and missiles. And he recognizes that until that happens, 80,000 Israelis evacuated from the north will not return. The places they left have effectively been turned into a No-Man’s-Land, reducing the “livable area” of an already-tiny Israel, and will remain such until Hezbollah has been dealt a series of massive blows comparable to those inflicted by the IDF on Hamas, so that the Lebanese terrorists of Hezbollah are forced to pull back by at least 10 kilometers from the border with Israel,, which would make an October 7-style attack much less likely. That kind of pullback by Hezbollah would be needed in order to persuade those 80,000 Israelis to return to their homes in the north.
Assuming he survives, Michael Oren, once the former senior envoy for the state of Israel and now a simple volunteer in the IDF, is sure to be a force in Israeli politics. He will likely be seen by many as the most plausible, least ideological successor to Netanyahu, who has increasingly shown himself too fixated on totally destroying Hamas in Gaza and not nearly attentive enough to forcing Hezbollah to retreat on the northern front. Oren has the requisite perfect mastery of English, equal to that of Netanyahu himself, long acquaintance with America’s political elite, that began when he was first appointed in 2009 as Israel’s ambassador to Washington, and a flexibility that has allowed him to recognize that the war in Gaza is becoming a Tar Baby, preventing the IDF from fully bringing to bear both men and weapons that are now needed in a campaign to weaken Hezbollah enough so that it will be forced to pull back — the Americans and Israelis have talked of creating a “buffer zone” inside Lebanon of 10 kilometers — from the border with Israel.
rick says
Hamas is the enemy because it is inside Israel. Hezbollah is a much more powerful enemy but it is not happy about being the made the #1 enemy of Israel which it would become if it conducted an all out war on Israel. Israel should have never ended their targeted killing of major Hamas.Hezbollah figures. The leaders of these terrorist groups want their followers to sacrifice themselves but they do not want to be harmed themselves. Targeted killings should be standard Israeli policy and that includes the destruction of the homes of terrorists. No matter what the media says , it is a very effective manner of convincing those on the way to being terrorists not to do it. Also the people who pay the terrorists blood money should be targeted. Unfortunately the United States gives the PA money who then pay families of terrorists a stipend for being terrorists. So it’s complicated as it is impossible to attack Americans but the evidence of the US indirectly supporting terrorism must be made continually.
I would also include the immediate sinking of those vessels in the Red Sea which help the Houthis logistically to sink merchant ships. Quieting the Houthis totally would win “silent” applause from both Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
St Croix says
Yes! The assassination of these monsters, the corrupt kingpins, actually SAVES many lives. On all sides of the fence. Not to mention the potential savings in resources, funds, real estate, infrastructure, environment, economy… War is very destructive. Better to work at it efficiently, getting the most bang for the buck.
I really don’t know why they’d stop now, it was going so well.
libertyORdeath says
This is a severely underreported facet of the conflict in the Middle-east. How is it possible that the UN is “convicting” Israel of “war crimes” while an illegal non-state terrorist organisation has occupied Lebanon while attacking Israel, Lebanon and other neighbors for DECADES?
The civilized world should not rest until these terrorist groups are completely demolished through both military and economic warfare now, instead of playing the UN game of appeasement and cooperation with these criminal organizations and the governments that allow them to flourish.
Long response, but the same goes for the drug Cartels and human traffickers in central and south America. These are not insurmountable problems. We simply lack the leadership to act.
St Croix says
You are right. It’s a leadership problem. Never mind what the rest of the world thinks, let them solve their own problems. However, many Western leaders actually don’t want the conflicts solved, for their own reasons. Their alliance and full membership in three-letter agencies–and the agendas they are wedging in–is one of the main reasons. Sad, but true: it’s rotten at the top.
We can always hope for people like Oren–an unusual man. I DO hope he survives!
James Lincoln says
St Croix says,
“…many Western leaders actually don’t want the conflicts solved, for their own reasons.”
To the extent that that is true, it is pure evil.
OLD GUY says
Their WALLET gets in the way. There is a lot of muslim oil money floating around our political leaders.