Israel Attacks Yemen ישראל תוקפת את תימן
- Ariel Avidar
- Apr 14
- 6 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
When Israel finally attacks Yemen, I want to cheer, and I want to tweet, and I want to scream just as much as you do. I don't want to be the Debbie Downer, I don't want to kvetch, but then when the IDF comes out and says words such as proportionate, precise, and necessary, we realize we don't have that much to cheer about.
It's not a sporting event, it's not FIFA, it's not the Euro, it's real. The messages we send are real, the messages we receive are real, and the analysis is real, and it's not looking good, no matter how much we want to cheer and want to claim it was a victory.
After 10 months and over 220 missiles and drones, international piracy by the Houthis, the embarrassment of sending a drone that drives the speed of your car on a 16-hour road trip ending in the heart of Tel Aviv, we're told that a single strike on infrastructure is proportionate. Proportionate. And what does proportionate also mean? When the IDF says that something was proportionate, that means by logic anything more would be excessive, anything more would be warmongering or aggressive. So in other words, the IDF is saying, that's it, they're admitting, the mission is over. We're curling back up, the operation is over.
And it also tells this enemy, and other enemies, what our tolerance is for civilian casualties, and what our tolerance is for an extended mission in battle, both of which are apparently very low, because we ended our operations the same day they started.
Now when we see the word precise, we already know that's canned language for the Americans, for the Europeans. We hear it on a daily basis, we hear it in the North, we hear it in the South. Either it's precise, or pinpoint, or targeted, it's an apology, it's a plea, it's a plea to keep feeding us these precision weapons, weapons that we only need because we agree to this war that's a military impossibility, urban warfare without casualties.
When we hear the word necessary, that's easy, justification, rationalization, like we said, 10 months, 220 missiles, piracy, you don't have to say what is necessary, in fact the IDF shouldn't be saying a word, there's a ministry of foreign affairs, there are politicians, there's diplomatic channels, IDF, lose these words, forget from transparency, morality, you're not a public relations firm, and by the way, you're also not a food bank, that's for another day.
And as for the Houthis, let's play a game, let's play a game of make-believe, you wanna make-believe you're a firefighter, make-believe you're a truck driver, boring, make-believe you're radical Houthi Islamic terrorists, what's your dream? World detention, world domination, destruction, you want the caliphate, typical stuff.
But what are your fears? You fear the destruction of your ships, and your weapons, and your lines of communication, and your infrastructure, the assassination of your commanders, blowing up your houses, and blowing up your offices, maybe a sonic boom, like the United States did to wake up Gaddafi, that's what you fear.
And what might you not care about? Let's say a missile attack on fuel storage tanks, in fact, you may even like it, why? Because it tells you that after 10 months of all these attacks, and piracy, and the attack in Tel Aviv, Israel is afraid to even touch any of those things we just listed on your list of fears.
And then you turn on the TV, and the IDF spokesman comes out and says we're finished, by way of saying it was proportionate, as we discussed earlier, meaning an attack on fuel storage infrastructure is proportionate, and it's over.
Now Mr. Houthi, you might even be offended, because for all your work in 10 months, with your missiles, and your press conferences, and your radical videos that had beautiful music, and nice editing, a strike in Tel Aviv, and all it's worth is a fuel fire? But don't be offended, here's why, it's not for you, it's Israel. Recently Iran shot 300 drones, and missiles, and sent all of Israel into shelter, cancelled schools in all of Israel, and all that Iran got in return was a hole in an airport runway, and Hezbollah, right now, right now, they're setting the north on fire, and all they're getting is strongly worded responses.
And anyway Mr. Houthi, the attack wasn't for you, we just said it didn't attack anything that you're afraid of, so it wouldn't deter you, which we saw because missiles continued to rain on us, it was a show for the Israelis, why?
If you noticed in the war room, where Bibi and his generals were getting ready, and pushing buttons, the videos had multiple camera angles, the air force turning screws and getting ready in preparation, multiple camera angles, the planes coming back, our brave pilots coming out of the planes, all these camera shots, all these camera angles, it's a show, it's a production.
And then the defense minister comes out and gives a talk, he's boasting, he's showing off that we failed to react to 220 plus missiles, and then he gives his beautiful sound bite that he's probably been waiting to use, of a fire in the Middle East, a fire that the whole Middle East will see, beautiful. Of course, that fire is the attack on fuel storage facilities, which will burn for several days.
So it's choreography, we've seen it before, so we'll start with my favorite, 2019, Hezbollah attacked from the north, and what did the IDF do? They carried out a fake evacuation, of fake injured soldiers using fake blood, and a helicopter to evacuate these fake injured soldiers, in order to make Hezbollah think that they had a direct hit. And for some reason, the media loved it, as if laying in the fetal position, and making believe you're hurt, so that the enemy won't keep hitting you, is an ingenious strategy, an ingenious strategy for the fourth strongest army in the world, according to US News and World Reports, against a terrorist organization.
In another case, where the IDF tells us about its operational targets hit, and they tell us 500 today, and we scream, great, give us 600 tomorrow, well they revealed what one of them was, what they call an operational target. It was a bench, a bench in Gaza, that terrorists had apparently used in the past, for a meeting. That's an operational target, and they feed it to us, and we accept it.
And what else have we seen? We've seen the IDF conducting, or Shin Bet, conducting intelligence operations, when they should be doing military operations. They've done it in hospitals, in Jenin, in Hebron. They tried to do it in Gaza, but it didn't work out so well a few years back. Where they send soldiers in disguise, undercover. They send them in as doctors, and patients, and they even run around schlepping wheelchairs. And when they do this, they take on more risk, because when you run and do a clandestine operation, you don't have as much backup. You have a lot of moving parts.
As opposed to a military, heavy-handed operation, where you have unlimited supplies. You have unlimited reinforcements. So why do they do it? It's the same reason that we always come back to.
They're afraid of the perception. They're afraid of the West. They're afraid of Oslo. And how it's going to look if the IDF is running operations within PA territory. So does our enemy sense fear? They don't need to. They can just pay attention, and they see it oozing out of our operations.
And it's not necessarily a fear of that enemy. We have no doubt about our capabilities, and our soldiers, and our weapons to destroy these bands of terrorists. What we're calling now a multi-front war, and it reminds us of wars in the past, but it's a misnomer. It's not. Hamas, and Hezbollah, and the Houthis, and whatever other groups we have, the smaller groups in Iraq, and Syria, and others in Gaza. They combine for zero airplanes, and zero tanks.
So we know we could remove these enemies. Why don't we? Because we're afraid of the United States. And we're afraid of the West. And we're afraid of the civilian toll that it would take to remove these enemies. And afraid that that would leave Israel in international isolation. So that is the real war.
That is why we use chalk to make our red lines. That is why we ignore missiles, and rockets, and bullets, and stones. And we ignore sanctions, and we ignore embargoes.
And that is why the day after this fantastic, as Twitter calls it, this fiery, glorious response, we still have rockets towards Eilat, and towards Fat. So Mr. Israeli, if the Houthis weren't fooled, and Hezbollah isn't fooled, why are you fooled?
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