Alastair Crooke: Does Netanyahu want this war to last for 10 years? | Judge Napolitano – Judging Freedom

What does Netanyahu want? Is it true? Did he actually say, Alistair, he wants the war to go on for 10 years? Yes, he did say that just before this last round of negotiation. He said it’ll probably go on. He wants to be able to go into Gaza at any point and if you like what the Israelis call, not me, but the Israelis call mow the grass. That is to kill the militants that they can identify on the ground in Gaza. Of course, they’re not on the ground. They’re underneath the ground. They’re 70 meters or down.

So it’s not that easy as just going in and mowing the grass as it used to be. And this is what’s making it so different from him because I think Netanyahu has come to understand now and it’s taken some time that this is a different type of war. It’s not the war that they’re used to of just going in and the aircraft come over and bomb a few targets which are identified as being militant strongholds or headquarters or whatever. This is very different because adversary is deep underground. It has a whole network.

I mean, there is something like 400 kilometers of tunnels. Some of them big tunnels are hospitals underground. There’s material for building, making arms underground. All these things are underground and they come up very briefly in small groups, take some action, put an explosive device on a tank. Then they’re down the tunnel. Then they go right down deep. And it’s very difficult to fight this type of war. And the Israelis are realizing that they haven’t won. You know, all the story about having dismantled 24 battalions is really quite quaint because, you know, this is an irregular asymmetrical force.

They don’t operate in battalions. They don’t have a battalion commander or an ops officer, majors or anything like this. This is a different sort of warfare that’s taking place. And Israel still looks at it in this way, the old fashioned way that is now long since past in the spirit. They think it’s, you know, shock and all. We come in with our aircraft. We bomb everything like happened in Beirut when I was there in 2006. And this is a lesson. This is fear. This will make them bend and come to our will.

And this is the solution to it. And it’s not working because Hamas is still intact and it’s underground and it’s lost certain amount of its forces, but it’s binomials defeated and they know it’s not defeated. Therefore, they insist that they have to keep coming back because otherwise Hamas is one. Hamas is intact and in charge of Gaza. [tr:trw].

See more of Judge Napolitano – Judging Freedom on their Public Channel and the MPN Judge Napolitano – Judging Freedom channel.