Aletho News

The weakness of Zionist air power

By Robert Daly | Al Mayadeen | October 1, 2024

What we have seen in the Zionist conduct of war since October 7, 2023, is a flashy, noisy exhibition but no seizure and holding of territory.

The murder of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and the destruction of six high-rise apartment buildings with multiple airstrikes make Zionist air power appear triumphant over Hezbollah. But nothing could be further from the truth. It is not air power that defeats enemies in war. Rather, it is infantry—conquering, seizing, and holding territory that defeats an enemy. The Soviet Union defeated Nazi Germany not through air power but through the ground battles of Stalingrad and Kursk and then by pushing the Nazi troops back into Germany as the Soviets liberated one occupied state after another from Ukraine and Belarus to Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The West at the time bombed Dresden and other cities, but that effort had little effect in defeating the Nazis. So, Zionist bombings of Lebanon’s cities kill citizens and wreck their homes but do not occupy territory or defeat Hezbollah.

It is beyond the capability of air power to seize enemy territory and hold it. Air power is only a form of contemporary artillery. In the past 100 years, humankind has ‘progressed’ from mere cannons and tanks delivering artillery shells onto an enemy’s positions to warplanes dropping them from above. What we have seen in the Zionist conduct of war since October 7, 2023, is a flashy, noisy exhibition but no seizure and holding of territory. Today, Hamas has retaken all of Gaza and continues to manage the territory as the Zionists have admitted in press briefings though they attacked Gaza by air. The Zionists responded to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack by bombing and destroying civilian residential buildings, but that did not destroy Hamas, which took advantage of the situation and the changed terrain to prepare positions from behind wrecked buildings to attack Zionist tanks and armored personnel carriers, which they have destroyed by the dozen. In this way, we have seen the contrast between ground fighters and air power in Gaza, where the Zionists are effective at killing women and children from the sky above with bombs, but cannot occupy and hold the territory that that population lived in.

If air power is an effective way to defeat one’s enemy and win a war, why is Hamas still ruling Gaza? Yedioth Ahronoth, a leading ‘Israeli’ newspaper, citing Israeli security sources wrote this past week that:

○ Hamas is working to consolidate its authority again in the areas of Gaza that the IOF left.

○ No one in Gaza stands against Hamas, and no one challenges its rule.

This is not new. In June, after eight months of Zionist bombing, the Guardian wrote “Hamas still strong in areas ‘cleared’ by Israel in northern Gaza.” How is that possible? Zionist warplanes far above do not provide much competition with Palestinian freedom fighters on the ground. Zionist armored vehicles full of scared reservists are easy targets for Gazan patriots who destroy those vehicles one after another. The Guardian concludes, “Hamas’s ability to return to areas from which it was earlier forced to retreat threatens ‘forever war’.” The paper explains, “There may be more Hamas militants in the north of Gaza, supposedly cleared by Israeli forces months ago, than in Rafah, the southern city in the territory described by Israeli officials as the extremist Islamist organization’s “last stronghold”. “We do have to remember there are more Hamas armed people in the north of Gaza in the places that the IDF has already moved out of than … in Rafah … Those are the IDF’s numbers. This is why the IDF had to go back into Jabaliya and … Zeitoun. Hamas is controlling all those areas,” Eyal Hulata, the head of “Israel’s” “national security council” from 2021 to last year, told reporters last May. Zionist air power and fragile armor have failed to conquer Gaza. They only wrecked it.

One can expect an even better outcome for the domestic national liberation army in Lebanon, where Hezbollah has the advantage of better and more artillery and soldiers experienced in fighting ISIS and Al-Qaeda on the ground in Syria.

One of the most disgusting Zionist air war practices is their cowardly war by assassination. Zionists will swoop down in aircraft of various sorts to kill someone on a motorcycle, a family in a car, or a leader of the national liberation movement in a building. To do that, they do not hesitate to murder hundreds of others in the area, as when the fascists murdered Sayyed Hassan. For if the Nazi abandoned his air vehicle and fought a fair fight on the ground, he would surely lose.

Moreover, it is an embarrassment to an American with a memory to hear Hezbollah or Hamas referred to as “terrorists” for defending their own land from Zionist invaders. Does not anyone remember Washington’s crossing of the Delaware on Christmas 1776, when they and their makeshift army slaughtered British-hired Hessian mercenaries drunk from celebrating the holiday? If Hamas is “terrorist”, then why isn’t George Washington?

So, we have it: “Israel” has not won in Lebanon. Rather, “the enemy must wait for us by air, land, and sea. We repeat: If war is imposed on Lebanon, the Resistance will fight without rules, controls, or ceilings,” Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah once said. “Storming the Galilee is a possibility that remains present within the framework of any war that the occupation may launch against Lebanon,” he added, referencing his 12-year-old promise that Hezbollah will invade “Israel’s” north if Tel Aviv chooses to attack.

October 1, 2024 - Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Gaza, Hamas, Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Zionism