War Nerd writes an influential internet page. A rara avis , he is an original thinker and the source of many concepts circulating around. His insight that the important weapons in contemporary war are the Khalashnikov and the RPG, are valuable as we learned in Lebanon War 2. He imagines the IDF manned by fat mama boys and/or Russian refuse, or arrogant pricks that wouldnt last one hour in an European war, and he is wrong. He was also wrong predicting the outcome of the Lebanon War: he wrote that Hizballah will never leave South Lebanon. But Hizballah surrendered in the first opportunity, and there they are vacating their bunkers while the villagers are throwing rice and candy on the Lebanese Army and European forces.
The Nerd also misunderstands Israeli worry for its people as seen in the defensive armour of the Merkava tank or the willingness to trade 1000 terrorists for one Israeli. He thinks those caring too much for their life cannot be good fighters. Yet the front pages of our papers carry, day after day, pictures of dismembered terror victims or war casualties, and the country proceeds ahead. I dont think there are another country with such capacity to assimilate casualties.
About demographics, he confuses Fresno Reform Temple members he knows with the people of Israel, whose ancestors never heard of nor experienced reformation nor assimilation. We are echte Jews, the originals, directly from the shtetl and the juderia, and we are tough. I remember when I was in Lebanon War 1, manning traps and feeling pity for the Arab boys who imagining themselves heroic fighters on white horses, were about to fall into our waiting traps. It was a winter night, cold, rainy and moonless, and I saw them coming through our night vision mishkefet. Just for the Nerd: those Oriental Jews in our group fought like Joshua's troops of the Bible. They knew no fear since God in person had delivered the enemy into their hands, as is written, together with their cattle ( בחמות if you understand) and miscellaneous movable property (say color TVs).
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