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Seth Frantzman Profile picture
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20 May, 9 tweets, 3 min read
THREAD #Israel Up until May 10 Israel was focused on the Iranian threat, mostly trying to "manage" Gaza through mediation or Qatar or other things, without letting it drag Israel into war; but then Israel retaliated for the rocket fire on Jerusalem
Meanwhile Israel ignored escalation in the north, include a drone that was apparently sent by Iran; there was a time Israel would have struck in Syria over that, but the Gaza distraction meant Israel lost deterrence against Iran in exchange little in Gaza, jpost.com/middle-east/ir…
Israel had much to lose by being dragged into the battle with Hamas, and it was diminishing returns since 2009; and Hamas had MUCH to gain due to the postponed elections and letting Iran test Israel's defenses.
Where was Israel's strategic planning, depth corps, intel and all that? Well we may have a hint. A rudderless leadership, no government, a Prime Minister being challenged by an opposition (on May 4 the opposition vowed to form a government)
Israel slouched into war in Gaza, unlike in 2018 when it refused to be dragged in despite hundreds of rockets (Liberaman resigned, Bennett stayed and Israel destroyed tunnels on the Lebanon border instead)...
Israel's leadership, with power concentrated in the PM office and a foreign ministry gutted, a defense minister who was being sidelined...didn't bother to brief foreign countries on its aims and didn't prepare the ground in media or strategy. It just plodded in.
We know that the drone is a big deal because now Israel is discussing it. Back in Feb. 2018 Israel was outraged about such a drone. and WHO is firing rockets from Lebanon and Syria over the last week? Is there a chance pro-Iran Iraqi militias may be moving toward confrontation.
In 2019 the pro-Iran militias in Iraq, the PMU, accused Israel of airstrikes in Iraq. As @jonathan_spyer wrote about at the time, wsj.com/articles/israe…
We know that the Iraqi militias want to confront Israel. And Lebanon watched the war in Gaza. Also it appears Turkey and Qatar and Iran had various things to gain from the Gaza conflict. Israel may have missed strategic outlook;

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More from @sfrantzman

Seth Frantzman Profile picture
21 May
Thread: About ten days too late Israel's IDF has been briefing international media on all aspects of the conflict with Gaza, including logic behind striking large buildings...but honestly they should have done this on day 1 to set the narrative about the goals and strategy
They didn't need to give anything away but could have briefed media on Hamas and its use of civilian areas...something that is known but deserved to be said again and again with evidence. Problem is Israel didn't brief much foreign media or diplomats on May 10-14.
It's not that Israel would have convinced the extremists, but it would have been less behind the curve. Instead it struck the Al-Jala tower leaving a lot of questions and controversy. Even opening days of war led to questions about strikes on large buildings. And "proportion."
Read 5 tweets
Seth Frantzman Profile picture
20 May
The drone threat is growing, and it's worth reading @Mikeknightsiraq about how Kataib Hezbollah became the key leader in Iraq for pro-Iran drone operations; and it is interesting that Israel has said an Iranian drone flew from "Iraq or Syria"

washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysi…
Recently a drone was shot down on May 18 in Israel, see @inbarspace
Not the first time Iran did this, similar area in February 2018; from T-4 in Syria; #dronewars
Read 6 tweets
Seth Frantzman Profile picture
20 May
Thread: If you want to know how abnormal (and therefore unacceptable antisemitic racist abuse) it is that there are attacks on Jewish people in western democracies whenever there is some conflict between Israel and Hamas...here's a way to think about it:
Imagine someone relaxing in a western locale, privileged, enjoying a nice TV show on the sofa and someone says "we need to go protest for peace about this conflict in the Middle East"...and they don't have much to do so they are like "ok, yes, I care about justice, let's go"
So they go out in their car and join some march or protest...and then as they're walking someone says "look there are some minorities over there who have no connection to the conflict but let's go attack them"...and they run off to attack religious minorities or random people.
Read 9 tweets
Seth Frantzman Profile picture
20 May
How come during the war in Gaza we stopped hearing about the "dangers of an Iran Deal" and "enrichment" in Iran. Just wondering. I mean did the "enrichment" stop for the last ten days. Or like...it wasn't in someone's interest to talk about it or what?
Also did you notice if you read Iran media everyday that the number of stories about Israel is not that much more than before the war. Yet in Turkey's media it is wall-to-wall extremist coverage, the most anti-Israel in the world. Who benefits? What's really going on?
I have no doubt operationally Iran has benefited from watching the conflict, actually it may even be surprised by how well Hamas performed and Israel's ham-handed actions.
Read 5 tweets
Seth Frantzman Profile picture
19 May
Israel's systematic mishandling of this conflict is partly due to the fact that it was surprised by the Hamas war, second that there is no government, third that the government which does exist is arrogant and dismissive, corroded by years of endless elections an enabling
Part of this is a result of the Trump era when Israel didn't need to explain anything to anyone because it had a blank check and many countries were busy doing their own Hobbesian things (like Turkey invading Afrin, etc), then there was a pandemic; Israel miscalculated
For years Israel invested in "explanation" but it has become ham-handed and stilted, lethargic and Israel gutted its own foreign ministry concentrating power in the Prime Minister's office. It doesn't think strategically except regarding the Iran threat.
Read 6 tweets
Seth Frantzman Profile picture
18 May
Thread: Every once in a while when I tweet critique of Ankara I get replies about how Israel supported Ankara. This is not accurate since 2010. Israel has had terrible relations with the regime in Ankara for a decade. And Israel has openly opposed its policies.
There is one strange exception (and I don't mean trade, trade is normal). The exception is a small group of pro-Ankara voices in the US who are also pro-Israel and have sought to muddy the waters, pretending there is some "reconciliation" or Ankara is "against Iran".
It may be true that Turkey and Israel 20 years ago had good relations. Those relations led to bad bedfellows, like some pro-Israel folk going to bat for Ankara against recognition of the Armenian genocide. It also led to other denials about the nature of Ankara's new regime.
Read 7 tweets

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