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https://x.com/Saul_Sadka/status/1853204103825961360

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Saul Sadka

@Saul_Sadka

Dec 22

How can Israeli intel be so brilliant and yet so stupid at once?

How did they carry out the most successful and consequential covert operation in living memory but be unable to recognize the obvious signs leading up to Oct 7 or make the right calls re. Hezbollah? (1/6)

To understand why Israeli intel has had such epic wins on the tactical level but the worst failures possible on the strategic level, recall that the people doing all the clever practical stuff are in no way related to the to the upper echelons that interface with decision makers.

Parts of the old Israeli elite establishment, noting their marginalisation on the political level, have nevertheless maintained their grip on some of the reins of power within the IDF, and particularly the intel community. (2/6)

Promotion to the top of the Israeli intelligence apparatus is largely filtered by an old boy's network, and it is a political and strategic thinking monoculture.

This is reinforced by post-career appointments to lucrative think tank non-jobs (e.g. at the INSS) and education programmes at Harvard to ensure that future leading lights of the military have the 'right' views. (3/6)

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Saul Sadka

@Saul_Sadka

Dec 16

Imagine being Irish and accusing others of being "settler colonialists"?

But this explains why Ireland, with only 2,000 Jews, has nevertheless become a primary exporter of Jew-hate. If your brightest 50% escape every generation, for 10 generations, you are left with Ireland.

There are 10 times more Irish people (people with predominantly Irish heritage) in North America than in Ireland.

There are more Irish people in Sydney than in Dublin.

They displaced the natives. They are settlers.

So effective have the Irish been at their colonial enterprise that the presidents of both the USA and Israel have Irish heritage.

Read 6 tweets

Saul Sadka

@Saul_Sadka

Dec 5

If the reports that Assad's forces have retreated from Hama, handing it the rebels, are true, they will be retreating to mount a last stand at Homs.

If the rebels capture the Homs area, it is all over for Assad. His Alawite coastal heartland and all the ports (circled in pink) will be cut off from the capital Damascus.

Iran would lose access to all but two border crossings into Lebanon (mountain passes that Israel can, and routinely does, control via airstrikes.

The Kurds are also pushing into Deir Az Zor (circled in yellow), and if they succeed, Iran will lose its primary supply route to Hezbollah (they will be forced to run the gauntlet across the Syrian desert, within easy reach of US bases).

The best case for Assad is that his poorly paid troops can hold Homs, allowing him to keep a rump state (the blue circled area). If he can't, expect huge bloodletting as the hated Alawites reap the whirlwind of their 50 years of oppression of all the other groups.

The future of Hezbollah, Lebanon, and Assad depend on what happens in Homs.

For Israel the safest result is probably that Assad holds the blue circled area in his hugely weakened state, while the Kurds take enough strongpoints in the desert to cut the Iran-Lebanon routes, or to funnel them such they become easy pickings and unsustainable.

As for Iran, there is really no best case scenario for them. They have lost most of their ability to sustain or resupply their militias in Syria and Lebanon en masse, even if things stay as they are.

This map explains why capturing Homs is the end for Assad: The large lake that extends from Homs to the edge of the Anti-Lebanon mountains means that the coastal Alawite zone will be connected extremely tenuously to Damascus.

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Saul Sadka

@Saul_Sadka

Dec 3

An hour after I posted this—predicting that calls for "Intifada" will inevitably lead to bloodshed in the West that will be blamed, as always, somehow, on Jews—the execrable Owen Jones got the ball rolling in advance.

Using an image of the Tavistock Square attack (where an Israeli woman and a Jewish woman, a family friend of mine, were among the 13 dead), this Big Lie blood-libel to ensure that when the Jihadis come, everyone knows who is really to blame...

His real message is "Jews, Western people: Stop supporting Israel or you'll deserve what the terrorist have planned."

Why does this "Root Cause Game" always end at "Jew"?

The Jihadi/far-left playbook:

1. Spread propaganda about how evil Jews are.
2. People attack Jews.
3. Wait for Jews to fight back.
4. Paint Jews as aggressors.
5. Back to step 1.

Rinse and repeat. The smart ones keep their hands clean, but are just as critical to the plan.

The "You better do [insert cause] or this bad crazy guy here will make you bleed" is just the "good cop bad cop" game.

Nothing more sophisticated that that. The far-left propagandists and the Jihadis have the same goal, and they play their roles knowingly.

Read 5 tweets

Saul Sadka

@Saul_Sadka

Nov 26

Why would Israel sign a ceasefire with Lebanon when it has reduced Hezbollah from a mighty army to a disjointed rabble? Why not "finish the job"? The reason is simple: Israel’s primary goal—neutralizing Hezbollah as a strategic threat and thereby leaving Iran exposed—has been achieved to its satisfaction. The extra benefit is not worth the marginal cost—to Israel, but not to Lebanon.

Most Israelis oppose the decision and would prefer that Israel finish the job. The Lebanese—many of whom, including a significant number of Shia, now want Hezbollah gone—seem even more disappointed.

Hezbollah posed four major threats to Israel. Let’s break them down and examine if and how they’ve been neutralized. (1/6)

1. The Most Serious Threat: Border Breach and Mass Infiltration

Hezbollah had the capability to secretly amass up to 15,000 fighters near the border, ready to breach it in a surprise attack akin to the events of October 7. Such an operation, while suicidal for most attackers, would have inflicted massive damage on Israel. Tens of thousands of civilians could have been killed, and military bases overrun.

This threat has been completely eliminated. Hezbollah’s infrastructure in the first-line border villages, as well as its main forward bases in Khiam and Bint Jbeil, has been captured and systematically destroyed. These installations, which took 25 years to build, have been rendered unusable. Under total surveillance, Hezbollah has no chance of rebuilding them, making an asymmetric invasion impossible. (2/6)

2. The Short-Range Rocket Threat

Hezbollah was believed to have approximately 100,000 short-range rockets capable of harassing northern Israel. However, most of these rockets—and the personnel trained to operate them—have been neutralized. Hezbollah has been reduced to firing small, sporadic volleys of around 25 rockets per day.

While some rockets remain hidden in garages or under shrubbery, they no longer pose a strategic threat. These rockets are highly inaccurate, guided only by rudimentary tools like compasses and protractors. They miss their targets by an average of 1,000 meters and have minimal blast radius. Unable to overwhelm Israel’s defenses, they have proven ineffective. For every 1,000 rockets fired, only one civilian is killed on average. (3/6)

Read 10 tweets

Saul Sadka

@Saul_Sadka

Nov 23

Why can't the left podcast?

Tldr—it's because the left has been hijacked by a stultifying orthodoxy that forces its adherents to say things they don't believe, and nobody wants to listen to the obviously disingenuous. And insincerity kills charisma.

It's not for want of of billionaires, as billionaire-employed Taylor Lorenz argues, and the Republicans certainly didn't "build Joe Rogan" as she implies. (1/5)

The left can't do long form because their ideology is an orthodoxy. Orthodoxies don't function via discussion and debate—the lifeblood of podcasting—it works via rules and creeds witch-hunts and heresies. There is nothing to talk about, just people to praise and others to pillory. (2/5)

Even the core of the woke religion is dull.

Judaism also has an orthodoxy—I know Orthodox Judaism intimately—but in contrast to the far-left's cult, it is based on the accrued writings of 3,000 years. And while it has hard limits on what can be discussed, it has fun myths and legends, allegory and vibrant internal debate. (3/5)

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