Wars must end quickly.

This principle guided Israel’s founders as they developed a military concept for the fledgling state.

Facing a massive and insurmountable demographic imbalance against its Arab adversaries, Israel could only hope to defeat enemy coalitions by mobilizing its society. Reservists, who made up the preponderance of the IDF and without whom offensive maneuver was not possible, would be pulled away from businesses, schools, and families to quickly defeat Arab armies, then return home to restart the economy as rapidly as possible.

Long wars would cost more in casualties, damage the economy, strain family life, allow foreign powers to influence the outcome of the war, and result in growing international campaigns against the Jewish state.

In order to shorten wars, Israel built a highly mobile ground force designed to rapidly and decisively defeat Arab armies. This approach proved itself in the capture of the Sinai peninsula in a week in 1956; the Sinai, West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights in 6 days in 1967; and recovering from an atrocious opening act to threaten Damascus and surround the invading Egyptian army in less than 3 weeks in 1973.

Israel began moving away from that imperative as it occupied southern Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s, and as it fought terror in the West Bank. But even in those counterterrorism and counterguerrilla operations — which by their very nature take time — reservist call-ups were limited in time and scale.

The IDF also moved away from a reliance on its ground forces as the key to victory, and instead shifted its focus and resources toward intelligence and the air force. Reserve infantry and armor units were seen as irrelevant wastes of limited resources. Training was rare and formations were mothballed.

That all changed, of course, with the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023. Israel suddenly needed ground forces, and a lot of them. It called up some 300,000 reservists to Gaza and the northern border, who showed up at their bases without being called and served enthusiastically in the opening months of the war. It also dusted off armored and infantry units and sent them into battle.

There would be no speedy victory, however. It wasn’t that Hamas put up an especially effective defense. Rather, Israel didn’t seem like it was in a particular hurry. It took three weeks just to initiate the invasion of Gaza, then a ceasefire to release hostages in late November stopped the operation for a week.

Even without the truce, Israel took its time. With inadequate intelligence on Hamas and the Gaza Strip, and a lack of........

© The Times of Israel