Wrong Comparison? Not 9/11, Rather Dunkirk

[Kathianne]

Interesting read:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-is...hare_permalink

This Isn’t Israel’s 9/11. It’s DunkirkThe Jewish state’s position is far more perilous than that of the U.S. in 2001.
By Ashley Rindsberg
Oct. 11, 2023 6:00 pm ET


Israel Defense Force soldiers wait in a trench, ready to fire, near the border with Gaza, Oct. 10. PHOTO: ALEXI J. ROSENFELD/GETTY
A metaphor quickly emerged after Hamas’s barbarous attack casting it as Israel’s 9/11. That’s the day we will look back on, dividing the before and after times. This misses the mark. Oct. 7 is our Dunkirk—the decisive start of a massive and prolonged war of survival, the beginning of a historic test whose outcome is still uncertain.


OPINION: POTOMAC WATCH
WSJ Opinion Potomac Watch
Hamas' Surprise Attack Pushes Israel to War

The reason the 9/11 metaphor falls down is simple: Israel isn’t America. The attack on the twin towers and Pentagon was isolated in time. In response, the U.S. had total freedom to maneuver. It could have simply sat out the fight. The establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, a sustained chain of operations abroad and some internal soul-searching would have produced an acceptable result from a national-security standpoint.


Israel has no such luxury. Neither in geography nor in time can the country take a wait-and-watch approach. With jihadists marauding through southern Israel as if we had been vaulted back to the Middle Ages, and with 130,000 Lebanese rockets trained on Israeli population centers, we are in the fight of our lives.


That’s why Dunkirk is the more precise parallel. Britain understood that getting its soldiers home was a life-and-death matter, not only for them but for the country. Without a serviceable fighting force, Britain couldn’t have fought the Nazi machine.

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[Gunny]

A good observation. Not sure Dunkirk is any better comparison that 9/11 though. At Dunkirk the French and Brits were shoved off the continent into the sea. Dunkirk was also the culmination of Nazi aggression vs ineffective defenses.

Israel has been blindsided like we were, but similarities end there. Indeed Israel is in for a prolonged war, especially if it destroys Gaza. That will be the next, "new" rallying cry for the terrorists.

Israel needs to level Gaza now while it had public sentiment mostly on its side. The longer it drags out, the more that fickle, in the moment sentiment is apt to change.