On the Fly: Israeli Airpower against the Al-Aqsa Intifada, 2000-2005 - Israeli Air Force (IAF) and IDF, COIN, Counterinsurgency, Hunting Militants Hiding in Rabbit Warrens of Palestinian Camps

This excellent report has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. It examines the role of Israeli airpower against terrorists in the intifada from 2000 to 2005. When asked to name one defining episode in the chronicles of the Israeli Air Force (IAF), historians and professional airmen would likely recall the opening salvoes of the Six-Day War on 5 June 1967. By the end of that pivotal day, the outnumbered IAF had effectively destroyed the air forces of three hostile Arab states, enabling the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to overwhelm their foes and triple Israel's territorial holdings within a week. The IAF called this impressive accomplishment Operation Focus—an appropriate moniker for such a determined application of aerial force against a numerically superior foe.

Equally appropriate, the IDF refers to its participation in the antiterrorist campaign of 2000-2005 as Operation Ebb and Flow—a term that not only evokes the seesaw level of violence characterizing the al-Aqsa Intifada and the IDF response but also describes the IAF's changing fortunes since the conflict began in September 2000. In contrast to the nearly legendary accomplishments of its past, IAF operations during Ebb and Flow may be best remembered for accusations of disproportionate force, controversy over "collateral damage," and very public debates over targets and tactics. The 1967-vintage IAF knew its enemies and had trained, literally for years, to fight against those refreshingly familiar foes. Its twenty-first-century successor, however, proved unprepared to face a new kind of opponent in a new kind of war. Not until 2004—more than four years after Ebb and Flow began—had the IAF adapted itself sufficiently to overcome these obstacles in an operationally meaningful way. It did so, literally and figuratively, "on the fly," continually improvising its tactics, equipment, and doctrine to fit the new reality. Virtually every aspect of the IAF's counterinsurgency (COIN) effort correspondingly underwent radical revision, at times more than once—mission emphasis continually shifted across roles, new weapons designed specifically for urban operations and counterterrorism experienced accelerated development, and the service as a whole found itself faced with the daunting prospect of learning a new way of warfare while Israel faced its gravest threat in decades. The IAF's efforts were by no means uniformly successful; some, indeed, proved disastrous in the context of a war dominated by perceptions and politics. Nonetheless, the IAF did implement enough of the right improvisations to make increasingly significant contributions to the IDF's overall COIN campaign. That it did so with even middling success is an achievement of note for airpower historians; that the US Air Force is currently facing similar challenges—in the same part of the world—suggests that the hard-won lessons drawn from the IAF's painful experience may be relevant to the USAF's ongoing COIN and counterterrorist efforts.