שלום,

לקט מס' 16, לעיונכם:

1.    ינואר עוד מעט נגמר, ולא כדאי לפספס את הגיליון החודשי של ביטאון חיל האוויר האמריקאי (אגב, לאחרונה התפרסמה בביטאון חיל האוויר שלנו כתה מחמיאה על ענף חק"ב שלנו - הכתבה תהיה זמינה ברשת בעוד מספר חודשים), והפעם אני אציין כמה כתבות בלתי שגרתיות הפרטת הרפואה, עלייה במספר ההתאבדויות, שינוי במעמד הנווטים, ולסיום קצת מדברי מפקד חיל האוויר האמריקאי.

2.    [נצר] זוכרים את מאמרם המפורסם של Ed Kaplan, שאול משעל ואחרים, על הקשר בין מדינות הסיכולים והמעצרים למספר המתאבדים? ובכן לנצר יש תגובה והיא בהחלט מעניינת:

Dear Professor Kaplan,

A paper that you co-authered was e-mailed to me by colleagues from the Israeli MOD's OR department ("What Happened to Suicide Bombings in Israel? Insights from a Terror Stock Model").

I had heard your lecture at CEMA on the epedemiology of smallpox and admired it very much. So I thought  it is worth my while to share my views about it with you. My friend Moshe Kress also encouraged me to write to you regarding this paper.

I think that the model described in the paper does not adequately describe the situation in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. I believe some important factors that were omitted from your analysis might change the conclusions that you have reached.

The most important phenomenon that is not explained by your analysis is  that since Operation Defensive Shield almost all the targeted killings were in the Gaza strip while almost all suicide bombers came from the West Bank (I do not recall a specific reference for these facts, but they are frequently mentioned in Israeli media; the Israeli media attributes the rarety of suicide bombers from Gaza to the fence that surrounds it, and the use of targeted killings there to the impracticality of arrests by ground forces as the IDF does not control the towns in this region). I am willing to guess that applying the model to the West Bank only, or to the Gaza strip only would not result in the conclusion that targeted killings are counterproductive.

I recomend that you read the attached paper by Prof. Ben Israel (a retired General from the IDF; moreover, some 20 years ago, when he was a fairly junior officer, I worked closely with him in the IAF's OR branch and he was one of the most talented analysts that I have ever met). In this paper (p. 9, par. 6) Ben Israel describes two features of the terrorist organizations that are relevant to your model:

The focusing on the performers of terrorism (e.g., the suicide attackers) is wrong. One has to bear in mind that these suicide bombers are the end result of a long chain of activity. One has to decide to carry out the terrorism act. Then, it should be planned, not before an appropriate intelligence is collected about the target, its protection and the route to the target which is not too vulnerable to early detection. Then, the explosive device (or belt) should be prepared. A volunteer should be recruited and instructed. Transportation should be arranged for the explosive belt to meet the volunteer and for both to reach the selected target. All these actions need an organization to take care of it.

Now, the crucial point here is that the key people in terrorist organization are very few. These are very small organizations. The number of key activists in the Hamas for example, who are actually engaged in preparing an act of terrorism, is only few hundreds (not counting the suicide volunteers and the passive supporters). Once one succeeds to neutralize 20%-30% of them (either by arresting them or, if it is not possible, by killing them) the organization slows down in producing terrorism. And as said above reducing the number of terrorist acts is the real goal.

This implies that the "terror stock" cannot be assumed linear with the number of terrorists. It is mainly the leaders that count. The death of a suicide bomber, for example, is irrelevant to the "terror stock".

It also implies that executing a suicide bombing requires a long process that probably takes several days - if not weeks - to complete. Lambda(t) is therefore a function not only of S(t) but also of S in previous days.

A targeted killing might cause the terrorist organization to accelerate the execution of an in-preperation suicide bombing. It might also motivate more recruitements, but these certainly will not result in instant suicide bombings.

I believe that there are some other problems with your assumptions:

·         Suicide bombing was the most lethal terrorist activity. However, most terrorist activities were shooting, car bombing, mining, shelling and rocketing of Israeli soldiers and civilians. These activities were ignored in your model.

·         During Operation Defensive Shield many terrorists were killed. Could the reduction in terrorist activities after this operation be attributed to their death? Some other terrorists were killed in encounters with IDF ground forces that were not described by B'tselem as "targeted killings". It seems that they were ignored in your analysis.

·         When the IDF reports "prevented suicide bombings", one should assume that these bombings were in what Ben Israel calls the "production line". They, should be treated like the 35 terrorists intercepted en-route to the attack.

·         I did not understand how you translated the monthly counts of arrests to the daily figures that are required in the model. Did you just use the daily average? Is that adequate for your model?

Let me state that I am unable to suggest an alternative model for terrorist activities. Although my private intuition is that targeted killings are effective, I cannot support this intuition by any quantitative analysis. However, I feel that your analysis does not disprove my intuition.

Last but not least: the problem of targeted killings is mainly an ethical issue; the most important question is: "is it moral?" not: "is it effective?". Again, according to my private set of values, targeted killings are moraly acceptable under the guidlines that you mentioned, but I also respect the values of people who oppose them. Of course, if targeted killings are not effective and even counterproductive, they should be stopped immediately. However, even if they are effective, executing them should be halted if they are immoral. However, an academic researcher (and an analyst as well) must make the distiction between values and facts.

As a typical Israeli, I have probably been too blatant. Please, forgive me for that...

Sincerely yours,
Itzhak Netzer

3.    [נצר] גם לאיציק בו ישראל יש דעה בנושא הטרור, בהקשר הטכנולוגי.

4.    [עומר דנק] תרגיל שלא הצליח בגלל חישוב לא נכון של הטייס של גובה פני הים... והנה התוצאות ממצלמת הצופים וממצלמת הטייס.

5.    [יובל הלר] אפקטי רסס והדף של רש"קים - כללים אמפיריים.

6.    [חובב דרור] מעשה בשני כבישים - פרדוקס חביב לחובבי הסתברות.

7.    ספינינג וברק שינו לי את החיים - כתבו עלינו בעיתון.

ולסיום "הוכחה" שהסדר לא חשוב כל עוד ההתחלה והסוף בסדר:

 

                                    להתראות בידידות, איתן

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