I was wondering if you guys know much about Israel's military and how powerful it is?

Macro view,
Israel is surrounded by enemy.
But they are still alive.
That means their force is very strong and tough.

They have
High quality Air force
Well mechanized army
Flexible reserve
Brilliant officers from officers　came from soldiers,etc etc.

Have you heard of 6 days war? Israel are good and still.

And they have chosen their allies well.

Israel's soldiers are some of the most dedicated in the world for the simple fact that they know if they werent there the enemy would come walking into there family homes at first chance. they are fighting for there land on there homeland. that mixed in with the amount of equipment they have and the technology to go with it make them a very powerful adversary.

Although I feel it is a bit over-hyped the IDF has proven time and again that it is a very effective fighting force. The troops are well trained and equiped and do their job fairly well.

This aside I think the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel this year proved two things

1. The IDF is a bit overrated.
2. Hezbollah fighters are much better than most of us (including myself) first thought.

Israeli Intel.. very, very good

Originally Posted by Easy-8

This aside I think the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel this year proved two things

1. The IDF is a bit overrated.
2. Hezbollah fighters are much better than most of us (including myself) first thought.

No, it proves one thing.

1. The media ruins wars.

Originally Posted by The Cooler King

No, it proves one thing.

1. The media ruins wars.

I would not say ruin, but I would say completely misrepresent. At the end of the war As I stated in another thread:
The loser is Hezbollah. Before this latest scrap, they held all of South Lebanon, which was a functioning country with a working economy and a vibrant society. Now, the local and national infrastructures are ruined, the economy is mostly gone, the society they were supposed to be defending is shattered, and they are totally unable to remove that bloody big invading army that has gone right through their territory and then decided that it liked the view and will stick around for a while. In addition, they have lost a lot of their fighters and quite a bit of their arsenals, and in the trade, they have managed to inflict only light damage to the Israelis. Before the fighting started, mortars and missiles were coming down into Israel, but with the ceasefire, they have ALL stopped. Now, one would expect, that with a victory, the other side would be battered, bleeding and forced to withdraw... Hmmmm... can't say I've seen a lot of that.
As for the so-called political victory, that was won before the first shot was fired. It is a simple fact of life that if the Israeli Army fights with anyone, Arab sympathy will be with the people they are fighting against. The Israelis made no effort to wage any kind of political war, knowing very well that it was useless to do so. They were looking for one thing, and the UN may yet give it to them without them having to fire any more shots. The winners here are the Israelis, although it is, for the moment, a half victory. The final victory will come when the Lebanese Army really controls South Lebanon and Hezbollah is fully disarmed. I have my doubts that that will ever happen, but if it does not, we can expect to see the third installment of the Israel-Hezbollah war in the near future.

Now, according to the media, Hezbollah won this war by simply surviving. Using that rationale, I guess Japan won WW II!

Dean.

I agree the IDF is overrated.

The Isrealis have fought 5 wars (six if you count Lebanon), but it has been against the Arabs. No disrespect inteded, but the Arab countries of the Middle East are neither the best trained, nor the best equipped, nor best motivated force out there. Isrealis most dangerous enemy in the ME would be Iran, and Iran still uses relatively outdated equipment.

I would like to see how the Isrealis fair against a more modern military, espically one where the enemy would have a modern air force, one of the Western European countries for example would be a handful for the Isrealis.