Those of a certain age may remember a detective show which ran for 5 seasons during the 1950’s and early 60’s called “77 Sunset Strip”. As with another contemporaneous TV show, “Route 66”, the lead in – in the case of Sunset Strip, a “hip beat” “77…SUNset Strip” followed by two crisp finger snaps – was probably the best thing about the show. However, in light of the new “made for TV” display in the Middle East this month, which one might call “77 Gaza Strip” if it ever gets all the way to Hollywood, perhaps we should reflect on a couple of items from the original.

If you remember, the commencement of activities each week was often the impeccably attired Efram Zimbalist Jr. – the private detective — departing the front door of his luxury club, Dino’s, to which a semi-permanent valet named “Kooky” (full name: Gerald Lloyd Kookson III)(!) would bring Efram’s brand new Thunderbird, presumably a new model each year (such is the world of product placement). Although noone confused “Kooky” with a Cal Tech physics PhD, Kooky did manage to deliver the damn car every time – shiny, new, and undamaged. And from there, presumably the cool and collected Efram would drive to not to his office – located at – guess where – 77 Sunset Strip (or, more formerly, 77 Sunset Boulevard) – the office was right next door to the Club — but to some assignation or, perhaps, to his presumably high-end residential venue.

Well in today’s version — “77 Gaza Strip” — one might imagine, in the place of an impeccably dressed Efram Zimbalist Jr., an crappily dressed Israeli named Benjamin Netanyahu (sans necktie, of course, just to show disrespect to the President of the United States), waiting for arms deliveries from today’s version of “Kooky” – namely the not-so-bright United States of America. Instead of a shiny Thunderbird, of course, the delivery would be of air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, 155 caliber artillery shells, cruise missiles, and other shined up weapons of destruction.

But in addition to his poor taste in clothes, detective “Ben” has a problem that detective Efram did not.

A day before yesterday, Kooky “hot rodded” the Thunderbird near and about Ukraine, where it was totalled. He left the smoking wreck somewhere just outside the Donbass.

Although Kooky at one time could self construct Thunderbirds, a few years ago he got lazy and hired some Chinese guy to do all that. To make things worse, the Chinese guy doesn’t work for him any more; he took a higher-paying job for some big Russian group down the road near Hollywood Boulevard. Kooky and the Chinese guy no longer speak.

So Kooky is fucked. And so is detective “Ben”. And to make things even worse, THIS WAS THE DAY “BEN” WANTED TO DRIVE THE THUNDERBIRD HEAD-FIRST INTO HIS MAIN COMPETITOR, LOCATED AT 77 GAZA STRIP!

Let’s replay this without the “Hollywood”.

Benjamin Netenyahu has announced that he plans a land invasion of the Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated cities in the world. Notwithstanding some backtracking for PR reasons, his apparent mission is to clear all of northern Gaza – its most populated part – of citizens, as well as to kill all Hamas lurking about. Presumably the northern section will be reserved for future Israeli settlements once it has been “cleansed” of untermenchen.

But he faces a number of problems.

Typically, the famed “IDF”, or “Israeli Defense Force”, has projected force mainly through air power, bombing the beJesus out of as many civilians as possible. As for infantry combat, the IDF has specialized in shooting rubber and not-so-rubber bullets at stone-throwing kids, old men, and pregnant women (that’s the famous “two for one” T shir worn by many IDF “warriors”).

Now they face one of the most daunting tasks infantry (and tanks) can face: urban warfare. Think “Stalingrad”. And, in comparison, Stalingrad, despite its demonic noteriety, was a relatively small city – about 400,000. Slightly bigger than the diminutive Syracuse, N.Y. In contrast, depending on how you define the “city” boundries, Gaza City has a population of between 900,000 and 1.2 million, with masses of residential and commercial structres. To top it off (or perhaps, more accurately, to bottom it out), the enemy forces – Hamas – are squirrelled away in a dense spiderweb of underground tunnels, much like the Vietcong. Reputedly, the tunnels contain not only thousands of soldiers but also munitions and reocket supply dumps and literal armament factories. Wo! “This be no so good”, as they might say in South Vietnamese (Dien bien Phu dialect).

Although noone would confuse 10 or 20,000 Hamas soldiers with the terrifying 1942 Russian infantry (plus penalty batallions), noone would confuse the casualty-averse IDF (who scrammed for home in 2006 when their tanks were blown up by Hezbolah hand-helds when no more than 500 yards over the Lebanon border) with the Wehrmacht. And Hamas is plenty brave; as well as having underground tunnels the “Ruskies” did not have.

So one can assume that, even in the best of cases, the casualty figures, especially the KIA, for the IDF will be beyond anything they have encountered or, perhaps, can stomach. What that will do for morale can be imagined. Especially when, as one commentator pointed out, the IDF historically has been delighted to kill for their country but been much more reluctant to die for it — while Hamas will fight to the death.

Reflecting on this unhappy spectre, and in confirmation of the suspected morale problems, many young men subject to conscription and call-up have vamoosed from Dodge, leaving their “beloved” Israel and turning up in such upper crust locations as London and New York for the duration. There are reports of London and New York Jews putting up called-up reservists in their apartments as they hide out from the Jewish draft boards.

According to Charles W. (“Chas”) Freeman, former U.S. Secretary of Defense for Security Affairs (under President Clinton) and former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (under President GHW Bush), in fact, apparently 30,000 Israelis have emigrated from Israel since the October 7 attacks! Neocons’ Colossal Failure in Ukraine and Complications in Israel | Chas Freeman – YouTube at 30:40. Hardly a vote of confidence!

In addition, Ben and the IDF have a giant weapons supply problem. Apparently, as of now, the IDF is massively under-provisioned for large scale conflict. There are reports that Israelis called up are putting out e-mail requests to U.S. Jews for them to UPS over body armour – of which apparently they have an insufficient number. Reportedly, many do not even yet have uniforms.

Although the Israelis had maintained some significant stockpiles, particularly of 155 calibre artillary shells, most of these have been “deported” over the last year at the request of the U.S. to the Ukraine, to feed that other Jewish war – the Ukrainan war that was supposedly going to “take down” Russia but has instead resulted in a collapsing catastrophe for Ukraine. Needless to say, those mnitions have long since been been expended or destroyed. So at this point, the IDF appears to be on an extremely short supply string, presumably dependent entirely on the U.S. for re-supply. And its not like the Israelis see this as another 5-day war.

In fact, as of now, the IDF itself has reportedly budgeted a massive 18 months to accomplish their mission in Gaza. If the combat during those 18 months is even fractionally as intense as Stalingrad – or even Bakmut or Mariopol – that will consume gigantic amounts of artillary rounds, rockets, bullets, missiles, you name it.

More ominously, IDF has done dry-run planning of exactly this scenario, Chariots of Fire (last year) and Firm Hand (this year). In both exercises, the “good guys” – the Israelis – got clocked.Scott Ritter, “Why I no longer stand with Israel” – MUST WATCH INTERVIEW! – YouTube (Ritter Interview) at minute 18:20. If these “wargames” offer an accurate prediction of the days to come, Israel has big problems.

To make things worse, the Israeli airforce is in the process of flattening a good portion of Gaza City. This is the worst tactic in preparation for an infantry invasion. In 1942, General Paulos of the Wehrmacht pleaded with the German High Command not to authorize the German Luftwaffe to bomb Stalingrad prior to the entry of Wehrmacht infantry; it refused, bombed – among other things – the “Red October” manufacturing facility, and thereby provided much better defensive positions for the Russians. Col. Douglas Macgregor: Can the US support two wars? – YouTube (MacGregor Interview) at 11:35; Ritter Interview. The Americans foolishly did the same thing in Italy, bombing to rubble the great abby of Monte Casino. The result was rubble which so aided the German defenders that four separate attacks failed with huge casualties; the Americans won only when the Germans voluntarily withdrew to consolidate their defensive lines. Ritter Interview.

In fact, former U.S. Army Col. Douglas MacGregor has predicted that, if Israel’s invasion of Gaza brings in Hezbolah and potentially the rest of the Arab world, all armed to the teeth, Israel could end up “looking like Ukraine”. i.e., a burnt out, stinking mess. MacGregor’s view is that the 100,000 missiles possessed by Hezbolah could “destroy a good part of Israel”. MacGregor Interview. Ritter predicts that if Hezbolah comes in against the barely 30,000 IDF infantry currently positioned there, Hezbolah could capture northern Israel all the way down to and including Haifa. Ritter Interview. And if you think MacGregor is just some sour faced Scotsman import who hates any nation south of Hadrian’s Wall, you should note that MacGregor’s analysis is mild compared to that by former Israeli General Former Yitzhak Brik, who said in a recent interview that the IDF was so degraded that it would be unlikely to survive a two front war:

“In October last year (i.e.,. 2021, since the article is from 2022), a former high-ranking military commander said Israeli troops were not prepared for a multi-frontal war and would most probably fail if such a confrontation broke out, emphasizing that Israel was on the verge of collapse. [Emphasis added.] Major General Yitzhak Brick said his remarks about the inherent weakness of the Israeli army and the fact that Israel was on the brink of death was not an angry outburst but incontrovertible facts that could not be overlooked.” Israel could cease to exist before 80th anniversary, says ex-premier Barak (presstv.ir). The General stated “the next war would cause a damning catastrophe, and would largely destroy Israel’s infrastructure,” Id.

Even more ominously, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak has — incredibly — pointed out that no Jewish kingdom (in Israel or anywhere else, if any) has lasted more than 80 years. “Israel could cease to exist before 80th anniversary, says ex-premier Barak (presstv.ir) Throughout the Jewish history, the Jews did not rule for more than eighty years, except in the two kingdoms of David and the Hasmonean dynasty, and in both periods, their disintegration began in the eighth decade,” said the distinguished former Israeli General and Prime Minister Id. We are on year 76 now. The clock is ticking. Maybe ol’ detective “Ben” just wants to speed up the clock. That could save him a lot of jail time. Of course “pulling the pillars down” didn’t work too well for Samson.

And now for the gut punch. The re-supply problem.

Ben Wallace claiming all the Russians losses as of just a few days ago.

Is decent intelligence getting anywhere near to the inbox of Defense Ministers, Prime Minsters, US Cabinet Members, or Presidents? Maybe not. It may be produced at lower levels, but at some point it gets siphoned off to a waste ditch; and what goes into the pipe going to senior leaders is supplied laterally from a completely different source: from a “crap-fiction” pool maintained by the senior levels of intelligence agencies, containing concocted narratives designed either to preserve their own jobs or to nudge the top folks into the foreign policy desired by the intelligence agency in question.

At 13:52 of this the description of White House ignoring contrary intelligence estimate of Syrain Sarin attack in 2013. Navigating Towards Ruin | Ray McGovern – YouTube

Frederick the Great: “He who defends everything, defends nothing.” Even ol’ Ehud probably didn’t realize this. About their biggest supplier.

The U.S. is now a paper tiger.

The U.S. nominal GDP is still the largeest of the world. As of 2019, it represented 24% while China represented 19% of global GDP. However, if one uses a purchasing power parity (“PPP”) method and ranks it based on comparative manufacturing and/or minerals/oil production capacity, it looks much smaller relative to its peers. https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2022/11/assessing-the-russian-and-chinese-economies-geostrategically/ . Simply converting to a PPP method ranks it at 15% of the world GDP as opposed to China’s 17%. Id. But, worse, dispensing with services (read, Americans giving each other shoe shines and back massages coupled with leagal advice) and looks only at the comparative economies based on productive capacity – the aforementioned manufacturing and/or minerals/oil production capacity – the U.S. economy is a catastrophic 34% of China’s. In other words, we aren’t even in China’s league. In fact, Russia’s productive GDP, while still not as great as the US’s, is by no menas as minuscule relative to the US’s as the nominal GDP figures would indicate. As of 2019, before Russia began its huge military-industrial buildup to supply the Ukraine war, Russia on the “productive capacity” basis had an economy about 1/3^rd that of the United States and larger than that of either Germany or France. Id.

In the crucial (for a war) area of the abililty to produce military supplies – weapons and ammo – the U.S. appears to be falling far behind Russia, let alone China, as of this point in 2023. Russia has been expending 70,000 rounds of 155 calibre artillary ammunition per day, the Ukranians about 10,000. The United States produces in a month about 28,000 rounds of ammunition, or less than 1,000 per day. The estimated time it would take to double this capacity is apparently about 1 or 2 years. Meanwhile, Russia is apparently producing somewhare around 10 times that number, so that it is close to meeting its own supply requirements. The U.S. quickly ran out of 155’s – as was admitted even by President Biden – so that it had to supply Ukraine for most of its attempted summer “counter-offensive” with cluster munitions, of which the U.S. still had some. Unfortunately, though cluster munitions are effective on defense, they are not particularly effective against fortified defensive positions, and did the Ukranians little good. The same can be said for any number of the “high tech” weapons like the hand-held tank killers, HIMARS, on and on. The number we have been able to supply the Ukraine has been minuscule compared to the scale of combat in that country. Thus, the U.S. has pretty much depleted its stock of existing ammunition and has insufficient military productive capacity to replace that depleted stock within any reasonable battlefield timeline.

So now comes Israel, begging cup in hand.

Israel is like the guy coming to the town store after all the other inhabitants of the town have cleared out the shelves. There will be little if anything left.

It is not clear that Israeli officials have internalized this fact, based on their aggressive statements. In fact, one wonders if Mossad ever has bothered to do an in depth intelligence analysis of U.S. actual capacity to re-supply Israel in any prolonged war. Israeli’s, based on past experience, probably felt that the American arms pit was bottomless, so why worry about it. But now they are on the point, perhaps, of finding out differently.

In the famous 1972 movie “The Godfather”, plans are being cooked up by the Corleone crime family for youngest son Michael Corleone to kill Virgil Sollozzo (the “Turk”) for having previously killed Sonny Corleone, Michael’s oldest brother. The plan is to have a powerful handgun placed behind the urinal of the men’s room of the restaurant where Sollozzo and Michael are to meet, supposedly to discuss “peace” terms. As they are finalizing the plans, one of the Corleone caporegimes says emphatically “You better make sure that gun is there. I don’t want Michael coming out of that men’s room with only his dick in his hands.”

Well, detective “Ben” is about to “come out of the men’s room” into a potentially huge war. He better hope he has more than his dick in his hands.

Or it could be “lights out” Israel.

* Apologies to the Insect Surfers, who came out with an excellent instrumental (unfortunately no words) in the 1990s also titled “77 Gaza Strip”.

Notes

https: //apple.news/AnYZyU_ebQIShyYs_xny87w

Ben Wallace claiming all the Russians losses as of just a few days ago.

Is decent intelligence getting anywhere near to the inbox of Defense Ministers, Prime Minsters, US Cabinet Members, or Presidents? Maybe not. It may be produced at lower levels, but at some point it gets siphoned off to a waste ditch; and what goes into the pipe going to senior leaders is supplied laterally from a completely different source: from a “crap-fiction” pool maintained by the senior levels of intelligence agencies, containing concocted narratives designed either to preserve their own jobs or to nudge the top folks into the foreign policy desired by the intelligence agency in question.

At 13:52 of this the description of White House ignoring contrary intelligence estimate of Syrain Sarin attack in 2013. Navigating Towards Ruin | Ray McGovern – YouTube

Frederick the Great: “He who defends everything, defends nothing.”