East of Nakba 3

(Japanese Version)

(Arabic Version)

Part I. Israel bombs a nuclear plant in Iran

 

Chapter 3 Another enemy of the pilot

Pilot is the profession which can realize the human instinctive desire to fly freely in the sky. Many men in the world have long for to be pilot. In particular, fighter pilot is the most brilliant one due to inspire the patriotism to defend his homeland and the fighting spirit to defeat the immediate enemy. Japan's Zero Fighter, Germany's Messerschmitt fighter and their pilots were still heroes who arouse the nostalgia of the people even after their loss. No war movie made by the victorious United States has villain Japanese or German fighter pilot. This is in contrast that generals and soldiers in the ground battles are the ruthless villains.

 

However, in the 21st century, conflicts between nations took place not worldwide but regionally. Instead, religious terrorism became popular. Islamic terrorism is prevailing in the Middle East. Most of terror activities took place in densely populated urban areas. Extremists carried out their terror activities pretending as if they were ordinary citizens. They moved their base camp very frequently. While, jet fighters are good to bomb the specified and steady targets such as big cities, airports and munitions factories overwhelmingly. Operations against terrorist military base which moved from place to place are covered by ground forces. Rocket artillery attacks by advanced attack helicopters are the remaining mission for air force. There was no turn for jet fighters. Jet fighters are very fast but cannot change the direction quickly like helicopter.

 

The mission of sortie by jet fighters has decreased gradually. They have bombed the domestic Gaza Strip only. A rare chance to bomb outside Israel was the Iraq War in 2003. The Israeli government and its military have asked the United States to participate in the war. The then-Bush Republican government was a strong pro-Israel. But the President indirectly declined Israel's offer taking world public opinion into consideration. Shortly after the war began, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein provoked Israel. He shot a Scud missile into Israel. Iraqi missiles landed on the occupied West Bank without remarkable damage. But tiny damage had nothing to do with Israel. The way of Israeli is to hit the enemy thoroughly as long as there is an excuse. The Air Force was immediately ready for a counter attack. Fighter pilots stood by to attack Baghdad.

 

But again, the United States did not allow Israel to counterattack. If Israel had participated in the war, U.S. would receive a backlash from Islamic countries. Pakistan have joined the alliance forces under the justice of liberation of Iraq from a dictator. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have allowed alliance force to pass through their own soil in the same reason.

 

Israeli Air Force pilots watched the live broadcast of the air raid at Baghdad by CNN television. CNN repeatedly aired the scene that fighter jets slammed straight into the target and launched missiles. Missiles bombed the target exactly. That was a real war but looked like a video game. No TV audience felt pain at all except the citizens in Baghdad.

The public opinion widely penetrated inside Israel that the fighter squadron was not required any more. There was another unfavorable wind that threatened Israeli Air Force pilots. That was unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV), so-called drones. Israel has sophisticated IT industry. They applied IT technology to the munitions industry, and developed UCAVs which were far cheaper than jet fighters. UCAVs did not require a pilot at all.

 

Manned bombing by jet fighters was becoming rarely. Both senior pilots who had been heroes in the Middle East Wars but were instructors these days, and active pilots became more impatient. They thought that it was necessary to appeal the manned fighter squadron. Air Force personnel compelled government to approve the air-bombing plan against Iranian nuclear plant. One of old generals acknowledged that this mission could be the last manned bombing by Israeli air force.

 

(cont’d)

Areha Kazuya