Giok, you are right it would and has been a blood bath, but for the various Arab militants who could neither work together to invade Israel, nor even fight well with their own forces.

Arab "armies" from the entire 20th centuries have been concerned with mounting a brief campaign, taking their hard knocks, or capturing and then looting the defeated opponent, and leaving for home with their loot. Israel, knowing the only place they can leave for is the Med, are much dedicated to the art of modern warfare, knowing that it is the only thing that stands between themselves and annihilation. This is not just my militaristic ramblings here, it is the experience of T.E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, from his advisory works with the various Arab tribal groups and their forces, during the desert campaign against the Ottoman Turk Empire, during WWI. Additionally, since each tribal group fights for loot and for imposing the will of the tribe, it is difficult to get them to work together towards a single goal, which may not be the goal of any of their tribes. The film used the capture of a fairly large city by Lawrence's tribal groups, with no plans to treat the wounded, get the electricity or water flowing again, and little regard for discussing the terms of peace, or ways to improve civil affairs within the captured city, to bring it back to an operating whole again.

The rest of the Arab Problem also dates back to just after the end of WWI, where the British and other allied forces arbitrarily divided up the Middle East, formerly the Ottoman Turk Empire into various Arabic states, ruled by the "princes" or Emirs who would make the best deal with the Brits for the oil that had been discovered under their otherwise worthless sands. Short years after this arbitrary division British and American oil exploratory companies had located and drilled wells that were producing enough crude oil to fuel another industrial revolution, which depended on transportation, which had been taken over by over the road trucking; as well as leisure activities that involved driving to camping or other vacation spots to recover from 50 weeks of the daily grind.

Until the various Arab states learn to work together, and form armies that can actually perform their intended mission as opposed to parading prettily for their monarch or ruler, a dedicated Israel with everything to lose, will lick them every time, provided that she can replace the armaments expended in the battle. So far the short time source for these war materials has been the US, but the IDF has also grown their own defense factories and companies skilled in taking another's product and improving it into something essentially Israeli, designed to excel in their type of war, and frequently teach the rest of the world something about waging an efficient war.

Israel was vulnerable to air attacks from their neighbors, so they built air bases with all of the base except the runway underground and safe from bombing or missile attacks. They also proved that "hot turns" simultaneously uploading bombs, rockets, ammo, and fuel to aircraft just back from a mission. This is an extremely dangerous way of doing business, requiring very precise coordination, and dedication to safety to keep the operation from deteriorating into a great smoking hole in the desert. Now that the Israelis have proved it can be done, many other air forces are making use of the method in high mission activities like Desert Storm and subsequent actions since then.

Until their Arab enemies can pull their socks up and field modern armed services, that can coordinate with their allies, they will continue to get ground into the dirt each time they attack Israel, unless and only until Israel loses the support of the US. Since Israel is the only friend we have in the middle east, a friend that can provide us with intelligence on the area, material we can not do on our own as we have neither the language skills or the requisite intelligence skills. As I have noted in other posts, the Israelis captured several Russian state-of-the-art SAM sites from Egypt, during one of the late 60's early 70's war, which they offered to the US an partial exchange for several squadrons of F-4's, to replace their recent combat losses. One of our electronic companies which fielded an electronic countermeasure, ECM, pod that saved us many more aircraft over Viet Nam to say nothing of their crews.

Israel currently works under the theory of a Texas football teams which notes, "Mess with the bulls and you'll get the horn!", in their dealings with their aggressive neighbors. Taking a lesson from other agreements hammered out by US or other agencies, resulting in very pretty treaties that were promptly ignored by the Arabian signatories, and little better from the all but useless United Nations, started taking its own defense seriously early in its short life. Its very boundaries at the formation of their little state were the results of answering Arabic attacks with counterattacks of their own with hastily formed defense forces, resulting in Israel fighting for their very boundaries. Since the Russians don't have the money to spend on satellite contrives let alone allies like Cuba and the various Arab states, I'd say they have a pretty good chance of making it in the future too.

Dave