Judah Ari Gross is The Times of Israel's military correspondent. On the Egyptian border, the Israeli military is fighting a conflict it almost definitely cannot win and that it possibly shouldn’t even be part of: a war on drugs and drug smuggling. The Israel Defense Forces has succeeded in thwarting a number of smuggling attempts along the border in recent months, including two earlier this month in a joint operation with police, dubbed “Golden Prevention,” in which over 160 kilograms (350 pounds) of marijuana were seized, along with three cars, and three suspected smugglers were arrested. According to the IDF, this has brought down the amount of smuggling attempts in recent weeks — temporarily at least — but even military officials trumpeting the IDF’s successes on this front recognize that the large amounts money at stake for the drug cartels and the lack of significant initiatives to address the underlying reasons why Bedouin youths get into the smuggling trade mean that these efforts are unlikely to end drug running on the border.