Read The Sword And The Olive Online
Authors: Martin van Creveld
The Sword And The Olive (67 page)
In 1978, when Chief of Staff Eytan relieved the commander of the navy’s frogmen after one of his men had been killed in a training accident, the rest of the unit came close to mutiny.
2
By contrast, after two young commandos were killed in 1995—the cable by which they were being lifted onto a hovering helicopter snapped—their parents accused the air force of covering up. To make their point they went on a hunger strike. Next they turned to the High Court, which considered the matter and appeared ready to rule in their favor. Fearing as much, Minister of Defense Yitschak Mordechai beat a hasty retreat the following autumn. For the first time in Israel’s history he agreed to the appointment of an independent (i.e., nonmilitary) commission to look into the affair.
3
2
By contrast, after two young commandos were killed in 1995—the cable by which they were being lifted onto a hovering helicopter snapped—their parents accused the air force of covering up. To make their point they went on a hunger strike. Next they turned to the High Court, which considered the matter and appeared ready to rule in their favor. Fearing as much, Minister of Defense Yitschak Mordechai beat a hasty retreat the following autumn. For the first time in Israel’s history he agreed to the appointment of an independent (i.e., nonmilitary) commission to look into the affair.
3
The Betrayal of Faith: Israelis demonstrating against the continued occupation of the Territories, Tel Aviv, March 1988.
Since then, though the IDF has been waging a rearguard action to prevent every statement made by an officer during a
tachkir
(debriefing) from being recognized as evidence in court,
4
the writing has been on the wall. As the chief of manpower put it in a seventeen-page staff paper that was leaked to the press, there exists “a growing gap” between the demands of relatives for a thorough investigation of each and every accident and the declining ability of the IDF to provide it.
5
This is not surprising; in any army, commanders are a precious asset into which much time, effort, and resources are invested. Prevented by the courts and public opinion from backing them up yet unwilling to let them go, the IDF has played a ghastly game of musical chairs. In at least one case, an air force squadron commander cashiered for allowing a major accident to happen was replaced by another who had previously been reprimanded for the same reason.
6
tachkir
(debriefing) from being recognized as evidence in court,
4
the writing has been on the wall. As the chief of manpower put it in a seventeen-page staff paper that was leaked to the press, there exists “a growing gap” between the demands of relatives for a thorough investigation of each and every accident and the declining ability of the IDF to provide it.
5
This is not surprising; in any army, commanders are a precious asset into which much time, effort, and resources are invested. Prevented by the courts and public opinion from backing them up yet unwilling to let them go, the IDF has played a ghastly game of musical chairs. In at least one case, an air force squadron commander cashiered for allowing a major accident to happen was replaced by another who had previously been reprimanded for the same reason.
6
Meanwhile the public’s loss of faith in its army began to spread from the living to the dead. In contrast to premodern fighting organizations, but like its opposite numbers in other countries, the IDF has always insisted that it owns its fallen heroes. It buries them in dedicated military cemeteries and, in the name of equality, dictates a standard formula that is inscribed on their graves. Of late, however, some bereaved families have refused to go along with this policy. They insist that all kinds of other details be recorded (including, in a number of cases, the fact that their sons and daughters were killed by accident rather than “while performing their duty”). Predictably meeting with a refusal on the authorities’ part, they too have threatened to take the matter to the courts. On this and other matters the IDF, fearing courts will side with the plaintiffs and change the legal status quo, has been forced to retreat. For example, the parents of some of the seventy-three soldiers killed in the early 1997 helicopter accident successfully pushed through their demand that the words “died on the way to Lebanon” be engraved on their sons’ tombs.
“The difference between the Six Day War and subsequent ones,” according to Ariel Sharon in early 1997, “is that IDF commanders and their decisions were trusted.”
7
“TSAHAL,” according to Chief of Staff Shachak while addressing an audience of thousands on the anniversary of Yitschak Rabin’s assassination, “that TSAHAL which you [i.e., Rabin] led to victory and which you loved and cherished and respected so much, is losing its social standing.... Direct contact between it and civilian society is being broken.”
8
“The IDF,” he added on another occasion, “has been turned into a national punching bag.”
9
7
“TSAHAL,” according to Chief of Staff Shachak while addressing an audience of thousands on the anniversary of Yitschak Rabin’s assassination, “that TSAHAL which you [i.e., Rabin] led to victory and which you loved and cherished and respected so much, is losing its social standing.... Direct contact between it and civilian society is being broken.”
8
“The IDF,” he added on another occasion, “has been turned into a national punching bag.”
9
Two decades after public pressure caused
Bathroom Queen
to be taken off stage, a play named
Gorodish
, which portrayed the man who commanded Southern Command in 1973 as a brutal megalomaniac, became a smash hit. With so many negative things being published about the army each day, inevitably people began to believe it had always been that way, causing the past as well as the present to be dragged through the mud. The years since 1985 have witnessed the rise of the so-called New Historians—actually a very small group of persons armed with word processors. Relying on the archival sources that are now available for the period to 1956, Benny Morris,
10
Avi Shlaim,
11
and a handful of others have started casting doubt on Israel’s longtime self-perception as a peace-loving society surrounded by bloodthirsty enemies who seek to destroy it. Instead they brought to light an unflattering picture of a bellicose country with a cocksure and trigger-happy defense establishment. Time after time the latter went behind the civilian authorities’ backs. It exceeded its orders and used more force than authorized, almost always to no avail and sometimes with results that were counterproductive as Israel’s neighbors, instead of ceasing their attacks, saw themselves constrained to rearm and react. From time to time it also committed atrocities, whether against fleeing refugees (as in 1948-1949), unarmed infiltrators (1950-1955), or prisoners of war (1956, 1967, and 1978).
12
Bathroom Queen
to be taken off stage, a play named
Gorodish
, which portrayed the man who commanded Southern Command in 1973 as a brutal megalomaniac, became a smash hit. With so many negative things being published about the army each day, inevitably people began to believe it had always been that way, causing the past as well as the present to be dragged through the mud. The years since 1985 have witnessed the rise of the so-called New Historians—actually a very small group of persons armed with word processors. Relying on the archival sources that are now available for the period to 1956, Benny Morris,
10
Avi Shlaim,
11
and a handful of others have started casting doubt on Israel’s longtime self-perception as a peace-loving society surrounded by bloodthirsty enemies who seek to destroy it. Instead they brought to light an unflattering picture of a bellicose country with a cocksure and trigger-happy defense establishment. Time after time the latter went behind the civilian authorities’ backs. It exceeded its orders and used more force than authorized, almost always to no avail and sometimes with results that were counterproductive as Israel’s neighbors, instead of ceasing their attacks, saw themselves constrained to rearm and react. From time to time it also committed atrocities, whether against fleeing refugees (as in 1948-1949), unarmed infiltrators (1950-1955), or prisoners of war (1956, 1967, and 1978).
12
Thus, not only is the IDF losing the battle for the present, but it stands in danger of being robbed of its past—that quasi-mythological past that is essential to the morale of any army, new or old. Long gone are the days when soldiers were proud to wear uniforms off-duty
13
and when people sent each other pictures of TSAHAL on New Year’s cards. All but forgotten is the fact that this high-tech but soft, bloated, strife-ridden, responsibility-shy, and dishonest army was once the superb fighting force of “a small but brave” people ; spokesmen’s declarations were believed as if they were gospel truth. Swamped with almost daily reports concerning
fashlot
and demands that they be investigated, few people in Israel can recall the last time the military booked a success; in the eyes of the young, even brilliant operations such as the Entebbe raid are memorable chiefly, if at all, because of the few casualties that the commandos took. As to the ongoing campaign to resist Palestinian progress toward a sovereign state, like similar efforts elsewhere it can only end in disgraceful failure while wrecking the IDF in the process. To quote the title of one popular book that records the experiences of individual Israelis during the uprising,
14
about
this
struggle “poets will remain silent.”
13
and when people sent each other pictures of TSAHAL on New Year’s cards. All but forgotten is the fact that this high-tech but soft, bloated, strife-ridden, responsibility-shy, and dishonest army was once the superb fighting force of “a small but brave” people ; spokesmen’s declarations were believed as if they were gospel truth. Swamped with almost daily reports concerning
fashlot
and demands that they be investigated, few people in Israel can recall the last time the military booked a success; in the eyes of the young, even brilliant operations such as the Entebbe raid are memorable chiefly, if at all, because of the few casualties that the commandos took. As to the ongoing campaign to resist Palestinian progress toward a sovereign state, like similar efforts elsewhere it can only end in disgraceful failure while wrecking the IDF in the process. To quote the title of one popular book that records the experiences of individual Israelis during the uprising,
14
about
this
struggle “poets will remain silent.”
THE GOOD AND THE EVIL
I
N 1971 the well-known Israeli sculptor Yigael Tumarkin received a commission to erect a monument.
1
It was to be built in honor of the
mirdafim
, the Jordan Valley skirmishes that cost the Israelis considerable effort and blood during 1967-1970 and were finally brought to an end by the intervention of King Hussein’s army in September 1970. The design he selected, approved by the overseeing committee, consisted of a sixty-foot Kalashnikov-like barrel pointing toward the sky, made entirely of bits and pieces of steel taken from various weapons. Mounted atop a large concrete pedestal overlooking the Jordan Valley, the monument evokes the rough nature of the countryside as well as the toughness of combat at close quarters. It is a splendid construction, provided fighting is what you like.
N 1971 the well-known Israeli sculptor Yigael Tumarkin received a commission to erect a monument.
1
It was to be built in honor of the
mirdafim
, the Jordan Valley skirmishes that cost the Israelis considerable effort and blood during 1967-1970 and were finally brought to an end by the intervention of King Hussein’s army in September 1970. The design he selected, approved by the overseeing committee, consisted of a sixty-foot Kalashnikov-like barrel pointing toward the sky, made entirely of bits and pieces of steel taken from various weapons. Mounted atop a large concrete pedestal overlooking the Jordan Valley, the monument evokes the rough nature of the countryside as well as the toughness of combat at close quarters. It is a splendid construction, provided fighting is what you like.
The years after 1973 have seen the erection of many additional monuments to the IDF’s fallen heroes. Only one, built in 1977 to commemorate the battle for Rafah in 1967, was nearly as dramatic as Tumarkin’s, and
that
one had to be moved back into Israel a few years later as part of the Camp David Accords. Most of the rest consist of simple stones or tables that record the names of those who died on this occasion or that, sometimes in alphabetical order but often by rank as if God in Heaven cared about the insignia that men and women carry on their shoulders. Memorials established in honor of the October War tend to be surrounded by Israeli and captured Arab weapons in various states of disrepair, thus presenting the destruction that war wrought in no uncertain terms. Many small memorials commemorate people who were killed by terrorists; indeed, erecting them has turned into a cottage industry as relatives and friends insist that the least their loved ones deserve is some sort of marker, however humble. None, however, celebrate the IDF “victories” over the PLO and its successor organizations in Lebanon or over the inhabitants of the Occupied Territories—the countless cases when guerrillas were intercepted and killed, acts of terrorism allegedly preempted, arms caches uncovered, and the like. It is as if the army and the people to whom it belongs have lost their pride, leaving behind little more than sorrow, pain, and regret.
that
one had to be moved back into Israel a few years later as part of the Camp David Accords. Most of the rest consist of simple stones or tables that record the names of those who died on this occasion or that, sometimes in alphabetical order but often by rank as if God in Heaven cared about the insignia that men and women carry on their shoulders. Memorials established in honor of the October War tend to be surrounded by Israeli and captured Arab weapons in various states of disrepair, thus presenting the destruction that war wrought in no uncertain terms. Many small memorials commemorate people who were killed by terrorists; indeed, erecting them has turned into a cottage industry as relatives and friends insist that the least their loved ones deserve is some sort of marker, however humble. None, however, celebrate the IDF “victories” over the PLO and its successor organizations in Lebanon or over the inhabitants of the Occupied Territories—the countless cases when guerrillas were intercepted and killed, acts of terrorism allegedly preempted, arms caches uncovered, and the like. It is as if the army and the people to whom it belongs have lost their pride, leaving behind little more than sorrow, pain, and regret.
The Good: Rabin and Arafat shake hands at the White House, 1993.
And the Evil: Israeli military cemetery, 1998.
The armed forces of other developed countries were usually created pari passu with their states, a process that took hundreds of years. Not so the IDF, which grew out of illegal and semilegal self-defense organizations such as Ha-shomer, Hagana, FOSH, CHISH, and PALMACH. Thus far it resembles the armed forces of many other former colonial countries that also had to fight for their independence, but here the similarity stops. Unlike so many others, the IDF grew into an exceptionally cohesive force that, however large the role it played in national affairs, normally ended up obeying its political masters. Unlike them it never got even near the point where it might launch a coup—although, as we saw, that may change in the future. A rapidly expanding, comparatively well-educated population; the growing foreign technological and economic aid, first from France and then, in the years after 1967, the United States; and the pervasive feeling of
en brera
, which in turn translated into high motivation and a clearly defined doctrine; all these permitted phenomenal quantitative and, above all, qualitative growth. To this must be added the typical Israeli qualities of
tushia
(resourcefulness) and
iltur
(improvisation). Systematically inculcated into the army, they helped produce one of the best militaries of the twentieth century and, as many people in and out of Israel once believed, of all time.
en brera
, which in turn translated into high motivation and a clearly defined doctrine; all these permitted phenomenal quantitative and, above all, qualitative growth. To this must be added the typical Israeli qualities of
tushia
(resourcefulness) and
iltur
(improvisation). Systematically inculcated into the army, they helped produce one of the best militaries of the twentieth century and, as many people in and out of Israel once believed, of all time.
Looked at from a different perspective, Israel’s army is not so much a unique creation but a typical modern force that has traveled, and is still traveling, along the trajectory taken by other modern armed forces—albeit at much greater speed. At first, in 1948-1949, it was mainly an infantry force slugging it out with enemies at a slow pace and heavy cost. In 1956-1967 mechanization came; centering around the fighter-bomber and the tank and guided by the system of optional command, it resulted in a blitzkrieg campaign as typical of its kind as it was brilliant. Having been caught with its pants down, the IDF was compelled to adopt combined arms warfare by the October 1973 earthquake. Finally, the mid- to late seventies initiated the age of electronics, missiles, and long-range strike forces capable of operating far beyond the country’s borders.
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