UN-Truth

Some interesting reflections published in the last 24 hours about Israel and its IDF — and whether or not it might be winning the PR [public relations] war:

1.) Gideon Lichfield — until recently The Economist’s Jerusalem correspondent, now in Tel Aviv, and soon heading to The Economist’s New York bureau — contributed a sort of OP-ED piece to Haaretz, published today, in which he says that “The question the foreign media really wants answered is invariably not ‘who’s in the right?’ but ‘how will this round of fighting improve the overall situation?’ And on that point, Israel never has a convincing argument. Given the country’s long history of engaging in wars that kill many more of its enemies than its own citizens but only buy a few months or years of calm, it’s a tough call to explain how this latest escapade will change the strategic balance, bring peace and prevent the need for another such bloodbath further down the line. Often that’s because there is in fact no good reason: Wars are fought for short-term gains. And it doesn’t help that with the constant competition for power within Israeli coalitions, it’s easy to interpret this war, like many others, as a political imperative, not a strategic one. And so when the question the world is asking is not ‘who’s right?’ but ‘what works?’, the consistent impression Israel leaves is that it kills people because, at best, it simply doesn’t have any better ideas, and at worst, because some Israeli leader is trying to get the upper hand on one of his or her rivals. And no amount of hasbara [PR] can make that look good”. This article can be read in full here .

2.) Col. (retired) Pat Lang, over at his blog, Sic Semper Tyrannis, writes about his personal experience observing the IDF:
“The IDF ground force is essentially a reserve or militia army that keeps most of its forces in inactive status while maintaining a handful of units on active duty as a training base and a force in being to meet short term contingencies. In this post I am writing of the ‘line’ of the ground forces as represented by armor, infantry, paratroop and artillery units at brigade elvel and below, i.e., battalion and company. The special operations forces are a small part of Israeli capabilities and are manned and maintained on a very different basis. In many ways they are more like a ‘SWAT’ team than a military force … Older reserve soldiers serve in units made up almost entirely of similar reservists. These units are hard to maintain at a high level of training and readiness. Only limited amounts of training time and money are available for this necessity. As a result units are often unready for deployment into combat in an emergency. On a number of occasions this problem has caused IDF troops to be committed to combat in a less than ‘ready’ status. In other words, troops have gone into combat with equipment not properly maintained and with insufficient unit training. It must be said that they have typically been lucky in their enemies and that if they had faced more serious enemies, they would have had a much different experience than the ones they had. In the Golan Heights the Syrians gave them a very difficult time in 1973 and in the same war their victory against Egypt featured a renewal of offensive activity under the cover a cease fire which they had accepted …There are no career ground force sergeants except as technicians … As a result, a non-reserve infantry or tank company in the field consists of people who are all about the same age (19-22) and commanded by a captain in his mid 20s. What is missing in this scene is the voice of grown up counsel provided by sergeants in their 30s and 40s telling these young people what it is that would be wise to do based on real experience and mature judgment … As a result of this system of manning, the IDF’s ground force is more unpredictable and volatile at the tactical (company) level than might be the case otherwise. The national government has a hard time knowing whether or not specific policies will be followed in the field. For example, the Israeli government’s policy in the present action in the Gaza Strip has been to avoid civilian casualties whenever possible. Based on personal experience of the behavior of IDF conscripts toward Palestinian civilians, I would say that the Israeli government has little control over what individual groups of these young Israeli soldiers may do in incidents like the one yesterday in which mortar fire was directed toward UN controlled school buildings. In Beit Suhur outside Bethlehem, I have seen IDF troops shoot at Palestinian Christian women hanging out laundry in their gardens. This was done with tank coaxial machine guns from within a bermed up dirt fort a couple of hundred yards away, and evidently just for the fun of it. In Bethlehem a lieutenant told me that he would have had his men shoot me in the street during a demonstration that I happened to get caught in, but that he had not because he thought I might not be a Palestinian and that if I were not the incident would have caused him some trouble. I have seen a lot of things like that”

Col. Lang repeats, twice, that the IDF “can also be justly said to have been been fortunate in their enemies”.

One comment on Col. Lang’s post says that “The Israeli Foreign Ministry is coordinating a worldwide campaign to flood media web sites and blogs with propaganda for Israel’s Cast Lead military ops against Gaza. The Israeli government orchestrated propaganda campaign tells its supporters to vote in online polls and respond to postings that are opposed to Israel’s actions and supportive of Palestinans in Gaza. The Israeli Government’s U.S. domestic propaganda appendage — the ADL [Anti-Defamation League] — the ADLs program of censoring anti-Israeli or pro-Palestinian videos on YouTube is in full gear. in cahoots with the ADL’s censorship efforts, [and] the Israeli Foreign Ministry is suggesting pro-Israeli YouTube videos to be posted to blogs. Journos who try to present a balanced coverage of the Israeli attacks on Gaza are being bombarded with emails from Israel supporters accusing them of ‘buying into’ Hamas propaganda and ‘supporting terrorism’. The accusations are backfiring against Israel with many journos comparing notes and seeing that the emails are part of a coordinated Israeli propaganda/intimidation campaign. The Israeli government’s propaganda campaign, while it may be working on the corporate media, is having little effect against the web”.

Col. Pat Lang’s personal observations, and the comments on his posting, can be read in full on his blog here .

3.) Aluf Benn writes in Haaretz today: “War is a complex business with a lot of uncertainty and many surprises. But there is one recurring phenomenon that causes military operations to go wrong. You could call it ‘the euphoria point’, and define it as follows: Rapid success at the start of a campaign boosts the leaders’ spirits and encourages them to continue the fighting ‘until victory is achieved’, out of a belief that applying additional force will result in the defeat of the battered enemy. This euphoria can cause them to scornfully reject proposals for cease-fires and peace agreements. In the meantime, the enemy regroups, the initial achievement gets bogged down and the promised victory slips from the hands. What began as a walk in the park ends in pointless attrition, or even in searing defeat … In 2006, Israel was dragged into five weeks of attrition that ended in a national trauma. In 2009, it should call it a day and get out of Gaza – before the glowing euphoria becomes a painful hangover”. Aluf Benn’s comment in Haaretz can be read in full here .

Filed under: Blogging, Gaza, Human Rights, Israel, Journalism and Journalists, Palestine & Palestinians