What
The Hell Has Happened
To The Israeli Army?
By Uri Avnery
15 August, 2006
Gush Shalom
So what has happened to the Israeli
army?
This question is now being
raised not only around the world, but also in Israel itself. Clearly,
there is a huge gap between the army's boastful arrogance, on which
generations of Israelis have grown up, and the picture presented by
this war.
Before the choir of generals
utters their expected cries of being stabbed in the back--"The
government has shackled our hands! The politicians did not allow the
army to win! The political leadership is to blame for everything!"--it
is worthwhile to examine this war from a professional military point
of view.
(It is, perhaps, appropriate
to interject at this point a personal remark. Who am I to speak about
strategic matters? What am I, a general? Well--I was 16 years old when
World War II broke out. I decided then to study military theory in order
to be able to follow events. I read a few hundred books--from Sun Tzu
to Clausewitz to Liddel-Hart and on. Later, in the 1948 war, I saw the
other side of the medal, as a soldier and squad-leader. I have written
two books on the war. That does not make me a great strategist, but
it does allow me to voice an informed opinion.)
The facts speak for themselves:
* On the 32nd day of
the war, Hizbullah is still standing and fighting. That by itself is
a stunning feat: a small guerilla organization, with a few thousand
fighters, is standing up to one of the strongest armies in the world
and has not been broken after a month of "pulverizing". Since
1948, the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan have repeatedly been beaten
in wars that were much shorter.
As I have already said: if
a light-weight boxer is fighting a heavy-weight champion and is still
standing in the 12th round, the victory is his--whatever the count of
points says.
* In the test of results--the
only one that counts in war--the strategic and tactical command of Hizbullah
is decidedly better than that of our own army. All along, our army's
strategy has been primitive, brutal and unsophisticated.
* Clearly, Hizbullah
has prepared well for this war--while the Israeli command has prepared
for a quite different war.
* On the level of individual
fighters, the Hizbullah are not inferior to our soldiers, neither in
bravery nor in initiative.
* * *
THE MAIN guilt for the failure
belongs with General Dan Halutz. I say "guilt" and not merely
"responsibility", which comes with the job.
He is living proof of the
fact that an inflated ego and a brutal attitude are not enough to create
a competent Chief-of-Staff. The opposite may be true.
Halutz gained fame (or notoriety)
when he was asked what he feels when he drops a one-ton bomb on a residential
quarter and answered: "a slight bang on the wing." He added
that afterwards he sleeps well at night. (In the same interview he also
called me and my friends "traitors" who should be prosecuted.)
Now it is already clear--again,
in the test of results--that Dan Halutz is the worst Chief-of-Staff
in the annals of the Israeli army, a completely incompetent officer
for his job.
Recently he has changed his
blue Air-Force uniform for the green one of the land army. Too late.
Halutz started this war with
the bluster of an Air-Force officer. He believed that it was possible
to crush Hizbullah by aerial bombardment, supplemented by artillery
shelling from land and sea. He believed that if he destroyed the towns,
neighborhoods, roads and ports of Lebanon, the Lebanese people would
rise and compel their government to remove Hizbullah. For a week he
killed and devastated, until it became clear to everybody that this
method achieves the opposite--strengthens Hizbullah, weakens its opponents
within Lebanon and throughout the Arab world and destroys the world-wide
sympathy Israel enjoyed at the beginning of the war.
When he reached this point,
Halutz did not know what to do next. For three weeks he sent his soldiers
into Lebanon on senseless and hopeless missions, gaining nothing. Even
in the battles that were fought in villages right on the border, no
significant victories were achieved. After the fourth week, when he
was requested to submit a plan to the government, it was unbelievably
primitive.
If the "enemy"
had been a regular army, it would have been a bad plan. Just pushing
the enemy back is hardly a strategy at all. But when the other side
is a guerilla force, this is simply foolish. It may cause the death
of many soldiers, for no practical result.
Now he is trying to achieve
a token victory, occupying empty space as far from the border as possible,
after the UN has already called for an end to the hostilities. (As in
almost all previous Israeli wars, this call is being ignored, in the
hope of snatching some gains at the last moment.) Behind this line,
Hizbullah remains intact in their bunkers.
* * *
HOWEVER, THE Chief-of-Staff
does not act in a vacuum. As Commander-in-Chief he has indeed a huge
influence, but he is also merely the top of the military pyramid.
This war casts a dark shadow
on the whole upper echelon of our army. I assume that there are some
talented officers, but the general picture is of a senior officers corps
that is mediocre or worse, grey and unoriginal. Almost all the many
officers that have appeared on TV are unimpressive, uninspiring professionals,
experts on covering their behinds, repeating empty clichés like
parrots.
The ex-generals, who have
been crowding out everybody else in the TV and radio studios, have also
mostly surprised us with their mediocrity, limited intelligence and
general ignorance. One gets the impression that they have not read books
on military history, and fill the void with empty phrases.
More than once it has been
said in this column that an army that has been acting for many years
as a colonial police force against the Palestinian population--"terrorists",
women and children--and spending its time running after stone-throwing
boys, cannot remain an efficient army. The test of results confirms
this.
* * *
AS AFTER every failure of
our military, the intelligence community is quick to cover its ass.
Their chiefs declare that they knew everything, that they provided the
troops with full and accurate information, that they are not to blame
if the army did not act on it.
That does not sound reasonable.
Judging from the reactions of the commanders in the field, they clearly
were completely unaware of the defense system built by Hizbullah in
South Lebanon. The complex infrastructure of hidden bunkers, stocked
with modern equipment and stockpiles of food and weapons was a complete
surprise for the army. It was not ready for these bunkers, including
those built two or three kilometers from the border. They are reminiscent
of the tunnels in Vietnam.
The intelligence community
has also been corrupted by the long occupation of the Palestinian territories.
They have got used to relying on the thousands of collaborators that
have been recruited in the course of 39 years by torture, bribery and
extortion (junkies needing drugs, someone begging to be allowed to visit
his dying mother, someone desiring a chunk from the cake of corruption,
etc.) Clearly, no collaborators were found among the Hizbullah, and
without them intelligence is blind.
It is also clear that Intelligence,
and the army in general, was not ready for the deadly efficiency of
Hizbullah's anti-tank weapons. Hard to believe, but according to official
figures, more than 20 tanks were hit.
The Merkava ("carriage")
tank is the pride of the army. Its father, General Israel Tal, a victorious
tank general, did not want only to build the world's most advanced tank,
but also a tank that provided its crew with the best possible protection.
Now it appears that an anti-tank weapon from the late 1980s that is
available in large quantities, can disable the tank, killing or grievously
wounding the soldiers inside.
* * *
THE COMMON denominator of
all the failures is the disdain for Arabs, a contempt that has dire
consequences. It has caused total misunderstanding, a kind of blindness
of Hizbullah's motives, attitudes, standing in Lebanese society etc.
I am convinced that today's
soldiers are in no way inferior to their predecessors. Their motivation
is high, they have shown great bravery in the evacuation of the wounded
under fire. (I very much appreciate that in particular, since my own
life was saved by soldiers who risked theirs to get me out under fire
when I was wounded.) But the best soldiers cannot succeed when the command
is incompetent.
History teaches that defeat
can be a great blessing for an army. A victorious army rests on its
laurels, it has no motive for self-criticism, it degenerates, its commanders
become careless and lose the next war. (see: the Six-day war leading
to the Yom Kippur war). A defeated army, on the other side, knows that
it must rehabilitate itself. On one condition: that it admits defeat.
After this war, the Chief-of-Staff
must be dismissed and the senior officer corps overhauled. For that,
a Minister of Defense is needed who is not a marionette of the Chief-of-Staff.
(But that concerns the political leadership, about whose failures and
sins we shall speak another time.)
We, as people of peace, have
a great interest in changing the military leadership. First, because
it has a huge impact on the forming of policy and, as we just saw, irresponsible
commanders can easily drag the government into dangerous adventures.
And second, because even after achieving peace we shall need an efficient
army--at least until the wolf lies down with the lamb, as the prophet
Isaiah promised. (And not in the Israeli version: "No problem.
One only has to bring a new lamb every day.")
* * *
THE MAIN lesson of the war,
beyond all military analysis, lies in the five words we inscribed on
our banner from the very first day: "There is no military solution!"
Even a strong army cannot
defeat a guerilla organization, because the guerilla is a political
phenomenon. Perhaps the opposite is true: the stronger the army, the
better equipped with advanced technology, the smaller are its chances
of winning such a confrontation. Our conflict--in the North, the Center
and the South--is a political conflict, and can only be resolved by
political means. The army is the instrument worst suited for that.
The war has proved that Hizbullah
is a strong opponent, and any political solution in the North must include
it. Since Syria is its strong ally, it must also be included. The settlement
must be worthwhile for them too, otherwise it will not last.
The price is the return of
the Golan Heights.
What is true in the North
is also true in the South. The army will not defeat the Palestinians,
because such a victory is altogether impossible. For the good of the
army, it must be extricated from the quagmire.
If that now enters the consciousness
of the Israeli public, something good may yet have come out of this
war.