The scars and scratches of war
By Uzi Benziman
Haaretz, December 10,2004
1. War wounds
Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Moshe ("Bogey") Ya'alon spoke 10 days ago to members of the Israel senior command, including reserve officers with ranks of lieutenant colonel and higher, at the Fair Grounds in Tel Aviv. One topic on the agenda was the pathetic picture of a Palestinian playing his violin at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Nablus. The "confirmation of the killing" of a Palestinian girl, Iman al-Hamas, next to the Girit outpost in the Gaza Strip, still echoed in the background. Ya'alon was disturbed by evidence of the hardened hearts of IDF soldiers, reflected in both these cases, which came immediately in the wake of publicized photographs of the mishandling of Palestinian bodies by ultra-Orthodox soldiers.
He expressed his feelings to those who attended the conference in the following way: "It is part of the issue and part of the problem and part of what the soldiers call `scratches' or `scars.' We hear these expressions from those who break the silence after they are discharged. I have only one comment for them: break the silence while you are still in service. This is our mission - I am not turning it over to them. I understood that soldiers do not talk about the things that weigh on them. There are things that weigh on them when they are engaged in battle. There are harsh difficulties in every battle; there are scratches; there are scars. To kill - that's a scar. To see wounded people laying beside you - that's a scar. Anyone whose heart does not ache, or is not scratched, when he goes into a Palestinian home at 2 A.M., even if there is a wanted individual inside, and you have to wake up the children - his heart is apparently crude.
"These are questions that, as far as we are concerned, are part of the price of battle, and I don't like it when they are drafted to serve political ends, and I don't like it when they are swept under the rug. We see it all the time. We are not divorced from it. We understand the price of the checkpoint. If only we could remove all of the checkpoints; if only we didn't have to go into every house. But that is the price of battle. If only we didn't have to destroy homes in Rafah to get to the tunnels ...
"Every war has prices and scars and scratches. But, as far as I am concerned, this is a necessary evil. Even the checkpoint in Nablus is a necessary evil. When we no longer need it - I will be the first to be happy to get rid of it. Until then, [there must be] support for soldiers, and tools for soldiers. It is truly sometimes difficult - the burden, the pressure, the harsh pictures, the need to frisk women, old people. It isn't easy.
"The difficulty is internalized within the problem, and that is what we need to address. That is what we must recognize. We must not allow a slippery slope to exist - when someone takes something from a Palestinian home and does not understand that this is looting, or uses excessive force and does not understand that it is mistreatment, or acts without authorization, or, obviously, uses arms in a way that is not justified and against orders and shoots not in accordance with our rules and ethics."
Later in the conference, the chief of staff was asked to discuss his expulsion of Brigadier General Shmuel Zakai. He explained, in his words, that it was partially due to a problem of the waning trust exhibited by the expelled officer. "It is cause for concern," Ya'alon said to the officers before him. "Because one of the basic things, from our point of view, is that if I cannot trust those who are under me, and those who are under me cannot trust me, at the most basic level of speaking truth - we must act ... When there is a question of lack of trust, there is no room for deliberation, no sweeping under the rug, no handling it nicely, no coddling, nothing. Not in our backyard. Even if he is the most talented officer anywhere."
While continuing to address this evidence of moral decline in the IDF, Ya'alon said: "We are dealing with this because there is no doubt. We do not deny it. This is a battle of four years' duration with the potential to erode, and this intense battle, at a high operative level, is subject to shifting priorities. It is absolutely forbidden to let this [moral] base crumble in the name of the battle, because of the need to capture another suspect or find another tunnel. And that is what we are dealing with. It worries me even if, as I hope, these incidents will appear to be marginal in retrospect. I view this with the gravest concern, as if it is a phenomenon."
2. The process of rehabilitation
Allegations by the human rights group B'Tselem that IDF naval commandos killed Islamic Jihad activist Mahmoud Qamail while he was still wounded increased the concern of Lieutenant General Ya'alon. His reaction reflected a sober mood: He suspended the activity of the relevant unit, in a move unlike any other during the four years of turbulent conflict with the Palestinians. Then he arranged for a series of meetings with commanding officers to reacquaint them with his understanding of the values and morals that guide the IDF. Ya'alon indeed looked and sounded like he was deeply disturbed by the difficult findings pertaining to the behavior of the soldiers. Those close to him say that he adopted a personal mission of leadership: to go from unit to unit in the army to clarify to the staff what is permitted and what is forbidden - and "to strengthen the anchor of basic values."
The explanation given in the upper IDF echelons for the disgraceful publicity surrounding the behavior of soldiers is that the violent conflict with the Palestinians has, apparently, reached a turning point. The period of intense fighting has apparently given way to a more tranquil time in which the norms used to measure IDF activity are shifting. While in the past, the IDF was compelled, due to military considerations, to use a firm hand in its dealings with the Palestinian population, this mode of behavior is now losing some of its legitimacy. The updated moral compass used to judge the IDF's actions at the present is influenced by its past activity. (For example, the picture taken of IDF soldiers mishandling Palestinian bodies was photographed three years ago.) As a result, the IDF is now being criticized.
This process is occuring within the IDF as well as in the civilian sector of society. The army, like the state, feels that this juxtaposition of events may lead to major strategic changes: a determined government move to implement the disengagement plan, an American government that places the Palestinian-Israeli conflict at the top of its agenda, a new Palestinian leadership that appears to be prepared to veer from the path determined by Yasser Arafat, and a less malevolent Middle-Eastern environment (warming of relations with Egypt and signals of peace from Syria).
"These are tectonic shifts," the chief of staff says, which influence the public and the IDF. And Israeli society will have to consider how these events influence it - what their effect will be on the controversy surrounding the withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank; how the IDF will handle settlers, whom it now defends and will be forced to evacuate in a few months; and how the IDF should be redeployed along new lines after the withdrawal.
The declared position of the chief of staff calls for a "purification campaign" that will involve exposing mistreatment of the Palestinian population. The IDF has announced that it encourages its soldiers to pour out their hearts, to speak of the horror of war, and to clean themselves of its ugliness. The chief of staff favors a break in the silence, and wonders why it happens only after soldiers complete their service. He expects the clarification of the IDF's mishandling of the Palestinian population to occur within the IDF, while the soldiers are still in uniform.
3. The leading commander's take
There is a resounding ring of truth in Ya'alon's position: He sounds like someone who was horrified by the findings of cruelty on the part of soldiers toward the Palestinian population and like someone who believes, with all his heart, in the supreme value of the words "Your camp shall be holy" (Deuteronomy 23:15). He speaks with regret, which sounds sincere, about the possibility that, in the heat of battle, soldiers received a double message. He spoke this week about "crumbling values." He told soldiers he met that even when they are ordered to carry out unpleasant activities, like searching homes in the middle of the night, and conducting examinations at checkpoints, they must act sensitively and considerately toward individuals and families.
But the reaction of the chief of staff begs a question: Where was he until now? Is it possible that he did not receive the complaints from human rights organizations, led by B'Tselem, pertaining to mistreatment of the Palestinian population? Did he not read the compelling stories that writers like Haaretz's Gideon Levy and Amira Hass have told about the territories? Was he unaware of the following statistic: Since the beginning of the intifada, nearly 1,500 Palestinians who were not engaged in battle were killed?
The prevailing fashion in the IDF this week is to admit that occupation corrupts but to point the accusing finger at the political leadership that did not find a way to end the conflict with the Palestinians - rather than pointing a finger at the army. This is a convenient fig leaf: The "political leadership" is an almost abstract term because, in this case, it includes all of the Israeli governments since the Six-Day War. They are all, according to the theory, guilty of causing the moral erosion of the IDF, which is at the root of the shameful incidents that captured the public's attention during the last month. And all of society is actually responsible for the occupation - or, at least, those elements that prevented Israel from contributing to its end because of their refusal to give up territory.
When one reads the report the B'Tselem investigation regarding the testimony of witnesses to the killing of Qamail by naval commandos, the heart fills with shame: A Palestinian lies near the home of a relative who hid him, surrounded by dozens of Israeli soldiers who repeatedly send neighbors to check him to make sure that he does not pose a threat. The Palestinians give soldiers the wounded man's gun and his cellular telephone. They drag him out in response to the orders of the soldiers, and identify him as the wanted man. They remove all of his belongings, such as a lighter and cigarettes, and hand them to the soldiers - but in any case, someone in the unit decides to kill him.
When one hears and reads the version of the story told by parents of these soldiers, the heart fills with understanding: The naval commandos considered the potential resistance of the wounded man to be a threat. They were afraid that there was an explosives belt attached to his body. He was a known member of the Islamic Jihad, and they took legitimate precautions based on hard-learned lessons of the past regarding Palestinian terrorist activity. The soldiers want to go home in one piece - and what right do critics have to judge that?
The prime minister attacked those who doubted the military ethics of the crack naval commandos on Wednesday, and declared that the IDF is the most moral army in the world. In the book, "The Seventh War," by Amos Harel and Avi Isascharov, the writers present a quote of the prime minister's words to then-chief of staff Shaul Mofaz, his deputy Ya'alon, and then-head of the Shin Bet security services Avi Dichter, during a meeting in May 2001: "We have to attack the Palestinians at all locations, and at once. They have to awaken every morning to find that they have 12 dead, from all sorts of activities, without understanding how it happened."
When that is the leading commander's take, the IDF's amazement regarding its eroding morality rings of phoniness.
