What the Hell has
happened to the Army?
By Uri Avnery, 12.8.06
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:
0 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.
0 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.
0 Clearly, Hizbullah has prepared well for
this war - while the Israeli command has prepared for a quite different war.
0 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.