[LCM Articles] What the Hell Has Happened To The Israeli Army?

[Abdallah Jabbour]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14522.htm

*
By Uri Avnery

08/13/06 "**Information Clearing House*<http://informationclearinghouse.info/>
*" -- --* 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 clich?s 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.
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