|
|
|
The State of
the Army,
Part 1
by Ran HaCohen
"In Israel, every human
being is a soldier, and every soldier – a human being," went a
famous old saying ascribed to David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founder and
first prime minister. In the pre-sound-bite era, when lengthy and complex
slogans were tolerated, this was an effective phrasing to obscure the
tension between Israel’s democratic self-image and its actual
militaristic character.
No one uses this slogan
anymore. As for its former part, not every Israeli citizen goes to the
army nowadays; we shall elaborate on that in Part Two. As for its latter
part, watching those human beings carrying out, say, "an engineering
task" in Gaza – a dirty euphemism for bulldozing miserable slums in
Palestinian refugee camps to make room for Israeli settlements – raises
heavy doubts about their humanity. So it is high time for a few remarks on
militarism versus democracy in Israel.
The Generals take over Politics
Let us look at a typical
career of an Israeli general. It starts with conscription at the age of
18. In his early forties, after about 25 years in service, he is released
with a generous pension. He usually holds a university degree, earned at
ease during his service in special academic programmes for officers
("MA in Defence Studies" or similar distinguished disciplines):
the universities are happy to contribute to the nation by compromising
academic quality for the good money they get from the army (and some
university presidents are themselves former generals).
Now our General can choose. If
he likes, he can get a well-paid top position in the public or private
sector. For nobody can deny that if he could send soldiers to the front,
he can make an excellent business manager too. Otherwise, he can join
politics. No one would deny that his military experience qualifies him
perfectly for a leading position in the democratic system. If he is
clever, he has already used his various military positions to develop
media skills and make friends with journalists, well aware of the
importance of "exposure" for his public career. The political
parties compete among themselves on conscripting as many generals as
possible; our General will have job-talks with several parties.
Convictions are seldom a problem: since our General was not allowed to
expose his personal convictions when in the army, he most likely does not
have any; at any rate, tuning his convictions to those of the better party
(the one that offers him most) is definitely preferable to having solid
convictions in advance.
It is difficult to think of a
prominent Israeli politician who is not a retired officer. Benjamin
Netanyahu, "just" a colonel in an elite unit, is almost a humble
exception; Prime Minister Sharon, Defence Minister Ben Eliezer, former
Prime Minister Barak, and former Prime Minister Rabin were all retired
generals, to name just a few. Generals are not confined to the Ministry of
Defence or to the prime minister’s office: currently, the Ministers of
Transportation (Sneh), of Science, Culture and Sport (Vilnai), of Tourism
(Ze’evy) and a Minister without Portfolio (Tarif) are all retired
generals.
Israeli leadership thus shows
an impressive continuity and cohesion. Sharon, Rabin and Ze’evy all
served under Ben-Gurion. When Sharon as Defence Minister invaded Lebanon
in 1982, Barak was his favourite General. And who was in command of the
special elite unit when the young officer Netanyahu was serving there?
Ehud Barak, of course. It is a clique with its own language, manners and
codes. They see Israeli society as a battalion of half-baked recruits who
should be manipulated to suit their commander. Having spent their
formative years in the field, their societal and economic understanding
verges on zero, their cultural interest is null. Their image of the Arabs
has been formed in long years of observing them though the rifle’s
sight. Every problem can be solved by force, and, as the soldiers’
saying goes, "where force won’t do, use even more force."
Their first commandment is: never give up land. No wonder that the only
Israeli prime minister who paid a real price for peace – returning the
entire Sinai Desert to Egypt – was Menachem Begin, who was not a general
and not part of the militaristic clique. Rabin and his followers did not
give up land: they just relegated it to a Palestinian subcontractor.
The Generals often have a
typical attitude towards women as well, derived from experiencing them
always in subordinate positions – as their admiring young secretary in
the army, for example. One of those Generals, Yizchak Mordechai, who ran
for the office of prime minister in 1999, was convicted last month of
sexual abuse. The Jerusalem Magistrate Court found that Mordechai had
"exploited his rank and position," first as a general and then
as a minister, to sexually abuse two women who were much younger than him,
deploring his actions as "harmful, humiliating and perverse." If
one still doubts the Generals’ position in Israel, being a clique beyond
and above anything else, one should read the verdict. The Court "took
into account" the military past of "the only general ever to
have commanded all three of Israel's fronts." "When a glorious
career, body, and soul are smashed, the Court does not also have to
destroy the individual with a deliberately severe punishment," the
judges wrote mercifully (note whose "body and soul" were smashed
– not those of the abused women!), and having convicted him of an
offence for which the maximal penalty is 7 years in prison, they gave the
retired General Mordechai an outrageously lenient 18-month suspended
sentence.
Who is Running the Country?
Now all this may sound clear
enough for insiders, but on the outside the democratic appearance must be
kept up at all costs. Therefore, in his column
in Ha'aretz of April the 24th, following Israel’s abortive
incursion in Gaza, Ze’ev Schiff – Israel’s most senior military
commentator – sounds rather alarmed.
"Has the government
lost control of the IDF? Are the army and its activities genuinely under
the supervision of the civil authority? These are questions the Americans
have recently asked."
Schiff’s alarm is
understandable. The reason for the US unconditional support to Israel is
neither the American Jewish Lobby, nor a purported American commitment to
moral values. The US supports Israel simply because it serves its
interests as an American fortress in the Middle East. True, there are
several other American "allies" in the region, but Israel is
"our best ally" because Americans believe that Israel is a
democratic state, and that a democracy is more reliable than
non-democratic regimes like Egypt or Jordan. If the Americans start
wondering just how democratic Israel really is, people like Schiff should
be alarmed. Expectedly, Schiff hurries to echo the official propaganda
line. Note the over-emphatic, almost hysterical tone:
"Throughout the
history of the state of Israel, questions such as this have never –
repeat, never – been asked about the relationship between Israel and its
defense forces. Our friends, no less than our enemies, have always known
there is no question about the elected Israeli government's absolute
control over the Israel Defense Forces. True, the army may not always have
liked government decisions, nor have been happy with directives from the
defense minister acting on behalf of government. But there has never been
any doubt whatsoever of the IDF as a disciplined army that accepted civil
authority without question."
"Never – repeat, never
– been asked"?! Schiff’s memory seems to betray him. Sociologist
Uri Ben-Eliezer dedicated a whole book to The Emergence of Israeli
Militarism 1936-1956 (in Hebrew, 1995). The alleged subordination of
the Israel’s military to the government was not only questioned, but
rather convincingly answered. One of Ben-Eliezer’s conclusions is that
Israel never experienced a military coup because the elected leadership
adopted militarism as a central ideology and as a key element in its
policy. Practically, whenever the army demands to take action, the
government saves its skin by fulfilling such demands. In fact, Schiff
himself describes this very process later on in his column, describing it
as a "glitch," of course:
"During the Intifada,
Barak received verbal and written complaints about the army's use of
excessive force contrary to orders. The complaints came from the security
services, the Civil Administration, and the deputy defense minister,
Ephraim Sneh – he was involved in all decisions on all operations.
Barak's response was generally lukewarm. He did not normally rebuke
officers acting contrary to directives."
So this is the silent pact:
the army generals may do whatever they like, as long as they pay
lip-service to their retired colleagues in the government. Thus,
journalist Ofer Shelach reported in Yedioth Achronoth (22.12.2000)
that when Barak ordered to re-open the Palestinian airport in Gaza, the
army formally complied – but sealed off all the roads leading to the
airport. On another occasion, when an order to open a central highway was
given, the army delayed it for several hours, until – "all of a
sudden" – demonstrating settlers appeared and blocked the highway.
Who understands it better than Barak, who as an officer cut off
communication in order not to hear that the operation he was commanding
had been canceled?
To sum up, Israel’s policy
is set by Generals. No military coup will occur in Israel, simply because
the Generals already run the country. All Generals, retired and active,
share the same ideology, that holds democracy in contempt, supports the
occupation, sanctifies the use of force and views any compromise as a sign
of weakness. If there is a conflict between retired and active Generals,
it is always the more militaristic line that wins. When Schiff – a loyal
servant of the existing militaristic order – reiterates emphatically
once more:
"As for the questions
coming from Washington, it should be emphasized there is in fact no danger
of the government losing control over the Army. While there have been a
number of glitches, it would be a mistake to conclude the IDF is
intentionally developing a tendency to disregard or ignore orders from the
government,"
his words are explicitly aimed
at American ears. Schiff knows very well: the democratic image of Israel
is essential for getting American support, and American support is
essential for maintaining Israel’s anti-democratic militarism. The US
"special relationship" with Israel is thus based on a fiction. Mundus
vult decipi, said Luther: the world wants to be deceived.
Ran HaCohen was
born in the Netherlands in 1964 and has grown up in Israel. He has B.A. in
Computer Science, M.A. in Comparative Literature and he presently works on
his PhD thesis. He lives in Tel-Aviv, teaches in the Department of
Comparative Literature in Tel-Aviv University. He also works as literary
translator (from German, English and Dutch), and as a literary critic for
the Israeli daily Yedioth Achronoth. His work
has been published widely in Israel. His column appears monthly at Antiwar.com.
Source:
by courtesy & © 2001
Antiwar.com & Ran HaCohen
by the same author:
|
|
|
