IDF: Private Detectives Following IDF Veterans

Israel: How to Increase Paranoia

Newsweek

June 4, 2007 issue - Israelis have always been something of a reluctant authority on the subject of posttraumatic stress. Experts estimate that 15 percent of the Jewish state's combat wounded—more than 3,000 vets—suffer from some form of the disorder. It's unclear how much PTSD costs the country each year, but one veteran of Israel's Yom Kippur war, who didn't want to be identified to protect his privacy, told NEWSWEEK that he gets roughly $2,000 per month. His symptoms, he says, began with headaches and nightmares, and later developed into severe asocial behavior. "I didn't understand what was happening to me," he recalls. Eventually he began avoiding even the most benign gatherings like barbecues, he says, because they reminded him of "the barbecue of human beings." At times, he felt as if he were being followed.

Actually, he was being followed. In a petition filed last week with Israel's High Court of Justice, a veterans group accuses Israel's Defense Ministry of hiring private investigators to tail and secretly record PTSD victims to see whether they're faking symptoms. Dan Dolfin, an official in the Defense Ministry's rehabilitation unit, says that about half a dozen vets are put under surveillance each year, but only "very, very carefully," and if "we see the story is outrageous." The practice, he says, goes back at least a decade.

Veterans are livid. Rights lawyer Shlomo Rehavi, who wrote the vets' petition, argues that since PTSD is a mental disorder, observing everyday behavior is useless. Haim Knobler, a former Army chief of mental health, blames the practice on bureaucrats' trying to slash benefits budgets; Rehavi and Dolfin say they know of several cases in which benefits have been reduced after surveillance. The Yom Kippur vet says Defense Ministry staffers confronted him with a videotape of himself driving a car and shopping with his daughter. His case remains open. He's anxious—and apparently isn't the only one. "I think the system is a little paranoid," says Knobler.

—Kevin Peraino

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