The IDF: The Government’s PR Agent

Prof. Paul Eidelberg

Reflecting back on my 31 years in Israel, it seems to me the IDF has often served Israel’s government as an instrument to mislead the public in order to facilitate the government’s defeatist policy of “territory for peace.”

Before I cite the latest example, it should be noted that IDF spokesmen have repeatedly intoned the government’s mantra that there is no military solution to the problem of Arab terrorism. This means there is no alternative to territorial retreat. Indeed, if I am not mistaken, Israel’s Command and Staff College has taught the absurd doctrine that “self-restraint” is a form of strength. Various generals have said this in public, as did Ariel Sharon to justify his policy of intermittent and limited retaliation against terrorist attacks as well as the evacuation from Gaza. Many thousands of Jews have been murdered and maimed and rendered homeless as a result of this pusillanimous policy.

I leave it to others to cite the evidence of two world wars that refutes this benevolent, anti-shock-and-awe policy that renders the victims of Arab barbarism “morally superior” to the villains. Let me therefore turn to the government’s latest use of the IDF to soften up the public for another retreat from Jewish land—the Golan Heights.

The front page of the July 11, 2007 issue of the Jerusalem Post reads: “IDF: War with Syria would be 10 times worse than Hizbullah.” We then read: “Predicting war with Syria could erupt if Prime Minister Ehud Olmert does not begin peace negotiations with Damascus, the latest IDF assessment also states that such a conflict would be ‘at least 10 times worse’ than last summer’s conflict with Hizbullah.”

It takes no genius to see that Olmert, who, in his own words, is “tired of being courageous,” is conditionism the public via the IDF to surrender all or part of the Golan Heights.

Now, I am not going to repeat what has so often been said about the strategic importance of the Golan, how it has deterred Syria from waging war against Israel for some 34 years. I’m well aware that retreating from the Golan means losing its water resources and depriving its Jewish residents of their inalienable rights, which not even a majority in a national referendum, let alone in a Knesset plenum, can rightly violate. No, my concern here is with the IDF, its allowing itself to be used as an instrument of government propaganda.

The IDF is no longer the army of the people: it is the puppet of cowardly governments. I would never have (voluntarily) joined the United States Air Force had I reason to believe that America’s military leaders were nothing more than careerists. A brother and cousin of mine—wounded and decorated heroes in World War II—would not have risked their lives for a country whose leaders were pacifists. And I can say the same about Israeli soldiers in general: why fight for land the government is so anxious to surrender to a military dictatorship? Indeed, why should they fight for a country whose government releases Arab terrorists they risked their lives to capture?

I’m all for civilian supremacy over the military—but there’s a limit. How can the IDF remain silent while 4,000 missiles strike Sderot with hardly any retaliation against Israel’s Hamas tormentors? How can our general officers allow themselves to be used as political pawns by timid and dishonest prime ministers when the very survival of their country is at stake?

I know that the words “Judaism” and “Zionism” and “Eretz Israel” were erased from the Soldiers Code of Ethics by an idiot-professor while Ehud Barak was Chief of General Staff and when Yitzhak Rabin was Israel’s Prime Minister. But does this mean that Jewish or Israeli soldiers should think of themselves as multicultural Swedes?

Does Israel any longer have a Jewish army, let alone one that can deter our enemies? Just think of what Assad of Syria, Nasrallah of Lebanon, and Ahmanidejad of Iran must think of Israel and its ruling elites? Is it not obvious that Israel’s government is actually encouraging these Arab and Muslim barbarians to attack us?

Hizbullah acquired and deployed some 12,000 missiles in Lebanon after four mothers induced Prime Minister Ehud Barak to betray our Christian friends by pulling our troops out of southern Lebanon in 2000. But that former general was out of office in 2001, replaced by another general, Ariel Sharon. What does Israel’s general staff consist of? Occasional heroes in war and full-time idiots in “peace”?