Enough with the arrogance

Recent threats made by IDF general reminiscent of empty talk ahead of Yom Kippur War
Zeev Tzahor

Thirty five years ago, several days before Rosh Hashana, our brigade commander held a reception for officers at our reserves brigade. The guest of honor, the IDF Central Command chief, delivered an address that included a briefing on the existing situation and on expected developments. While addressing the possibility of war, he declared that it will not be worthwhile for Egypt and Syria to embark on a military campaign because of the IDF’s superiority.

Stern Warning

Israel warns Hizbullah war would invite destruction / Reuters

IDF Northern Command chief says in any future war Israel would use ' disproportionate' force on Lebanese villages from which Hizbullah will fire rockets at its cities. 'From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases,' Maj.-Gen. Eisenkot tells Yedioth Ahronoth

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The words he repeated, which played a prominent part in the military lexicon of those days, were “pulverize” and “destroy,” as well as all sorts of other pledges for a quick and decisive victory. The Yom Kippur War broke out a few days later and the impassioned words of the Central Command chief during that festive reception became quotes that we repeated with bitter cynicism while sustaining blows throughout the terrible war.

Thirty five years have passed, yet it appears that we don’t remember a thing and haven’t learned a thing. It feels as though the current Northern Command Chief, Gadi Eisenkot, copied the arrogant words of the Central Command chief who spoke 35 years earlier. In his holiday interview with Yedioth Ahronoth, he made use of the same impassioned slogans whose time has passed, we thought, such as “we will use disproportional force and cause immense damage and ruin,” and again, “the enemy will have to think 30 times” before he strikes at us because the big and strong IDF will “fire back aggressively,” raze villages, and defeat the enemy.

Woe to those who remember, and woe to our friends who did not get to remember and were killed in the Yom Kippur War. Those who did live long and saw many wars could recognize in Eisenkot’s words a continuation of the wars of the generals from past generations. Again we heard hints about the flawed conduct of his General Staff colleagues, concealed by sweet talk of unconvincing camaraderie, and again we heard a general who praises himself for knowing, understanding, warning, and proposing different tactics.

Useless pulverization

However, after all he served as the General Staff’s head of operations during the Second Lebanon War – how come his voice wasn’t being heard then? Here too he repeats the familiar pattern of the Yom Kippur War, when the generals claimed that they proposed different moves but nobody listened to them.

Eisenkot’s solution for the danger posed by Hizbullah and Syria is the pulverization of villages: “I call it the Dahiya doctrine. What happened in the Dahiya neighborhood in Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village where fire on Israel originates from.” Mr. General, it is no coincidence that the method of causing great ruin used in the Dahiya was stopped in the midst of the Second Lebanon War. We certainly saw massive pulverization, but it was useless. It’s a fact. The rule that “the harder they hit us, the stronger we shall be” is applicable to the stories of many nations, not only the Jews.

Recently, another difficulty has been added to implementing the Dahiya doctrine. Every pilot and the commander of every artillery battery know about the rising status of the International Court at The Hague. Not everyone is willing to risk an international trial on charges of deliberately killing civilians. One of the lessons we learned from our wars, ranging from the Yom Kippur War to these days, is that the arrogant words of IDF generals bring greater damage than good.