'Gantz and Cohen didn't invent the culture of chatter, but could not resist the temptation'
Photo: Amit Shabi
Israel's security organizations paying the price of endless chatter
Op-ed: Even in the social media era, an army and a security service in every country – especially in a state fighting for its life – can only exist and operate under a veil of secrecy.
As strange as it may read and sound, the IDF and the Shin Bet have fallen victim to a relatively new culture, and they are among its biggest and most distinguished clients: Benny Gantz and Yoram Cohen,
the IDF chief of staff and the Shin Bet director, did not invent the culture of chatter but could not resist the temptation, and their institutions, the IDF and the Shin Bet,
nurtured it until the great fall last week.
Here's the explanation: An army and a security service in every country, and definitely in Israel, are by nature secretive organizations. One could even say that their successes depend on their secrecy.
Now, a thousand firefighters and journalists will not rescue the IDF and Shin Bet from the low point they have reached. Bad blood will continue to flow under the thick skin of the IDF officers and Shin Bit coordinators for a very long time.
Careless Conduct
Analysis: After enviously watching media worship IDF during and after Operation Protective Edge, General Security Service officials decided to boost their morale by going on investigative television program. It ended in humiliation.
There are numerous examples. One of them, and perhaps the most terrible one, is the secrecy which surrounded the preparations of the Egyptian and Syrian armies on the eve of the Yom Kippur War.
According to one of the Military Intelligence Directorates' studies, only four out of tens of millions of Egyptians knew exactly when the war would be launched. We can deny it as much as we want, but it was a major surprise. Hundreds of IDF soldiers were killed on the first day of that war, and they didn't even know that a war had broken out.
The IDF and the Shin Bet can only live, exist and operate under a veil of secrecy. It's the same secrecy that spares blood, the lives of our loved ones.
But times have changed, you'll tell me in a minute. We are in the Facebook, Twitter and Instagram era, and every hiccup and burp travel from India to Ethiopia. The wheels of time cannot be reversed. You must integrate, understand that the military system is completely changing (I have already written that "a picture is worth a thousand words.") And finally, the most defying question of all: Where do you think you are?
And my response is: In the State of Israel, we are still fighting for its life. A significant part of the world's intelligence communities are listening in on us, observing us, learning every detail about us, while we are making every effort to defend ourselves against schemers. We must not make a single mistake. It would be one mistake too many.
But neither the IDF nor the Shin Bet, apparently, can resist the temptation: In the global atmosphere of openness and flood of information, everyone says, writes and photographs everything – but in Israel the media openness has become a skill. From the prime minister downwards, everyone poses for pictures and everyone talks, even when there is nothing to say.
In such a situation, one has no choice but to integrate. So media monsters are set up inside the organizations, and these monsters want to eat and to feed. Each person in the IDF and Shin Bet's media bodies gets a salary and must justify it. So they work and cause damage to the IDF, to the Shin Bet, to the other security organizations and to the State of Israel.
And yet, Israel still has an important security organization which is unwilling to "go with the flow," and like that Dutch boy, it is plugging the waves of chatter with its finger (although, I must admit, cracks are evident there too). I am talking about the Mossad – the organization which can "sell" the most fascinating stories on earth, and whose people rarely gain recognition, and if that happens its mostly after their death.
It's true that we cannot and should not try to go backwards, but when the Jewish mind fails to invent patents, what happened in the past is also a patent.
For example, a proper solution has yet to be found for cell phones, which constitute a major risk to fighters' lives. What did they do? On the eve of Operation Protective Edge, the fighters were provided with a first-class improvised and modern weapon – the envelope. The fighters put their cell phones in the envelope that had their name on, partially ending the danger to the lives of many fighters.
We will never know how many young soldiers are walking among us safe and sound thanks to the idea to collect their cell phones and that amazing weapon – envelopes.
