"IDF" credibility and public faith

Haaretz -November 21, 2003

The Israel Defense Forces were caught this week in a public and official lie.

 Journalists were informed, and announcements by the IDF Spokesman in recent months have said again and again, that only certain aircraft, combat helicopters, have been used in "preventive" operations, and that a certain kind of ammunition was fired. This statement was not true, and if even if only a few in the IDF's upper echelons knew that it was not true, the damage affects the credibility of the entire IDF, its commanders and its spokespeople.

They are harming themselves, as the credibility of the army is essential to its relationship with the soldiers, the society that sustains and activates it, the local and international press, and external forces operating in the diplomatic arena.

The deception that was exposedis not in the realm of a lie told to cover a failing, but rather a lie intended to protect an operational secret. Instead of saying that a certain weapon was employed, one that until now had been classified, it was declared that another, well-known weapon was used. There were reasons for this - some of them connected with the battle of the brains in the war against terror, and some of them related to the planning of a future war, if there is one. The intentions of the deceivers were positive - achieving the goal, victory in battle, saving human life; but the results were negative and damaging - serious harm to the IDF's credibility.

Theoretically, the lesson of this incident demands that we also doubt the explanation of the lie - that there was no malice and no cover-up. It turns out, however, that the weapon employed were not forbidden under international law and there was nothing in the exposure of the deception that can explain the circumstances of the death of Palestinians who just happened to be in the area of the operation. This is because the weapon used was
even more accurate, and its damage to the area surrounding the target is less than that of the weapon mentioned in the IDF's statement.

The motives of those responsible for the lie - headed by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon, and Israel Air Force Commander Major General Dan Halutz - are clear, but we cannot accept their decision to belittle the press and use it as a channel for fraud, deception and psychologicalwarfare.

That is an approach that, for the sake of a slight and passing profit, sacrifices far greater and important assets. David Ben-Gurion ordered the IDF to stick to the truth, even if behind his back the army at that time tended to spruce up the truth in order to improve it, including the staging of hostile actions as grounds for operations. After many instances of lies to soldiers, parents, the government, the courts and the press over the years, there has lately been the impression that the IDF has cured itself of untrue statements – for realistic considerations, if not ethical ones.A lie ends up being exposed, and the loss of credibility reflects on the IDF's claims in other matters, too, such as the defense budget and officers' wages.

In a confrontation with the Palestinians, the lie is as available and as damaging a weapon as a double-edged sword. 

 The IDF resented theenemies' lies and  pretended to present acredible Israeli side, but it turns out that it forgot the difference between "the whole truth"- a condition that the public is sometimesunable to withstand - and "nothing but the truth," especially in official statements that bear its signature.

 The truth must be a supreme ethic in the IDF, and total credibility has to be at the foundation of the relationship between the military and the government in Israel, and even more so in the relationship between the army and the general public. It is specifically the tremendous faith that the public has in the IDF that obligates it to remunerate with absolute credibility.