Writing secret documents in cooperation with the IDF and concealing them from public scrutiny, attempting to shape a collective historical consciousness, PR campaigns to pressure vacillating public opinion on the Disengagement, alleging that the IDF gives settlers preferential treatment, urging top ranking IDF officers to demand the Government’s change of policy, recommending the scaling-down of […]
Writing secret documents in cooperation with the IDF and concealing them from public scrutiny, attempting to shape a collective historical consciousness, PR campaigns to pressure vacillating public opinion on the Disengagement, alleging that the IDF gives settlers preferential treatment, urging top ranking IDF officers to demand the Government’s change of policy, recommending the scaling-down of the IDF while at the same time warning against its right-wing domination, attempting to alter the character of the IDF and calling on senior officers to refrain from seeking victory in the fight against terrorism, etc. This is how the Israel Democracy Institute attempted to persuade top-ranking IDF officers to influence politicians.
A few weeks ago, Mida uncovered the Israel Democracy Institute’s (IDI) application to the Jerusalem municipal authorities to allocate it public land, despite a prohibition on allocation of public land to entities that engage in political activies. The Institute – unsurprisingly – responded by claiming that its activities are non-political. Here we provide key examples of the Institute’s modes of action to assess its self-styled “non-political” pretensions.
We focus here on the Army and Society Forum, a formalized collaboration between the IDI and the IDF, which the Institute has long regarded with pride for more than a decade. Here we shall shed light for the first time on the Institute’s considerable involvement in the Disengagement Plan, including a secret document written by the Institute together with the IDF, a document subsequently buried in the archives and concealed from public scrutiny. Our story sheds some light on the methods employed by the IDI to advance its ideological goals.
Army-Society Forum
The Army-Society Forum was established early last decade by the Israel Democracy Institute as a forum in which senior researchers met with the top echelons of the IDF to discuss a range of subjects in which the Institute took an interest, such as the nature of the Army, features of recruitment, the war against terrorism, the Army’s impact on the economy, and so forth. The Forum’s meetings – there were at least eight – produced a series of brochures published by the Institute displaying both the Institute’s emblem and that of the IDF, and consisting of position papers and protocols of meetings held.
Why did the IDF cooperate with a private institute that has a policy agenda? This is hard to understand, and in view of excerpts from the Forum’s proceedings that I’ll cite below, even harder to justify. And indeed, it seems that the IDF has come back to its senses in recent years and withdrawn from the forum, which has ceased to be active. To understand why the forum was terminated, and before turning to a discussion of the Disengagement Plan, I shall provide a few examples that will allow us to form an impression of the interactions between senior IDF officers and the Israel Democracy Institute.
“Non-Political” Preaching
An examination of the few published protocols from meetings of the Army-Society Forum indicates that members of the Institute tried to influence the representatives of the IDF to implement policies that accorded with those advocated by the Institute. Professing to be “experts” on Israeli society, they present their subjective observations as objective statements of fact that need to be taken into consideration in determining security policies. This is clearly an attempt to render the IDF an agent of the ideological and political agendas of the Institute’s senior scholars (which generally range from the center-left to the distinct left of the spectrum).
Clearly, the Israel Democracy Institute has every right to try to influence the high echelons of the IDF – and through them the public’s elected officials – but that isn’t the issue. The question is whether such an attempt is a political effort, or, alternatively, as the IDI would have it, it is a neutral discussion of abstract issues concerning democratic principles.
To elucidate, we’ll begin with Professor Mordechai Kremnitzer, currently the Institute’s vice president – who has since also served as chairman of the committee that formed the roster of Meretz candidates prior to the last elections – who urged IDF officers to exert pressure on political echelons in the context of the fight against the Palestinians in 2002:
We are currently suffering from a severe optical illusion. Until very recently there was an unprecedented Israeli consensus that we’re engaged in a struggle in which we are completely justified … and this is the most important thing concerning the motivation for, and the justification of, enlisting in the Army. There is a reasonable chance that this situation is about to change in the near future and that an acute political controversy will develop in Israel … If this happens, it may lead to a radical change of the picture, and your role, as members of the military, is to tell the political echelons that if such a thing indeed happens, a completely different picture will emerge concerning the willingness to serve. I’m not saying that everyone will be recalcitrant, but today we know that the options to refuse are extremely diverse … we have all internalized the lessons of Lebanon. [‘The Contract between the IDF and Israeli Society’, 2002]
To clarify the type of policy Kremnitzer is promoting, let’s examine his explanation to senior IDF officers that not only is the IDF prohibited from closing off battle zones from media coverage, but also that the IDF cannot really win the war with the Palestinians, and therefore it must change its objectives and stop seeking victory.
When the fighting is not between armies, it is very difficult to make the case for a closed military area; it raises suspicion and creates enmity … In my opinion, it’s not possible to win this media war because of the overall framework. In reality the balance of power between the two sides is not in dispute. You have to acknowledge this in order not to raise illusory hopes … It is only possible to work on minimizing damage … So in estimating the chances of winning the war, the army must take into consideration the media war and give it its due weight in the modern world and say something that goes against the grain of army, whose goal is to win on the battlefield. [‘The IDF and the Press During Hostilities’, 2002]
For the sake of diversity, let’s look at another Senior Fellow, Professor Yaron Ezrahi, who urged the top ranks of the IDF to change the IDF’s mission from that of a fighting Army to that of a peacekeeping Army, in the spirit of UN Forces:
For the Army to be considered a people’s Army, it needs to be changed and adjusted for the people … I would suggest that the Army should address the State of Israel and explain that under the current circumstances the ethos of the people’s Army, as strong and spontaneous as it was in the past, is no longer viable, and that a new, comprehensive and inclusive framework needs to be created … people will be given tasks, will become involved in major national efforts in fields such as water, hygiene, the environment, and so forth. [‘The Whole Nation is an Army? Reserve Duty in Israel’, 2002]
This, obviously, is not merely a suggestion, it is rather an expression of Ezrahi’s opinion as an “expert” on Israeli society, according to which the Army would be deterministically obliged to alter its mission as a fighting Army anyway:
The key question … is, to what extent do values such as respect for human dignity accord by definition with an Army that must fulfill its role appropriately under combat conditions … The IDF, like other armies in the contemporary world, has no option in this matter. There are radical changes in young people’s consciousness … the self-image of a young person today is measured according to his preparedness, or rather, his lack of preparedness, to accept authority. [‘Human Dignity in the IDF’, 2001]
And further, Professor Ezrahi tries to convince the top officers that the very use of the army is an expression of problematic politicization:
The most egregious thing happening here … is the extreme politicization of the use of force within and outside the Green Line … There is not insignificant politicization here of the issue of what is a legitimate use of military power by the State. This is very problematic. [‘The Whole Nation is an Army? Reserve Duty in Israel’, 2002]
The idea that the IDF is used politically by the government is especially noteworthy in view of the Institute’s position concerning the IDF’s role in the frame of the Disengagement Plan which we’ll present directly. In this case the Institute not only supported using the IDF, but also encouraged and assisted it. But perhaps the most interesting matter is Ezrahi’s implied and so-called non-political attitude with respect to military service and the increasing domination of the religious Right, which in his opinion, aspires to war, in the higher ranks of the IDF:
The motivation to serve and encouragement of the motivation to serve is civic. The motivation to fight and encouragement of the motivation to fight is political. Under [Israel’s] circumstances, it is very important, in my opinion, to observe this distinction. I concur that there are people who enlist in combat units because they have a motivation to fight even when there is no war, because they have specific ideals. When this group becomes very significant among the officers, there’s a risk that motivation to serve will be obscured and will seem indistinguishable from the motivation to fight. That would be a debacle. [‘The Contract between the IDF and Israeli Society’, 2002]
Lastly, let’s look at Professor Yedidya Stern, another Senior Fellow who also serves as vice president of the Institute, who is interested in making the Army smaller, while worrying that this might lead to the right wing becoming too dominant:
I am veering in the direction of … creating a professional Reserve Army. However, I would like to present … arguments that query this development … It is a matter of concern that those who serve might espouse a relatively homogeneous ideology. Let’s not forget that we rule over a foreign people. What type of Army do we want to rule over a foreign people? What type of persons will serve there? … We need to forego the romanticism of a Reserve Army that is used for current security and non-combat use and has large armored units. [‘The Whole Nation is an Army? Reserve Duty in Israel’, 2002]
In its contest, this sums up to an effort by Professors Kremnitzer and Ezrahi to convince the IDF’s leadership that the battle against terror is futile; the IDF’s role, mostly beyond the Green Line, is political; Israeli society is changing in a way that will lead to unavoidable transformation in the Army, except for the religious Right of whose motivation to serve the IDF should be very wary. These truths should guide the IDF’s future plans and this defeatist view should be delivered to politicians and other decision makers. Thank god, subsequent events turned all those dim “professional” predictions to dust. But, of course, that did not stop the IDI pundits from offering additional advice, for example, in the undocumented meeting regarding ‘Morality, Ethics and Law in Wartime’, that took place in 2003.
To turn to our guiding question, can one characterize the effort to convince the IDF that the exertion of force beyond the Green Line is doomed to failure and its legitimacy is at issue, as “non-political”? One should also take into account the context of this effort: a time when terrorism had reached a peak just before Operation Defensive Shield. How else can we describe arguments to the effect that refusing to serve is an understandable phenomenon, or that the promotion of settlers in Army ranks is a cause for concern? How else should we understand Kremnitzer demanding that IDF officers should present his own political evaluations to the political echelon? And what is the meaning of the recommendation to reduce the size of the IDF and waive its mission as a fighting army, while making sure that the right wing doesn’t become dominant in it? Even those who sympathize with the ideological message the IDI conveys to the IDF, must admit that this is an unmistakable effort to influence political action, as, I am certain, the IDI itself would shout had the same methods been employed by a right-wing body.
The Army-Society Forum Disengages
In accordance with its “non-political” positions, the Israel Democracy Institute enthusiastically supported the Disengagement and did its best to promote it. The IDI and the IDF even established a special team to handle the Disengagement, which was divided (in the best IDF traditions), into three sub-teams: The first focused on ‘The influence of ongoing disagreement on positions within the Israeli public and implications for the IDF’s public legitimacy latitude’, and was headed by Professor Tamar Hermann. The second focused on ‘The influence of IDF confrontational activities on positions in Palestinian society’, headed by Ephraim Lavie. The third concentrated on ‘The Israeli public’s expectations of the IDF in the framework of the Disengagement – Implementing a controversial political act in the absence of general consensus’, headed by none other than Adv. Talia Sasson, author of the famous Outposts Report and a candidate for the Meretz party in recent Knesset elections, with the participation of Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer.
The outcome of this painstaking work was a joint document published in April 2005, signed by the participating IDF officers and members of the Institute, named “Army–society in alimited-scale confrontation.” The document constitutes a peak in the politicization process which the Institute had been leading in the IDF. The position paper implicates both the IDF and the Institute: issues were discussed by the IDF which an army in a democratic country is prohibited from discussing, and the Institute demonstrates its devotion to advancement of the most political issue on the agenda at the time. Moreover, in contrast to other documents, there is not even a fig leaf in the form of a representative of the Right or a semblance of any balanced discussion. Rather, the document expresses a clear position and clear recommendations for action.
Furthermore, in contrast to other documents published by the Institute and the IDF, the disengagement document bears a military classification that indicates its sensitive nature (“Restricted”); in other words, the IDF and the Israel Democracy Institute wrote a classified document together, which was subsequently archived and withheld from public access.
The attempt to conceal the document is understandable given its scandalous content. The Disengagement, it turns out, did not leave the “non-political” Institute in an uninvolved, neutral position.
“Shaping the Public Consciousness”
In any well-governed country, the working paper which the IDF issued together with the Israel Democracy Institute would have become a major scandal. For example, under the general heading “Army-Society Relations in the Disengagement Process”, under the sub-heading “Purpose of the Teamwork,” the document identifies three different populations within the general public: (1) Those who accept the Disengagement; (2) Those who are severely opposed to the Disengagement; (3) Those who have reservations about the Disengagement (whose position is not clear cut). With respect to those who have reservations the document states (emphases added): “We have marked this population as the main target of our activities, because it may be possible to influence their positions and behavior.”
The scandalous discussion on influencing positions and behavior of the public is not accidental. “Shaping the Public Consciousness by means of an advocacy campaign” is an important objective that is explicitly designated in the document.
Thus, we’ve found a definition of political objectives already in the Introduction: classifying the public according to attitudes concerning a political program, and marking one segment of the population as a target for activities designed to “shape consciousness.” The document continues to detail the objectives and the means of advocacy, including roles designated for the political echelons:
The Disengagement Plan is a political move that was accepted in a completely democratic process – this argument should be made by jurists and law experts (such as retired judges, political science experts and public figures) … concerning the underlying rationale of the Disengagement Plan – a clear rationale for the program should be presented. This rationale will be presented by the political echelons.
The document is an example not only of political action, but also of political commentary. It also presents the position of the YESHA (Judea and Samaria) leadership concerning a referendum – an idea that the IDI decisively rejects (after all, for the champions of “democracy” in Israel, there could be nothing more “anti-democratic” than an act of direct democracy, which renders superfluous all the power hubs the left so diligently maintain):
The YESHA leadership is interested in conducting a referendum for several reasons:
a. A referendum may lead to a change of the decision;
b. A referendum could enable the process to be postponed and ultimately dissolved;
c. Conducting a referendum and potential results may enable the leadership to gain better control over reactions of populations they lead and may moderate the intensity of the public outcry against the plan.
Political engagement does not end here. The following position is presented in the document with respect to the right-wing allegation that the IDF has become political:
Concerning the strong mutual relationship between the IDF and the settler communities in the territories, see for example the statement of opinion on the subject of unauthorized outposts by Adv. Talia Sasson [who led the preparation of the current document, as aforesaid, R.B.], p. 265: “If not for the forgiving attitude of IDF soldiers the Settlers would not have dared act this way. This action is evident of the fact that in [emphasizing] the understanding of the settlers who are active in establishing outposts, the IDF is not fulfilling its role as an enforcer of the law. They feel they are the true owners of the land and any opposition to them should rightfully get a taste of their wrath.”
These two excerpts are worthy of being reread, because it is hard to believe that this has been written in a document bearing the signature of the IDF. It is fairly obvious that no representative of the military wrote such radically leftist arguments (we may safely guess that they come from Sasson’s school of thought). The IDF is clearly culpable for having collaborated with its own condemnation as a discriminatory right-wing political organization. However, the infiltration of such allegations into the IDF, through the framework of the Army-Society Forum, in a secret document, would hardly be considered “non-political” anywhere else.
Historical Memory and Consciousness
The document goes on to state: “Because the responsibility for implementing the plan is the State’s responsibility, it is necessary to take action both within the Army and within society through diverse channels to advance its implementation.” So we see here how a private policy institute is calling for action both in society and within the Army, in order to promote the implementation of a blatantly political program. Furthermore, the authors of the document devote a great deal of consideration to the issue of shaping the collective historical consciousness that would be generated by the Disengagement Plan. They are interested in shaping this consciousness based on a forward-looking orientation:
The “Big” question in the context of the media in the course of the Disengagement is what form we want the collective Israeli memory to take in the wake of the evacuation of the settlements and the role the IDF shall play in this process. In our opinion, the media strategy in the course of the evacuation of the settlements should be, among other things, to facilitate in shaping the public (and the military) Israeli consciousness also in connection with “the day after”.
All this is, of course, “non-political”. The same “non-political” opinion is expressed in the following:
Both on the Right and on the Left, and not the least in the Center of the political spectrum, the assumption of the Oslo Process, that only a political settlement shall ensure, in the long run, peace and security for Israel and its citizens, remains steadfast.
A Trivial Scandal
The brochure was presented in a convention organized by the IDI in Herzliya together with the General Staff, for which the document served as a kind of advance-summary. At a certain stage one of the invitees read out some of the quoted excerpts and expressed vigorous protest at the politicization of the IDF that they reflected. At the end of his comments he turned to the chief of staff and publicly asked him: “Does the brochure reflect the position of the IDF?” A general uproar ensued, and the chief of staff replied that he had been unaware of the contents of the document (which his officers had signed), and that the document does not represent the position of the IDF. In order to remove doubt, an explicit announcement was officially issued to the press to this effect:
This is a document written as part of a preparatory operation and as a basis for discussion at a convention on the subject of ‘Army-Society in a Low-Intensity Conflict,’ which the IDF conducted in cooperation with the Israel Democracy Institute. The document, which was written by a team headed by Adv. Talia Sasson, is not a military document and does not constitute the opinion of the Army – but was used, as aforesaid, as a basis for discussion.
Clearly, if not for the uproar that arose, the Institute would have achieved its aims: the formalization of an IDF document filled with political statements, in which the IDF would have validated the allegations of the political Left, and formulated a complete operational plan (a “non-political” one that is) for the shaping of the historical public consciousness in the shadow of the Disengagement Plan. The very fact that the document was archived and taken out of circulation (after having served as a “basis for discussion”) and the IDF resolutely disavowed it, is testimony of its extreme bias and the deep politicization that it reflects. We shall also note that the collaboration (at least the overt collaboration) between the Israel Democracy Institute and the IDF subsequently began to waver until it was ultimately curtailed.
A Brief Thought Experiment
Because I have confidence in the integrity of the Israel Democracy Institute, I shall speculate what its position would be if some other private, extra-parliamentary organization would have secretly been involved in the shaping of the perceptions and the modes of action of the top echelons of the IDF. How would the IDI react had this other organization caused the Army to express positions to the effect of the necessity of conducting a referendum concerning the Disengagement, or caused it to relay to politicians that the plan is hazardous? How would it respond to such an organization having caused the Army to shape the historical consciousness of the nation on the premise that Disengagement would create a major catastrophe, and that unconvinced sectors of the population should be identified in order to persuade them to oppose the plan?
Would the Israel Democracy Institute have explained that this was merely a “non-political” and beneficial phenomenon from a “democratic” point of view? The following case may be of help in answering this question: When Army reservists protested after the Second Lebanon War demanding that then prime minister Ehud Olmert resign, while promising that they would continue to serve and take up arms under any conditions and unreservedly, President of the Institute Dr. Arye Carmon issued an emphatic public statement in defense of Olmert, while calling the reservists’ appeal: “a dangerous and irresponsible phenomenon which accelerates the politicization of an organization which should be absolutely removed from politics”.
Thus, these are the definitions we understand to be accepted by Carmon: Politicization of the Army in a secret forum consisting of members of Meretz from the Institute at the time of the Disengagement Plan – non-political democracy at its best; civil protests by loyal IDF reservists against the prime minister whom Carmon supports – dangerous anti-democratic politicization.
Perhaps now it is easier to comprehend the logic according to which the Institute defines its activities as non-political.
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Response of the Israel Democracy Institute:
The allegation strengthens our response that the Institute is a non-political and non-partisan entity!
The IDF does not cooperate with political entities and if the Institute would have been such an entity the meeting would not have taken place!!!
The said publication is a summary of a meeting that took place before the Disengagement with the heads of the Army, headed by then-chief-of-staff Dan Halutz.
The content mentioned therein is the content raised for discussion by and at the request of the representatives of the IDF in the wake of the government decision on the Disengagement.
Said discussion was part of a series of discussions that took place in the framework of the “Army-Society” Project over the course of several years and in the framework of which the Institute serves as a platform for senior officers of the IDF to conduct discussions with the participation of academics, experts in the field, etc., such as a discussion on the transfer of IDF bases to the Negev, the integration of women in the army, etc.
As aforesaid, the IDF does not collaborate with political entities and if the Institute had been such an entity, the meeting would not have taken place.
