Israel Matzav

What the Gaza expulsion did to the IDF

There's been a lot written (although not nearly enough to get our government to do something about it) about the poor souls whose lives were destroyed when they were expelled from their homes in Gaza six and a half years ago. There's been almost nothing written about the effect of the Gaza expulsion on the IDF. Until now.

There's a new book out called Tachlit Re'uya (A Worthy Purpose) by psychologist Ruti Eisikowitch, which discusses the psychological effects of the Gaza expulsion on the IDF troops who participated. Giulio Meotti reports that it's not a pretty picture.

How were tens of thousands of Jewish soldiers brought to a state where they would march in tandem, look at the surroundings with the frozen stare of a robot, and throw family after family, dignified and humble and patriotic, from their homes and their secure lives?

Thirty percent of the soldiers in the Golani Infantry Brigade live in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. These soldiers laid siege to their parents and brothers and sisters in Kfar Darom, the most demonized settlement in Gaza, founded by Jews even before the establishment of Israel, overrun by Egyptian soldiers in 1948 and rebuilt after the 1967 Six Day War.

What was the psychological impact on these soldiers? The book “Tachlit Re’uya” by Israeli psycologist Ruti Eisikowitch sheds new light on those dramatic questions.

“Soldiers were given ‘mental preparation’ for this operation, which actually means their brains were tampered with, brainswashed”, says us Mrs. Eisikowitch. “The IDF behaved like robots ‘helped’ by psychologists who had planted an ‘emotional disconnection mechanism’ in order to ‘prevent thinking’.

"Soldiers were taught to behave ‘sensitively’, but that included kidnapping babies from their mothers' arms to be able to evacuate the mothers, ‘because every mother will run after her baby’…

"The psychologists didn’t prepare the IDF for an army mission - to protect civilians or their country, but turned the soldiers into a non-thinking police force that harmed its own civilian population”.

This was a population that defended, with their own bodies, the Israeli citizens who live on the coast.

In “Operation Defensive Shield” if the IDF had not had the remote settlement of Har Bracha overlooking Nablus, it would have taken the army four days to enter the city to commence operations, fighting all the way.

The same was true of operations in Gaza.

This explains the IDF's ignominious defeat in the Second Lebanon War. One can only wonder whether the IDF recovered, or whether stopping short in Operation Cast Lead perpetuated the morale problems. Unfortunately, it's likely soon to be put to the test.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Gaza expulsion, IDF

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:20 AM