Angry Planet - Surprising changes underway for Israel’s army

Episode Date: February 4, 2016

Israel’s defense forces are among the world’s elite. Their training methods are widely copied, actions taken by their soldiers and pilots are legendary. The Raid on Entebbe, the Six Day War, the 1981 air strike that took out a nuclear reactor under construction in Iraq.But those victories were long ago and Israel’s enemies have evolved. This week on War College, journalist Noga Tarnopolsky walks us through the changing face of the IDF. In a country where everybody serves, the role of the soldier is more highly scrutinized and respected than in America. Tarnopolsky explains why Israel is cutting back on officers, strengthening its borders and worrying less about Iran than you might expect.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast? Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. The opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the participants, not of Reuters' news. The Israeli army feels it really can't predict what may happen on any of its borders or on any of its fronts. So he's embarking on a massive plan to muscle up the army as a body that will be prepared for anything. Israel's defense forces are considered to be among the world's elite.

Their training methods are widely copied. Actions taken by their soldiers and pilots are legendary. The raid on Antevi, the Six Day War, the 1981irstrike that took out a nuclear reactor that was under construction in Iraq. But those victories are long ago. and Israel's enemies have evolved. This week on War College, we look at how the IDF is evolving in turn and the role the military plays in a country where nearly everybody serves. You're listening to War College, a weekly discussion of a world in conflict

focusing on the stories behind the front lines. Here's your host, Jason Fields. Hello and welcome to War College. I'm Reuters' opinion editor, Jason Fields. And I'm Matthew Galt, contributing editor with War is Boren. Today we're talking with journalist Noga Tarnapolski about Israel's changing security situation and the Israeli Defense Force. Noga, thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure.

So you recently had coffee with someone in the Israeli military, and he was talking about some of the big changes in the IDF. Can you tell us about it? Yeah, I can also tell you who I met with. I met with the IDF spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner, and we kind of surveyed a number of changes that have to do with internal operations in the IDF. Two major things are underway right now. One is we're in year one of a five-year plan

that was planned for 10 years before it was put into place, and this is going to involve cutting back the IDF's officer force by more than 5,000 officers, moving the center of operations from Tel Aviv to the middle of the desert, the Negev Desert. This is really major changes in the structure of the army in response to different stimuli. And the other thing is that the IDF simultaneously

has a new chief of staff. Eisencote, he has not yet even completed his first year, and he is putting his stamp on the army. What he appears to have chosen as his mark is the concept of preparedness. So it's not, for example, moving the army to a more cyber capacity, less tanks. His idea involves everything and is basically an acknowledgement of the fact that right now, the Israeli army feels it really can't predict what may happen on any of its borders or on any of its fronts. So he's embarking on a massive plan, basically, to muscle up the army as a body that will be prepared for anything.

So what had the threats been previously? What was Israel ready to defend itself from, or what was it ready to attack? I think Israel views itself much more as an army that is a defense army than an attack army. But basically, what's changed dramatically is the fact that Israel now has, on all but one of its borders, some version of Islamic extremist militias. So Israel, previously to this, basically assessed which of its borders, for example, its Egypt border was a very quiet border since the peace treaty was signed way back, I think, in 1980. The border with Syria, until the civil war started in Syria, was considered one of the one of the war. the quietest borders in this whole region. There's never been peace between a formal peace between Israel and Syria, but de facto, it was a border where, you know, the IDF would send kind of

middle-aged dudes with their bellies, and they'd spend a month there and drink good wine, and it was a really quiet border. Now it's a hyper-armed border with electronic fences, with 18-year-old elite troops guarding it. So Israel's had to completely change. its conception of its borders. That's the physical aspect. In addition, there is cyber war, which is a serious threat or cyber-based attacks, and another major threat are long-range missiles. So what you hear a lot about, I think, in the States, or, for example, Israeli's fear of potential missiles from Iran. But the fact of the matter is that what's considered the number one threat are Chisbalah missiles. These are Iranian missiles. These can touch every single inch of the entire Israeli

territory, and they're on Israel's border with Lebanon. And in fact, this new IDF chief of staff, Eisenkot gave a speech in which he explicitly described Chizbala as the top threat to Israel and the need for deterrence as the IDF's top plan right now. Why the reduction of officers What did they hope to accomplish with that? I think they hope to accomplish what we would popularly call less flab. In other words, the Army has gotten up to, I think, 45,000. Let me check my numbers, 45,000 IDF officers. It's big.

This is a country of 8 million people. And Israel has been also under economic pressure. In Israel, you know, in the last three years, there's been a growing movement of all the people feel that they've been left out of the so-called startup nation, right? Israel's economic miracle. And when you look at the numbers here, what you see is a country that in terms of macroeconomics has been hugely successful and the wealthy have gotten wealthier. But Israel, I think, is the top country in terms of percentage of the poor. Among top industrialized nations, Israel is the number one, a number of poor people. And people have seen the Army Corps and the Corps of officers

who can retire at the age of 45 and kind of live high on the land. And society that supports the Army by and large has gotten much, much more critical of what it sees as this kind of excess. And I think the Army is beginning to respond to that. In Israel, it's not a volunteer your army, the idea is that everybody serves, right? So how does that affect things? It affects things on numerous levels. In Israel, there's a universal draft for boys and girls. So the first thing that happens in your life when you're about to graduate from school, when you're in your senior year, is you get an envelope inviting you to an interview with the army. Of course, you know, it doesn't always work that way, right? So there are in

entire populations of Israel that are exempt. For example, 20% of the population of the state of Israel are Muslim and Christian Arabs. They're exempt from this universal draft. A slightly lesser percentage, significantly lesser percentage, are ultra-Orthodox Jews. They have until the past two years also been exempt. That's now changing, and so among that population, the men are now being drafted. You have other populations that are drafted. For example, the Bedouin, who are Muslims, the Druze, who are their own religion, they are drafted

and they serve in the Israeli army. So it's a universal draft with some caveats, I would say, and one of the effects that that has is that people feel that the army is a personal thing. In other words, it's their kid, or it's their neighbor's kid, or it's their nephew. The army here is not a distant concept to people. It's an absolutely personal concept, and when a social person, a soul, you know, a soldier's a soldier. soldiers stabbed on the street, people don't respond the way you would expect at the idea of a soldier being stabbed. People respond as if a kid just got hurt for good and for bad.

So that's, I mean, that stands in stark contrast, I think, to the soldiers place in society in, in America and in, kind of throughout the rest of the world, right? It kind of puts soldiers at the center of society. Is that true or is, or am I completely off base? I would say that's absolutely true. In fact, another thing that Lerner pointed out when I spoke to him is his assessment is that in most European countries, for example, the average citizen simply does not feel the need for a soldier, that if you ask your average European citizen, do you need soldiers, that he thinks most would say no. Whereas in Israel, that's simply inconceivable. not only because the soldiers are part of your flesh and blood for every Israeli, really, but also because the borders here are so close. Everything here is closer.

The soldiers are closer. The borders are closer. When a bomb hits in southern Israel, it's hitting a community that's probably an hour and a half away from you in Tel Aviv. So there's a feeling of immediacy and everything has to do with the military here. and people also are very opinionated about all of that. I think people don't really understand the size when we're talking about Israel. One of the most common comparisons that I've heard is it's about the same size as the state of New Jersey in the United States. So that does change absolutely everything.

You were talking earlier about the Hezbollah missiles and that they can reach every part of Israel. That's something that really wasn't the case until, recently. If I remember right, Northern Israel was constantly under threat from these shorter-range missiles, but now things, it sounds like, are much more dangerous for Israel as a whole. So that's part of what you were talking about, the change. Yes, and there's a psychological element here that's really important. So Israel basically had no solution for the short-range missiles, either from the north, from Chisbalah, or from the south, from Hamas, until not that long ago, three and a half years ago or so.

And Israelis felt a sense of vulnerability that I actually don't think can be compared to anything, anybody on the American mainland has felt, because there was nothing to do. People felt completely exposed. You would get up in the morning, go to work, a missile could hit your car. There were houses and schools and people's cars hit on the highway, both in the north of the country and increasingly in the south. What changed that and has given Israelis maybe even too much of a feeling of immunity is the Iron Dome system. That has completely and totally been a game changer here. And it's this sort of miraculous anti-missile batteries that are able to shoot down batteries,

up in the air. And it's very sci-fying. It's hard to conceive of until you actually see it. And that's completely changed the sense of threat that you just described. However, this is a weapon, an anti-weapon system that works only against short-range ballistic missiles, these kind of like nothing missiles, rockets that get chucked.

Against long-range high-tech missiles, Israel, like other countries, has no real defiant. They're working on it, the U.S. is working on it, but what's happened, especially in Chisbalah, that's this extremist Islamist militia in southern Lebanon, that basically rules southern Lebanon, is a huge inflow of Iranian arms. So I'm not talking now about the threat of Iranian nukes, but I am talking about Iranian conceived and in many cases Iranian-made weaponry that is a major step up from the kind of rockets and missiles that were loved at Israel until now.

And that's one of the bones of contention in Syria, actually, because Hezbollah, which is Shiite, has been allied both with Bashar al-Assad and with Iran, and there's been a huge concern in Israel about weapons being moved across Syria to Hezbollah, right? There's been a massive concern, and more than that, there's been actual action. the only times that Israel, this is sort of, you know, off the record, right, because Israel doesn't acknowledge this, but de facto, the only times that Israel has militarily intervened since the beginning of this civil war, which is really on its border, has been when they intercepted convoys of Iranian missiles being transported across Syria to Hezbollah hands. And Israel has all along said that it has no dog in this battle, that Israel is not going to be involved in anything having to do with this civil war. It'll protect its border, but the inflow of this kind of weapons is considered a strategic threat, and Israel will respond, and it has. I'll tell you one other little point.

The current chief of staff, this new chief of staff, Gaddi Eisencook, his previous job before becoming chief. Chief of Staff was Chief of the Northern Command. So if anybody in Israel is acutely aware of everything happening in Syria and of the changes in Israeli preparedness on that border, and also what are the limits of Israeli intervention and what are not, he's really the top expert. He's a man of very, very few words. And one significant thing that he said about this were a few months ago he gave his first a public briefing to the Parliament's security, foreign affairs and security committee.

And what he said at the time, this was towards the end of the summer, was, and this is a quote, that Israel's commitment to the Druze does not end at the border. This statement was made just after 24 Druze men were massacred by an Islamist faction just across the border. of these people have relatives within what Israel considers its sovereign borders. And that was a very significant statement, and it was the first time an Israeli figure at all has even suggested that Israel might be involved beyond these convoys of missiles. And the attacks against the Druze stopped in Syria. So that obviously, that message was heard, loud and clear, the way I think he intended

it to be heard. Would you say that Israel is still the preeminent military force in the region? To the best of my knowledge, it is, even by quite a long shot, in terms of when we're talking about regular armies, national armies, I think the Israeli army is the most powerful force in the Middle East. The issue is that wars are no longer being fought in this region between regular armies. The Israeli army has not fought another regular army. I'm trying to remember, I think, since possibly 1973. So the concept of war has changed completely,

and like most countries in the West, obviously here much more immediately, much closer, but like most countries in the West, the Army's preparedness is to fight random attacks, militia attacks, threats to the border, borders that do not come from organized national armies or that don't respond to a national government. All right. I'd like to, I want to circle this back around to some of the morale issues that we were talking about earlier. Recently, Harvard Institute of Politics did a poll of America's

young people, 18 to 29. 60% said that we should send troops to fight ISIS, but an equal number said that they were not interested in going themselves, would not go themselves, even if U.S. needed additional troops. I was wondering in Israel, what is the younger generation, how do they feel about the IDF and these threats that the country is facing? Are they, you know, I know it's a conscription service, but are they willing to fight? Is it something that they just kind of do and want to, you know, to wait out the clock? Yeah, did you say 60%? 60. 60. 60% said that we need to send troops to fight ISIS, but 62% said they would not personally join that fight. Yeah, that's really remarkable.

Israel, the situation in Israel is completely and totally different. I'm not aware of a recent poll that has measured the willingness of young people to serve, but despite a lot of angst, I would say, and a lot of mutual accusations in Israel among different populations who say that, you know, Tel Avivis don't serve or, you know, conservative, right? Why are traditionally, I would say, observant Jews serving more than others? There's a lot of this kind of stuff in the ether, in the talking space in Israel. But bottom line, the last problem that the IDF has right now is a lack of conscription. As I said, they're looking to cut back.

They're becoming a much leaner army. they are at the level of conscription, the Army has done a lot of really interesting things in many attempts to try and identify conscripts even way before their senior year in high school. So the idea, for example, has fora and websites that young people can join in if they have a special interest, for example, in coding,

if they have special abilities in cybersecurity, the IDF can start to identify these kids, even at age 16, people, young people with certain predilections. And it's still, you know, it's still a competitive thing. There's a kind of macho aspect, I'd say. I want to be careful with that word because young girls are also, in many cases, choosing these roots.

But there's a certain competitive ethos. And I don't think the question of not wanting to serve is a question that has preoccupied people beyond certain op-ed writers, I would say. I think it's very interesting that Israelis are so eager. Do you think it's partially because it's how people are brought up? I mean, you always have the expectation that you are going to serve in the military. Or when we talked earlier about the sense of danger that people have lived under for so long, do you think that's part of what keeps people willing to go into the military?

And people also, commitments are very long. You have to serve a couple of years maybe to start off with, but you're in the reserves for many, many years after that, right? Yes, although that is part of the big strategic change, by the way. Not only is the officer corps being cut back, but the months of service for men is being cut back. Within two years, it's going to be equal. I think it's going to be something like 27 months service as basic service for both boys and girls. Until now, it's been two years of service for girls and three years of service for boys. That's been the sort of the standard.

Of course, if you sign up for anything more elite, if either you are signed up, if they choose you, or if you choose to volunteer, the commitment can extend to more than 10 years. People who undergo, for example, Air Force training, pilots, navigators, people who get admitted to these elite programs where the Army pays for their college education, but then they have to commit to serve as officers for 10 years. There are all sorts of programs where the commitment is significantly longer. For some young people, that's appealing because, again, because of a competitive nature, if you become a cybersecurity expert in the Israeli army, you can find yourself at the age of 19 and a half with massive responsibility on your shoulders, real-life responsibility,

monitoring missiles, monitoring rockets, monitoring attempts against the borders, or you can be monitoring the cyberverse. Israel faces, I think, more cyber attacks daily than any other country, and there's a very big array of jobs. So if you get that kind of specialized training, some people leave the army, let's say a little older than the average age, not at age 20, but at age 23 or 20. But in terms of their life experience and their professional experience, they can compete with, you know, a 35-year-old who's working in a startup in Silicon Valley and who maybe never has had that kind of real-life experience placed on his or her shoulders. So the whole concept is different. But I want to circle back to your question about motivation.

I think that those two aspects that you mentioned, i.e. a sense of danger and also just being brought up in this, I think they're sort of the same, because for the bulk of the population, attending the army here is akin to going to college in the state. It's sort of a ritual senior year. Everybody's asked, oh, you know, what are you interested in? Who did you get called up for? And in most cases for these young people, their parents served before them, both parents. and maybe their grandparents, right? Recently, I heard a wonderful interview on Israel Army radio with a woman who was very proudly talking about her grandson, who had just gotten his pilots' wings in a ceremony the day before. And why was she being interviewed? Because she, a woman now in her 80s, was one of the first Air Force commanders that Israel had.

So this is really a cultural force that binds the society together? Absolutely. And so I think I wouldn't dismiss the sense of duty or immediacy that comes with living in a society where many people, if not most people, feel that they do face daily dangers. But there's also, yeah, it's sort of what everybody does. And I don't think people see it as necessarily a militaristic thing. A few do, but it's a minority. mostly people see it as a stage in life. Well, let's turn from society to the global situation.

When the Iran nuclear deal was officially put into action, was there a reaction inside Israel? Was there an increased concern or lots of editorials in the papers, I can only assume? You'd be surprised, you know? Not really. and much more shocking to me than the lack of editorials is the lack of a forceful government response. I mean, we're talking about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been the top, internationally, the top leader who has sounded the alarm about the dangers of Iran over the last two decades in and out of office.

and right now in the week that the deal finally is put into effect, he didn't appear to have that much to say. In fact, his comments were surprisingly muted and diplomatic. In Israel, the analysis, which I kind of share is that it's already a done deal and that politically this is now a losing proposition for him. In other words, he has run four or five elections right now. In which he has underscored to the point of sometimes really a terrifying people about the threat brought on by Iran. And again, I'm talking now about the optics, not the military threat, but the optics of it, the Netanyahu administration, of course, could have chosen to deal with the Iran agreement

by saying we won. We've been sounding the alarm for 20 years, and Iran was brought to its knees because we sounded that alarm and fantastic. This is a deal and that's now being signed thanks to us. You know, it could have been chest bumping. The way the Israeli government chose to respond was sort of, you know, panic attack. Oh my God, this is the worst deal in human history. This is the worst thing's happened to us since Chamberlain. And since despite that kind of response, the deal went ahead and was signed and has now been put into effect, politically it's sort of a losing proposition for them to underscore it now because it's a done deal. You know,

he lost. He didn't lose. I don't think Nizaniow actually in the real world lost his battle to bring Iran to the forefront of the world's attention. I think he won that. But in terms of the sort of public diplomacy proposition that he has run in the last year, a year and a half, which is that the deal is a disaster, that's a PR battle that he lost. Another important thing I have to say is that Israel's security establishment has by and large not shared the opinion of its political echelons. So what you did see in the past week with or without connection to putting into the effect of the Iran deal is a very interesting analysis article in the newspaper Ha'arids, for example,

that said that literally people, senior security officials who feel that the Iran deal may not be the catastrophe that the government says it is, feel that they have to keep their mouths shut because expressing their real opinion could hinder their political process. That's a very, very serious accusation. And the chief of staff, Gaddi-Eisenkot, in the same speech that I mentioned he made two days ago, said, again, this is a quote. He said that the Iran deal also presents Israel with opportunities. And that has not received, on the international level, in terms of international media, that has really not received, I think, the attention it should have received. What are those opportunities, do you think? So he didn't go into detail.

But my interpretation of what he said is that, in his opinion, the Iran deal will, in fact, hinder, if not halt Iran's ability to make progress on its nuclear program for the next, let's say, at least 15 years, and that that could provide Israel with an opportunity for more preparedness, more intelligence, more, I would say, strategic planning in a period in which the nuclear program itself has to lie fallow. Let me ask you this. Why do you think that that has not received the attention that it deserves? Do you think that it does not support a narrative that people are comfortable with?

I don't know, because you're asking me a question right now that's sort of media critique, right? Right. Why has this not been front pages in the international media? I don't have an answer for that. I think it should have gotten more, much, much more, much wider attention. The fact of the matter is that I think journalists here are in many cases overworked and are focused on the current spate of violence, which threatens Israelis every single day, which is this kind of ongoing knifing attacks, threatens Palestine. in terms of the Israeli response to that. And I think people are much more focused on that than on a speech given by the chief of staff at a security conference. But I genuinely think that what he said is a very important position, public position that he took. Well, Noga, I just can't thank you enough for joining us today. I think it was very helpful to understand a little bit about the Israeli military from an inside point of view. I think people outside of Israel do

tend to think of it just as any other military, like the U.S. military, for example, which is very divorced from the rest of the population. So thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Next time on War College. We are facing an enemy that is not looking for compromises. All these non-democratic authoritarian, totalitarian, dictatorial regimes, they need conflict, an ongoing conflict with the free world to justify their very existence. I don't know.