What's Frustrating Israelis

"Israelis United on Gaza War as Censure Rises Abroad"
A1, Tuesday 1/13/09
By Ethan Bronner

In an overdue piece about Israelis' views on the necessity of the Gaza operation, there is some good.

"It is very frustrating for us not to be understood,” says an editor of a business daily. Israeli views on the Gaza media ban? “Let the army do its job.” Israel isn’t looking for a “face-saving agreement,” but “one that works”. This is all simple and smart.

Even Peace Now’s supporters tell it to “stay out of the streets on this one”. This could mean that Peace Now is pathetically out of touch with reality, or it's too progressive for most Israelis to handle right now.

Bronner turns to Moshe Halbertal, a “left-leaning” philosophy professor at Hebrew University, who “helped write the army’s ethics code”. He talks of “laborious discussion” that went into avoiding harm to Gaza’s civilians.

“Rockets from Hamas could eventually reach all of Israel” gives scope of the threat, as well as urgency of the action: preemptive, and not simply reactive. “Hamas and Hezbollah are really the spearhead of a whole larger threat that is invisible. Israelis feel like the tiny David faced with an immense Muslim Goliath.”

These good points are weighed down by errors.

Israel is “sometimes a fractured, bickering society”. Like the Times’ previous label for Israel as “fractious,” it's off. Bronner struggles to describe the obvious: Israelis are diverse. They have profound differences, are opinionated, like to debate and argue, and the discourse may not always be at its best. On the other hand, Israelis are deeply unified and there's often a camaraderie like no other. The nation is one big family. To elicit this doesn't take wars and traumas, as is implicit.

“Israelis deeply believe, rightly or wrongly, that their military works harder than most to spare civilians.” What people believe can stand on its own, and doesn't need this unnecessary expression.

Bronner does a poor job on the killing of death commander Nizar Rayyan. He takes Halbertal’s opinion, a disapproval of the operation, and holds this up as an example of “events in this war in which [Halbertal] suspected the wrong decision had been made.” Halbertail felt, he didn't suspect. The implication with “suspected” is that the operation to kill Rayyan seemed to be an operational mistake, maybe because Israel thought he wouldn't be with his family.

The Israeli decision to kill this man, along with his wives and children, was no mistake. The Israeli value in this move was not in PR, but in the strong message that Israel won't play this Hamas game of chicken and won't be hand-tied in stopping and deterring violence against its citizens.

“Yet almost no one here publicly questioned the decision to drop a bomb on his house and kill civilians; all the sentiment in Israel was how satisfying and just it was to kill a man whose ideology and activity had been so virulent and destructive,” writes Bronner.

Pointed out in the Times by Jeffrey Goldberg, this individual was an “important recruiter of suicide bombers,” and someone who would've continued directing violence against Israelis. "Satisfying,” “ideology,” and “virulent" all serve to mitigate an understandable and just reaction to his killing more so because of his violence and irrationality, as well as his influence on thousands. The Israeli military is going on its gut and smarts, against well-worn advice from pundits, that killing top terrorists does not breeds more terrorists. [As if there's a device to track the pace of this biological-sounding phenomenon.]

“The war, of course, is portrayed differently hear and abroad,” writes Bronner. For example, Israeli news focuses on “Israeli suffering – the continuing rocket attacks on Israel, the wounded soldiers with pictures of Gaza coming later.” To someone with little exposure to Israeli tv news, it's not clear if this is reference to television or newspapers. Regardless, it's hard to believe that in the Israeli press, pictures of Gaza come much later, if not before, pictures of Israeli suffering. Bronner knows that the war in Gaza is portrayed differently in Israel because of its media's habit of context and serious analysis, rather than a reliance on death tolls, emotive pictures and un-vetted accusations.

More revealing is the Israeli media “playing down the story” of war crimes allegations from the Red Cross. Maybe the news outlets outside Israel are less aware of the extent to which bogus, politicized human rights allegations are heaved on Israel. What's more, the story wasn't played down in Israel. It got top billing in Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post.

Peace activist Boaz Gaon is angry at Hamas’ actions against not only Israel, but against its own people, yet he finds it “deeply depressing how the Israeli public had embraced the military’s arguments in explaining the deaths of civilians.” Is the public “embracing”, or more understanding that this is the unfortunate reality and there are no viable options to keep Israeli cities safe from Gaza rockets? What's deeply depressing is that Israel is forced into such actions. “Hamas has pushed Israeli thinking back 30 years,” he says. Not peace for both sides, but Israeli thinking. The hysteria.

At the end, readers learn how to spot thoughtful Israelis who want peace. A.B. Yehoshua “opposes Israel’s occupation and promotes a Palestinian state.” Whatever those might mean.

This report was front page on the world's most important newspaper. See what's frustrating Israelis?