By Ophir Pines-Paz
On one hand, the storm of condemnations by the top levels of government and now the suspension of Lieutenant Colonel Shalom Eisner from his position for beating an apparently unarmed Danish protester with his weapon, is the right response. On the other hand, this response is cynical and problematic, on several major counts.
First, Israelis commonly complain about the country’s hasbara – well, here it is! Israel has put its best foot forward in the communications effort, and the world saw the result on every channel. Here’s the point: communications cannot turn black into white – that’s a job for Uri Geller. If we want to look good, it starts with good behavior.
The second aspect flows from this. The only way to solve the image problem is to stop fighting yesterday’s wars. People in Eisner’s position, who are based in the high-friction areas, too often see themselves as remote, as if they’re on some isolated island. They also have an obsolete perspective that conflict is just about winning on the battlefield – that the stronger, more powerful party prevails. They fail to understand that we’re in a different world, where the conflict actually is about public opinion. In the arena of today’s conflict, his actions are more damaging to Israel than tanks and military operations.
The ramifications of the incident are serious: Eisner is an influential and relatively high-ranking officer. Many of the decisions flow from his level, not just from the Chief of Staff. But the army careerists in the field in the West Bank don’t understand the wider reality, because from the age of 18, all they know is the military – they view everything through that prism. They don’t know about the world and they don’t know about life. This is not a game and they should be taught about the broader arena. Officers in the field should be taking courses in diplomacy, they should speak with Israel’s ambassadors, and be exposed to sources of global opinion.
The third problem is that blaming Eisner is simply hypocritical. If there had been no video cameras, the Danish protester probably would have sent a letter of complaint and the authorities probably would have ignored it. That’s because the system isn’t sensitive enough to such behavior and moreover, it is just angered by anyone who dares to protest our occupation from abroad. Those who manage this system fail to accept that in the global community, any citizen has the right to protest the longest ongoing occupation in the world today.
But there were cameras, and so the top brass had to issue condemnations and suspend him. All the reactions, from the President and Prime Minister to the Defense Minister and the Chief of Staff, were a coordinated attempt to portray him as an anomaly.
But what if he is not an anomaly? What if there is more than one Eisner? In that case, this incident can actually be an opportunity – to examine and correct our behavior towards protesters who disagree with us, and to make a change beyond one single punishment.
Obviously, nobody wants to ask those hard questions. It’s much easier to just suspend Eisner, but that’s far from enough.
The reality is that we have cultivated militarism so deeply that we look to the Army to solve everything. No one truly believes that any other solution is effective. That is the underlying truth of Israeli life to which most of society subscribes.
No one on the political level told Eisner to behave the way he did. But the political leadership – mainly Netanyahu, Barak and Lieberman – addressed the fly-in in the most aggressive and hysterical way possible, instead of downplaying the whole event. Why were 650 policemen sent to stop dozens of demonstrators? Why did they need such an exaggerated show of force? No doubt, the atmosphere they created trickled down to the Army. The incident may have occurred within the army, but the government must also rethink how it addresses the challenges and protests we face. The way of force is not always efficient, or effective.
Ophir Pines-Paz is a former Member of Knesset from Labor. He has served as Minister of Internal Affairs and as Minister of Science, Culture and Sports.
Read also:
WATCH: IDF Lt. Col. rams rifle in face of activist
On IDF violence: My own private Lt. Col. Shalom Eisner
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Jack
The article points out correctly that if this hadnt been taped Israel would have rejected the accusations against them.
This behavior is systematic, the more doumentation of this violence the more change we could expect from Israel.
RichardL
Suspending Eisner is certainly not enough, and neither is this pathetic article which is totally divorced from the reality that exists in the occupied territories and widely acknowledged outside of Israel. Pines-Paz fails to recognise that the occupation is the problem, not one minor incident which was unlucky enough to be filmed and get into the international arena. Not once does he mention any concern for Israel’s major breaches of international law, and in particular Geneva Convention IV which Israel has both signed and ratified.
On points of detail Pines-Paz is spouting rubbish. “Israelis commonly complain about the country’s hasbara”. Do they indeed? I thought they commonly believed it and repeated it. Look at common perceptions about Goldstone or the flotilla raid or even the settlements.
“an apparently unarmed Danish protester”. No Ophir, he was unarmed, as Eisner knew very well.
The system does not respond to complaints because it “isn’t sensitive enough to such behavior and moreover, it is just angered by anyone who dares to protest our occupation from abroad.” Pure hasbara: the system does not respond because it is corrupt and criminal.
“No one on the political level told Eisner to behave the way he did”. Indeed not; it is ingrained in the culture of the Israeli state. It is what happens in the occupied territories, along with the arrest of ten-year-old children, night raids, house demolitions, torture and abuse in detention, weapons experiments against civilians in Gaza…
The Jerusalem Post exists to print this kind of whitewash. There is no need for +972 blog to help out.
[Incidentally Israel’s is not “the longest ongoing occupation in the world today”. India’s occupation of Kashmir is certainly longer. But don’t let be an excuse. The real issue is that any moral citizen has a DUTY to protest a violent suppression of another people’s rights, regardless of the length of time of that criminal activity.]
Devin
Occupation, land grabbing, settlemants, torture, night raids, assasination, detenion, killings, these are the problems. When Israel stops occupation and return peoples land, then may be Eisner anamalistic act will be ended. Eisner defends the occupation, his training is based on this matter, and acted accordingly. Do not blame him, blame the system.
Dahlia Scheindlin
RichardL, I wonder if you live in this region or spend time with Israelis. I regularly hear Israelis at all levels of society complain that if only Israel’s hasbara was better, Israel would not be in its current bind and the world would understand it – as if it’s all just a matter of telling ‘our side of the matter.’ The fact that the world is hostile can only be explained by a hasbara failure, to them – this narrative is repeated so often and so routinely in daily life here, that I”m surprised you missed it. You can call it rubbish but you sound really out of touch with how people think in this conflict.
Leen
Kashmir region is thought to resemble more of a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan, it is not the same as the occupation of the Palestinian people where the ultimate goal is the annexation of the West Bank, ethnically cleanse the inhabitant population and maintain unequality between Jews and non-Jews. And yes I’ve heard these accounts from Kashmiris, Pakistanis and Indians, little to resemble the brutality of the occupation in the West Bank.
RichardL
Dahlia: “You can call it rubbish but you sound really out of touch with how people think in this conflict.”
Which people Dahlia, the Palestinians? The refugees from the Golan? The Lebanese who were carpet bombed with cluster bombs? No I don’t live in the region, I have merely visited. Does that somehow change the facts?
I have no reason to dispute what you tell me Dahlia and I can see there is a problem there, but that does not change the legality of this conflict one iota. And the facts as I understand them are that Eisner was in charge of some soldiers illegally interfering with some Palestinians and guests who were peacefully cycling on a road in Palestine. At some stage during this confrontation Eisner appears to have turned and, without warning or provocation, violently assaulted an unarmed foreign national who did no more than look him in the eye.
My problem with Pines-Paz’s article is that having acknowledged the need for “good behaviour” he does not acknowledge what that is. He never acknowledges that the IDF personnel should not have been there in the first place. He does not acknowledge that the administration of the occupation is corrupt and criminal and not merely insensitive. (Jeez, he does not even call for a court-martial.) Basically it is as if the car has broken down and Pines-Paz wants to polish the chrome. That will not get this show back on the road. Nothing short of facing up to the injustice of the occupation is going to get this going. If (Israeli) people think it only a case of applying some more effective taurean-scatology then the problem is one of how to get them to confront the reality that Palestinians and others face every day. But spraying perfume on the dung, as the article appears to suggest, is not the answer, and I for one would prefer not to read such “rubbish” on this blog.
RichardL
Leen: I was not comparing conditions on the West Bank with anywhere, but merely making the point that the oPt and the Golan are not the world’s longest running occupation. It was perhaps an unnecessary piece of pedantry, but I stand by the statement nonetheless. (Tibet is another example.)
Philos
“But the army careerists in the field in the West Bank don’t understand the wider reality, because from the age of 18, all they know is the military” – this is about the strongest endorsement I have yet to read from an Israeli politician for the professionalization of the IDF. Although I’m quite sure he didn’t intend that. Although it is a nice thought to imagine officers with degrees and some life experience in the IDF.
Philos
Although I won’t agree entirely with RichardL I think his sentiment is right. Pines-Paz has mentioned that no amount of hasbara will work because you can’t explain such a massive moral failure.
.
This is the delusion peddled by all parts of Israeli mainstream. We need better PR to explain the unexplainable. The result, I am sure, of this incident will be increased brutality to camera wielder’s and the worsening of journalistic freedom in the West Bank. Sadly these two developments are welcome. Only by becoming completely grotesque can Israel be pushed into a settlement or granting civil rights to the Palestinians.
Piotr Berman
I would not write like Richard that Ophir Pinez-Paz denies the reality, but he indeed write in generalities that can hide totally different agendas.
One agenda would be to stop the policy of “immiseration of Palestinians”. This policy is to use every little trick and some major ones to make normal existence of Palestinians under occupation impossible, and thus encourage emigration. Once this process is completed the conflict will be resolved and peaceful existence possible. Under constraints of international opinion this has to be done patiently and without PR debacles. Most importantly, one should keep the eye on the big picture. On the same day (or just the same week?) all roads to a village in Area C were destroyed, with much larger immiseration effect and a small fraction of bad PR that stopping a youth group from their bike ride.
The second possible agenda would be to abandon that inhuman policy altogether.
The first agenda can be relatively easily implemented with no resistance in the cabinet. The second is currently impossible, as all major “Zionist parties” support the first agenda. Thus I suspect that Pines-Paz has the first agenda.
Piotr Berman
Sorry, in my comment above, “One agenda” is not to stop the policy of immiseration, but to improve it.
max
@Piotr, “… and thus encourage emigration”
I wonder why you bother so much… if this indeed is a policy, it’s obviously failing miserably.
It would be amusing to see this pattern of fabricating theories and not even trying to match them with facts, just to be able to forward a preconceived agenda, but unfortunately it also diverts attention from the real problems
Piotr Berman
Max, perhaps I am wrong and the national policy is simply to harass villages in Area C with no particular purpose. Such policy cannot fail and this makes it less controversial, as opposed to a policy that has a goal which may fail.