An Israeli report states there was not enough shock and awe in the flotilla raid:
Flawed intelligence-gathering and planning led to Israel’s botched and deadly raid on a Gaza-bound protest flotilla, with security forces underestimating the potential for violence, said the official report released Monday.
The report, however, praised the commandos who took part in the operation, saying they were justified in opening fire and killing nine after being confronted by violent pro-Palestinian activists on board one of the ships.
The report concluded that intelligence-gathering was deficient and that various intelligence units did not communicate properly with each other. It criticized the operation’s planners for not having a backup plan in the event of violence.
It did not recommend any dismissals, though it is possible that some senior officers will be ousted or demoted in an ensuing shake-up.
“We found that there were some professional mistakes regarding both the intelligence and the decision-making process and some operational mistakes,” the report’s author, retired general Giora Eiland, told reporters at a Defense Ministry briefing where declassified sections of the report were discussed.
I haven’t read the report yet, but it appears that the “mistake,” at least as is noted in the NPR write-up, was insufficient firepower. No one seems to have even questioned the fundamental problem, which was the mindset that determined the raid needed to take place in the first place, and the wisdom of boarding foreign flagged vessels in the middle of the night in international waters with guns blazing and then being surprised that you are met with violence. Hoocoodanode!
Seems to me waiting until daytime when the ships were actually out of international waters and then disabling the ships or boarding them when they reached shore, during the daytime, with live cameras showing the world that they were using as little force as possible would have not only made more sense from a tactical standpoint, but from a PR one. I’m thinking the military that invaded Gaza killing 1,000 Palestinians while only losing a dozen or so soldiers would have the manpower to pull that off. Not quite as dramatic as helicopter launched commando raids with guns blazing in the night and then selective releasing heavily edited and redacted videos and simply lying about stuff on your Flickr feed, but who am I to judge?
Just hopeless.
BTW- this is just the military report, and not the overall report that shoud be released in the future.
Elizabelle
Sickening.
Zifnab
It appears the real problem was the presence of pro-Palestinian activists aboard the vessel. Perhaps, in the future, Israel commandos could restrict themselves to air-dropping in the dead of night onto only the pro-Israeli vessels. :-p
I am shocked – SHOCKED – to discover that the Israel’s internal investigation has determined that the Israels were in no way to blame. Perhaps we can next get some South Carolina pro-Confederate history professors to analyze the causes of the Civil War and what southern states may have done wrong. Or perhaps (because why dicker around) have some German nationalists reevaluate the invasion of the Rhineland. :-p
David Hunt
The whole thing sounds like an operation planned by Joe Lieberman/John McCain.
Of course, I’m being sarcastic. An operation planned by either of them would have simply sunk the ship.
Mark S.
@David Hunt:
Now that’s unfair.
A plan by John McCain would involve crashing some planes.
kdaug
This, following having read Frum’s link on Sully’s page (he’s subbing this week), does nothing to alleviate my conviction that we need to wash our hands of the entire ME.
Bill E Pilgrim
Best headline at the time was the inimitable Mr T.
Scott
Of course, I’m being sarcastic. An operation planned by either of them would have simply sunk the ship.
Sunk the ship and another dozen or so of their own choppers…
Amir_Khalid
@Zifnab: You’re shocked, but are you surprised? I know I’m not; this whitewash job is precisely what I expected from an Israeli report on the Israeli raid.
Mike G
Shorter Israel:
We didn’t kill enough people.
PeakVT
@David Hunt: More like an operation planed by the twerps at Red State. I would say Dr. Evil, but the Israeli operation was lacking sharks with lasers on their heads.
El Cid
From Israeli militarists’ point of view, the only problem with illegally boarding an aid vessel bound to Gaza to supply it with food and materials to lessen severe malnutrition and rebuild from Israel leveling the place and then shooting 9 aid activists repeatedly in the heads and backs was that some of the soldiers encountered resistance and it looked bad for a while and even though nothing actually happened from any of the ludicrous vows of ‘international pressure’, that sort of negative attention was irritating.
Particularly when it causes US leaders to momentarily neglect their role to either keep their mouths shut or utter worthless phrases about how it would be more helpful if ‘both sides’ would do this or that or refrain from doing this or that.
Did Israeli policymakers face any consequences for leveling Gaza in 2008, or for shelling a UN refugee camp in Lebanon in 1996, killing hundreds, or anything else, ever? No. Suggestions that they would were silly.
The last time anything somewhat significant happened from one of these ‘internal investigations’ was the Kahan Commission examining the aftermath of Israeli forces allowing their Lebanese Phalange allies slaughter hundreds, maybe thousands of Palestinians in two refugee camps, and that just made the Defense Minister resign (after refusing for a while) and hang out in the Cabinet.
Linda Featheringill
Heard on NPR: The civilian citizens of Israel were very upset when they noted that EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD was critical of that particular raid.
I think the civilians correctly read a feeling that perhaps we should just back off and let Israel fend for itself.
Anyway, according to the speaker on NPR, they have begun pressuring their politicians to use diplomacy more and force less.
FWIW.
beltane
Remember the days when the IDF was thought to be an invincible force made up of near super-heroes? Now they appear to be a team of bumbling, yet brutal, second-strong Bushies. I feel like we’re just bashing our heads against a brick wall trying to get things to change over there.
Mnemosyne
So the IDF investigated a mistake made by the IDF and came to the conclusion that the IDF didn’t do anything wrong? Gee, there’s a shocker.
The really disgusting part is where they apparently justified themselves to reporters by claiming that some of the people on board the ship wanted to be martyrs and they were just obliging them. Funny, that defense didn’t work for that cannibal in Germany — the judge decided that you don’t actually get to kill people just because they say they’re willing to die.
Zifnab
@Amir_Khalid: Well, that was mostly sarcastic shock. The Israelis boop’d up. They’re in full ass-covering mode. Anyone who thought they’d get more than straight up military propaganda and bullshit for an “evaluation” was inevitably going to be disappointed.
I’d be more interested to hear Turkey’s evaluation of events, because you know they conducted one too. Will Turkey recommend to suspend further aid, or will the next flotilla of food and medicine could with a gunship loaded with “tactical advisers” and other assorted contract security experts?
beltane
@Mike G: They needed more time in order to waterboard the people on the flotilla. That would have been the ticket to winning over world opinion.
Mnemosyne
@El Cid:
It’s even more significant that that Defense Minister later became Prime Minister, so I think that example actually shows the opposite. Kill Palestinian refugees and become the most powerful man in the country in three easy steps!
Punchy
This is so anti-Semitic.
Right Wing Extreme
The only mistake the Israelis made was not sinking the damn ship miles out rather than having to put their young men and women in uniform at risk by having to board an armed ship.
GambitRF
It still amazes me how pervasive the whole “the commandos obviously weren’t planning to use lethal force and the rabid terror supporters on board just jumped them for no reason!!” talking point was when the raid took place pre-dawn, a.k.a. IN THE DARK. I guess it’s still the activist’s fault for not eating enough vitamin A to build up super-human night vision.
Ash Can
You know that, I know that, and everyone else here, or with six or more functioning synapses, knows that. However, Bibi and his mob don’t give a damn about PR — until, evidently, the international community gives them such a hammering that they have to pay it some lip service. And even then, as we can see from these “findings,” they fuck that up too.
@Right Wing Extreme: LOL!
Jared
That report is like “the competence dodge” times eleventy billion.
Jeebus.
Amir_Khalid
@Zifnab: When the Turkish report comes out, I expect to see it denounced by, ahem, certain American quarters for its failure to confirm every last detail of the Israeli version, and for presuming to place any blame at all on Israeli forces and their actions. American pundits will then mutter darkly about Turkey’s unreliability as an ally, question its place in NATO, et cetera, et cetera. You know, the usual stuff.
Honus
@Mnemosyne: And a “Man of Peace” according to GW Bush.
Bret
FYI, this report only assessed the military efficacy of the raid. Not the “Hey, should we have dropped fucking IDF forces onto civilian boats?” question.
tommybones
Looking forward to BP’s internal investigation…. should be similar.
kdaug
@tommybones: As with our own investigation into “enhanced interrogation techniques”. Accountability is such a “quaint” concept, kinda like the Geneva Conventions.
If anyone can explain to me why we’re not completely screwed, I’m all ears.
GambitRF
@tommybones: The oil threatened them with weapons
Mark S.
The wildlife wanted to die as martyrs.
ellaesther
I’m sure I have many important points to make about all of this, what with me being all-Israel/Palestine-all-the-time, but all I can think is: Holy God, make it all go away before our trip to Israel in November, because if I have to discuss this with almost anyone there, my head will blow up into a million teeny tiny pieces.
Thank God for one or two friends who remain sane. Thank GOD.
I will say this: When you’re the military, and the decision has been made to send your soldiers in, and your soldiers are under attack, I think it makes sense that you presume it was a good idea for them to respond violently to that attack. When you’re a military for which “respond” almost always means “with a sledgehammer,” then of course you’re going to think that the use of force on that boat was reasonable. Everything about your culture and training tells you it was.
This is why the conflict cannot be resolved by military means. This is why a peace agreement, negotiated by diplomats, is the only thing that can actually resolve the conflict. The military — any military — is designed to fight. It is not designed to negotiate the peaceful resolution of anything.
Oh God. Please oh please let there be something else to talk about in November!
ellaesther
PS Sometime people who hop on these threads are also looking for background about the conflict.
Here are some links to stuff I’ve written:
Israel/Palestine: the basics: http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/israelpalestine-the-basics/
Israel/Palestine – a reading list: http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2009/07/02/israelpalestine-a-reading-list/
Israel/Palestine advocacy – places to start: http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2009/07/02/israelpalestine-a-reading-list/
My Israel/Palestine blog also provides a bunch of links to Israelis and Palestinians who are working together toward peace.
kdaug
Also, Hitch’s latest, about our tax breaks for donations of sniper gear and night-vision equipment to the Israelis. Splendid.
Bob L
You seriously, if that about Bush the pentagon would said “yes sir, we will do your’ stupid idea” and blown up the ship or shot most of the aid workers to death. None of this sending commandos armed with paintball guns to face a angry mobs. It’s like their neocon loons run the uniform military as well the the civilian leadership.
kay
@kdaug:
He’s not credible on this. He’s the wrong messenger.
A lot of the people who are demanding Obama “get tough” with Israel ignored or facilitated George W Bush’s complete and utter capitulation on each and every issue re: Israel.
What did they think was going to happen? George W Bush and his wacko alliance of fundamentalist religious and war profiteers took us further in that we had ever gone before. Were the critics asleep for 8 years?
Bush went so far in on Israel it is going to be a difficult long slog to get back to even Clinton-era “even-handedness”.
Hitchens can ignore that recent history, and look at this in isolation, but it’s dishonest. His moral outrage rings hollow.
kay
@kdaug:
And the sniper equipment (and sniper schools, by the way) came up repeatedly during the Abramoff hearings.
It’s old news to anyone who was listening. The Times story was thorough, but it’s old news. Nice that Hitchens finally caught on. Maybe if he has started paying attention in, oh, 2002 or so, he might have a clue.
He was otherwise occupied during that period, right?
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
Is it just me, or does the Israeli “public” sound like our wingnuts/Scott Roeder? You know, people so deep in the cool-aid that they are profoundly disturbed and confused that anyone could possibly think that the thing they did is bad? That’s the way I heard the comment on NPR that “Israelis were upset when they noted that EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD was critical of that particular raid.”
I think this comment in and of itself suggests that the Israeli public is isolated from/out of step with the rest of the world, which may be a source of this problem to begin with.
kdaug
@kay: Granted – he was as much an Iraq armchair warrior as Sully, but without the requisite self-flagellation once having recognized the error of his ways. A self-righteous, pompous prig, to be sure.
Doesn’t mean he’s wrong on this one, though.
And let me be point-blank honest on this – I care about Israel and the Jews precisely as much as I care about the Danes, the Portuguese, the Tibetans, and the Sinhalese. Which is to say, I don’t think about them very much. But 1.) the others don’t seem to be adept at bringing us in to fight their wars for them; 2.) we don’t spend a whole lot of our money making sure they have what they want (in direct and military aid); 3.) we don’t have a constant soap-opera about who likes who more, who dissed who, whose fee-fees are hurt, ad nauseum.
I don’t care. Enough.
GregB
They’ll have you know that those close range head-shots were delivered in a very humane manner.
ellaesther
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason: I’m an Israeli married to an Israeli, but we’re not really any longer part of “the Israeli public,” as we removed ourselves bodily in response to the Israeli handling of the second intifada, deciding that we would rather raise our Jewish Israeli children outside of Israel (a fact which caused/causes me very real pain).
So, that’s the background to my response, which is: Yes, to a very real extent: Yes, the Israeli public writ large is out of step with the international community, and yes, that is part of the problem.
Not everybody, but the majority. It’s not entirely the fault of the public (think about what happened in this country in the years following 9/11 — when only certain information gets out, it’s very hard to form reality-informed opinions), but it certainly shares the responsibility, because everyone is responsible for thinking beyond their own nose.
Upstream a bit I linked to some stuff on my own blog and recommended it as a starting place for resources on Israelis who have not drunk the Kool Aid — the folks in Just Jerusalem, for instance, who are protesting in Jerusalem on a weekly basis, or the authors/journalists behind the South Jerusalem blog, who are both left-wing Orthodox Jews.
These types of people represent a minority, it’s true, but they are absolutely there and fighting the good fight.
And as someone who privileged her children’s future over going back to Israel to help those folks fight that fight, I feel a certain moral responsibility to bring their activities to light.
Kyle
@Amir_Khalid:
Followed by rightards smashing packages of Turkish Delight on the Capitol steps, and vehement speeches demanding that turkey be renamed “Liberty Bird” in time for Thanksgiving.
Because as Operation Freedom Fries showed us, nothing’s more devastating to our enemies than renaming food.
Jay in Oregon
@Mark S.:
Obligatory South Park reference.
matoko_chan
Nah this was the Israeli mistake.
@Amir_Khalid: salaams, Amir. I wonder how soon the documentaries will come out?
this american shot one.
Linda Featheringill
@ellaesther:
I am sorry you were forced to make the decision to leave your home.
wilfred
The question for Americans is not how many Israelis support or do not support the oppression and oppression of an occupied people but what they think they should do about it.
Don’t buy into the hasbera myth of an Israeli left wringing its hands at the mistreatment of Palestinians. The fact remains that ‘good’ Israelis like the ones who post here have the right to leave and raise their children elsewhere.
Palestinians don’t. They can’t even get their kids out to study in the US on Fulbrights because the Israelis don’t let them leave.
El Cid
@wilfred: Also, the Israeli government don’t let Palestinians come back when they do go abroad.
And, no, there is no significant Israeli political force or movement which in any way opposes the completely militarist Israeli policies on Palestinians.
Not least because the threat of a final settlement looms, and now’s the time to seize every square foot of land and every tiny bit of desirable natural resources and wall off and roadblock the Palestinians throughout as much of the West Bank as can be gotten, before such a day may come.
kay
@kdaug:
Decisions have consequences.
The decision Hitchens made was this: I will studiously ignore George W Bush’s extreme and unprecedented hard Right turn on Israel because I support the invasion of Iraq.
That decision takes Hitchens out of the group of people who are credible when analyzing Obama’s attempt to return to some semblance of sanity on Israel.
He’s not that great a writer. There are plenty of good writers. He should sit this issue out. His outrage is laughable, considering the decisions he made, and it diminishes the debate.
ellaesther
@Linda Featheringill: Aw thank you! I feel sorry about it a lot. Sorry and conflicted. And pissed off and anxious and the whole gamut.
But it’s important to me that I say this, too: I chose exile, and it’s a pretty sweet one. I have a very good life. There are a lot of folks who don’t get to make the choice, and I made mine, and it was for my kids. If one is ever to make a difficult choice, one’s kids are a pretty darn good deciding factor. I am perfectly happy to feel sorry for myself, but I’m not sure anyone else should.
liberal
@kay:
My mom had a copy of Hitch-22. He’s an unrepentent prick re his support of the Iraq invasion.