This update is by Dr. Binyamin Klempner, a guest in episode 276 on The Yakking Show. You can read all his updates about the situation on the ground in Israel since the October 7 terrorist attacks here in the Updates from Israel category. In this update, he writes about violence, parenting and the lack of communication in the military hierarchy. The last is a problem common to all organizations and one that afflicts government and non-profit organisations more than business enterprises.
Dear Friends,
I’ve been crying a lot.
The things we spoke about: Violence. Along the side of a highway near the border with Lebanon I met a Choctaw American Indian soldier. Adopted by Jewish Ashkenazi parents living in Oklahoma City at the time he was adopted. They moved to Israel when he was five. To his parents’ great credit, they raised him with a strong pride in his Native American heritage, along with a great pride in his adopted Jewish heritage. No reason the two can’t go hand-in-hand. We somehow got on the topic of violence. The unfortunate, but sometimes necessary need for violence. We spoke about the difference between killing and murdering. I told him of a conversation I recently had in which an American parent spoke with pride about his child who he’s glad not to have raised in Israel.
The reason being, if he had raised the child in Israel, the child would be forced to join the Israeli military, go to Southern Gaza, and kill. And, according to the parent of this child, he doesn’t want his child to be a killer. The soldier, upon hearing this story exclaimed, “That is a typical case of bad parenting. The parent should have explained to this child that first and foremost, most military jobs are desk jobs, and secondly, even combatant positions are not about killing. Unfortunately, when someone is going to kill you, you need to kill them first. Killing isn’t fun. Killing isn’t pleasing. But, sometimes, unfortunately, killing is necessary. That is what this parent should have told her son!
But in America, it would seem that they spin us as being a bunch of kill thirsty monsters! Bad parenting!” I responded with a story. “Necessary violence,” I said. “Americans like to pretend that there is no place for violence and that all violence is unnecessary. But sometimes, violence is necessary. Sometimes violence prevents further violence. Can I tell you a story? You want to hear a story?” “Of course I want to hear a story.” “Well, some things don’t scare me too bad. Like rockets. But some things do. Like Covid. Covid scared me. Covid scared my family. In retrospect, was it right or wrong? I don’t know. But Covid scared us and we took it seriously. My kid stayed home from school for the entire year. He was reluctant to go back to school but agreed to go back if he’d wear a mask. The day he got back the kids, who he hadn’t seen for a year picked on him for wearing a mask. The teacher ripped the mask off of his face and had all the kids in the class breathe on him saying, ‘You have Covid! You have Covid.’
When my kid returned from school we called the principal. He said he’d take care of it. But it happened the next day. Then we called the principal and the teacher, but it happened again a third day. Bastard. Absolute bastard. Now this teacher is a guy I see maybe once a year on the street. But that morning I saw the guy walking his kids to school. (Happens to be, according to my son, this guy is also an abusive father). The street also happened to be empty except for me and this guy (and his kids). Speaking to him firmly but nicely I told him to leave my son alone. He grinned smugly. Seeing that grin I began yelling at him. My face, almost nose-to-nose with his. He grinned again that same smug smile. I lost control of my arm. My arm just flew through the air. I smacked the bastard so hard the palm of my hand throbbed for five-minutes.”
“What was the outcome?” the soldier asked. “Well,” I said, “he was really nice to my kid for the rest of the year. And behaved himself for the next three years. After about three years he forgot about the smack and my kid asked to learn boxing to deal with the other kids in the school. The night my kid asked to learn boxing I had enough. The next morning I pulled him out of that school and put him into another school. I just can’t go around smacking people. It’s not good for me or for them.” “Amazing!,” the soldier said, continuing, “that sounds like great parenting. This is the Middle East. It’s how things work in the Middle East. Whether between a parent and a teacher or between states, sometimes, you just need to give a smack.”
I don’t like violence. Like I say…I’ve been crying a lot.
As I spend a good deal of time in dangerous areas, I am putting out a special request for a bullet proof jacket. The cost of the jacket is $700. It’ll keep me protected as I go about my work of bolstering the morale of our troops. Thanks so much, and as always, you can make the donation using our Chessed Fund account:
https://thechesedfund.com/theunityfarmfoundation/support-our-israeli-soldiers
This from the Times of Israel:
IDF intel chiefs never told political and military leaders they’d had Hamas battle plan since April 2022 – report
FROM THE LIVEBLOG OF SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 2024
IDF intelligence chiefs never told Israel’s most senior military and political leaders that Unit 8200 had in April 2022 obtained a document setting out Hamas’s plans for what proved to be the October 7 invasion and slaughter in southern Israel, Channel 12 reports.
The existence of the document, which Israeli military intelligence codenamed “Jericho Walls,” was first reported in The New York Times in November 2023.
The 40-page plan, the Times reported at the time, laid out almost exactly how Hamas eventually wound up carrying out the attack: “The document called for a barrage of rockets at the outset of the attack, drones to knock out the security cameras and automated machine guns along the border, and gunmen to pour into Israel en masse in paragliders, on motorcycles and on foot — all of which happened on Oct. 7.”
Israeli intelligence officers reportedly determined that the terror group was incapable of carrying out an assault of such a large scope, or possibly unwilling, and dismissed concerns about it.
According to Channel 12 tonight, the Arabic language document, which was written in October 2021, was obtained by Unit 8200 in April 2022 and translated. It was seen by IDF intelligence chief Aharon Haliva, 8200 commander Yossi Sariel, Gaza division commander Avi Rosenfeld, and then IDF Southern Command chief Eliezer Toledano, the report says.
It was not seen by IDF chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, deputy chief Amir Baram, Israel Air Force chief Tomer Bar, or senior IDF operations officers Oded Basyuk and Shlomi Binder. It was also not seen by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, or the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
The document showed “Hamas was not deterred,” contradicting the prevailing IDF assessment, former IDF intelligence chief Aharon Ze’evi-Farkash tells Channel 12. Therefore it should obviously have been followed up rather than dismissed. “It needed to be thoroughly checked.”
The TV report says that IAF chief Bar, in the months preceding October 7, felt the Air Force was not getting adequate intelligence on developments in Gaza and that meetings were held with Unit 8200 about this concern. But even then, he was not told about the Hamas “Jericho Walls” battle plan document.
The air force had seen “no scenario” for the kind of mass breach of the border, with dozens of points of entry, that Hamas carried out on October 7, Brigadier General (Res.) Yaron Rosen, a former senior IAF officer and pilot, tells Channel 12. And thus there were “no relevant orders” to activate that morning, and the IAF was forced to improvise. Had it known of the attack plan, it would have drawn up a response and “hopefully” been able to prevent the invasion, Rosen says.
The Channel 12 report also describes efforts by an intelligence officer in the IDF Southern Command identified by the initial “Aleph” to alert more senior military officers to what he recognized as “something extremely unusual going on — heightened readiness on the other side [in Gaza]” in the hours before Hamas invaded.
It says “Aleph” contacted Haliva and IDF southern command chief Yaron Finkelman to report these indications, and that this was after Israeli intelligence officers had already noticed that dozens of Hamas terrorists had activated Israeli SIM cards in their phones, another tell-tale sign of attack that was ignored.
As has been previously reported, Finkelman headed to the IDF’s Southern Command headquarters overnight October 6-7 and alerted Halevi, who held telephone consultations but did not order a major alert.
“Aleph” also contacted Unit 8200 commander Sariel via WhatsApp to what he described as “a highly unusual event,” seeking intelligence from a “particularly important” technical network that had for years provided information on Hamas activities, the TV report says. Sariel, checking, was told that this network had not been working for the past several hours. The network was only reactivated at around the time that the invasion began.
Several Unit 8200 soldiers also recognized unusual activity in Gaza in the hours before the invasion and sent six emails to a “non-relevant user,” the report says.
Tonight’s TV report is the latest in a long series of revelations that have emerged since soon after October 7 about material in Israel’s hands pointing to the looming Hamas invasion that was ignored, dismissed or misinterpreted. The TV channel says its report was compiled under military censorship limitations, and that it was unable to detail an additional dramatic piece of information regarding the hours before the invasion “that should have lit all the red lights.”After ten months of visiting soldiers, making them coffee, doing impromptu, informal “therapy,” lifting their spirits, strengthening their moral courage, and becoming somewhat of an expert on the Israeli military establishment, what jumps out at me the most, and what I think is reflected in this article, is the absolute arrogance with which I have been treated by the officer corp.
Over the course of the war there has been one very low ranking officer who I’ve become close with. This guy, despite his low rank, or maybe because of his low rank, realizes and appreciates what I’ve done for his guys, and for him. I met one officer not so long ago, a major, who sort of got that I wasn’t a typical civilian, but other than those two exceptions, the officer corp has not taken my activities on behalf of their men at all seriously. In fact, as many officers drive by, they look at me with derision. Looks that speak to my being, in their eyes, a foolish goody-do-gooder in an area they don’t appreciate me being in. At first glance, I get why they would think that. But what gets to me is that after ten months, no officer thought to stop and get to know me.
To ask me what I’m doing in a war zone. No questions. Just eyes of derision that express already knowing all there is to know about me and about what I’m doing for their soldiers. These officers lack curiosity. They lack creativity. They lack what the great war theorist Carl von Clausewitz refers to as genius. But it hurts. It hurts being an unappreciated outsider doing the work that the insiders have failed to do. Receiving nothing in exchange except for a snide know-it-all look. After ten months, the arrogance of the officer corp, the arrogance that led up to this war, doesn’t seem to have changed much. It hurts. It hurts being an unappreciated outsider. But I’ll continue, because it’s not for the officers that I toil, but for the men on the ground.
Wishing you non-violence and peace. Stay strong! Stay safe!
Sincerely,
Binyamin Klempner
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