Did Israeli Soldiers Panic in the Face of a Terrorist Attack?

On January 8, a Palestinian drove a large truck at full speed into a group of IDF cadets participating in a tour of Jerusalem; four soldiers lost their lives. A now widely circulated video of the attack shows many of the cadets—who were armed—running for cover while the civilian tour guide, as well as some of the cadets, opened fire and prevented the attack from becoming far deadlier. Yagil Henkin, responding to the controversy that has raged in Israel over the past week concerning the soldiers’ reactions, offers a levelheaded evaluation of what transpired, and why:

A decade-and-a-half ago, the IDF changed its training regimen for non-combat officers, due both to a desire to expand recruiting and to the belief that the prior emphasis on combat even for non-combat officers [was] unnecessary. . . .

[The underlying problem] is that the IDF trains officers who aren’t really “officers” in the commonly understood sense of the term. . . . In the discourse surrounding the attack, we not only heard from those who justifiably reminded us that some of the cadets underwent only minimal basic training and barely learned how to use a weapon (a fact which means they should not be given weapons at all; a weapon is a commitment), but also from those who said we should not expect non-combat officers to respond, as they were not trained for it, and that the very readiness of non-combat cadets to fight is a unique exception from the norm. And that’s already very problematic. . . .

I don’t think we need to put too much weight into the mistake of one or another individual. . . . It would be much better to deal with the issue than with the person, certainly when we’re talking about an attack that ended quickly, even before some of the people understood what was going on and before they had a chance to recover.

The army would do well if it reconsidered its training policy for non-combat officers. In the wake of recent terror attacks, in which people exposed to the threat are civilians or soldiers in a civilian setting, it’s important to ensure that armed soldiers walking the streets have training sufficient to carry out their duty to protect civilians and improve security.

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Non-Combat Officers Should Also Learn to Shoot

This piece was first published on the Hebrew-language website Mida on January 10, 2017 rendered into English by Avi Woolf, and republished here with permission..

Over a decade ago, the IDF changed the training of non-combat officers: Less fire practice, fewer field exercises, and much less combat training. In the wake of the ramming attack in Jerusalem, it’s time for a rethink.

In the wake of the video documenting the ramming attack in Jerusalem on January 8, a debate has raged over the way the soldiers reacted. Accusations and counteraccusations, condemnation and praise could all be heard.

Beyond the need to analyze the event itself, which I will do at length below, is the need to address the important issues it raises, especially that of the quality of training for non-combat officers in the IDF.

A decade-and-a-half ago, the IDF changed its training regimen for non-combat officers, due both to a desire to expand recruiting and to the belief that the prior emphasis on combat even for non-combat officers—including many visits to the shooting range, navigations, and team-and squad-level exercises, if not platoon-level exercises—were unnecessary.

It’s also possible that there was a desire here to unify the training of female officers in Training Base 12 [formerly designated for non-combat officers], which was never especially combat-oriented, with the training of non-combat officers from Training Base 1 [the main training location for officers]. (To the best of my rusty memory from enlisted service, [Training Base 12] officers were not authorized to manage a shooting-range exercise or other activity related to handling weapons, but I may be wrong.) But part of the story was the belief that there is no need to train non-combat officers for the basic scenarios of warfare.

In retrospect, of course, the odds of a non-combat officer finding himself in a situation where he will need to use his weapon against a terror attack in Judea and Samaria or elsewhere in the country, or against violent disturbances, is likely greater than the odds of his encountering an ambush of Egyptian commandos—and this without mentioning the fact that here and there non-combat officers are still required to enter combat areas, and in conflicts such as Second Lebanon War, the road to the front also includes the potential danger of encountering the enemy.

The meaning of the change in training is that the IDF sees non-combat officers not as potential leaders on the battlefield, but as professionals, managers with insignia. In truth, if the warrant-officer ranks were truly equivalent to other countries, then there would be indeed a great deal of logic in the idea that anyone who doesn’t command troops will not be an officer. But since the hierarchy in the IDF is different, that doesn’t seem possible.

In any event, the significance is that the IDF trains officers who aren’t really “officers” in the commonly understood sense of the term, and not as irregular cases (there were always those who for medical reasons did not participate at all in shooting and other combat-related exercises) but as a norm. In the discourse surrounding the attack, we not only heard from those who justifiably reminded us that some of the cadets underwent only minimal basic training and barely learned how to use a weapon (a fact which means they should not be give weapons at all; a weapon is a commitment, not a status symbol or an officer-course study aid), but also those who said that we should not expect non-combat officers to respond, as they were not trained for it (fortunately, at least one of the female officers at the scene of the attack demonstrated that something more can be expected of these cadets), and that the very readiness of non-combat cadets to fight is a unique exception from the norm. And that’s already very problematic.

In the end, a weapon is not an ornament or a ceremonial sword, and the IDF expects soldiers and cadets (to say nothing of officers) to use it. But it seems that for many the assumption is that the default approach of the soldier is “non-response,” and that every responding soldier is an “irregular hero,” an opinion which is strengthened by the IDF’s willingness to forgo a significant part of combat training for rear-echelon soldiers and officers, and perhaps the fact that many officers see themselves not as commanders but as employees in uniform. But reality reminds us fairly often that anyone bearing arms needs to respond, that sometimes soldiers are even more of a target than civilians, and that the IDF values include the concept of “striving for victory.”

 

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

After we’ve understood this, let’s try and make some sense of the incident itself. Like everything in the IDF, it needs splitting into three parts: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The good. The best action was that of a civilian, the soldiers’ tour guide, who reacted in the first stage, a few seconds before the others. That doesn’t seem to be in dispute.

But in fact, the response of a few others was good to very good. In examining the movie, from the moment the truck appeared—it’s doubtful if anyone noticed it more than a second before it burst into the group of soldiers—to the moment it stop moving after the shooting, at most 32 seconds pass. Take a second or two off if you start the count or end it elsewhere.

We need to take another point into account: in the first seconds it’s not clear if it’s an accident or an attack. There’s a suspicion of course, but until the truck starts to move in reverse and try to run others over, a few more seconds pass, about seven or eight That is, from the moment it is clearly an attack until the moment the attack ends — at most 25 seconds pass.

That’s not a lot. Compare this to the ramming attack in Nice. If there weren’t weapons, or if they hadn’t reacted, the present attack would have gone on far longer.

Moreover: The fact that most people don’t respond is the natural reaction. In his classic book Men against Fire, historian S.L.A. Marshall claimed that most combat soldiers in the American Army in World War II didn’t fire their weapons during battle. He claimed that often only a quarter to a fifth of soldiers fired, and in the crack units—a third.

Marshall’s conclusions and method have been attacked quite a bit since then, but his overall conclusions are very much accepted by researchers in the field, including the conclusion that if you give a soldier a more specific task, there’s a greater chance he’ll fire. (In other words, machine gunners fire  more than regular soldiers and commanders more than grunts).

The psychologist David Grossman, a former American paratroop officer, accepted Marshall’s findings and arrived at similar conclusions in his book On Killing. During the research for my book on the Sinai war, I found documentation of similar cases in combat units in the IDF, and quite a few officers with combat experience agreed with these conclusions. It’s not for nothing that Men against Fire is recommended reading in the IDF, the FBI, and the United States Marine Corps. The fact that today many more combat soldiers use their weapons is attributed to a great extent to changes in combat training in many armies in the wake of Marshall’s book. This change primarily had an effect on combat soldiers. Non-combat soldiers, who did not undergo training, shoot less.

This data refer to conduct during battle, but it takes time to understand that you’re in battle.

In the attack on the Otniel yeshiva in December 2002, which I had the misfortune to be present at, it took at most five seconds until someone returned fire towards the kitchen door. That time included the sound of the first bullet salvo (to this day, it is unclear if it was a burst or rapid individual fire), reaction time, and so on. Bullet fire from close range is a good sign you’re in battle. A rampaging truck — somewhat less. That is, it takes a few more seconds to react. Which means that the terrorist was taken out (sorry, I really, really don’t like the term “neutralized” for killing a terrorist) very, very fast. The four who were killed were killed within a few seconds; the terrorist did not manage to get away.

Moreover, the instinctive reaction of many is to run away (Grossman argues in his book that alongside the “fight” and “flight” options, there are also the “posture” and “submit” responses),  but people regain their composure and jump back in. Even in the video itself you can see some of the soldiers going back towards the terrorist—that is, even some who were hit with initial shock recovered quickly and functioned properly.

Thus far, the “good.”

 

Not Role Models

The bad. Well, few soldiers reacted. The fact is that among the few armed civilians in the area—tour guides, who are armed but their primary job is not protecting their groups—at least two reacted, while among dozens of soldiers, few reacted (including at most one female officer). The posts on Facebook and the descriptions in the papers, which presented the soldiers’ reaction as a collective act of bravery—”We charged,” “We operated,” “People … didn’t stop striving for contact”—perhaps describe a subjective feeling, but not the actual actions of most of the soldiers until the terrorist was taken out.

One of the tour guides claimed that the soldiers requested permission to open fire — testimony either to a misunderstanding of what was going on, or an excess of regulations and limitations — while others began to function later. Not everyone, and certainly without training, functions at their best, but there is no way to claim that most of the soldiers strove to make contact with the enemy.

The argument that the soldiers received an order to take cover is possible, but it also does not attest to particularly good command. There is no doubt that the team filmed from behind the steps began its retreat before the vehicle was stopped by shooting, some ten seconds after the killing. Thus, the order came not after the shooting, but at the same time at best. In other words, while the incident was at its height, the soldiers received an order not to react. In any event we can see that some of the soldiers are taking cover on site, some are starting to advance (you can see others coming in the background, from the direction of the trees) and others retreat quickly; some of the soldiers therefore did strive to make contact, others took cover where they were with weapons—taking cover with weapons is meant to allow using it in the direction of the threat—and some did neither but simply got away quickly.

There’s no need to condemn the soldiers, most of whom are not in combat units and some of whom received only symbolic basic training; but there is also no need to claim that they charged or that everyone’s conduct should serve as a role model. In the end, a soldier armed with a weapon is supposed to control it and be able to use it. If he can’t he shouldn’t be given a weapon. When a terror attack occurs and there’s an armed soldier in the area, that soldier’s military duty is to intervene. It’s not an option, and he doesn’t deserve special plaudits for doing his duty. Every civilian who carries receives not only the right to use his firearm but also the duty to do so when the need arises. A soldier all the more so. To say nothing of an officer.

 

The Systemic Lesson

The Ugly. This is a war of versions and even accusations between those involved in the incident, and here we need to say a few things. The first is that people during a terror attack see things through “tunnel vision,” and time becomes distorted. If someone thinks the event lasted a minute and a half, or that it might have lasted ten minutes or 30 seconds, if someone thinks that people reacted or didn’t react, he is at best qualified to talk about what happened from his perspective, but after the event people talk, whether they thought or not. Moreover, the result often determines the perspective. When a terror attack ends in fatalities, even those who instantly grabbed their weapon and reacted might feel pangs of conscience for their unsuccessful reaction—not because they actually acted improperly, but because the result wasn’t what was desired.

Accordingly, I don’t think we need to put too much weight into the mistake of one or another individual. The result was bad, there are really problems, but there is no need to bash officer A or civilian B in the story, even if we think he erred or was  misleading. Better to deal with the issue than the person, certainly when we’re talking about an attack which ended quickly, even before some of the people understood what was going on and before they had a chance to recover.

To sum up: the difficult incident this week ended fairly quickly, and even if failings of this or that sort were revealed, all in all there were enough people who reacted properly and prevented a more serious catastrophe. The army would do well if it reconsidered its training policy for non-combat officers. In the wake of recent terror attacks, in which people exposed to the threat are civilians or soldiers in a civilian setting, it’s important to ensure that armed soldiers walking the streets have training sufficient to carry out their duty to protect civilians and improve security.

 

Read more at Mida

More about: IDF, Israel & Zionism, Israeli Security, Palestinian terror

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF