Testimony before the Turkel Commission

The Turkel Commission investigating the flotilla raid began its deliberations last week. Testifying during the first three days were the three central figures connected with the episode: Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Barak, and IDF Chief of Staff Ashkenazi. Testimony by the three, most of which was public, has raised some questions, especially regarding the sensitive and vital interface between the political and military echelons.

The media and public interest have concentrated mainly on the question of responsibility. Both the Prime Minister and Defense Minister were accused of attempting to evade responsibility by delegating it to a lower echelon. There appears to be a considerable degree of exaggeration in this accusation. Overall responsibility of the Prime Minister and Defense Minister for military actions is grounded in Israel's constitutional rule, with no possibility of evading it. The Prime Minister, by virtue of being first among equals and the authority vested in him, bears supreme responsibility for all affairs of state. If the Defense Minister is not functioning in a fitting manner, it is the Prime Minister's duty and within his authority to fire the minister and name a replacement.

The Defense Minister is charged by the government with responsibility for the military and bears direct parliamentary accountability for all military actions. If the military does not function appropriately, it is the Defense Minister's duty and within his authority to act without delay to rectify the situation, including making personnel changes in the senior command.

A forum such as the Turkel Commission is supposed to pinpoint where the mishap occurred and its reasons without determining ultimate responsibility. If ultimate responsibility were the focus, then it would be enough to spotlight the Prime Minister and Defense Minister, with no need to gather testimony. When testifying, the Prime Minister sought to clarify the circumstances caused by his absence from the country and the anticipated difficulties in continuous communications. He said that in order to ensure that all aspects of the operation would be concentrated in the hands of one party, he thought it right to entrust the Defense Minister with responsibility to oversee the entire activity for intercepting the flotilla – an extremely reasonable decision.

For his part, the Defense Minister contended that the decision making process at the political echelon was sound and the decision to intercept the flotilla was correct; the mishap stemmed from the failed execution of the mission – a claim that on the face of it also seems reasonable. These statements should not be seen as the denial of responsibility, which is in any event impossible.

But if latching onto the issue of responsibility is thus misplaced, other statements in the testimonies of the Defense Minister and the Chief of Staff raise some difficult questions. The claim by the Defense Minister that he was unaware of tensions between the various intelligence agencies (navy intelligence, the IDF Intelligence Directorate, and the Mossad) is puzzling. First, ensuring that the different intelligence agencies operate in full coordination is the personal responsibility of the Prime Minister and Defense Minister. Second, the existence of serious tensions between the various intelligence agencies is an open secret in the country. There is difficulty understanding the Defense Minister's ostensible ignorance of this fact.

But the most surprising item to emerge was the statement by the Defense Minister, that the political echelon determines the "what" and the military echelon determines the "how." Professor Yehezkel Dror, a member of the Winograd Commission and among the premier experts in strategic thinking and decision making processes, reacted to this statement: "This is a huge error; it's inconceivable, simply out of the question. It's outrageous..." Indeed, the statement that the military determines the "how" runs counter to the facts of life and decades of practical experience in Israel as well as the foundations of the country's constitutional rule.

In his article on the character of the IDF, David Ben-Gurion declared that the military determines nothing: it is not even authorized to determine its internal organization or the weapon systems it is to use. The military can propose, but the sole party authorized to determine each matter is the elected civilian echelon. This fundamental principle is among the conventions that to date have never been disputed.

In previous generations there might have been a situation in which the political echelon determined the goal while leaving the means for its achievement in the hands of the commander in the field. However, due to the radical change in the nature of wars, the positioning and role of the media, and the character of a world that has become a global village, those are bygone days. Already in 1951, President Truman made it a point to explain this truth to General Douglas MacArthur; when the illustrious war hero failed to internalize the change, he was fired.

This reality applies especially intensely to Israel, where any action on a tactical level can have far reaching strategic impact. This is what underlies the "strategic corporal" concept, where even the mistake of a soldier at a checkpoint in Judea and Samaria can have strategic implications. Indeed the flotilla interception is perhaps the best example of a case in which a mishap on the tactical level caused severe strategic damage to Israel. As such, determining the "how" must be in the hands of the political echelon.

The central conclusion of the Winograd Commission, as in numerous investigative committees that preceded it, was that the government lacks the ability to inspect proposals by the military. It is essential that there be a civilian body that can present the government with alternatives to the military's proposals – alternatives that in many cases (probably including the flotilla interception) exist within the military itself or in other national institutions (the Foreign Ministry for example), but for some reason are not brought to the government's knowledge. Thus the National Security Council Law was enacted, which gave teeth to the National Security Staff under the Prime Minister. It is unclear where the National Security Staff was as far as the flotilla incident is concerned.

For his part, the Chief of Staff made a puzzling statement that the key lesson he learned from the episode and the failures that ensued was that next time, snipers should be used. However, the episode was a failure solely for the reason that in its execution, nine civilians were killed on a civilian boat, notwithstanding the fact that these were certainly not innocent civilians. The unavoidable question is: If this is the world's reaction when it's clear that naval commandos acted in self-defense opposite life threatening danger, what will the reaction be if snipers attack the passengers before IDF soldiers attempt to take over the boat by other means? Shouldn't the central lesson be that the IDF should develop non-lethal means (and others) by which it can take control of ships without causing the deaths of the people aboard? And the more important question is whether the IDF has truly internalized the changing nature of warfare and the sorts of new challenges that Israel faces.