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The Lieutenantďż˝s Story
Gershom Gorenberg

A commander with some flexible thinking could cancel the sentence and give the lieutenant a medal.

THE LIEUTENANT WAS WAITING TO BE TAKEN TO military prison to serve a 28-day sentence when he spoke to the radio interviewer. Several days before, two and a half weeks into his three-week stint of reserve duty, heďż˝d deserted his post at an army checkpoint on the Jerusalem-Ramallah road.

It was an act of protest, performed by the classic rules of civil disobedience: He knew heďż˝d be jailed; he had no argument against those who sentenced him. This wasnďż˝t about serving in the territories, he stressed. "I really, really want to carry out the mission," he said. But for two weeks he and two fellow officers had warned their commanders that the checkpoint was a disaster waiting to happen. Finally, to make his point, he walked out. Thousands of Palestinians had to cross through that checkpoint daily. He and his fellow officers, the lieutenant said, were given no instructions. "We had to sit down ourselves, at the company commander level, and make up our own guidelines... whatďż˝s the red line, when to shoot in the air... Weďż˝d reached the point where we were deciding ourselves when to open the road and when not to," because they lacked enough men to protect themselves. His men were exposed; "it was one big extermination area."

Apparently, thereďż˝s something to this. A day or two before he left his post, Palestinian gunmen attacked another checkpoint and killed six soldiers. Across the West Bank, at the checkpoints the army has put on roads to keep terrorists from moving and, it would seem, to show the entire population that if they want an uprising theyďż˝ll pay for it, jumpy soldiers were pulling triggers first and checking later. Twice in less than a day, soldiers wounded women on the way to the hospital to give birth. At the very roadblock the lieutenant left, soldiers fired on the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Abu Ala. Soon after, a major in the reserves left his Gaza Strip post, saying he couldnďż˝t be responsible for underprotected, overextended soldiers. That was just before a Palestinian sniper killed 10 Israelis at yet another exposed roadblock.

Something is deeply wrong with how Israel is deployed in the territories. A top commander with some flexible thinking could have canceled the jail sentence and given the lieutenant a medal. In time of war, however, itďż˝s not easy to voice or hear dissenting views. The problem doesnďż˝t stop at the company commander level.

Uri Saguy, the retired head of army intelligence, has suggested publicly that the countryďż˝s leaders are not hearing "pluralistic" evaluations from the top brass. On the phone to me, Saguy said that "the army has a conception. They make self-fulfilling prophecies. They predict total war, and perhaps they forget that some of what influences what will happen is in Israelďż˝s hands. Iďż˝m worried about their certainty."

In Israeli military talk, the word "conception" packs megatons. It refers to the strategic conception that blinded military leaders to the possibility of an Arab attack in the days before the Yom Kippur War. Knesset Member Ran Cohen of Meretz uses the same word to describe army evaluations today. Cohen, an ex-colonel, sits on the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, which is regu-larly briefed by the generals. Yes, he says, other views exist, but "the thinking of [Chief of Staff Shaul] Mofaz is utterly dominant. Itďż˝s shortsighted and aggressive... Itďż˝s a conception that what doesnďż˝t work with force, will work with more force." When Yasser Arafat declared a cease-fire in mid-December and for the next three and a half weeks not one Israeli was killed, says Cohen, a smart army would have said: This is working, letďż˝s keep it up. Instead, Israel struck at the Palestinians. When locking Arafat in Ramallah during January and February led to escalation, he says, the army again failed to reevaluate. Mofaz reports to hawkish Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and more hawkish Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and the other generals are all jockeying for promotions when Mofaz retires this June. So whoďż˝s going to dissent?

Yet in times like these, what the army says shapes the civilian debate. The public gets its information from the media, and military correspond-ents get most of their information -- including the stuff stated with no attribution at all -- from men with brass on their shoulders.

Besides, journalists are part of the same society as their sources and readers, a society under attack. At the start of the conflict, anger, fear and rallying round the flag affect reporting most strongly. In that, Israel isnďż˝t unusual. Americans are hearing more about civilian deaths in Afghanistan today than they did in the early days of the attack, when the only civilian deaths that mattered were the incomprehensible ones in New York and Washington. In the first months of the intifada, the Israeli press mostly painted the armyďż˝s picture of the conflict. In recent weeks, our military commentators are growing more critical. The shift was striking after the razing of dozens of Palestinian houses in Rafah in the Gaza Strip in January. Given their sources, that means some officers, unwilling to talk to their commanders, are now talking to the pundits.

Even among journalists Iďż˝ve heard the ugly accusation that colleagues are "fifth-columnists" because theyďż˝ve dared to question the offensive or report its human cost. Ariel Sharonďż˝s speech to the nation in late February both affirmed that domestic disagreements are "the lifeblood of democracy" and insinuated that they encourage our enemies. But the lieutenant who will not be silent when his checkpoint is exposed to attack may be saving lives. The general who demands debate of "the conception" might save us from disaster, and if no general will do it, the strident politicians on the margins are serving their country by speaking up. In time of war, dissent is unpopular, but sometimes it is true patriotism.