Haaretz
Kislev 13, 5765
The Israel Defense Forces, led by Lieutenant
General Moshe Ya'alon, has been waging a tough battle in recent weeks
against critics who are demanding that probes of fatal incidents, such as
the "confirmed kill" incident outside the Girit outpost or the killing of
three Egyptian policemen in the same area, be taken out of the army's
hands. Chief of Staff Ya'alon is a leading and veteran representative of
the school that favors leaving military investigations to the army. But
for all the positive motives that it is reasonable to attribute to him,
his conclusion is mistaken and stems from his desire to defend the
institution he heads. Army investigations are too important to be
controlled by the army.
The IDF likes to claim that it has a
monopoly on the professional knowledge needed to conduct an investigation,
as military activity requires up-to-date information. Another argument is
that the IDF is no less interested, and even more interested, than its
critics in uncovering the truth, so as not to come to grief with similar
incidents in the future. The General Staff also argues that the immunity
granted to participants in an operational inquiry ensures that those
involved will tell the truth, without fear of incriminating themselves.
This is also part of the internal debate within the army between the
command echelon (which lauds the operational inquiry) and the legal
echelon (which prefers an investigation ordered by the military
prosecution and carried out by the military police). In this debate, as
well, Ya'alon is in the front ranks of the inquiry's champions.
But
a growing list of embarrassing and even humiliating incidents (such as the
Palestinian violinist who was forced to play for soldiers at a checkpoint,
as revealed in yesterday's Haaretz) has taught the civilian public, which
sends its sons to do compulsory military service and reserve duty, that it
cannot rely on the IDF or on the seriousness of its inquiries. The chief
of staff himself expressed a lack of confidence in the Southern Command
and Gaza Division officers who investigated the actions of the company
commander at Girit. The chief of staff's claim that he found nothing new
in the communication network tapes that are serving as a prosecution
exhibit in the company commander's trial is unconvincing. The recorded
conversations - like the lack of coordination between the lookout officer
and the tank crew that shelled the Egyptian policemen - reveal something
astounding: Superior officers in the rear, from the battalion that
commands the companies and outposts, do not intervene to prevent
disasters.
Airlines and airplane manufacturers do not investigate
plane crashes; this is done by a special professional agency that has no
personal interest in the investigation's outcome. The IDF also marched in
this direction, but only half a step. After the 1997 helicopter disaster,
for instance, the defense minister removed the investigation from the air
force commander's hands, but did not take the next necessary step:
allowing an agency outside his ministry to investigate his own actions and
those of the chief of staff.
Israel has a large reservoir of
professional officers who are no longer in the standing army, but serve in
the reserves and as consultants on special contract. Experts such as these
could operate in the framework of a military investigation agency in the
Justice Ministry, like the department for investigating policemen or the
ombudsman for people interrogated by the Shin Bet security service. This
is not the privatization of military probes, but their civilianization -
and the army's loss of prestige will be more than compensated by renewed
faith in the investigation of its failures.