Winning hearts and minds in the IDF

The more the reports multiply about the outcome of the Gaza campaign, especially the high motivation of our soldiers, their parents and the public in general, the greater the concern among those in the last generation who hurt the spirit of the Israel Defense Forces. It was they who were responsible for its lack of motivation ("you can't win against terror") and affected its combat theories.

Indeed, a new wind is blowing in the army these days. It is no longer an army whose only clear victories in the past 35 years - Gush Katif and Amona - were against its own people. The fighting spirit in Gaza was not affected this time by the agenda of the Four Mothers and similar groups, particularly thos think tanks that bear substantial responsibility for the politicization and disorientation of the top brass.

It was not for nothing that these groups strongly protested against the highly motivated measures of the IDF's chief rabbi, Brig. Gen. Avichai Rontzki. The chief education officer's command, which pulls the strings of this attack, argues, correctly, that its officers, not chaplains, are in charge of the education process for motivating soldiers. If that is so, why did we not see them, as we saw the chaplains, doing their job on the battlefield? The answer is simple: The Education Corps does not focus on deepening national and Zionist roots - the vacuum into which the military chaplaincy stepped - because of the ambivalence on that score of some of the people at the corps. And those who do not believe fully in the righteousness of their path cannot educate.

The main spiritual training of education officers is done outside the IDF. Thus, they are not exposed, no doubt deliberately, to all the spiritual trends in the army today. The Education Corps trains its senior officers at the Mandel Leadership Institute, where the entire year's course does not have one workshop on encouraging motivation. The institute's spiritual patrons, mostly from American universities, hold opinions (and that is legitimate) that are far from the Israeli consensus, certainly far from the IDF's. The schools the education officers visit are "schools for democracy."The schools that educate many, if not most, of the soldiers and combat officers - high school yeshivas and premilitary preparatory institutions - are not on the education officers' tour itinerary.

"The dilemma as an educational tool," is one of its important programs. The teachers educating most of the IDF fighting force are not those who teach the Education Corps officers at Mandel. Even on the subject of "moral conduct in Jewish tradition," there isn't a single lecturer or rabbi who does not identify with the institute's liberal spirit. And that is the case for the whole program.

It is clear, therefore, that the struggle is not between the chief education officer and the chief military rabbi, but rather between two spiritual movements. One movement is represented by those who attack the chief military rabbi - people who are responsible for ambivalence in the IDF and undermined its complete faith in the righteousness of its path. As a result, its operational abilities have been compromised. The opposing group is the one that budded in Operation Cast Lead. This trend is based on full identification with the Zionist and nationalist roots, not necessarily religious ones, of the State of Israel.

It is to be hoped that the awakening that took place in the last battle heralds the beginning of the army's moving out of its operational dead-end - the result of its spiritual distortion.

If the IDF wants to restore its ability to achieve an unquestionable victory (such a victory, as proved by the bomb that exploded along the border in the south on Tuesday, was not attained in Operation Cast Lead), the chief of staff must not let the Education Corps' view supersede that of the chief military rabbi.