Taking the name of Sayeret Matkal in vain
By Aviad Kleinberg
Haaretz, December 28, 2003
"You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain." In a furious reaction to the letter of the latest refusenik soldiers, now from the ultra-elite Sayeret Matkal reconnaissance unit, the chief of staff proclaimed that the signatories "took the name of the Sayeret in vain."
Sometimes it's worth recalling the original context of things. It's scarcely a surprise that Lieutenant General Moshe Ya'alon did not like the refuseniks' letter. A chief of staff is not going to like soldiers refusing to serve in the territories - especially if they come from the intimate fold of his favorite unit. What is surprising is the meaning, a subconscious one we may take it, that it assumed for him - a blow to the gold, no less.
The refuseniks took the name of the Sayeret in vain. You shall not take the name of the Sayeret in vain, for the Sayeret will not hold him guiltless who takes its name in vain.
On the face of it, the refuseniks represent the antithesis of worship for militarism - for which the generals are both priests and objects. Instead of doing ecstatic dances for the sacred cow of the establishment, they have committed an act of ritual desecration and have plunged their signatures into the shocked body.
If the IDF is "holy," Sayeret Matkal is the holy of holies - for years it was forbidden to speak the name explicitly, "for you shall not take the name of the Sayeret in vain."
In fact, in something of a paradox, there is one point on which both sides implicitly agree. Both alike have very limited faith in the powers of civil society. The army, including both those in regular service and in the reserves, sets the national agenda in Israel. The generals and the personnel of the secret services have a say in matters of education and policy, local government and the economy. It is they who set security policy, or oppose it when they retire. Their voice is heard loud and clear thanks to their uniform, thanks to their wings, thanks to the bloodshed they perpetrate in our name and for our sake.
Now political protest in Israel appears to be undergoing a process of militarization. Here they come, ordered by their units - the refuseniks of the pilots and the refuseniks of Matkal, and in the future we will have the refuseniks of the Naval Commando and of other top units, Egoz, Duchifat and Magelan.
All of them are civilians (reserves). Yet when they undertake a meaningful act they have recourse to flaunting their ranks and wings and heroic tales from the past. Without that, they believe, no one will listen to them.
The refusenik phenomenon would appear to be a heroic and near desperate attempt at political radicalism. In other countries soldiers are not sent to the political line of fire. The struggle over national decisions is a civilian one. A civilian opposition does battle in parliament - it fights in the media, on the streets, in the town squares; it collects signatures on petitions and bombards members of parliament with faxes and phone calls. It organizes protest strikes and, in extremis, will even call for civil revolt, block roads, withhold taxes, and prevent governing officials - civilian or military - from doing their work.
In Israel, the radical right does all of this with no little success. But not the Israeli left. On one hand, the left sees itself as fighting for the soul of the country it loves, and therefore it uses radical language. On the other hand, its commitment to the "rule of law," even an unacceptable, deplorable law, inhibits it from taking overly radical action.
What's to be done? Ads are placed in newspapers and a meager rally is organized in Rabin Square. When none of that helps, the guys get together - twelfth-graders from prestigious high schools, writers and professors, soldiers in elite units - and write a letter.
The open letters that result are the therapeutic activity of an elitist character. It doesn't involve organizing the masses, creating institutions, or setting agendas for practical activity for the days after the news headlines fade.
Patriotic refusal (there are other types) is the attempt of the Zionist left to put a price tag on continuing present policy. But it isn't a genuine political threat. The pain of the concerned reservists does not become the pain of concerned politicians. The caravan simply passes by, in the Hebrew phrase.
This method of activity also blurs the boundaries between two types of legitimate disobedience and is disadvantageous to both. First is the refusal to obey an immoral order, which is part of the soldier's right to obey the imperative of his conscience. Second is the citizen's right to wage a cogent political struggle, sometimes by crossing political boundaries, in order to express revulsion at a particular policy.
When civilians use their military identity to get across a political message, they are moving into the military sphere what belongs to the civilian. Inadvertently, they are contributing to the militarization of the Israeli public domain. Civilians should be sent to the lines of the civil front, and civil struggles must be waged with civil means.
There is something empathetic about the despair and the good intentions, but maybe the time hasn't yet arrived for acts of helpless despair. All hope is not yet lost. Hard and fateful battles lie ahead. They will have to be fought with the appropriate instruments. If so, there will also be a prospect of winning them.
