In fact, if we clean up for a moment the plot of the "knife in the back of the fighters," what is the great drama in the statements attributed to Netanyahu? Peel away the media's simplistic tendency to attribute gradual malice to every swipe of the prime minister's finger, and the label "poison machine" thrown at every half-baked report.
Let's also assume, for the sake of discussion, that Netanyahu said exactly, word for word, what is attributed to him: that one day the effect of the "manifestations of refusal" on Yahya Sinwar's decision to launch a surprise psychotic attack at this particular point in time will be examined.
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The amazing response and performance of the IDF prove that there was neither a compromise in competence nor a decrease in readiness
The most official minister of all, Benny Gantz, hastened to issue a statement condemning the "slime casting," praising "100 percent exceptional stabilization and mobilization" and "strengthening all those who serve" – and adding in his clumsy way another toothpick to the fire of the conflict.
But who, really, was slime thrown at here? After all, in the same briefing, Netanyahu himself claimed that all along he "insisted that there be no refusal." In other words, just like his critics, he backed up the regular and reserve fighters, explaining that he never had any doubt that at the moment of truth everyone would go under the stretcher. So where is the knife, and where is the fighters' backs?
Stage of the obvious question
And even if we accept this mule-stubborn premise about "throwing slime," what is so outrageous about it? The trivial question is the link, and perhaps the causal connection, between Rahav's declarations of mass refusal that would harm the IDF's competence and the way the enemy perceives the extent of our military preparedness?
And if the phrase "incompetence" sounds familiar to you, it's only because it hasn't escaped the lips of protest leaders, commentators, former (and present, in "closed" conversations, of course) and their numerous mouthpieces throughout the nine months of the government's existence, and especially – in parallel with the protests against the legal reform.
An Israeli soldier inside the Gaza Strip, this morning, photo: IDF Spokesperson
Everyone kept warning about "incompetence in the air force," "incompetence in elite units," "incompetence in 8200." And why should there be incompetence? Because the reform is "tearing the people apart," and our best sons will have no choice but to take off their uniforms, return reserve certificates and inform commanders that they will not volunteer and will not report to the army.
Does it take a "poison machine" to suggest that someone on the other side has internalized these messages? Of course not. Nor does it take a "knife in the back of the fighters" to understand that the question of the connection between the "manifestations of refusal" and the surprise attack is not about the fighters and pilots who showed up, but about the warmongers, who were silent, then winked, then supported, then encouraged, then speeched, then wrote in the newspaper, and then explained in the studios – that this time, unlike in the past, refusal is a legitimate, necessary and even appropriate protest tool, in light of the intentions of this extremist and dictatorial and evil government.
And not only were the refuseniks not shamed and aggressively expelled from the public sphere – just as was done in the past towards right-wing rejectionists during Oslo, during the Disengagement and afterwards – but the phenomenon was wrapped in an aura of heroism and flattering words about "civil disobedience" and "democracy fighters."
Opinion leaders used the expansion of the phenomenon as proof of the claim that the government is dividing the people, the top echelons of the defense establishment dragged their feet in the disciplinary process, and the nobility of the security establishment throughout the ages – personalities such as Amos Yadlin and Nadav Argaman – gave it clear moral validity in interviews or signed communiqués.
IDF forces' activity in the Gaza Strip, photo: Report
The use of insubordination (sorry, non-volunteerism) as a means of political blackmail, and the criminal drag of the people's army into the political debate, continued and intensified even when it was clear that the reform had been stripped of all its major clauses. The "fighters of democracy" moved to protest the draft law, and in one of the grotesque moments they also came to demonstrate against gender segregation in front of Yom Kippur prayers.
The glorification of refusal, especially on the part of the senior duchy of the aristocracy of the defense establishment, therefore contributed enormously to the establishment of the myth of the IDF's "incompetence." Why is it so far-fetched to assume that someone on the other side read, believed and performed?
Anyone who is not willing to discuss how these messages were received and understood in Hamas or Hezbollah bunkers is committing a lie in his soul, and he also knows it inside. It's simply impossible to hold this formidable spin at both ends: both waving the legend of insubordination and "incompetence" all the way to 7.10 – and outraging those who say it's a direction worth checking out.
Spoiler alert: you'll be believed in October
This myth continued to kick in even after the massacre, when all those elements rushed to cement the image of the disaster as a direct result of the rift, the schism and, of course, the damage to competence. But the amazing response and performance of the IDF prove unequivocally that there was neither a compromise in competence nor a decrease in readiness. So what was? A pressure group that created and pumped, for the purpose of its protest, a huge and irresponsible myth about the violation of competence as a result of mass refusal.
Shikma Bressler in Kaplan, Photo: Gideon Markowitz
Both to wave all the way to October 7 the threat of insubordination and the "incompetence" libel, and to rage at those who wonder that perhaps on the other side of the fence there was someone who listened, believed – and decided to carry out
In August, one of the leaders of the rebellion, a paraphrase quote, tweeted the following outlandish message: "Spoiler: Netanyahu will be left without an army in September, as befits a dictator." Is it a "knife in the back" to discuss the obvious question that perhaps in October our enemies believed her and her friends? Not. It's not a knife in the back of the fighters. It's a knife in the back of the most formidable spin in Israel's political history.
All the hydlins and crimson who backed the people, all the commentators who amplified the myth, all the extortionists who used "incompetence" to bend the government and threaten the public, all those Benny Gantzes who were afraid to confront the guys and condemn this wanton protection in real time – will never be asked about their part in fanning the dangerous, and perhaps deadly, libel plot about the IDF's "incompetence." They will continue to tweet their empty preaching, And chant in the studios like parrots the hollow mantra: "When will Netanyahu take responsibility?" Really when. Until when.
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