Long ago the quaint concept that wars here would be fought at the frontiers has been replaced with bombs and rockets indiscriminately targeting civilians
By HERB KEINONUpdated: MAY 12, 2021 21:42An Israeli border police member fires a weapon during an anti-Israel protest by Palestinians over tension in Jerusalem, in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank May 10, 2021.(photo credit: MUSSA QAWASMA/REUTERS)
Israel, once again, finds itself in a war-like situation, and Israeli civilians are once again on the front lines.Long ago the quaint concept that wars here would be fought at the frontiers has been replaced with bombs and rockets indiscriminately targeting civilians in the recent round everywhere from Sderot to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem to Holon.Civilians, however, are not soldiers. They are neither trained to fight nor have the means to do so. Israelis have proven themselves in previous battles and intifadas and rounds of violence with Hamas to be both long-suffering and incredibly resilient. But this should not be taken for granted, or as a given.The nation’s morale needs to be tended to and built up. The nation’s morale – the people’s staying power – is also an essential component of any country’s victory in battle.That all came to mind watching the television news on Tuesday evening, following the barrage of attacks on Ashkelon that killed two people, the rockets over Gush Dan, the attack that hit a bus and sent it into flames in Holon.Network after the network went back to the same pictures – of people running for cover, of empty Tel Aviv streets, of the burning hulk of the bus in Holon. Those were dramatic images, but they were also difficult images to watch. And they never stopped.Much of this war is psychological. Hamas knows it cannot militarily defeat Israel, and that is not the reason it launched its most recent adventure. What it wants are pictures of Israelis running for cover, of empty cities, of buses burning, buildings hit, people weeping, and body bags. That’s their goal. It burnishes their credentials, and demoralizes Israel.The question is whether we have to play along? Whether the media has to act as an accelerator? Whether it needs to show the images over and over and over again? For what purpose? Show it once, twice – we get it.This is an asymmetrical battle, as always. All kinds of footage and images will be coming out of Israel. Hamas, on the other hand, will carefully pick and choose what it wants coming out of Gaza. If, God forbid, an errant IDF shell kills children inside Gaza, that footage will be readily available. But footage of IDF attacks on military targets will not be forthcoming.There has long been a tension between the military and the Foreign Ministry about what type of footage to release. The military is generally stingy, not wanting to release much visual material because of a concern that it will somehow compromise tactics or sources, while the Foreign Ministry generally wants to get raw visual material out there because it helps to better explain what Israel is doing, and why.But there is another reason for the IDF to show more pictures of its operational successes inside Gaza: So that the Israelis see it.The public needs more than just to hear the prime minister and chief of staff and defense minister say that the IDF is hitting Hamas hard, it needs to see some images showing that – if only to push off the screen the unending image of pain, agony and distress inside Israel.This type of footage of operational success is important to inculcate inside the public – a public that is suffering – a sense that while it is getting hit, it is not in vain, and that the other side is getting hit equally hard. If you are getting blasted, if alarms of falling rockets are going off every three minutes, if your cities are getting pounded, you want to see – along with the rockets flying over your cities – some kind of visual proof that the IDF is operating and protecting you.This is by no means a desire for Israeli television networks to show grisly pictures of pain and agony from Gaza. It is a call, however, to reduce the images of pain and agony in Israel. This is an atmosphere of war, and in a war, you want to build up a nation’s morale, not demoralize it. Non-stop pictures of direct hits on Israeli apartments, of terrified citizens and fires in the streets do just that.
