Talking With My Wife, as I Reenlist in the IDF

When going off to a third round of lengthy army deployment during the war, and especially going back to Gaza at this specific time, it’s not a philosophical debate between us about what is right and wrong and what we should do as a family. We’re here living it. Walking the walk. And there are clearly some things we need to hash out. 

It’s nuts to be going back into IDF uniform as one of the most hated, derided, condemned groups of people in today’s world. It’s nuts because from the most granular level that I know, with 21 years in frontline units, we’re good guys: family men, team players, community standouts, and very moral. No action is taken out there without a serious debate. And officers don’t reign supreme over us at any level. It’s a people’s army. And Israel is made up of good people. The fighting corps of the IDF reserves is one of the best overall diverse collections of humans I have ever associated with. 

I know you know this already for many years, but in such a climate of vitriol, I had to get that off my chest, for the millionth time. Now, with that out of the way…

There’s some serious shit to address. Our government’s policies of restricting supplies into Gaza since March this year have been disastrous. It was aimed at pressuring Hamas into a hostage deal, but has only resulted in hardships and simply a situation in parts of Gaza that has played massively strategically into the hands of our enemies. Taking on full responsibility for feeding Gazans was a terrible decision. But not one based on a desire to starve the people there, and now, as the grand “we” in Israel see it, that is something that must be addressed and turned around immediately. And it already is, within the last days sweeping changes have been unilaterally made by Israel to increase tonnage going into Gaza and to even offer unilateral humanitarian ceasefires for a large swathe of the day for people to more safely move around. Steps in the right direction, but we must keep up working to end the food scarcity issues, and probably just hand the keys over to the UN again, even if they are overrun with Hamas sympathizers. 

But even with the most hated labels and horrendous accusations hanging over us, I choose to go back right now, and need your support to do so, because I know that Israelis have never wanted to starve Gazans. Have truly never wanted to kill Gazans. We’ve been forced into this near-impossible situation by the dastardly invasion from their side, and the mass kidnapping that it enabled. Palestinians are holding the bodies of dead Israelis as ransom. They still have an estimated 20 living people being held in awful conditions, in the hands of people who quite literally see them as subhuman.  And that’s why we must fight, and constantly work to adjust our tactics in the face of this sick conundrum of hostages in densely populated areas.  But we really do maintain our morals. The orders we get on the front lines are strict: we are never to open fire on anyone identifiable as a civilian, and that most clearly means women and children. On the front lines, our open fire directives are first to avoid shooting Gazan civilians and look out for any escaping Israeli hostages who may have found a chance to run as we approached. That’s literally what my officers told us this week, in all seriousness, as a unit about to redeploy to some of the most complicated arenas in the Strip.  

Finding and dismantling armed Hamas men and their tunnel bunkers is the next layer of what we’re tasked with, but the first order to avoid unnecessary harm is the driving factor. We who have deployed deepest in this war never went there to harm anyone we didn’t immediately have to. Anyone in our ranks with rogue attitudes or behavior was tossed out along the way. Clearly bad incidents occur, and mistakes with the worst consequences have been made. But I live by the doctrine that, especially in war, intentions matter. The outcome is very often not entirely in your control, but the intentions that we carry, the underriding drive, is everything in terms of how I see good and bad in this conflict. I know we are the force for good here, thus it is all the more maddening to be perceived as the evil menace by so many around the world.

The men I serve with are smart and thinkers. No one is coming to the IDF reserves seeking to be told what to think about the war or their role in it. It’s a small country, where people are connected, and disagreements and debates are often raucous and robust, but so civil. It amazes me time and time again, under the most intense conditions, the humanity, civility, and respect maintained by the guys alongside me out there.  

I believe, once again, we are at a fork in the road. We see the disastrous nature of our policies with the entry of supplies, and that will be turned around. But we also seek that roadmap, that plan from our political leaders as to what we are actually trying to achieve here. Because retrieving the hostages alive through negotiation with terrorists has proven not to be a way to solve this crisis. There is no apparent ultimate diplomatic solution with a group as ideologically committed to our destruction, and armed, as Hamas. So what do we do? I don’t exactly know. But I am eager to be an active part, out there, of how we proceed as a nation from this uncertain morass. 

I am also eager to see what our government will say and do next, because their management of this situation has been abysmal at most turns. It is actually the great injustice of this war so far that at this point the most derided group internationally are the very Israelis who showed up time and time again to save their threatened country. The people of the IDF emerged in their country’s darkest hour, in one of the most just wars of all time, with moral character and approach, while maintaining a democratic society at home rife with public debate. Somehow our government has allowed that goodness to be derailed in favor of a false narrative of genocide and persecution and brutality that most around the world characterize us under. But I, we, put on that uniform again, as a family, even in this moment, because we know the truth, and still cling to each other, as we look to our political leaders, duly elected, to somehow steer us a better path, or get out of the way.