Combat Geeks plan is good but risks covering bigger problems - opinion

Combat Geeks plan is good but risks covering bigger problems – opinion

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The Jerusalem Post 23.02.2022

Combat Geeks plan is good but risks covering bigger problems – opinion

To welcome more of Israel’s top students to combat units, Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi has proposed a new program – Ma’agalim, Circles: clever program, random name. Qualified candidates will serve as combat soldiers, then extend their service by serving in intelligence units like 8200. It looks like a Zionist win-win. With these new Jews balancing brain and brawn: the army gets its men — and women – in combat; soldiers can train for well-paying, challenging jobs; and high-tech companies can get toughened geeks with techno-smarts and life skills.

Kochavi offered a clever solution to a growing problem. It’s a soldier’s pragmatic improvisation, reflecting the out-of-the-box thinking that transfers easily from the battlefield to the workstation. Call these cyber-warriors “Bennies,” honoring Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. He served honorably in Sayeret Matkal and as a Maglan commander – elite combat units. He continued serving in the reserves, while building his entrepreneurial career, even during his extended super-lucrative New York period.

But beware this “patent” – this quick, kooky, fix-it. It risks camouflaging a deeper problem. Clearly, we honor our high-tech heroes in their late-twenties and older for building Israel and often improving the world with their skills and swagger. And we hail our intelligence heroes for fighting on the front lines of twenty-first-century warfare, protecting hearth, homeland, and everyone reading this column online from devastating cyberattacks. But we must cultivate a next generation ready to fight on actual battlefields not just virtual ones. Hamas, the PA, Hezbollah and Iran make it clear daily: our lives and limbs remain on the line, not just our online access.

As Kochavi boosts recruitment, the rest of us must tackle the underlying educational and ideological challenges. Serving your country should never be considered a dead-end for “friers,” that harsh Hebrew slang for suckers. While celebrating yesterday’s and today’s heroes, we need a rejuvenated conversation with tomorrow’s soldiers, many of whom have different motivations than their parents.

There’s good news buried in this bad news. The desperate, “ein breira ,” we-have-no-choice, survivalist mentality that motivated Israelis for decades keeps shrinking – as the conflict shrinks from breakthroughs like the Abraham Accords. Nevertheless, enemies remain. Israel needs a functional “people’s army,” a democratic army uniting the Zionist population in common cause.

That Z-word – Zionism — remains the key. Soldiers must understand that defending their homes and the Jewish homeland advances the Zionist ideals of patriotism and peoplehood. Unless these values of perfecting the state and the world while defending Israel and the West, are inculcated from birth, the crisis will cascade far beyond the IDF recruiters’ offices. Our homes and schools must welcome the next generation into our ongoing conversation about who we are, why we are here, and how we are blessed to serve.

Two sectors which stand out in serving the country, prove that this best works as a cradle-to-grave, organic process. Surveys estimate that 20 percent of the graduates of Officers’ Training School observe the Sabbath – making most Religious Zionists — while 5 to 6 percent are mostly secular kibbutznikim. Both statistics are impressive, considering that only 10 percent of Israelis are Religious Zionists and only two percent are kibbutznikim.

Both groups are countercultural, celebrating idealism over materialism, the “us” not just the “I.” Rooted in tradition, both are motivated by a strong sense of purpose linked to today’s privilege of living in altneuland, our old-new homeland.

Other communities produce idealists too, but while tolerating different Zionist expressions, these Religious Zionists and Socialist Zionist keep Zionism as their launching pad. They see Jews as a people not just a community of faith, forever-bonded to one particular homeland, with the rights to establish a state on that homeland, and the challenge now to perfect it.

Once steeped in that broad Zionist commitment and focused love of country, young recruits should recognize essentially Four IDF’s – “Tzahal” in Hebrew.

Most important is Tzahal Tzahal, the military machine defending Israel 24/7 – but also deployed globally to help those suffering from earthquakes, hurricanes, Tsunamis, and, we discovered in Surfside, Florida, even collapsed buildings.

Next, is Camp Tzahal, the army that feels like a Zionist summer camp: cultivating values, nurturing morale, observing Jewish customs, building groups, maintaining military traditions, and shaping character.

Third, is Tzahal Inc., a tough, competitive, hierarchical corporation: recruiting young people, assigning them tasks, and supervising their army careers, while feeding them, clothing them, vaccinating them, healing them, motivating them, managing them, assessing them, and ultimately deploying them to serve the nation.

Finally, is Tzahal U – the army as a training center, a hands-on university educating mechanics and managers, cyber-warriors and social workers, commandos and commanders.

Here, then, is the true genius of Kochavi’s program: empowering the best and the brightest to learn from Tzahal U, it will inspire them to excel in Tzahal Inc., to embrace Camp Tzahal, and, ultimately, advance Tzahal Tzahal, fulfilling the IDF’s main mission, which is keeping Israelis safe and sound.

This wholistic approach fulfills David Ben-Gurion’s Zionist vision. “The IDF,” he proclaimed, “must serve not only as a military training apparatus but also as a state school that imbues the youth entering its ranks with knowledge of the language, the country, Jewish history, the fundamentals of general education, neatness and order, and, most importantly, love of the homeland.”

From the first prime minister to today’s Chief of Staff, the message persists: for the Israel Defense Forces to work, the Zionist agenda must be alive, growing, and relevant to us – and to our heroes-of-tomorrow.

Recently designated one of Algemeiner’s J-100, one of the top 100 people “positively influencing Jewish life,” Gil Troy is the author of the newly-released The Zionist Ideas , an update and expansion of Arthur Hertzberg’s classic anthology The Zionist Idea, published by the Jewish Publication Society and a 2019 National Jewish Book Award Finalist.. A Distinguished Scholar of North American History at McGill University,and the author of nine books on American History, his book, Never Alone: Prison, Politics and My People, co-authored with Natan Sharansky was just published by PublicAffairs of Hachette.

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