Gal’s personal battle
BRIGADIER General Gal Hirsch gave a sobering, intensely personal assessment of Israel in its neighbourhood when he delivered the 2012 B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission Gandel Oration in Melbourne and Sydney last week.
BRIGADIER General Gal Hirsch gave a sobering, intensely personal assessment of Israel in its neighbourhood when he delivered the 2012 B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission Gandel Oration in Melbourne and Sydney last week.
Describing his passion for his country as “national and personal”, the former commander recounted his traumatic initiation into Israel’s conflict at an early age, when his bar mitzvah was pre-empted by news his cousin Amnon, an Israeli air-force pilot, had been killed in action.
In combat, Hirsch would face disaster himself, targeted by Islamic Jihad. “They tried many times, but that day, 12 years ago, they almost actually succeeded,” he said, recalling an ambush that led to a two-month stay in hospital, where he was assessed as “94 per cent disabled”.
Hirsch defied doctors’ prognoses, returning to the scene of his ambush a year to the day later – as commander of his regional brigade.
“The Palestinians were sure I came back to take revenge. I did not. I wanted to use my hand to sign and write … to sign the documents of peace, we were in the middle of the Oslo process … I shook hands with my Palestinian partner, begging him not to force me to retake the areas that I left in these withdrawals.”
But Hirsch said Israel’s withdrawals were answered by the Second Intifada – just as its Lebanon pullback in 2000 led to a war with that country in 2006 and its Gaza evacuation in 2005 brought only rocket attacks on Israel.
It was in the depths of the Second Intifada that Hirsch commanded Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, to flush out suicide bombers from West Bank cities.
In his training of commanders for combat at the IDF Officers School, Hirsch said Israel’s “morals and values” were inculcated.
“Our enemies use human shields. We do everything to hit the target without collateral damage, even if we’re risking our own lives.”
His assessment of Israel’s fortunes was stark. He spoke of “ungoverned areas” like Sinai, from which a rocket attack was recently launched on Eilat, and Syria – “watch what will happen in Syria,” he said. A rapidly nuclearising Iran is filling these “vacuum” areas. “We’re completely surrounded by radical, fundamental Muslim regimes.”
Israel cannot win in the media, he lamented. “On CNN, David and Goliath have changed places. [But] we must bring our narrative to the table.”
PETER KOHN
Brigadier General Gal Hirsch.
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