Middle East Strategy at Harvard

From Alan Dowty

Commissions of inquiry are one of the strengths of the Israeli political system. They are taken very seriously, typically composed of highly respected public figures, operate in a highly judicial style, and are accorded considerable attention and deference in the public arena. Moreover, more often than in many other democracies with similar processes, there is a strong presumption that the recommendations of such commissions will be enacted, and to a surprising extent they have been. In 1983, for example, Ariel Sharon tried to resist the Kahan Commission’s recommendation that he be removed from office as Minister of Defense—but in the end was forced out by public pressure.

The downside of this exalted position held by commissions of inquiry is that that they have played into, and perhaps abetted, the tendency of Israeli opinion to search for convenient scapegoats to explain any and all failures in governmental policy. It is always less threatening to find particular decision-makers to blame than to force examination of basic assumptions and procedures that may be widely shared by all circles, including those doing the judging. The Agranat Commission, examining the causes of Israel’s failures in the 1973 war, called for the dismissal of several senior commanders but stopped short of recommending the resignation of Prime Minister Golda Meir. The public, not satisfied with finding only the military echelon at fault, continued pressing until Meir stepped down. In the case of the Kahan Commission, investigating Israel’s role in the Sabra and Shatilla massacres, the question of personal responsibility was quite clearly and legitimately at the center of the matter, and the thrust of the report was appropriately on the “drawing of conclusions” for those responsible, including Sharon.

But the problem with any search for scapegoats is that it relieves the investigators from the more difficult, but in the long run more critical, task of identifying fundamental flaws in the system that may persist despite the dismissal of particular culprits. The Israeli public has sometimes been almost obsessive in its search for particular targets for blame; following the 1973 war, movements emerged focused on the firing of one particular leader. The unspoken assumption behind such movements is that the system itself is not at fault; with the removal of a particular dysfunctional cog, the machine will return to its usual smooth operation. Yet the intelligence failure in the 1973 war was not limited to particular figures in intelligence and military command; it was rooted in the widely held assumption (“The Conception”) that Egypt and Syria would not dare to initiate a war with Israel. A similar situation prevailed in the U.S. debate over the Vietnamese War, where the Pentagon Papers abetted the tendency to look for scapegoats (“Who lied to us?”)—while the basic assumption that the United States had to oppose any “Communist” threat, anywhere in the world, was initially shared by a vast majority of both decision-makers and the public.

The mandate of the Winograd Commission was particularly broad, covering the background to the 2006 Lebanon campaign, the decision to go to war, and the conduct of that war on all levels. As Judge Winograd noted in his press conference, “this covered extensive, charged and complex facts, unpredecented in any previous Commission of Inquiry.”

But the pressure to focus on scapegoats was as strong as with previous commissions. Even before the commission finished its work, the Chief of Staff and the Minister of Defense had, in one way or another, been forced from their posts. Public and media attention was riveted on the issue of whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and his government, could survive the issuing of the Final Report. In this environment, it is remarkable, and to its credit, that the Winograd Commission has deliberately tried to move the focus of attention from scapegoating to the more general, and more critical, question of systemic “failures and flaws” in the overall approach to and conduct of the war.

Given its broad mandate and the importance of drawing lessons for the future, Judge Winograd says, “this conception of our role was one of the main reasons for our decision not to include in the Final Report personal conclusions and recommendations. We believe that the primary need for improvements applies to the structural and systemic malfunctioning in the war on all levels.” And to judge from Judge Winograd’s “highlights” in his press conference, this critique of fundamental assumptions and procedures cuts very deeply. If the commission’s recommendations on these matters are implemented, they will fundamentally change the system. Those who were looking forward to seeing heads roll may be disappointed, but the country will be better served.

This does not mean that the commission has avoided conclusions on personal performance: “the fact that we refrained from imposing personal responsibility does not imply that no such responsibility exists.” The Interim Report issued nine months ago, which covered the period up to the decision to go to war, examined in detail the functioning of all the key actors in the drama, and it can be assumed that the full text of the Final Report will continue this scrutiny during the period that followed. It is quite possible that severe judgments of particular decision-makers will yet lead to additional ousters from office. But the focus has passed, quite properly, from scapegoating to fundamental questions of national strategy, decision-making processes, military planning, and coordination between the political and military commands.

In the end, Winograd’s recommendations “contain suggestions for systematic and deep changes in the modalities of thinking and acting of the political and military echelons and their interface.” This is where the focus should be. Those who were seeking titillation and expiation by the offering of sacrificial lambs will be disappointed. It is well that they should be.