The ‘trust me’ culture in Israeli Defence Force decision-making

Yaniv Kubovich of Israeli newspaper Haaretz interviewed two anonymous Israeli Defence Force (IFD) personnel about the ‘trust me’ culture of decision-making that is literally life-and-death.

When agreeing on potential targets to strike, in a process called ‘validation’, the pair report that teams come under pressure from all quarters – leadership power-plays, rank-pulling and interference by politicians – all of which overrule the analyses of operational researchers and other intelligence analysts.

Political interference often pushes for “results” – increases in the numbers of kinetic strikes – which can lead to attacks on improperly validated targets for reasons that are not always operational.

“Everyone understands that these politicians’ statements and their promises made during interviews will be a factor in choosing targets and might lead to an unnecessary attack only so the politician can tell the media he fulfilled a promise. The status of operational considerations and the desired result has been eroded and is becoming less relevant."

Read full story on Haaretz website