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Interview With an IDF Soldier
Jillian Butler
Interviewer’s note: A wise old mentor of mine told me that the dissemination of media, and its subsequent effect on public opinion and foreign policy boils down to the “recreational use of digitally augmented outrage.” This sentiment has rung true every day since October 7th, with the pseudo intellectuals, warhawks, and conspiracy theorists co-opting mass loss of lives and hard to look at images for their own benefit. Recently, the opportunity to interview a childhood friend serving as an officer in the IDF arose. I jumped at the opportunity to hopefully gain and share firsthand insight on the conflict, and bring humanity back to the increasingly polarized world and field of journalism. There is no political aim in this piece. I have no desire nor intent to make you feel, think, or vote a certain way. The individual interviewed will remain anonymous.
Q: What were you doing on October 7th? What was going through your mind?
A: So it was a Saturday, or maybe a Friday, I remember waking up in the morning because there were sirens going off. It could happen…but here in Tel Aviv, it doesn’t really happen that often…it could happen sometimes. So anyways, we woke up and were a bit surprised, so we went to the bomb shelter. We came back and I looked at my phone to see if anything strange happened, but there wasn’t anything going on, so I went back to sleep actually. About half an hour later, again there were sirens, which was pretty strange, so I turned on the TV. It still wasn’t clear what was going on, but after watching TV and reading the news, it was still clear something’s going on, but it was clear it was something very bad. There were people calling from the bomb shelters in the southern part of Israel and the kibbutz and cities next to Gaza…saying they were hearing gunfire and Hamas is in the village and come help us.
In the beginning, as someone who was in the military for 5 years and have been next to Gaza a lot, it was kind of hard for me to believe that actually happened, because we always believed that Hamas isn’t really capable of doing a large attack like that. So, it's kind of sad to say right now, but I thought that maybe they were exaggerating a lot…maybe they heard some rockets and gunfire and were stressed and called the police and news station. I didn’t really believe it. But a few hours later, I got a phone call from my commander in the Army, and he told me that something serious is going on and, um, come to the South and bring all the soldiers with you. Then I understood finally, that was around 2PM…that something serious is going on.
Q: Do you think there is a “hearts and minds” aspect of the IDF strategy? If so, do you think the Rafah Offensive will hinder that?
A: Definitely in Israel, of course I am biased, but definitely we feel that we are not really fighting…the orders are very strict. You only fire if they fire back at you, like you don’t do the first move, always when you enter somewhere in Gaza, like you see a bunch of notes that were dropped from the sky…and they are saying “the Army is coming, go away”. Basically, you’re ruining the surprise, which is a very important strategy. But still, people are talking a lot about that in Israel, like we are doing everything so carefully, but on the other hand, there are reports of many casualties in Gaza that have nothing to do with Hamas, which of course is making Israel look bad. I read something recently about war and war history; so like in every war there are innocent casualties, but they do think that there are more than usual wars. There are more innocent casualties right now, so that’s definitely making us look bad in the global sense.
Q: Is there one thing that you always bring with you on a deployment?
A: Yes, definitely the one thing is the dog tags, I have the same dog tags around my neck since the first day in the army. Also, I do have a lucky magazine for my rifle. I think that’s it, nothing too special.
Q:What are your thoughts on the international reaction to the war?
A: I’m very frustrated about that situation (regarding the ICC). It's really interesting for me, I don’t completely understand why that’s going on. A lot of people hearing the news and people you talk to about these protests and the ICC thing, they say “thats antisemitic”, maybe it is, but it feels like it's too simple….like life or death, black or white, so I still haven’t figured out why….in Syria at least, definitely in Syria and Yemen more people are dying on a daily basis and the wars going on over there are much more brutal, like people are suffering on a day to day basis, but still people are not going out and protesting about that, like as close to what’s going on in Israel. That’s very interesting for me.
Q: How high is your concern on the Lebanese front regarding Hezbollah?
A: It's definitely a much bigger concern than Hamas. On one hand Hamas got us with this much surprise, if Hezbollah surprised us, it would be much worse than what went on down there. On the other side, Hezbollah is not close in any way to the IDF, the war will be much harder, and I suppose there will be much more casualties. At the end of the day, everyone in Israel is sure that, if Israel goes to war with Hezbollah, everyone knows and is certain here that it is going to cost a lot of casualties but they have no chance. I suppose they know that as well.
When we fight in Gaza, it is obvious that the IDF and Hamas, they are not even in the same…it's just not fair, it's really not fair. There are a lot of casualties, but they just can’t compare to our forces. In a strange way, we really admire that kind of, their willpower, like if I was on Hamas’s side, I’m not sure that I would have the guts to go and fight against us. So there is kind of like a lot of admiration for what they are doing. I wouldn’t see myself doing the same thing. It’s very interesting to think about.
Q: Do you think part of that has to do with the religious aspect of their ideology?
A: So yeah, that’s what most of the people say, that there are two sides. The first is the religious side, that if they will die…like during a fight or taking lives with them, they will be in their kind of heaven, some kind of brainwash thing like that. And the other side is that they are a group that has been trained for this day their whole lives, so they kind of like now are ashamed to run away from the fight, now that the fight has come to them. Like a psychological aspect, like you know in certain places you can be a little of a different person? So, you are in a Hamas group of soldiers, you have been trained for this your whole life, you can’t now when there is a war just walk away.
Q: So like you mentioned before, do you think both the IDF and Hezbollah know that if there was a major conflict, it would be a bloodbath, and do you think that’s what’s deterring Hezbollah?
A: Yes, I think so…war is always an ugly thing, so as much as Israel doesn’t want, and I personally don't want to go and fight against Hezbollah, I’m sure that most of the people in Lebanon are very much against that, and even in Hezbollah. They hate Israel, but I think most of them don’t really want to pay the price to go into a war with Israel. But you know, every time, they are shooting rockets here and we are shooting rockets back–it's very risky, like one rocket hitting the wrong place could cause the other side to retaliate. Kind of like a snowball to make a bigger strike, and a bigger strike back.
Q: What do you think the endgame is?
A: I really, really hope that people are talking now about some kind of peace treaty, or like an agreement, and on the same deal maybe getting all the hostages back, and getting things tackled down in Lebanon as well. So, it's pretty optimistic, but I very much hope that will happen. I do think that if the hostages are still there, whether alive or dead, we still need to have some kind of mission, like a statement in Israel that we need to get them back, I am also kind of biased about that because, one of the hostages, Hadar Goldin, he’s a hostage from the previous war in 2014 – Protective Edge, that's the name. So, he’s been kidnapped there, he’s a very good friend of mine, so I do want them to bring his body back as well, because his family is kind of religious and it’s very important for them that his body will be buried in Israel.
So, I hope for the optimistic endgame, maybe the more possible one will be that after we are done in Rafah, I think there is a good chance we’ll be sent also to Lebanon, and we will start a much more serious war there. As someone who has been an officer in the Army for a few years, a lot of very serious weapons that you don’t really use in Gaza will be used and it will be all in…I’m sure that we also wouldn’t have electricity and water here in Israel and it will be very serious. I think that is the most possible outcome.
