The report publicized last week about the events at Kibbutz Be'eri on that bitter day when war erupted, did not reveal anything new. Surely not to the kibbutz members who experienced the events of that horrific day, nor to the citizens of the entire country who were exposed to terrible stories that took place in the nine following months. The reason the first inquiry made at all focused only on Be'eri had one purpose: to lay the way for the continued advancement of Colonel Barak Hiram whose future promotion is in the interest of the General Staff. After all, he does not wear a kipah and does not go under the name of Ofer Winter, a religious senior officer who was recently released from the army.
A heavy cloud hovered over Hiram's head involving the forces under his command at the kibbutz. Hiram only made his appearance after several hours of murderous terrorists freely circulating throughout the kibbutz, already holding fourteen hostages in the house called 'the home of Pessy Cohen'.
Reports describing the event say that Hiram issued orders to one of the tanks under his command to shoot four shells at the house. The inevitable result was the death of twelve of the hostages, with only two in the bloody house remaining alive. The question which hovered in the air was if he could have negotiated with the terrorists for a release. An even more difficult question: were the prisoners killed by the shells or murdered beforehand by the terrorists?
Questions which fail to be resolved surrounded the commander at the site - Barak Hiram. It was clear that until he was exonerated with an official 'kosher certification', he could not be promoted.
The inquiry was totally geared to indisputably determine that Colonel Hiram acted as required, according to what was expected of him under the difficult circumstances prevailing at the time. The order to fire the shells was justified and presumably, the hostages were murdered beforehand.
This determination was apparently very important to the army to the point that the report focused primarily on what took place at Be'eri, even before the investigation of the basic failures at other places which led to the blood-bath of that day.
But in the very process of whitewashing Hiram's record, the botches of the army were revealed in the fact that it took seven hours (!) for any reaction to come to the aid of the helpless kibbutz. No security forces were on site and the battle against the terrorists was carried on by local alert forces and a few several arms-carrying members who came to the rescue. All this is only the tip of an iceberg which will come to light in successive inquiries, showing how the 'celebrated' IDF was shown up in this difficult time of trial.
Exploding the Myths
It must clearly be stated: the citizens of the State of Israel were being deceived for years on end by the leaders of the State and the army, living under the illusion that they could sleep safely at night with the reassurance that the army was well equipped, prepared and alert to any mission that materialized.
Year after year, a huge chunk of the national budget was allocated for security purposes with the understanding that all of this money was being invested in the purpose for which it was designated. At every public event in which the army starred, the usual words of arrogance and smugness were repeated about 'our might', 'our power' and our 'trust', and the citizens who underwrote the system with the best of their money, gullibly believed in this pose.
The peak always came on the commemoration of the Holocaust, Yom HaShoa v'Hagevura, with the boastful assertion of the top government officials repeating, in one form or another, that "if the State of Israel with its army had existed during World War II, the Holocaust would not have taken place". Or to be succinct, "Never Again". How ironic and ridiculous all this turned out to be.
Everything collapsed and disintegrated in one day, the day when thousands of murderers, transported by simple civilian vehicles and armed with unpretentious tools, attacked Israel, captured southern settlements and only through the grace of Hashem did not continue to march on to the center of the country. The 'celebrated' army, fortified with the latest weaponry, with the best intelligence in the world, with trained soldiers, well equipped military bases, simply evaporated. High ranking commanders stood helpless, not knowing what to do. Armed soldiers were camped around the invaded settlements, awaiting orders, which failed to be given since their superiors simply did not know what to do.
Aerial forces also present in the vicinity, did nothing to stop the marauders, only because of lack of orders from above. As one army columnist defined it tersely, "The death of the IDF myth."
