The New Zionist Interview

The New Zionist is an online news and discussion forum that deals with the future of Zionism, Israel, and the Jewish People. The editors were kind enough to invite me to answer a number of questions relating to my military service, current events in the region, and to provide predictions relation to the future of Israel as well as the Jewish-American community.

Read the interview in full by visiting: www.newzionist.com


Here is a sample of the Q&A:

NZ: You state that you wonder if Israeli restraint only encourages more violence


AH: As someone who identified with the center-left throughout the 80’s and 90’s, I can’t help but wish that recent history had not provided ample data points to suggest that Israeli policies of restraint were based on an overly-optimistic assessment of the Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian leadership. Especially throughout the 90’s – during the Oslo Peace Process and negotiations with Syria – Palestinian terror and Hezbollah activity increased at an alarming rate. At the time, I believed that we were experiencing the last gasp of reactionaries who would eventually be sidelined by moderates who wanted a true rapprochement with Israel.


Also, I didn’t worry about Hezbollah victory speeches when Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000. Arab leaders are masters at self-congratulation in the aftermath of their defeats. But the continuing militancy of Hezbollah after Israel’s withdrawal and Arafat’s decision to spark a second Intifadah made it clear that my more cynical friends – who believed that we should be paying closer attention to what Arab leaders were saying in Arabic and not English – were right. The terrorists were not just using incitement and murder to gain more power within their own societies, they were – and still are – the vanguard of a culture that refuses to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and believes that Western values make us weak. As a result, they have interpreted our outstretched hands as a sign that the Israeli people in particular – and the West in general – does not have the will or ability to defeat them.

NZ: One of the most interesting aspects of the book is how different the IDF is as compared to the American Military. Whether it is true or not, the American Military has an image of blind faith in your superior, abusive sergeants, and massive air assaults. More recently, the image of the American Army is of a group of soldiers racing through the streets of Baghdad in broad daylight on the back of a Humvee with a documentary film crew riding along. What do you think are the main differences between the Israeli and the American Army?

AH: First and foremost, national service is compulsory in Israel. While most highly motivated American high school students are trying to gain entrance into Ivy League schools, their Israeli counterparts are testing to join elite infantry, air force, and intelligence units. As a result, Israeli military units select from a much larger pool of qualified candidates than the American military. This enables Israel to constantly increase standards for acceptance at a time when the American military is lowering the bar.


Of course, as people who have served in the military can attest, being one of the “best and the brightest” doesn’t necessary mean that you’re going to be a fantastic soldier. And more importantly, it’s valuable to note that soldiers who lacked many advantages growing up or who weren’t stellar scholars during school may well demonstrate an aptitude in the field that is far superior to their well-heeled peers. As I mention in my book, I have served with some smart people who were dumb soldiers and others who barely completed high school who I would completely trust with my life once we were in the field.


But the combination of mandatory service and the high concentration of over-achievers in the Israeli military has created a culture that is more adaptive than the US military. By adaptive, I refer to the fact that the Israeli military highly encourages change in a way that is very different from the US military. In the Israeli military, new recruits are taught to ask questions and provide constructive criticism. This forces commanders to lead by example and by gaining consensus from his team, as opposed to leading through fiat, as is done in the US military. This keeps commanders on their toes and creates a conduit for new ideas and innovations that make the military more effective over time, while creating the short-term benefit of avoiding missteps that may occur when decisions are made by a single individual.



Another interesting difference is that the Israeli military training methodology features a level of on-the-job training that is rather unique. Israeli soldiers, at the beginning stages of their training, are tasked with relatively low-intensity missions – manning a checkpoint on a secondary road, conducting an ambush in a place where there is a low probability of engaging the enemy, patrolling relatively quiet streets, etc. The consequence is that the proficiency of soldiers and commanders are tested in an evolutionary way that enables superiors to decide whether they are suitable for more complicated tasks, soldiers are able to better understand how their training relates to the real-world, and the gradual introduction to more complicated scenarios increases effectiveness while reducing associated stress. By contrast, American soldiers only experience real combat after completing their training in full.

Read the interview in full by visiting: www.newzionist.com

Why the West is Losing the PR Wars in the Middle East

The recent conflict between Israel and Lebanon led many to re-ask a question that was first posed after the US declared war on terror. How is it that the West – whose media dominates the world – is unable to compete with communication strategies devised by people who live in caves and bunkers?

Ultimately, the West is losing the battle for hearts and minds because we aren’t playing by the same rules as our enemies. Western officials are governed by a set of principles that compel them to deliver information that is, to the best of their knowledge, accurate. Western media, for its part, strives to provide their audience with relatively objective reports. To achieve this, the Western media typically gives both sides of an argument an equal opportunity to deliver its point a view.
These conventions of Western culture are to be celebrated. They are critical to prosperity, mitigate substantial abuse of power, and provide the weak with protection from the powerful. But our opponents – Islamic radicals – do not play by these rules. They only care about achieving their objectives and do not see anything wrong with deceiving their own people. Why would facts matter, if a lie helps you achieve God’s will. For this reason, Islamic radicals see that fabrications and manipulations as useful tools that help motivate their constituency while also discouraging Western willingness to act against them.

It’s as if the West fights by the Marquees of Queensberry rules of engagement while our adversaries stick to the law of the jungle. It’s a cage match, but the West doesn’t seem to know it. And if the gloves don’t come off, the West may be beaten into submission.

More than any other culture, the West should understand that everyone loves a winner. Concepts like “fair play” and “balance” make sense when you’re trying to create a free and prosperous world where everyone gets a fair shake, but it has no place in a war.


In WWII, allied government officials and media did not try to understand Hitler’s point of view. The allies did not give the German leadership radio time and column space to plead their case. He and his cohorts were condemned by all and Nazi propaganda was mocked at every opportunity. Furthermore, the allies created and distributed their own propaganda for internal and external consumption.

It is a conundrum. How can the West – its governments, media, and intellectuals – compete with the freedom-to-lie that enables our enemies to be more effective communicators? While the West seeks facts to educate audiences to make informed decisions, our enemies concoct stories to compel audiences to take specific actions. It doesn’t matter if any civilians were actually killed, call it a massacre. It doesn’t matter if US soldiers even entered a mosque, describe how it was desecrated.
In some ways, the West is shackled by an openness that encourages a full range of opinions to be heard and a standard that compels public figures to speak the truth, but these norms are central to democracy and our culture. If we were to give these up – and accept changes that empower officials to deliberately misinform in order to confound the enemy and silence voices of dissent in order to project unwavering determination – we may defeat our enemies but also lose Western culture as we know it.

Since the West can not change its standards and cultural norms, the West must take the following actions to combat and undermine the communication strategies of its enemies:

1. Our people must be made to understand that we are engaged in a cultural war that imperils our future. Most people in Western countries still don’t quite believe that there are 40,000 suicide bombers waiting to attack the enemies of Islam and that President Ahmadinejad, as reported by Al Jazeera on December 14, 2005, believes they will win because millions of Muslims are willing to become martyrs “while the infidel youths, loving life and fearing death, hate to fight.” Given our own values and hopes for our own children, we assume it is hyperbole. We assume that the Iranian President is only after gaining and maintaining power in his own country and that this talk of world domination is merely rhetoric. But radical Islamic leaders won’t mind the chaos and the loss of life because they believe it will ultimately lead to a victory for Islam. We must begin to think and act as if we were in a fight to the death – because we are.

2. We must compel Arab countries that claim to be our allies – Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt – to raise their standards to meet our own. As autocrats, they use the same tools of incitement and deception as our enemies in order to deflect internal criticism and control their populations. They must understand that claiming to be moderate and Western-leaning is no longer good enough. Now, they have to act like it. Public and private media must adhere to the same professional standards as their Western counterparts and government officials must communicate more openly about the real threats to their sovereignty. After all, these countries are equally threatened, if not more, by radical Islam than the West. They must understand that failure to change will place their heads, quite literally, on the chopping block. If Al Jazeera wants to be the “CNN of the Middle East,” then its producers and reporters must differentiate between stories that incite and those that inform.

3. Irrespective of whether changes in the Middle East occur overnight or not at all, the West’s new Manhattan Project must be the establishment of a more robust Voice of America that integrates the development and distribution of movies, TV shows, news, and online media that will be perceived as being as authentically Arab as Al Jazeera. Within the Arab world there are thousands of talented individuals who want to the Middle East to become a secular, open, prosperous region that provides opportunities for personal growth and expression for all people. The West should create a platform that enables these individuals to communicate a message that undermines radical Islam and the culture of hate that permeates the region. In addition, the West should use every method at its disposal to block the broadcast and dissemination of information that incites against Western values – even if that includes the jamming of programs delivered via satellite and the shutting down of websites that serve as recruiting grounds for radicals.

Our enemies understand the importance of public relations and they use it to motivate their youth to become soldiers in a holy war, to cow secular Arabs who want a better life for their children, and keep the West from gaining credibility in the region. The West can beat Islamic radicals at this game, but only if we play by the same rules as our enemy.