Anonymous Israeli blogger Eishton offers a deal to the Israel Defense Forces | Hacker News Reader

Anonymous Israeli blogger Eishton offers a deal to the Israel Defense Forces

haaretz.com

40 pointswslh40 comments

Exposing the IDF propaganda is going to get this guy in a lot of hot water. I wish him strength, he's going to need it.

One thing I don't get is that he clearly isn't anonymous to the IDF anymore, so why continue the secrecy towards the public?

Propaganda that appears to be effective, since simply mentioning it brought your comment several steps into the grey.

Investigative journalism is quite common, and quite effective in Israel. Almost every official in every branch of the government has been subjected to it at one time or another. Often some official lies are exposed, and sometimes, hot-headed officials who don't know any better, would try to use the police to find the leaks in their department. This rarely leads anywhere.

But a blog investigating a relatively minor -- though very important -- issue of soldier suicides, might expose some establishment lies or cover-ups, but hardly tries to expose "the IDF propaganda", whatever that means.

As I understand it, an ordinary investigative journalist looking into this would be subject to pre-approval of anything they wanted to publish by the military censor, and the censor would quite likely forbid publication. Same with foreign journalists operating in Israel.

The military censor must not forbid publication unless there is a clear threat to national security. Of course, that sounds how it should work in theory, but, perhaps surprisingly, it seems to work this way in practice, too, at least judging by the amount of damaging material published that causes much embarrassment to military officials, even leading to their resignation on occasion.

Obviously, people try to cover up potentially damaging information, but when they get caught -- they get caught. And sometimes, some idiot tries to mess with the press. It seems to me that in this case that someone probably thought that since it's only a blogger they might be able to pressure him into revealing his sources.

But seriously, I had a hard time finding any mention of this in the Israeli press, which would normally love this kind of scandal. Exposing government malpractice, corruption and general idiocy is the national sport in Israel. Every Israeli reporter is imbued with the ambition of someday bringing down a government official -- the higher the better -- or, best case scenario, the entire administration. And I'm saying this as a former Israeli reporter. This case, though, is just small potatoes.

The reason this is done is mostly to avoid attaching social stigma to the dead person's family, and for the country to give the parents something, because, you know, their son is dead.

There was a story about a soldier who had deserted, and when MPs found him, he ran away, was hit by a car crossing the street and died. He was considered to have died in the line of duty. You can call that propaganda, or being kind to people who just lost their son.

People here in Israel don't care that much about the global number of dead in the IDF per year as a metric of how bad things are here, and you might see how calling something most people see as kindness granted to grieving people 'propaganda', which is a loaded word, is offensive.

This is, of course, not to say that I think the IDF is right here - I think they're both totally in the wrong and being idiots here at the same time.

>The reason this is done is mostly to avoid attaching social stigma to the dead person's family, and for the country to give the parents something, because, you know, their son is dead.

That doesn't mean they can't give aggregate data.

That's exactly what the blogger has requested. He hasn't asked for any personal details.

People have a right to truth that affects them, even if it makes them unhappy or angry. It is utterly patronizing to lie about the cause of death. Yes it's unfortunate. So? Have you ever lost someone to something stupid? Would you prefer having been lied to? BS. Also, if the IDF cared so much, why not let people who don't want to be in it go? "They found him, he ran away" kinda sounds like they saw him, but didn't move, and he just leaped into traffic. Not having been there I wouldn't know either way, but couldn't you just as well have said "they chased him into traffic"? But that would make it rather obvious that the motivations for not giving out the facts is to save the face of the IDF, not to protect anyone. To me it just adds insult to injury.

I think you misunderstood. The family knows the circumstances. Its just that 'committed suicide' isn't published to the public.

Yes, I was kinda rambling more than responding to anything actually related this story.. sorry.

... what does this have to do with propaganda?

This is about the IDF keeping secret/private the details surrounding the deaths of 126 soldiers.

jacquesm, you're quite a valuable asset to this community but this is a reddit-level comment.

> This is about the IDF keeping secret/private the details surrounding the deaths of 126 soldiers.

No, this is about labelling them 'killed in action'.

> jacquesm, you're quite a valuable asset to this community but this is a reddit-level comment.

I don't think you're the arbiter about what is and is not a valuable asset to the community, I interpret your words as 'when I agree with you you are an asset, but when we disagree your comments are reddit level' (whatever reddit level is, for all I know it could be a compliment).

I speak my mind without wondering whether you will agree with me or not, chances are that you'll find that at times I will say things you will disagree with, possibly even strongly.

Chances are also that in those cases 50% of the times you're right and I'm wrong and vv. So before calling names you might want to consider the possibility that we simply disagree, and moreover that you could be wrong.

Propaganda is when armies / governments do not report the truth because the truth is not as useful to them as fiction. Reporting these as KIA is better for the IDF, they have absolutely no problem labelling suicides for their enemies as such. If there was any truth to this not being propaganda then you'd expect the IDF to be equally circumspect when it comes to other deaths.

Making the opposition look bad ('look, 126 people killed in action') is useful to them. That's the simplest explanation. Stigma attached to the suicides is a private affair, and does not come out from aggregate data.

If they wanted to be even handed about it they could label the deaths as 'cause withheld, but non-combatant', or 'accidental'.

You will also note that the blogger exposing this has not released any private information, all he's asking for is some basic honesty in aggregate numbers.

> Reporting these as KIA is better for the IDF

This is the crux of the issue. This a weak opinion. You jump immediately to 'propaganda' as the reason that soldiers who commit suicide are labeled KIA when there are many other possibilities.

1) Do you know if there are in fact different official classifications of active-duty soldiers deaths?

2) Do you know if they're labeled KIA for benefits purposes?

3) Wouldn't this make Israel's enemies look better since it lowers the civilians to combatant death ratio?

You, without qualification, immediately assume this is a propaganda. That's the problem I have and that's why it's a weak comment. It has nothing to do with whether I agree with you or not.

It's simple: They're not killed in action. It isn't the truth. Suicide != action.

They could choose not to do press releases on these soldiers rather than press releases that state a known-to-be-false cause of death.

I'm not contesting that it's innaccurate. You have no basis to assert that it's for propaganda purposes.

The problem with the secrecy culture is that it not only protects the military secrets and the privacy of the dead, it also is useful to cover mistakes, abuses, bad conditions, corruption and systematic problems. Perhaps this is only a moron blogger, or perhaps there are some more problematic things to hide.

Here in Argentina, in 1994 a conscript was reported as a deserter. Only after some investigation he was found dead inside the regiment because he was beaten unintentionally to dead as a punishment. In that kind of cases it's easy to use the "protection of his family" the cover the crime.

Spanish version: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caso_Carrasco

English autotranslation: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl...

I'm Israeli, former IDF soldier and unfortunately had a family member KIA a few years back. I feel I have some idea of how the IDF treats families of KIA and have followed the story since Barak Ravid's first report. Here's my feeble attempt at hindering the redditization of HN:

1. Eishton story concerned fatality figures in the IDF's yearly Memorial Day press release. It has no relevance to KIA numbers in a specific conflict, as AlexMuir seems to think. Neither Eishton nor Ravid claim that.

2. Eishton's main claim is that the IDF didn't publish the fact that some of the soldiers actually committed suicide or died in car accidents etc. It's actually already known the IDF leaves the cause of death empty in case of suicide in order to spare the families' feelings (again, remember it's a press release rather than actual statistics).

3. Eishton was questioned about the source of the leak, which was apparently a soldier in active service. He refused to answer and basically that was the end of that (though I assume the IDF is still trying to find the leak on its end).

4. Eishton's original blog post had very little publicity. What initiated the investigation were complaints by families of soldiers who committed suicide, which were upset their sons' names and cause of death were now exposed.

5. Contrary to jacquesm's assertion, in reality Eishton faces exactly zero risk (even if he was "exposing propaganda"). He enjoys his newfound celebrity status and now gives the IDF "a 24 hour ultimatum" to release data and says he'd "proudly go to jail" if he was, but knows full well - as does everyone else - that he doesn't face any meaningful penalty. As a bonus exercise, you might want to google "Anat Kamm" and "Bradley Manning", or perhaps "Uri Blau" and "Judith Miller". Compare and contrast.

6. Nivertech's comment re: Judaism and suicide is correct, but only effective for the Orthodox (most of whom don't serve in the IDF anyway). It is not applicable for most Israelis - unfortunately, I speak from personal experience.

PS. Incidentally, the number of soldiers committing suicide has been shown to be within the average for men aged 18-21, and declining. There's a reason for this: In today's IDF it's enough to tell a military Psychiatric Officer you're contemplating suicide to be relieved from service almost instantly.

Thank you for your intelligent comment. It's a hard topic and even questions with easy answers end up descending into a moral and historical quagmire.

Thanks a ton for shedding some light on this and clearing up a number of misconceptions.

I personally knew of one of these 126 people, and there was no conspiracy behind it. Please leave these people alone, their families are having enough of a hard time as it is.

It's possible that the families themselves ask IDF to not disclose that their children committed suicide.

The reason is that they can't be buried in Jewish cemetery together with other Jews, instead they buried in an area of the cemetery removed from all others. Nor do they have to sit shivah.

http://www.askmoses.com/en/article/165,1311/Can-a-suicide-vi...

Is there a difference in how survivors' benefits are calculated? (I assume there are survivors' beenfits for soldiers KIAed but my knowledge of IDF pensions is negligible)

That's in fact exactly what happened (but not because of the religious reason - that's only really applicable the orthodox, who don't serve in the IDF to begin with)

The Orthodox are the ones who decided who and how can be buried, it's called Chevra kadisha [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevra_kadisha

I know Hevra Kadisha, I've lived in Israel all my life :)

In reality, they're not too interested in inflicting religious laws on those who don't follow them, and the occasional overzealous rabbi is easily dismissed by going to another provider, such as the secular burial services now growing in popularity.

Then why not either realize that you either a.) don't really believe God hates people who killed themselves no matter the circumstance b.) disagree with God on that. People know it, God knows it, lying about it doesn't make a suicide something else. Also how can you forgive someone when you lie to yourself and others about it? So either simply stop being a hardass and be social in burial as you're supposed to be in life; or accept that you're making the whole practice of "being buried as proper Jew" completely meaningless (which I would argue is meaningless to begin with, but everybody has to find that out for themselves). But at no point is this an argument for just "fudging the numbers". It's just the easy way out, pun really not intended.

I'm unclear what crime this blogger committed? Is the blogger even in Israel? Using my American mindset, isn't a reporter relatively immune from prosecution as a publisher of stuff as long as they didn't break into computer systems themselves? The NYT isn't being prosecuted for publishing Wikileaks stuff, etc...

Here's the explanation: http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/diplomania/idf-probe-of-anonymo...

This blogger, eishton, investigates suicides in general and in the IDF in particular. He claims that suicides are more common in the military than among civilians.

Anyway, Haaretz reports that the police has begun investigating him after receiving complaints from families of soldiers who had committed suicide that the blogger obtained private records pertaining to their loved ones' death. The military police wants to find out who the soldiers who leaked that sensitive, personal information are.

Because this is not an issue of national security, Haaretz chastises the IDF for using the police to exert pressure on a journalist so that they could find the leak.

> This blogger, eishton, investigates suicides in general and in the IDF in particular. He claims that suicides are more common in the military than among civilians.

This seems unsurprising. Aren't there more suicides in general in high-stress places?

Of course it's not surprising, it's just not helpful to obfusctate it; how can you try to prevent/improve something you deny to exist in the first place?

My understanding is he obtained unclassified information that he shouldn't have been able to obtain (probably privacy concerns). The prosecution is because the government doesn't like to be challenged (see how the US government is suing illegal wiretapping whistleblowers). Also, blogger != journalist, at least legally.

Another issue here is that he didn't "play by the rules" - usually you don't talk about suicides in the press because there's a certain social stigma attached to the family, and it's a small country where everyone knows everyone. He published full names of several people who committed suicide, while most regular journalists would leave it at the initials level.

I hate when news sites publish an article that mentions a blog or website but then almost never give a link for it. Anyone know why?

Anyway, here is Google's English translated version of Eishton's blog--> http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=iw&tl...

Comment deleted.

Fuck it, I can't even be arsed. There's so much bullshit and so many wankers that come out of the woodwork when this sort of topic gets raised. I've flagged the whole story. HN is better without this sort of shit.

Is there any precedent or evidence at all for this conspiracy theory?

This is a pretty strong allegation, and requires evidence. Do you have any? For example, can you quote any IDF KIA stats that seem to include suicides?

>Israel suffers badly from a perception that they use modern military weapons against a civilian population

You mean it suffers badly from a reality of doing that.

That's the problem when you live in a state with permanent martial law. You get tortured/jailed/killed for doing nothing wrong.

As an Israeli, it's news to me I live under permanent martial law. You might want to read up on this.

When engaged in war a country does not need explicit martial law as it is under no law at all.

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