Posted on 06/17/2024 7:05:08 PM PDT by Uncle Miltie
Micha Shtiebel wasn’t expecting to be called back to duty so soon. Nor did he expect the army to deploy his brigade — normally stationed along the border with Lebanon — to Gaza, where they would experience a type of dense urban combat they weren’t used to. But in late May, the time had come to relieve another brigade fighting in Gaza and the army had reportedly neglected to line up a replacement.
That blunder meant that Shtiebel’s Alexandroni Brigade, made up of thousands of reserve troops, didn’t have the months it normally gets to prepare for a new assignment. It had days.
“It’s insane that eight months in, we are going to Gaza with no time to train or get the right gear, all literally done at the last minute because the army forgot to pick a replacement team,” Shtiebel told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
As he scrambled to obtain gear, he knew better than to expect much help from the army’s supply chain because he had tried in the past and came up empty. Plus, an order came down instructing Shtiebel and other officers charged with logistics to gather equipment for the new mission without depleting existing stockpiles, in a nod to the looming conflict on Israel’s northern border.
So Shtiebel turned to the people who had proven nimble and helpful at providing for the 450 soldiers in his battalion since war broke out on October 7: an informal network of civilian volunteers purchasing equipment with donations from Jews in the Diaspora.
It’s against military orders for individual soldiers to accept donations or even to talk to donors, largely to preserve equity in the military, but Shtiebel, and virtually every other officer in his position, engages in fundraising regularly.
Many of his soldiers were stuck with standard-issue army helmets, some from as early as the 1970s, which are not only horribly uncomfortable but possibly unsafe. Combat helmets, especially when they have taken a beating, can offer less ballistic protection over time. The volunteers quickly provided Shtiebel with 150 new tactical helmets, which cost $400 each.
Then, he asked the volunteers for drones.
Israeli infantry units didn’t typically use drones before the current war, but as civilian volunteers began providing them, ordinary soldiers found that the ability to survey the battlefield from the sky or search the inside of homes that might be booby-trapped with explosives could save their lives. Soldiers have come to regard these small drones, which are readily available in American electronics stores, as nearly as essential as helmets.
A shipment of tactical boots purchased using donated funds for Israeli soldiers arrives at Israel’s international airport. (Courtesy via JTA)
The volunteers agreed to lend seven donated drones to the unit but they were delivered to the brigade’s deputy commander, someone a few rungs up the chain from Shtiebel. The commander has so far refused to distribute the drones, offering no explanation, according to Shtiebel. “He gave us the rigamarole,” Shtiebel said.
Neither the military nor Israel’s Ministry of Defense responded to requests for comment for this story.
Whatever the commander’s intentions, by holding up drones, he is contributing to the ambiguity and confusion surrounding the issue of donated equipment in the Israeli army. Since the war began, the army has claimed that soldiers are not lacking any essential gear even as civilians have delivered individual units an estimated billion dollars or more in helmets and drones as well as clothing, night vision goggles, body armor, rifle scopes, and other items.
For many American Jews, donating to grassroots military equipment drives became a concrete and personal way to show support for Israeli soldiers after October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists butchered 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapped 251 in a cross-border invasion that launched the ongoing war. On social media, requests for donations have become ubiquitous, and some of those efforts, such as Boots for Israel, have become symbols of American Jewish solidarity with Israel as it fights on multiple fronts.
But the military’s official denial of shortages is false, according to Shtiebel as well as a dozen other battlefield commanders and logistics officers of combat units, some of whom are currently deployed, who spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on condition of anonymity.
One senior commander, speaking while on active duty in Gaza, described how essential donations have been.
“The army claims nothing is missing,” he said. “But look at me, from head to toe, I am covered in donated gear: helmets, protective eyewear, body armor, the scope on my rifle, and even the fatigues I am wearing. Everything except for the weapon.”
Illustrative: infantry soldiers pose with new bulletproof vests donated to them. (Courtesy: Leo Loeffler)
While the military has gradually managed to bolster its stockpiles and distribute gear to certain combat forces, many units, especially those made up of reserve soldiers, are still soliciting help in direct violation of army orders, according to interviews.
“Don’t get me wrong, even if they leave me with nothing but a sword, I’ll go on fighting,” said one senior commander, expressing a common reticence to publicly acknowledge the military’s shortcomings. But all of the officers said they felt compelled to speak to the press in violation of military rules either because they hoped to bring public attention to the problem or because they hoped to reach prospective donors who may not realize that demand for gear remains high.
One commander said he had just gotten off the phone with a donor in Miami to ask them to pay for a drone.
“It’s sad that this is what we are facing. It doesn’t make sense we have to buy the gear ourselves or fundraise for it,” he said. “But I do so because there’s no saying just how many lives these drones have saved. I have soldiers in my unit who got hit and without their donated ceramic body armor would have been dead.”
Daniel Polisar, the American-raised founder of Shalem College in Jerusalem, has three sons serving in the Israeli military. First, he helped equip them. Then, he realized how widespread the problem was and assembled a team of volunteers. They have raised $15 million, which they have spent on gear for tens of thousands of soldiers, Polisar said.
He said most Israelis don’t accept claims by the IDF that there are no shortages.
“These claims are as credible to them as hearing a meteorologist declare emphatically that it’s sunny and dry in the town where they live at the very moment they’re standing outside in the midst of a downpour,” Polisar said.
He added, however, that the claims are not without impact. They undermine the military’s credibility and make it impossible for the army to enact changes. The claims also make his job much more challenging.
“I have faced this question repeatedly, and for the last few weeks it has literally been on a daily basis,” Polisar said. “I am asked by potential donors why they should give to buy gear when IDF spokesmen and high-ranking officers assert that every soldier and every unit have all the gear they need. This is the single biggest obstacle to the fundraising of my team and of other groups active in trying to help supply our soldiers.”
Protective equipment donated by Israeli startup Lasso Security is delivered to a combat unit operating in Gaza. (Courtesy)
The phenomenon of donations flowing from the Jewish Diaspora to the Israeli military is not new. It has existed since the founding of Israel. But donations are supposed to be routed through a central, dedicated office within the military. Individual soldiers and units are not supposed to fundraise and handle donations themselves.
The military has been aware of an illicit flow of donated equipment at least since 2016 when the State Comptroller’s Office, Israel’s official watchdog agency, devoted a section of its annual report to the issue. The report noted that IDF regulations prohibiting soldiers from being in direct contact with donors are regularly ignored. Released two years after Israel’s previous war in Gaza, the report says the problem was particularly acute during that conflict.
The report also explains why the military should not allow the donations. Morale can suffer if some units have more or better equipment than others. There can be unfair pressure on the families of soldiers to donate. The situation “may harm the reputation of the IDF, making it look like a military that does not enforce the orders it gives soldiers and that cannot provide for the basic needs of its soldiers,” according to the report.
A senior commander said in an interview that those concerns were well founded — but not only a matter of perception. “I don’t want to make the army look bad because it hurts us and serves the enemy, but that’s really how things look,” he said.
The report also noted concerns about the quality and safety of equipment donated outside of formal protocols. At the start of the current war, such concerns would have seemed at least somewhat merited. In the flurry of donations in the early days, a lot of equipment that arrived was subpar, unneeded, or even counterfeit, including cases of helmets made of plastic designed to look like the real thing, according to multiple interviews with soldiers and civilian volunteers.
By now, however, many of the civilian volunteers still active have become experts on the needs of soldiers and on sourcing proper military-grade equipment while maintaining close ties with military logistics officers. They have even paid to professionally test donated armor and helmets, according to interviews and ballistics reports from the tests.
The spike in unsanctioned donations should perhaps not come as a surprise to the military, since it had warnings of a lack of preparedness around basic supplies.
Amir Avivi, a retired IDF brigadier general, told JTA he has spent years sounding the alarm about the issue while he was in service as the director of the office of the IDF chief of staff and as the deputy comptroller of the security forces. He remained vocal after his 2017 retirement from service when he founded the Israel Defense And Security Forum, a right-leaning advocacy group focused on military issues.
He said the army doesn’t always spend its money wisely.
“The military doesn’t have an endless budget, and it’s not exciting for the leadership to buy boots and or helmets,” he said. “It’s much more exciting to invest in new technologies like cyber weapons. At the end of the day, however, war is a physical event. In war, everything revolves around the number of troops, the amount of equipment, ammunition and fuel, water, and food. That’s what wins the war. We are seeing the same thing in Ukraine.”
Different kinds of bulletproof vests being prepared for distribution to reserve soldiers, October 10, 2023. (Israel Defence Forces)
Avivi recalled an argument he had while in service with his superior, the IDF’s then-chief of the staff, Benny Gantz, who in 2013 was forced to make budget cuts and proposed investing in technology to make up for cuts to conventional forces. Gantz went on to become a minister of defense and later joined the three-member war cabinet convened by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after October 7 before ultimately resigning on Sunday.
“I told Gantz that the military is prioritizing all kinds of gadgets and technologies and things that seem sexy, but in the end it undermines preparedness,” Avivi said. “The army has really neglected these things, sometimes to a criminal extent, and that’s why we have had shortages. When you suddenly activate the entire army, you discover the extent of the problem.”
He added, however, that the IDF appears to have started correcting course and has spent many billions on new equipment during the current war. The IDF isn’t announcing exactly what it’s purchasing but Israeli defense spending has doubled since an all-time low before the war.
Several commanders and logistics officers, particularly those in regular army units, as opposed to the reserves, told JTA they are seeing the fruits of the military’s buying sprees, at least for some categories of equipment.
“It was a wild west with all the shortages early on, but I must admit, the situation is much better now,” said one senior commander of a combat unit.
But even the best-supplied units continue to ask for donations, according to several of the commanders.
Volunteers sort and line up US-donated combat boots arriving from New York at a Modiin warehouse. (Sharon Wrobel)
Soldiers tend to want the best and newest gear they can get. They also turn to the donations network when they need something fast. For the military to process requests for gear can take months. “Through the civilian volunteers, I can get it the next day,” said a logistics officer.
Well-supplied units also rely on donations for gear they have realized they need, but that the military has not yet created a standard for, such as drones with thermal cameras, and solar panels to be able to charge electronics during extended periods in the field.
The gap between what the soldiers say they need and what the military regards as necessary is one of the reasons the military can claim there are no shortages, according to Avivi.
“The IDF may not have issued official standards for the type of stuff soldiers need and want,” he said. “There are things the IDF doesn’t purchase to begin with so it’s not a shortage.”
Technicalities aside, many inside and outside the army see such claims by the military as a form of lying that erodes trust and leads to disillusionment.
Shtiebel said it wasn’t easy for him to reach a point at which he was comfortable speaking out publicly. He agreed to be named in this article because he thought it would be harder for people to dismiss the problems he wanted to call attention to. He has also been thinking about his two young sons.
“What will I do the day they go to the army when I just don’t trust the army?” he said. “At this point, I’ve decided to put myself out there in case it helps turn the tide a little bit.”
“I told Gantz that the military is prioritizing all kinds of gadgets and technologies and things that seem sexy, but in the end it undermines preparedness,” Avivi said. “The army has really neglected these things, sometimes to a criminal extent, and that’s why we have had shortages. When you suddenly activate the entire army, you discover the extent of the problem.”
It’s amazing how common this is for every Western military, going on decades.
They always seem to assume success, and then spend their time and resources on secondary issues like whiz-bang technology, and skimp on the basics.
The only time it seems to change is when they are facing imminent defeat, like the UK after Dunkirk.
Then, at least for a while, the BS stopped and actually performed at peak. But as soon as the German invasion threat had passed, they went back to business as usual.
One would have thought that the Israel Military would see themselves in a more precarious state, and be less prone to do this stuff, but I guess not.
[Many of his soldiers were stuck with standard-issue army helmets, some from as early as the 1970s, which are not only horribly uncomfortable but possibly unsafe.]
Even anti-bacterial socks (with copper oxide) are in demand.
I once had a theory that the USSR would collapse through being unable to keep up with the bookkeeping — now I see that we have become so complex and top-heavy that we can no longer manage ourselves.
It seems inconceivable that the IDF did not respond to the reports of Hamas training for 10/7, but we apparently had reports of the 9/11 terrorists learning only how to fly but not to land.
And here is the IDF unable to provision its soldiers or provide for replacement divisions... And we are sliding back to when soldiers’ families needed to be on welfare.
This must be so very hard on the people of Israel.
“...but we apparently had reports of the 9/11 terrorists learning only how to fly but not to land. “
My favourite was when the INS mailed out the flight school visas for Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehi in March 2002.
https://www.cnn.com/2002/US/03/12/inv.flight.school.visas/
Gantz is to Netanyahu what Milley was to Trmp -
What's your take on this uncle Miltie?
Unbelievable..
I am unqualified to comment on the whole nature of fielding a properly equipped army.
Something we liked about Reagan was the new stuff, no more WWII helmets, or Korean War threadbare down sleeping bags that if they got wet were nothing but a wet sheet, no more field food that had been in storage for decades, Gore-Tex and other gear that had been available for years to civilians started being issued, new radios.
The Vietnam era Army and Marines had lousy, primitive and very old personal gear.
At least one could boil water in the steel pot, over a piece of C4..
I found the sleeping bag puzzling, they knew they weren’t real, they didn’t work, but that was the issued bag.
At Ft. Lewis where it rained all the time , I gave up using a shelter half since you slept in water on the ground and even the part over your head didn’t really work, I would just sleep in the open with a steel pot to cover my face from the rain and lay in that wet sleeping bag freezing, waiting for the daylight.
Today they have real tents and manmade material sleeping bags that insulate when wet, and fleece clothing, and Gore-Tex, even polypropylene long johns instead of cotton.
In late 2002, my son’s unit (Third Brigade, Third Infantry Division) became aware that shortly they would be deployed to Kuwait as a staging point for the invasion of Iraq in March of 2003. He told me this triggered a massive shopping spree on “V.D.” (Victory Drive in Columbus, Georgia adjacent to Fort Bennington) by the infantrymen of his brigade who knew that whatever they would be issued by the U.S. Army would be totally inadequate to actually get them through their deployment. Socks, sturdy rucksacks and underwear were the biggest sellers long with other essentials like reliable flashlights, weapon cleaning supplies, small mirrors and “silly string” spray cans for detecting trip wires in rooms they had to clear. When I asked him why the Army didn’t
provide adaquate amounts of these essentials, he just smiled at my naivety…
I can understand not wanting the drones to be distributed without some very careful vetting. But the rest of it?
If I know anything about supply officers it’s that while they love having a lot of supplies they absolutely hate giving it out to the grunts. They can’t keep their inventory spreadsheets all pretty if all that expensive gear is actually being used.
L
During World War II we had reporters who gave voice to the men fighting the wars, NOT just to the silly 'elites' running things like they do today. Hello Washington Post and New York Times idiots - we're talking to YOU.
There was a story months ago about a guy buying a bunch of tactical gear from a gun shop in rural Pennsylvania. The guy explained he was buying the gear for his stepson who was a convert to Judaism and had joined the IDF and was being deployed.
The shop owner and some other customers chipped in and loaded the guy up with body armor and tactical gear to be sent to stepson in Israel.
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