The Hannibal Directive

"Harel writes however that a kind of "Oral Law" has developed inside IDF which is supported by many commanders, even at brigade and division level, that goes further than the official order, including the use of tank shells or air strikes. "A dangerous, unofficial interpretation of the protocol has been created," a senior officer told Haaretz. "Intentionally targeting a vehicle in order to kill the abductee is a completely illegal command. The army's senior command must make this clear to officers." 

wiki on "The Hannibal Directive"

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Well, well, the US Army will do almost anything to retrieve a captured soldier alive, or even his dead body.  "We leave nobody behind" has become an impractical but hearfelt mantra inherited from the SOF raiding forces.  Apparently, the IDF equivalent would be "we leave no man behind alive." 

This policy, however cloaked in silence by the IDF certainly must be a matter of concern for conscripts and reservists in the context of Palestinian and Lebanese fighters who are increasingly willing to "mix it up" in close combat.  In such circumstances the possibility of capture is great.

Richard Silverstein in his blog Tikkun Olam  has recounted the story of an IDF NCO killled at Gaza in such an incident and as a reward for his account has been subjected to a deliberate campaign among the Zionists to drive him from the public square.  Hmm. they do that?  pl 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_Directive

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2014/07/28/israelis-take-gaza-war-to-facebook-disable-my-account/

 

Comments

[Poul]

As cynical as it gets. Better dead than the inconvenience of having to negotiate a prisoner exchange deal.

[jdledell]

This is NOT a recent IDF directive. Ever since the capture of Gilad Shalit, this has been the PRIME directive given to all IDF units - never let the enemy capture a live IDF soldier. Unstated but obviously intended is what probably happened to Sgt. Levy.

As I mentioned on this Blog during Operation Cast Lead, this was the primary instruction given to my Golani Captain Nephew.

[SamuelBurke]

Col, only the most zealous need apply. "we leave no man behind alive."

[Fred]

“… an IDF NCO killled at Gaza in such an incident…”

Israel will never have a professional military if being an NCO in combat may get you KIA in combat but if you are captured will also get you killed by your own men, with the complicit agreement of the general officers. Given this fact it is no surprise that their army is butchering civilians.

[Medicine Man]

Sweet JC. How do they maintain the morale of their forces under those circumstances?

[turcopolier]

MM

I have been in some tough outfits, SF, MACVSOG, etc., but the idea that your own side would deliberately injure or kill you is so alien that I have much the same reaction. I suppose that the nationalist spirit is deeply imbued in the context of the Masada complex so that the troops are made to feel that the Jewish people are continuously threatened with extinction and that this validates this kind of sick behavior. If they will do this to their own it is easy why they have no qualms about the butcheries they inflict on the Arabs or the goy lives they destroy pl

[Highlander]

Colonel,

Now come on....you spent a career in SOF and Spook Land. You know damn well,in all nation state armed forces. When out on the edge, shit happens and then you die.

Recruiting poster stuff, and esprit de corps propaganda aside,when we join up or get joined. All of our small lives are at the end of the day, on the line for the greater good of the system...PERIOD.

Those were one way A-4 nuclear delivery missions,I trained for, and thank GOD never got ordered to execute(thanks to GOD, Ronald Reagan, and Karol Wojtyla).(Oh yea, the Polaks....they defeated the Soviet Union with non violence, why can't the PALESTINIANS handle the Israelis with it?

I think sometimes you are just a little unfair to the Israelis,due to your rather obvious dislike for their tribal adventures. Which is one reason,I occasionally rise to defend them.

[turcopolier]

highlander

All of that is very different from having your government deliberately kill or injure you to prevent your capture. We don't do that and as you say I ought to know. pl

[turcopolier]

highlander

I was involved in targeting many airstrikes in Libya, Iraq, Iran, etc. but we were always very careful to avoid civilian targets. Do air missions sometimes go astray" Yes, but that is quite different from what I judge to be the deliberate mass punishments of a civilian population for political resistance. This is what I judge Israel to be doing. This is much more like the murderous attacks conducted by us and the British on German and Japanese citie in WW2. p

[Cee]

The IDF bombed a refugee camp and near a hospital today. Ten more dead.

I'm still steaming that people would make excuses for killing your own to prevent them from being captured. The soldier wasn't being tortured! THAT is the only way I could imagine that being done!

Secondly, People shouldn't be whipped into a frenzy over myths that turn into outright lies to justify the unjustifiable!

Nachman Ben-Yehuda

When And Why Was The Masada Mythical Narrative Created?

It is not too difficult to establish the fact that the Masada mythical narrative was created by secular Zionism. (Religious Jews, Zionists and non-Zionists were, to a very large extent, not part in the creation of the myth. Many even objected fiercely to the myth).

It is clear that the Masada mythical narrative began to be created at the turn of the century. It received a big boost in the 1920s.

Clearly, the crystallizing Zionist movement was desperately looking for heroic Jewish tales.

It needed these tales for a few reasons:

To counteract the poisonous European anti-Semitic image of the Jew as non-heroic

To create a new secular Jewish consciousness and identity

To establish a strong and unquestionable bonding of the Jews to Palestine (then) and Israel (later).

The need for this bond became very acute in the early 1940s when the threat of a Nazi invasion of Palestine was imminent (from Rommel's Korpus Afrika).

This paper is based on my 1995 book: The Masada Myth. Collective Memory And Mythmaking In Israel.

[Highlander]

Colonel,

You think,your former friends up north of Arlington, wouldn't wack one their own,if operational need be? I bet,it is more common for NOCs and operators,than even you might imagine.

I agree with you,the sense of honor and integrity of the American military would almost never agree to such targeting of our own. But we are talking two radically different cultures with radically different needs and goals.

Our military leaders have to make calls on when a soldier becomes expendable.My guess is the IDF commanders do the same. The IDF units operating within GAZA are some of their best. And they have probably been briefed,"you get your butt captured,then there is a high probability, you aren't coming home alive,one way or the other".

If the Israelis allow capture/kidnap and negotiations to become a successful tactic of the Palestinians.It would open a snake pit of problems for Israel. They have learned their previous lessons about this, and won't allow it to happen.

[Jim.Jordan]

If it's true it probably explains why so many of them end up ripped to the tits on drink and drugs in Goa

http://www.jewishpost.com/culture/Former-Israeli-Soldiers-Flipping-Out-in-India.html

[Matthew]

Idledell: Nothing makes Israel look weaker than this directive.

[Matthew]

Col: and our tactics in WWII were also driven by our legitimate fear that the Nazis would murder the losers. Israel has zero chance of being defeated by Hamas. IMHO, that limits Israel's legal options.

Highlander's comment also highlights the ugliest feature of Christian Zionism: Tu quoque. They can't defend Israel without tearing America down.

[Dismayed]

@ Highlander

"Oh yea, the Polaks....they defeated the Soviet Union with non violence, why can't the PALESTINIANS handle the Israelis with it?"

Nonviolence only works when you are in conflict with reasonably civilized people. The majority of Israelis, and ALL of their government officials, are self-entitled, militarily expansionist racial supremacists. It's pretty difficult to hold a fruitful dialogue with someone who covets your property and views you as a subhuman. Does one bargain with one's sheep or cow over how much wool or milk to take? Palestinians don't even rate as high as livestock in the eyes of most Israelis. Harsh reality is to be looked squarely in the eye.

[Thomas]

Sir,

In the middle of last decade there was a guy posting on mlitary sites claiming to be a former marine officer from upland South Carolina. He was proved to be a fantasist and earned the derisive moniker Major Jr.

I bring this up because Major Highlander's stories don't quite seem to mesh.

Today he claims to have flown A-4s while previously stating he flew Phantoms and C-130s.

On the IDF thread from 2009 he states:

"As a former USMC officer and a veteran of several wars (starting with Vietnam) I must admit I am shocked at the IDF's structure regarding company level NCOs.

Hard, mature, and earthy NCOs are the back bone of the USMC, and the main reason it is a premier light infantry fighting force.

I can't tell you how many times when I was a green LT. and Capt. a "salty" Marine Staff or Gunnery Sergeant saved me and my men.

A platoon of 19 to 20 year olds armed with automatic weapons and hyped up on combat adrenalin are a potential disaster waiting to happen. With out the "old" Gunnery Sergeant's wise and if need be "heavy" hand ready and able to bust their butts if they don't follow orders and procedure.

You would never survive an engagement with a mainline North Vietnamese Unit without these kind of of NCO's providing battlefield leadership.
And no, America's fighting men never lost on Vietnam's battlefields. Vietnam was lost by limp wristed liberal elites in DC and NYC.

Just like the same kind of Israeli elites are in the process of leading Israel to it's doom. And most of the West will follow.
Reply 09 January 2009 at 07:32 PM "

Then Major Highlander was implying he saw ground action in Vietnam and several other places.

Through the years meeting people who truly served in combat, the shared trait I saw in them was a self aware humility. This is something that lacks in the words of the Major's postings.

Though I may be wrong, so if he proves to you that he is a legitimate veteran then I will apologize tomorrow when I return online.

Otherwise I am calling him a Bullsheviker.

Sincerely,
Thomas

[turcopolier]

Matthew

Yes, but the main thing was the strategic bombing thesis that held that civilian populations could be brought to their knees through bombing alone. pl

[Cee]

Jim,

I've read about this before. I'm not surprised that some people haven't been able to cope with things that they've done or witnessed. Very sad.

[turcopolier]

highlander

I have known CIA people whom I though friends. It was usually a mistake. I have seen them abandon in the field native irregulars working for them along with USSF seconded to them. On one occasion they (Colby) insisted that I should do the same and when I would not threatened that they "would remember me." In the run up to our air attacks on Libya I watched as a CIA civilian briefer tried to persuade the NSC staff (North) that we should bomb married family quarters at Libyan air bases because that "would impress them." I informed CJCS of that and he told the WH that we would not accept such targeting. The CIA is or was manned by people with zero sense of ethics or morality. Expedience is all for just about all of them. In war, actual war, as opposed to CIA war, one accepts losses as inevitable but one does not inflict them deliberately on one's own. pl

[turcopolier]

Thomas

"Through the years meeting people who truly served in combat, the shared trait I saw in them was a self aware humility." Yes and often expressed in black, sad, gallows humor.pl

[crone]

Adding to your post, if I may Col.

Richard Silverstein, who broke this news a couple of days ago, has been attacked... his FB account has been disabled.
Here: Director of Israeli Aerospace Institute Conducts Campaign Disabling My Facebook Account

and last night, Silverstein posted affirmation to his post wrt Levey: Ronen Bergman Confirms IDF Soldier Deliberately Killed by His Own

Silverstein could certainly use help with getting his FB reinstated. He does a tremendous amount of work toward peace in Palestine. imho Thanks

[walrus]

The Israeli Army thinks capture is a fate worse than death? For who? The politicians of course!

As for any soldier being "expendable" I have never heard that suggestion in my time in the Australian defence forces - that casualties were "inevitable" yes, but the writing off of anyone? Never! Not in even in the darkest briefings at counter insurgency instructors course on "what might happen".

As for such discussions and calculations occuring at General Officer level? Not by any that I know or have known.

I am afraid, now that Thomas has pointed it out, that Mr. Highlander has some explaining to do about his alleged experience.

[Dubhaltach]

Colonel:

One of the features of the last war that Israel launched against Lebanon was that Hizbullah fighters made concerted efforts to capture Israeli soldiers. I am told that it was sheer luck that they didn't succeed, I am also told that word of this spread amongst Israeli troops and that their performance suffered as a result that suddenly quite a few of their ground troops became a lot less eager. I have to say that my evidence is anecdotal but comes from people I know both in South Lebanon and in Israel whom I have always found to be truthful in the past. I wonder what would happen if Hamas fighters were given the same opportunity to take prisoners that the Hizbullah troops had. Given what seems to be a mix of blood lust, fear, a relentless focus on short-term expediency, and hysteria in Tel Aviv I fear that what would happen is they would decide to "do a Dresden" on Gaza and to hell with the consequences.

I was in Israel a few months ago the widespread viciousness I saw there really appalled me and I tend to have a somewhat pessimistic view of our nature and what we can get up to given our fallen natures. Nevertheless I was both surprised and dismayed at how widespread and how casual viciousness towards the Palestinians has become - "Never again (unless it's us doing it)" could easily become the motto for Yad Vashem, at least it'd be true to the Genius Loci.

Dubhaltach

[nick b]

I ran across this article while reading up about the Hannibal directive:

http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Golani-51-commander-Death-before-capture

[Andrew]

"I was in Israel a few months ago the widespread viciousness I saw there really appalled me..."

You mean like this... "In Gaza there’s no studying
No children are left there,
Olé, olé, olé-olé-olé,"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7qFACSfd_k#t=71