
Anonymous Israeli blogger Eishton offers a deal to the Israel Defense Forces - wslh
http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/diplomania/anonymous-israeli-blogger-eishton-offers-a-deal-to-the-idf-1.489869
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jacquesm
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?

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

~~~
shenberg
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.

~~~
neumann_alfred
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.

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

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

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nir
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.

~~~
AlexMuir
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.

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chacham15
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.

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nivertech
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...](http://www.askmoses.com/en/article/165,1311/Can-a-suicide-victim-be-
buried-in-a-Jewish-cemetery.html)

~~~
nir
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)

~~~
nivertech
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>

~~~
nir
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.

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tibbon
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...

~~~
pron
Here's the explanation: [http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/diplomania/idf-probe-of-
anonymo...](http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/diplomania/idf-probe-of-anonymous-
blogger-isn-t-about-security-it-s-about-sources.premium-1.485145)

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.

~~~
azakai
> 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?

~~~
neumann_alfred
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?

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01Michael10
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...](http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=iw&tl=en&u=eishton.wordpress.com)

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AlexMuir
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.

~~~
davidkatz
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?

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lucian303
That's the problem when you live in a state with permanent martial law. You
get tortured/jailed/killed for doing nothing wrong.

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

~~~
lucian303
When engaged in war a country does not need explicit martial law as it is
under no law at all.

