New IDF Weapon Defends Soldiers against Psychological Warfare
Iyar 21, 5770, 05 May 10 02:51
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
(Israelnationalnews.com) IDF officers are learning how to help soldiers in the field respond to psychological methods used by the enemy to affect soldiers’ spirit and morale. New IDF guidelines for countering psychological warfare are scheduled to be approved by the end of this year.
The field of psychological warfare has developed dramatically the last few years due to various factors including the development of the media in Israel and worldwide. Terror organizations increasingly photograph and film attacks on IDF forces and publish them on television stations. For example, at the beginning of April 2010, Hamas published documentation of an incident in Kissufim, during which Maj. Eliraz Peretz and Staff Sergeant Ilan Sviatkovsky were killed.
“Commanders must know important principles and concepts regarding the issue,” Battle Doctrine Department of the Operations Directorate explained to the IDF magazine BaMahane [In the Camp].
The enemy uses modern warfare, and uses propaganda and psychological methods to influence combat soldiers’ spirit and their morale, IDF spokespersons added. Hamas terrorist leaders have constantly used the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit as a tool to break Israel's morale.
One of the recommendations for the commanders is to hold motivational conversations with their soldiers, so that their battle spirit cannot be negatively affected. “Our goal is that during the planning of any operational activity, the officers will be aware of the issue and will prepare their soldiers also for dealing with the enemy’s psychological battle tactics,” an officer added.
Among other things, the new Battle Doctrine will include concepts of psychological warfare, including that of ‘white messages,’ which come from a trustworthy source, as opposed to ‘black messages,’ whose distributor is unknown.”
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