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OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
JUNE 3, 2021
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LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE RECENT GAZA CONFLICT BY SHAMMAI SISKIND
B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M
The
mashov. It’s one of the hallmarks of Israeli society. Technically translated as “feedback,” the mashov in practice is something like a cross between group therapy and a formalized debriefing. Like many features of Israel’s culture, the mashov originated in the military. Regardless of where they serve, soldiers in the IDF typically experience quite a few mashovim during their service. If the Logistics Corps has to execute a massive delivery of field supplies, everyone from the truck drivers to the gunsmiths will have a mashov. If an armored company conducts some routine maneuvers, there’ll be a mashov. If a lone infantry soldier is ordered to simulate taking a hill, he can expect a mashov at the end of it all dissecting how well he ran to the top. This may sound a bit excessive, but in actuality, it is a very useful practice to inculcate. You see, far from being a dry top-down examination by superiors, all participants in a mashov are encouraged (read: required) to speak up and offer their views and comments. In this way, soldiers are taught to maintain better self-awareness and – most importantly – be comfortable with a program of learning and progressing. This democratized form of collective self-reflection has gradually infiltrated the private sector, especially into Israel’s perpetually booming start-up scene. Today, it is very common for managers and team leads to gather their people together at the end of the work week or at the conclusion of a big project and have a candid, face-to-face chat about what they’ve succeeded or failed at over the past several days. Such scenes are not just young pro-
fessionals trying to reenact their army days. It’s applying a practice that seems to work quite well. While far from a foolproof method, soberly recalling a group attempt to do something (whatever that thing might be) improves everyone’s ability to do it. As the smoke clears from the most recent round of conflict in Gaza, you can bet your house there are more than a few Israeli high-ups, from military brass to policymakers, that are finding
Israeli soldiers firing into Gaza
themselves in lengthy mashov sessions right now. There’s no reason, however, that this should be the sole domain of the leaders. A well-executed mashov might just give us all a bit of clarity into what went down over the last few weeks – and maybe even some invaluable insight for the future. While any Israeli-Arab flareup can be broken down to an infinite array of factors, I think it’s incumbent on us all to hone in on the bigger picture. And that picture is, unfortunately, not very good.
EVERYTHING IS POLITICAL The entire ten-day crisis in Israel, which culminated in a full-fledged IDF operation in Gaza, was instigated by a series of land disputes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. The first point worth noting is that disputes in this area of the capital are nothing new. Disputes over ownership rights in Sheikh Jarrah have been going on for the better part of twenty years. These court cases have always consisted of complex legal claims going back decades and across eras of legal sovereignty over the neighborhood. To put this into perspective, in a census conducted by the Ottoman authorities in the early 1900s, the Sheikh Jarrah “district” consisted of “quarters” which were distinctly Jewish, Christian, and Muslim respectively. The residents of the Jewish quarters named Shimon Hatsadik and Nahalat Shimon, both established at the end of the 19th century by various communal groups, were forced to abandon their homes when Jordan took control of the eastern part of the city in 1948. Beginning in the early 2000s, several Israeli groups began efforts to retake control of properties they claimed were, in fact, owned by the Jewish community. The very
