Criticize Mistakes
By Moshe Katz
CEO
Israeli Krav International

After every victory or setback the Israeli army analyzes what went well and what did not go well. Self criticism is the way to improvement.

Everyone is talking about the recent abduction of three Israeli teenagers. The fear, the prayers, the hope...are universal. We are united in our hopes and our prayers that they return home soon safely.

Voices have been heard criticizing the boys' action: Why were they hitchhiking? Why were they in a dangerous area, an area known for trouble? Why this, why that?

And other voices, pure and sincere, have responded by saying, "This is a terrible time for all of us, this is not a time to criticize the actions or behavior of the boys, let them be. We must be united now."

And I must disagree. I must disagree.

The military way, the military thinking, is to take emotions out of the picture and analyze the situation in a cold and clear way. We must always learn from our mistakes. We must not let our feelings or emotions interfere with our analysis. We must always ask what went wrong? How and why did this happen?

If we are to avoid the mistakes of the past we must examine our behavior, no matter how sensitive or painful the subject. We have to "lehafik lekachim" (Draw lessons).

This is the only way.This is the Israeli way.

Mistakes were made. I just read that one of the boys, acting wisely, quickly call the police and said "I have been taken hostage". His plea was ignored as a teenage prank. Five precious hours were wasted. This must be examined. Of course, those responsible for this huge mishap say...this is not a time for looking at mistakes. I disagree, this is the time to look for mistakes.

Why is Hamas and other terrorist organizations allowed to exist, to become a political party, to vote, to be recognized by the world? Why do we allow our government to release thousands of terrorists as a "gesture of good will"? Why do we allow our government to fold to American pressure to appease the Arabs?

Why? why? why?

So do not tell me "this is not a time to criticize, it is exactly the time to criticize!"

We could blame others for our misfortunes or we could examine our behavior and ask what we did wrong.

We could cry out "Why me!" or we can ask what we did wrong. The choice is ours.

So as painful as it is we examine the actions of the boys, we examine our own actions, we examine our strategies and techniques and we ask: How can we improve them? How can we make our training more effective?

During our Tour and Train program we meet with Israeli counter-terrorism experts. They tell us of terrorists whom they caught. These terrorists reenact their murderous acts of terror and our Counter-Terror experts learn from these experiences. It is painful to reenact the murder of an entire family, it is painful to hear how terrorists killed children but we must, this is how we learn.

We put our feelings aside, we put our egos aside and we work to improve our method of self-defense, our strategies of survival.

This is our way.

Comments

Well done and I agree totally.  We MUST criticize and learn by doing this.  Ignoring the truth and/or ignoring mistakes will do little more than let us repeat what caused the problem(s).  (Hal Herndon, Ga, USA)

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