![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/636065946976335613-hirschjpg.jpg\")
Gal Hirsch, center, here as an Israeli army division commander, talks with the service’s chief of staff, Dan Halutz, right, as they watch troops advance from Israel into Lebanon Aug. 12, 2006, from an observation point along Israel’s border with its northern neighbor.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo Credit: Abir Sultan\/IDF via Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n At times, Hirsch’s road to redemption reads like that of a jilted lover. “I loved you for 15 years,” he tells Halutz, urging the IDF’s top officer to back him against trumped-up accusations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At other times, the book reads like a white-knuckled thriller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two memorable scenes take place far earlier in his career that give readers a sense of the true grit Hirsch would draw upon a decade hence in his quest to remain in the IDF’s top ranks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first involved an April 1995 overnight mission deep inside Lebanon. Hirsch at the time commanded the Air Force’s Shaldag (Kingfisher) elite commando force. As dawn approached, superiors back home were frantically urging him and his team to head for the CH-53 extraction point. But Hirsch refused to abort until the mission was complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other scenario, as chief of operations for Central Command’s Regional Division in February\u00a01998, was far more personal\u00a0yet similarly illustrative of how Hirsch favored risk over rules to overcome adversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a well-planned ambush, as he drove through the West Bank town of Birzeit, Hirsch’s jeep was literally crushed by a boulder dropped from a bridge overhead. With collapsed lungs, broken ribs, a shattered collarbone and a fractured spine that left him partially paralyzed, doctors doubted whether he would ever walk again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After a year of painful recuperation, the wounded warrior had resumed his upward trajectory throughout the ranks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A stint at the IDF’s Operational Theory Research Institute \u2014 an internal think tank for developing new battle concepts \u2014 was followed by assignments as brigade commander in the West Bank and then chief of operations (J-3) for Central Command. It was in his J-3 capacity for Central Command, the theater responsible for the West Bank and Jerusalem, that Hirsch put into practice the theoretical concepts he helped coin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At times, Hirsch’s words read like that of a jilted lover. At other times, the book reads like a white-knuckled thriller.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo Credit: Courtesy of Gefen Publishing House<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel embarked on its 2002 Operation\u00a0Defensive Shield in response to a suicide attack that killed 30 on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover. Designed primarily by Hirsh (hence the title of this book) with the promise of “defeating Palestinian terror,” the operation marked the largest campaign in the West Bank since the 1967 Six Day War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fourteen years after the fact, that operation and the technologies, tactics and procedures it prescribed are still credited\u00a0in large part\u00a0for maintaining the relative calm in the occupied territories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the most provocative parts of the book ultimately bring the reader back to Lebanon, where Hirsch, on balance, offers constructive criticism based on his experiences at the front lines. He devotes a full chapter to lessons learned, key among them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n It took six years for the high command to welcome Hirsch \u2014 a man who could have risen to IDF chief of staff \u2014 back into the fold as an active reserve officer and deputy commander of the new special operations Depth Command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two years into that position, which he held from 2012-2015, Hirsch finally found full redemption by the judge who headed the government’s official commission of inquiry into the war. In a January 2014 letter to then-IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, Judge Eliahu Winograd exonerated Hirsch, insisting he would have done so earlier\u00a0but that his commission at the time was precluded from appearing to interfere in personnel matters:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Ever since the submission of the Winograd Commission report pertaining to the events during the Second Lebanon War, my conscience has tormented me, as we could not, as we had meant, include a warm recommendation that the IDF offer Gal Hirsch to return to full service in its ranks. …\u00a0It would be an expression of respect and appreciation to the man and his deeds in the IDF after the difficult years he underwent and is still suffering, since his forced retirement.”<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n As evidence of the full circle traversed by Hirsch, the book’s back cover bears this message from the IDF chief of staff, one of his former detractors: “Gal Hirsch [is] one of the main people to whom the residents of the north owe the [peaceful] period since the Second Lebanon War. I think you are a role model. You are an Israeli patriot.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Defensive Shield: An Israeli Special Forces Commander on the Front Line of Counterterrorism” was written\u00a0by Gal Hirsch\u00a0and published by Gefen Publishing House in\u00a02016 as an updated and adapted version of the 2009 Hebrew book “War Story, Love Story.”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For students of warfare, Mideast enthusiasts or anyone inspired by stories of redemption after a fall from grace, a new English version of a book by retired Israeli Brig. Gen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":36192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":68,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[66,33,68,17],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2818],"class_list":["post-18673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-home","category-intercepts","category-opinion"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"PQSUMH4SAZGA5FAQKMFVH4J5GI","arc_canonical_url":"\/opinion\/intercepts\/2016\/08\/13\/book-review-a-cautionary-tale-of-the-israel-defense-forces\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/636065969168244121-galhirschpic-3-jpg.jpg\")