Helping soldiers
On Thursday, the Defense Ministry rolled out a new plan to reform the way the state cares for IDF veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, otherwise known as PTSD.
The reform came after Itzik Saidyan, the former Golani soldier whose requests for assistance had repeatedly been rejected, lit himself on fire outside a Defense Ministry office in Petah Tikva just days before Remembrance Day earlier this month. Saidyan remains in critical condition.
The core of the plan is easing the bureaucratic difficulties veterans encounter when seeking assistance. Since Saidyan’s cry for help, there has been an outpouring of stories from IDF veterans. People told of how they cannot get out of bed due to PTSD, how they don’t sleep, how they suffer from physical ailments and how the Defense Ministry simply ignores them.
Yediot Ahronot reported last week that around half of all requests submitted by IDF veterans seeking recognition as being disabled were rejected between 2015 and 2019.
According to data presented by the paper, some 20,972 requests for disabled status were submitted during that four-year period and approximately half were rejected.
This is an astounding number. While there will always be some cases of people who try to cheat the system, a 50% rejection rate shows an apathy from our government that cannot be ignored.
“We have all been close to hurting ourselves, more than once,” Rafael Ashkenazi, an IDF veteran, told Army Radio. “Every two months we are asked to humiliate ourselves and write on a page ‘I cannot work.’ Do you know what that does to a person? The only two words that are holding me right now are ‘No more.’”
Bnei Akiva Secretary-General Yair Shahal also took part in a protest last week. “There is no struggle more just than the one the disabled and wounded IDF veterans are currently waging. The State of Israel must mobilize for those who paid with their bodies and souls for the establishment of the state and for our lives in this country,” he said.
Shahal is right. IDF soldiers who go off to battle don’t do so for themselves. They are there, on the battlefield, fighting to defend all Israeli citizens – and they deserve our support. While every request for assistance does not need to be accepted, the unnecessary bureaucracy needs to come to an end.
The process needs to be modernized, streamlined, made easy and also respect those people who went off to war, came back and are struggling to get their lives back on track. That is the least we can do for them.
At a press conference presenting the new reforms on Thursday, Defense Minister Benny Gantz vowed that the “leading value” would be to stop doubting every soldier who comes asking for assistance.
“We have a moral and historical imperative to make these changes,” Gantz said. “I have issued an order that Defense Ministry employees will stop digging into the past of every IDF fighter. All regulations on this will come to an end.”
When asked how much the implementation of the new reforms would cost, Gantz said that it would require the allocation of hundreds of millions of shekels.
We call on the government to allocate the money immediately – and if it is difficult because of the absence of a state budget due to our national political dysfunction, then find a way to overcome that.
Rehabilitating soldiers and ensuring they live respectfully, crosses partisan lines. This is not an issue for the Right or the Left, and has nothing to do with Gantz, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or Naftali Bennett.
This is about the identity of our country. If we expect young men and women to put their lives at risk, they need to know that the country stands behind them no matter what happens. The country will do what it can to bring them back from captivity, to bring them to burial in Israel if they fall and to provide them with the assistance and support they require after coming home.
This is part of the social contract between a government and its soldiers. What happened to Itzik Saidyan is an alarm bell that cannot be shut off. Now is the time for action.