Former Vice Prime Minister Addresses Chief of Staff Halevi

Your beautiful words about responsibility are void of content.

Haim Ramon | X | May 15. 2024

Haim Ramon, Former Vice PM

In a speech he delivered at the state ceremony to open the events of Remembrance Day at the Western Wall, Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said that he bears responsibility for the fact that the IDF failed in its mission to protect the citizens of the State of Israel on October 7.

I assume that no one disputes that the Chief of Staff bears responsibility for the October 7 failure, but Halevi did not point out that he was also primarily responsible for the failed management of the “Iron Swords” war.

The political echelon, in consultation with the Chief of Staff, determined that the goals of the war are the elimination of Hamas’s military capability, the weakening of its civilian rule and the return of the abductees, and it is clear that even after seven months of war, these goals have not been achieved, and the way the war is going, they will not be achieved either.

The Chief of Staff is responsible for the fact that the army did not have a ready plan for the occupation of the Gaza Strip, even though Hamas is the most active enemy against Israel. He is also responsible for the fact that the war plan that was hastily improvised was not intended to lead to the occupation of the Gaza Strip. That is, his war plan from the beginning was not intended to lead to the elimination of the military capability of Hamas.

Halevi opposed the establishment of a temporary military government in the occupied areas. Even when Benjamin Netanyahu asked (belatedly) the coordinator of government operations in the territories to prepare a plan for a military government, the Chief of Staff was one of the main opponents of this (along with the commander of the Southern Command and the Minister of Defense) and in the end the prime minister withdrew his request. Since no military government was established, Hamas succeeded maintain civil control in the Strip.

The Chief of Staff is responsible for the decision to begin a slow and gradual ground operation in the north of the Gaza Strip only, instead of launching a blitzkrieg across the entire width of the Strip or at the very least attacking the south and the north together. He is also responsible for the decision to deport a million Gazans from the north of the Strip to the south, without considering how the army under his command will be able to operate in Rafah if the majority of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip flees to it.

Do you want to know why Halevi made the decision to launch a slow attack in the north and not attack the entire width of the strip? According to a senior source, the Chief of Staff chose a slow attack in the north only “to restore self-confidence to the IDF after October 7th”.

This week the Chief of Staff slammed the Cabinet that “We are now operating once again in Jabaliya. As long as there is no political move that will grow a non-Hamas governing body in the Gaza Strip – we will have to act again and again there and in other places to dismantle the Hamas infrastructure. It will be a Sisyphean effort.”

Herzi, do you dare to complain that we are forced to act once more in Jabaliya and other places we have conquered? After all, this is the war plan that you planned, and which you presented for the approval of the political echelon. Are you trying to disclaim responsibility for the fact that the plan prepared at the General Staff included a phase of intense warfare (without occupation) followed by a phase of repeated raids into the Gaza Strip in accordance with a concrete operational need?

Moreover, it was your decision to evacuate IDF forces from any occupied area, which allowed Hamas to regain control of these areas. When the expanded cabinet wondered about the reason for your decision to thin out the forces in the Gaza Strip, you replied “I don’t have enough brigades”, and this after being made available to you A force the size of five divisions to subdue Hamas. A larger force than the IDF used to subdue the Egyptian army in the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War.

The Chief of Staff cannot be satisfied with statements about taking responsibility, but draw personal conclusions from the strategic failure in the war and, of course, from the mega-failure of October 7. Such a heavy responsibility has only one expression – immediate resignation. Otherwise, all your beautiful words about responsibility are void of content.