Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has never felt comfortable with the army. When the cameras are rolling, it’s clear there’s something forced and artificial about his encounters with soldiers. It’s not his natural element; he has been suspicious of generals since, when he was prime minister two decades ago, he clashed with the Israel Defense Forces chief at the time, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak.
Netanyahu has had more accounts to settle with the security chiefs, notably what the chiefs did between 2009 and 2012: the near rebellion by Mossad head Meir Dagan, Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin to thwart Netanyahu’s plan to strike Iran’s nuclear sites. The current chief of staff, Gadi Eisenkot, didn’t play a major role in these intrigues because for most of that time he headed the Northern Command.
But Netanyahu still remembers the letter Eisenkot sent to Ashkenazi explaining the possible damage such a strike could do. At the end of 2014, when then-Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon urged Netanyahu to appoint Eisenkot chief of staff, the prime minister wavered until the last minute after considering alternatives like Golan and Maj. Gen. (res.) Yoav Galant. We can assume that Netanyahu hasn’t always been pleased with Eisenkot’s opinions since the general became chief of staff in February 2015.
In Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu has chosen as his next defense minister a man to whom military DNA is utterly foreign. Unlike Netanyahu and Habayit Hayehudi leader Naftali Bennett, Lieberman can’t look back at glory days as a young officer in an elite unit. Bennett has used his brief military career to befriend secular voters; he adds a thick layer of honey on any mention of his military experiences.
But Lieberman’s IDF experience amounts to a short stint in basic training for older immigrants. Senior officers who have dealt with Lieberman describe him as distant, almost suspicious. As chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, he didn’t make life easy for officers. More than once he showed impatience, but he also asked pointed questions (and fought tirelessly against leaks).
For years the left wing has portrayed every right-wing trick as a sure sign the country’s end is near. In endless articles, right-wingers’ bills that rarely make it into law are compared to the dark days of far-off countries. The mountain’s shadow is perceived as the mountain.
And yet Netanyahu’s current term – a back-from-the-brink victory on Election Day itself – conveys another line. Netanyahu is more self-assured and aggressive than in the past.
After the immediate profit he gained from his “Arabs streaming to the polls” speech, the prime minister seems certain he knows everything better than his colleagues, whether allies or opponents. The forging of a 61-MK coalition was a work accident orchestrated by Lieberman. Now it is to be corrected, with Lieberman joining the government and Ya’alon leaving.
But the explanation isn’t just political expedience; it’s also the crisis of confidence between Netanyahu and Ya’alon and the IDF brass in recent months. And as my colleague Yossi Verter has written, Lieberman’s entry reflects Netanyahu’s war against the elites, of which the military high command remains the last target.
There will now be an attempt to reeducate the General Staff, now without Ya’alon, as Bennett is doing to the Education Ministry and the civics teachers, and as Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked is trying to do with the state prosecution and the Supreme Court.
Lieberman doesn’t need to smash heads. He can make the officers’ lives miserable slowly but surely. And as always, some people will bow enthusiastically to the new leadership, especially when the temptations are so great (promotions and even the office of the next chief of staff). In only a few weeks we’ll read an article saying that the new minister isn’t what we feared; he’s attentive, original and respects officers.
Still, in replacing Ya’alon with Lieberman, Netanyahu has turned the rudder sharply right. The significance of this move cannot be overestimated.
And it seems nowhere does the rudder need more careful navigation than Gaza, where Israel is two mistakes away from another war with Hamas. Netanyahu and Ya’alon had been treating this well and prevented an escalation even after the recent discovery of two tunnels dug by Hamas into Israel, apparently before the 2014 Gaza war.
Gaza is a powder keg. Statements by Lieberman, who only a month ago threatened to kill Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh are like throwing a match into that keg. We can only hope that from the minister’s office on the 14th floor of the Defense Ministry, things indeed look different.
Gaza will also be a test case because the army’s recommendation was completely different from what Lieberman conveyed. The army says Israel should seek any economic means to relieve Hamas’ distress and reduce the threat of war.
Other sensitive areas regarding the army involve the terror wave in the West Bank. Just two months ago, the chief of staff made clear to ministers that the IDF’s rules of engagement were none of their business. The Palestinian question, in all its aspects, is expected to rise again between this November and January: Netanyahu fears harsh steps by Washington at the end of Barack Obama’s presidency. This might be the political tsunami that Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned about in 2011 and never came.
And there’s another issue, far from the public eye: weekly discussions of operations and urgent telephone consultations in which the prime minister and defense minister approve sensitive operations. Most of these operations are carried out successfully and aren’t even mentioned in the media.
Ya’alon, who was conservative about fielding large forces, tended to take calculated risks in small actions, in coordination with Eisenkot (his predecessor, Benny Gantz, was often even more cautious). It’s possible Lieberman’s entering the picture will change the system of checks and balances.
In spite of the predictable hysteria about ‘fascism’ from the Fascist Left, and the giddy ‘Power of Positive Thinking’ of what passes for the Right, it’s unlikely we’ll see any meaningful changes; only superficial and meaningless theatrics — and of course Netanyahu continuing his masterful ‘sheep in wolf’s clothing’ posturing.
The military, judicial, police, social worker, industrial, and Rabbinical realms in Israel’s bloated oligarchical bureaucracies will keep bickering over funding and minute increases in power while continuing on the path that’s been set since the Altalena was sunk.
In spite of literal miracles and clear signs that ‘The Heavens Approve Our Undertaking’, there’s little (close to zero) support for the only thing that can possibly make a difference — namely, the restoration of the Malchut.
Top brass are needed for the purpose of ensuring that in case of battle, our forces will defeat the enemy in such a way that the enemy either surrenders unconditionally or is dead. That is their purpose, that should be their expertise, that is what the public should hear about from them when they speak in public. They should speak on NO OTHER subject. Just as I don’t care what dancers, athletes and musicians think about what happens in the army, so I don’t care what military people think about social trends in society.
The military needs to act as the military and not be involved in politics. They should make their recommendations to the politicians.
If they want to be politicians they should resign and run for office.
The military in politics is dangerous for the state.
That historically has been a danger in many countries.
a high command who acts as a political class rather than a military arm subordinate to the civilian gov indicates that their military “expertise” might be lacking… perhaps their failures in lebanon, in gaza are distracted from by advising political solutions to cover up their incompetence and insubordination.
another insubordinate political meddling to cover up a failed military policy….. which is determined by political rather than military considerations. Apparently this high command sees itself as a political command rather than a military command… in conflict with the elected leadership and implementing the narratives and policies instead…. of the foreign handlers who made them feel good when visiting abroad.
The military needs to stop trying to undercut the elected leadership and start to do its job as a subordinate military… rather than as a gov in waiting…. waiting for the green light from the foreigners and their paid fake zionist moles. In normal govs such behavior warrants arrest. Hopefully, liberman will use his position and authority to arrest those inciting against jews, against real zionists, against nationalists… the anti semites and their fake zionist collaborators…. I would like to see the admin detention chock full of those bastards.
evil, dangerous, unethical, fascist, nazi…..
aren’t these the same leftists fake zionists who whined about incitement against Rabin? I suppose when its their lunatic incitement and hysterics its all A-OK:
Wow, apparently a DM who incarcerates without evidence, declares soldiers guilty without evidence, tortures jewish dissenters without evidence, abuses his position of authority to instruct his subordinates to find the soldier guilty…. it appears that those who always whine about democracy being applied to the enemy have absolutely no problem with the use of fascist tactics by the DM when it agrees with and damages dissenters, nationalists and real zionists…. for Michaeli, Yaalons MO demonstrates he is “committed to democracy”.that his declarations of jews burning babies without evidence and of the soldiers guilt before the investigation started is “a sane voice”…. that his declaration of the soldiers guilt before an investigation commences demonstrates that yaalon “safeguards the army” by throwing his soldiers to the wolves..
there is nothing to which these fake zionists, whose only goal is to build muslim houses on the jewish homeland, would not stoop ….. they are truly a despicable and transparently hypocritical bunch of lunatics puppeted by the foreigners who fund and instruct them.