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The captains of the state are closing their ears, and are not preparing for the doomsday scenario

A long line of experts warns that the links in the national security chain are loosening, and that continued fixation and structural failures are leading Israel to existential risk.

Meanwhile, the commanders are dealing with wage conditions at the expense of the IDF's military might

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• The guardian of the walls

• IDF

Yossi Blum Halevi

Saturday, 04 September 2021, 23:25

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In the video: Chief of Staff Kochavi clarifies that he is ready to expand the campaign as needed (Photo: GPO)

What has been happening in our country in recent months is reminiscent of the seagull in Luba Eliav's book "The Land of the Deer," which was published about a year before the Yom Kippur War. The seagull looks down from above on a cruise ship, screaming and warning its passengers, while on the command bridge stand its captains, drunk in their glory, trusting themselves and their status and leading their ship in the stormy sea straight to a crashing shore.

It has been a long time since many good experts have been shouting the Seagull's wake-up call here, and no one will listen to their cry. Starting with the late Emanuel Weld, through Amatzia Chen, Uri Milstein, Yitzhak Brick, Gershon HaCohen, Ari Shavit, Eli Dekel and more. National security, in the spirit of the teachings of Jehoshaphat Harkabi - one of the greatest thinkers in this field - is a whole set of issues that does not amount to aspects of war and military strategy.

The strength and resilience of the state depend on the balance between the inputs invested in the military force and the other inputs in the national complex, which ensure the resilience of the state's citizens in a crisis, including the home front defense; Traffic security within and outside the country, including the ability to transfer forces on internal and external lines; Ensuring a continuous supply of food, energy and water; Free movement by land, air and sea from the country and beyond; Protection of public health, national morale and personal security of citizens in an emergency; And especially in Israel - thwarting terrorism resulting from internal threats, while the military force is preparing and mobilizing for war against the external threat.

The State of Israel, in the three decades since the Oslo Accords, has changed its face. Its economic, scientific and national achievements, which arouse envy and amazement among the nations of the world, are facing a deep social and political crisis that endangers its existence and puts Israeli Arabs into this equation as an internal enemy.

Operation The Wall Guard, one of many included by our generals in the "battle between the wars," revealed the structural failures of our national security system, which continued fixation and inability to break free from lead Israel to existential risk, as described in Harkabi's "National Security Policy" chapter. And strategy. "

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To the full article

A tank on the Gaza border during Operation Wall Guard (Photo: Reuven Castro)

Since the first Gulf War, our military force has had no ability to deter the enemy from firing missiles at the civilian home front, and the threat has become tangible due to the fixation of the IDF's "concept of inclusion", the illegal sister of "there is no one to beat," and " There is no solution to terrorism that controls the civilian population. "

Iraq's decision in 2003 and the peace agreements signed with Jordan, Egypt and recently with the Gulf states have led to a dangerous notion that total war threats against regular armies have faded from the world. The ground army of the reserve forces is evident - the main force in the state's ability to defend its existence in every parameter.

Fixation of "perception of the bride"

If we look at the situation of the forces of the land arm, we will find that in the face of the enormous military power of the Egyptian army in Sinai - built in violation of the peace agreements - there is only one spatial division, which will have to deal with large Egyptian logistics infrastructure , In less than 12 hours, a first wave of attacks that includes an army of three armored divisions, not including independent brigades that join them in combat.

It would be too brief to describe what might have happened back to the 1960 Rotem alert, following the IDF raid on Syrian Tawfiq outposts, when intelligence failed to detect the entry of an Egyptian armored division stationed at Jabal Livni on the southern border line, accompanied by brigades. Additional infantry. The surprised IDF deployed forces in the skin of its teeth and urgently sent most of the regular force to the south, while at the same time mobilizing reserves in emergency orders.

The IDF's great failure, under the responsibility of the current defense minister and chief of staff, according to the scathing testimony of Maj. Gen. (Res.) Yitzhak Brick, is that the few land divisions left in the reserve Below the red line.

The few land divisions in the reserve that remained did not train for years.

Maj. Gen. (Res.) Yitzhak Brick (Photo: Roni Kanfo)

A shocking thing happened in Operation Wall Guard, when the defense minister, apparently inspired by the Israel Democracy Institute, initially refused to respond to the request of the Minister of Internal Security and the commissioner to reinforce the police, who stood helpless in the face of thousands of Israeli Arabs attacking their Jewish neighbors. The IDF and police operations on all roads in the country, especially on southern roads. Only then were Border Police fighters recruited, who were transferred to the mixed cities.

Another shameful failure was revealed when Arab transport drivers of tankers and equipment, hired by the Ministry of Defense from civilian companies, refused to go to work so as not to "harm their brothers in Gaza." Reservists who were recruited to leave their weapons at the base during the holiday, and also to go out in civilian clothes - according to soldiers, "so as not to stir up and stir up riots with the Arab population" - and navigation training of elite units in the south were canceled for a similar reason.

Why was there not a single IDF base commander in the 1947 riots, who acted on his own initiative against the Arab rioters, as Major General Janusz Ben Gal did in the Galilee Arab riots in 1976, when he sent the force under his command to eradicate the violent uprising in the north and restore order?

Worst of all, returning to the "Rotem Crisis" before 61 years did not sleep after seeing the the dynein and our commanders, concerning the conditions salaries of career military at the expense of inputs required military power weakened by the IDF in general and ground forces in particular.

Withdrawal shameful of the United States from Afghanistan, And soon after Iraq, following its political surrender to the Iranian nuclear deal, a strong backbone emerged in Iran's regional hegemony aspirations, which could not only sweep Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, which began to woo it after the Trump era, but also entice Egypt to continue to erode a hesitation agreement. And create an existential threat to the State of Israel.

The Security Cabinet would do well to discuss a situation in which the Islamic coalitions, backed by Egyptian military power in Sinai, would impose conditions of surrender on the State of Israel, which is a serious threat to the existence of the State of Israel long before the Iranian nuclear program.

The author is a writer, historian and systems analyst engaged in strategic research

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