In the midst of the fighting, when Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter's tasks swallow up his agenda between dealing with farmers and manpower shortages in the industry and cabinet meetings, he once again receives a reminder from his fellow patrolmen. Those who are disappointed in him for not blocking the legal reform process accuse him, among other things, of the government's failure to concentrate on the threats to its doorstep that led to Hamas' surprise attack. In a meeting with him between a tour of the south and a meeting with the ambassador of a foreign country that might provide workers to the State of Israel, I ask him if he would like to respond.
Benjamin Netanyahu: "Everyone will have to give answers to the omission" // Photo: GPO
"I also told them, 'I'm at war and I don't deal with these personal things during the war.' After the war, we will sit down for personal, national and friendly soul-searching. Not that it passes me by, these are friends of 52 years from the unit, but if I dive into it, I am disgraced in my role. Each of us has a limited ability to pay attention and I prefer to use all my attention capacity for the benefit of my public mission as a member of the political, security, economic cabinet, minister and member of Knesset."
Still, could it be that as a government you were preoccupied with reform at the expense of security?
"The people who are responsible for the security of the state in general and the Gaza Strip in particular are not people who deal with legal reform. These are other systems, I've been there and I know it intimately. We have never as a country had an incident like this where 1,400 people are killed in one day, in a few hours. 240 abductees. During the entire second intifada, we lost 1,100 people. These events are difficult for each of us – the prime minister, the defense minister, the chief of staff, cabinet members, myself included."
Prime Minister Netanyahu with Ministers Levin, Kish and Dichter, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
"There are two circles: intelligence and physical security, and you build both so that if one fails, the other will cover for it. When both fail you find yourself in unexpected places, the Americans experienced it on 11/9, and we are in the Yom Kippur War and now again. It is absolutely impossible to deal with this now that these are the same people who are waging the war for all of us. It takes extraordinary mental fortitude, leadership and courage. They don't interrogate during war. I was told after Rabin's assassination, the head of the personal security unit resigned and the head of the service two months later - it's not the same. Then there was one tragic incident that happened and ended and could be questioned an hour later. Here an hour after you went to war."
And now, during the war, one after the other, the head of the Shin Bet, the head of intelligence, the chief of staff come out and take responsibility. Why doesn't Netanyahu take responsibility?
"All the professionals connected to these two circles – I know what it feels like when you hijack an incident of this magnitude in particular. These are serious guys with leadership, that's their direct responsibility. They are waging the war despite everything, and the prime minister knows what it's all about, it's on his watch. The Israeli government has overall responsibility for the events of October 7 and is not avoiding it. This includes the prime minister, cabinet members and relevant ministers – they all have full responsibility. The significance will be examined in post-war debriefings, not during wartime."
Chief-of-Staff: "I know there are many questions and a lot of frustration, but this is a time for war"
At this time in this war you were supposed to be defense minister and not Galant, think you would have managed to prevent this attack or at least recognize that it was approaching?
"No one can give a serious answer to such a question. It depends on so many things. I'm not suggesting anyone give an answer to that."
A few hours before another cabinet meeting, I ask Dichter how the cabinet is dealing with the pressure from the United States to bring aid into the Gaza Strip.
"Anyone who thinks the U.S. is watching from the sidelines doesn't know the situation. The U.S. is providing backing that hasn't been the case for many years, aid of dramatic magnitude, budgets, weapons, and defense against other threats. In calculating all the things that are important to us, we need to see how best to deal with pressure. As soon as the IDF works only in the northern Gaza Strip and there is aid to the south, I think it can be absorbed. When we move to fight there, we will change the rules of the game."
Could it be that IDF soldiers are still endangering today because of international restrictions on aerial fire with a high potential for civilian casualties?
"The war began with a tragedy we have never experienced before. Since I have been on this issue for many years and I am familiar with those cases in which we could have dropped the Hamas leadership with one bomb, in 2003, contrary to my position, they did not drop a bomb because of harm to innocent people. Now that doesn't mean we're removing all the checkpoints, but the directive is to destroy the terror infrastructure. I don't know any technique in my 52 years of security other than working on the ground. There is no case in which terror has been defeated from the air. The move in Gaza is with a great deal of softening of the area and damage from the air, the air force dropped more bombs in Gaza than dropped in any other war in our history.
Soldiers and tanks near the Gaza Strip, photo: AP
"But in order to end the era of the Hamas army in Gaza, you can't do it without being on the ground. The line I followed and educated all my life and said it at every opportunity," Dichter switches to Arabic and then translates his famous saying: "A thousand mothers of terrorists will cry and my mother will not cry. Our soldiers are in Gaza, and I hope that every soldier there operates according to this rule. I am willing to testify in any legal framework why we should have shot if we accidentally shot an innocent person. I'm not willing to come in front of one mother and tell her that her son was killed because we debated whether to shoot and I know enough cases that it has already cost us lives."
IDF soldiers fighting in the Gaza Strip to transfer the area to the PA? Is it right to leave the question of the day after open?
"There is no justification in my view for the official State of Israel to announce what should be in Gaza the day after. It doesn't help us in the fighting or in the interface with other countries, and what doesn't help bothers us."
"We will liberate the land"
9 months in the position, Dichter sees the Ministry of Agriculture as a mission. He tells how he saved Israeli agriculture from disappearing following the actions of the previous government led by Lieberman-Forer-Kushner. "We came after a government whose agriculture was an import. We arrived and caught the butterfly in the wings just before it flew. We saw a harsh reality, and when I entered the ministry, we embarked on a strategic plan to increase production in agriculture for the local market in the coming years. We will deal with water reductions, bring in more workers and free up the land for agriculture," he promises.
Agricultural work near the Gaza Strip after the attack, photo: Shmuel Buchris
Since the war began, there have been changes in Minister Dichter's plans, and he has had to deal with the severe shortage of foreign workers following the damage to them in the Hamas offensive as well. "On the eve of the war, 30,20 foreign workers worked here in agriculture as well as <>,<> Palestinians, and now I'm working in six tracks to bring in as soon as possible workers to cover up the severe shortage after many of them left," the minister says. "We will offer additional monthly grants to those who remain, extend residence permits, look for workers in other countries, and revitalize the private offices of yesteryear in order to bring workers through them. We built another track for Israeli workers in exchange for grants."
Dichter compliments the volunteers who were the first to arrive to help the farmers, but says they are not a substitute for workers. "The volunteers are exceptional, but they don't know how to replace agricultural professionals. It's a skill you acquire." At the moment, the ability to work in fields near the border in Gaza is already limited, so Dichter is working to keep the shelves empty – "what can't be grown, we will import and give quotas for what is needed." For farmers whose livelihoods have been affected, Dichter is trying with the Ministry of Finance to formulate an outline of assistance that is more significant than that given to businesses, but in the meantime the Ministry of Finance is opposed.
924 fighters assisting farmers near Gaza, photo: None
In conclusion, I ask him the question that makes many of Israel's citizens not sleep – what will happen to the abductees, what efforts are being made, and are the odds in our favor?
"Anyone who thinks that all 240 abductees are being held in one place and that in one fell swoop they can be removed doesn't know Hamas. Anyone we manage to liberate in any way will be an achievement. During war, we will not engage in any way that weakens the combat effort."
Will we recover from this massacre?
"Yes, we will come out of this with scars that we have not had since the establishment of the state. I say this as someone who fought in the Yok War in the unit, and today, 50 years later, I am optimistic because of other things I learned about the timeline, and I am just as optimistic about agriculture."
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