In an article about left-wing activists in Israel broadcast on CNN, it was claimed that the families of the abductees, now also some of the abductees themselves, became a political movement during the war. But as it emerged this week, this is not a peace movement, but clearly a movement in which various elements were mobilized to topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
It's hard to say that during the war. It is very transparent now that the "protest" of the year before the war did not disintegrate.Its leaders did not wear sackcloth and ashes, and they did not conduct self-whipping ceremonies until blood flowed. They organized and came to their senses very quickly, as if the ultimate goal of iron swords was to topple the prime minister.
Unfortunately, this trend already promises to disrupt the lessons learned and investigate the war. According to Prime Minister Netanyahu's testimony at the unity press conference with Galant and Gantz on Tuesday evening, when he said that Hamas blew up the negotiations and did not abide by the agreement, one of the delegation of abductees at a meeting with the cabinet said: "Nonsense."
GPO
Abductees and their families cannot be judged. But there are two parties that have an interest, as a strategic goal, in splitting the leadership of the war against Israel. One is the American administration, which has begun to target Israel with the flames of anti-Israeli propaganda; The goal is to dictate to Israel the tactics of war in order to make the war more painful and unworthwhile. The second factor is the enemy - Hamas.
How it happened that some of the families of the abductees became a tool in the hands of the cynical strategists of the anti-Bibist left is difficult to understand. How does this incitement, under the guidance of a political strategist, reconcile with the moving and noble letter sent by my colleague Nir Oz to the OC Southern Command on the eve of its operation: "This letter was written in order to remove from you and your soldiers any thought about past events, and to allow you and your soldiers to focus on returning the hostages alive and fighting until a decisive victory." Soldiers paid with their lives to conduct fighting that would not harm the hostages.
But these are also not all abductees and their families. This week, regardless of the anarchic meeting between the cabinet and the families of the abductees, I spoke with the brother of one of the murdered abductees. He said he was disappointed in the people of Israel. That unity is not preserved, that we cannot unite in this war.
And here is the powerful importance of unity, demonstrated by the trio of war captains – Netanyahu, Galant and Gantz. They demonstrated impressive and convincing unity. Exactly the opposite of Thomas Friedman's slurs against the prime minister, whom he accused among other things of not knowing how to form a "team of rivals."
All three are rivals to one degree or another. This week, suspicions were raised on the right against Defense Minister Galant. But they show impressive unity in setting the goal and sticking to it. It was Benny Gantz who implicitly attacked the American administration, as well as the Israeli left, which for the past two years has been using the Pavlovian term "settler violence." It did not begin today, as part of the American attack, which is being carried out under pressure from the Muslim voice in the Democratic Party; This campaign began just as Gantz became defense minister in Bennett's government, and Omer Bar-Lev was appointed public security minister.
There is a theory circulating in the Likud that the Americans, along with the left and the Bressler Brigades, are consistently working to topple Netanyahu in order to replace Defense Minister Galant as a puppet prime minister. But the real goal is simpler, relying on bad Israeli habits – to divide the leadership within itself. And if not split, make it split around the question of the main purpose of the war. The joint performance this week shows that all three understand this, and even though they don't dance a tight sloo, it's still a kind of couples dance in a threesome.
Dangerous disconnection
The reluctance of senior IDF and Shin Bet officials to share their dilemmas with the political echelon impaired their ability to make correct decisions. That, too, was a lesson from October 7
Already on the second day of the war, immediately after the massacre and kidnappings, Israel had conclusive information about the whereabouts of the abductees, or at least most of them: Shifa Hospital in Gaza. One of the special units, on its own initiative, together with commanders from other branches, devised a plan to rescue them. They presented the plan to IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi. He, in consultation with commanders from another unit, rejected the operation and did not present it to the political echelon. This incident raised questions about whether the chief of staff even considers himself subordinate to the political echelon.
Looking further afield, there is no doubt that Lt. Gen. Halevy is the number one authority on such operations offered to him; Clearly, there was no greater military achievement than the release of the hostages in Operation Entebbe Turbo; And if he canceled it, he had good military reasons. If he doesn't believe it, his judgment can be trusted, and he doesn't have to pass the decision on to the political echelon.
The Air Force, which effectively recorded a no-show on Oct. 7 for the second time in its history, continued to do justice on Oct. 8, according to political sources. On that Sunday, some claim, the general shock created a window in the Earth's crust, through which strategic decisive bombings could be transmitted. Vital targets were not attacked, the one-time timing was not exploited.Such events, like the strange series of decisions at night
The pre-massacre, while disconnecting the prime minister and defense minister from the loop, alludes to one of the main problems that contributed to the bloody military failure of October 7. The reluctance of senior IDF and Shin Bet officials to share their dilemmas with senior political officials impaired their ability to make correct decisions. Just as in politicians' failed encounters with the court, the High Court of Justice, in which the justices act according to their worldview while detaching themselves from reality, so too in the encounters between senior commanders and senior politicians, there are critical areas of reality that the techno-military field of view does not contain. The decisions are not as good.
But out of the barbaric onslaught of the Palestinian enemy, the new Israeli revolution has already been revealed. We saw the people's army. A civilian people's army, made up of soldiers, volunteers and ordinary civilians, which Mao Zedong and Vietnamese Giap could not even dream of. The soldiers of this people's army are storming Sejaiya and Khan Yunis, and according to the cries of the UN secretary-general and Ismail Haniyeh, who is begging for a comprehensive agreement, the IDF is nearing a victory.
About commanders and activists
There are those who, as far as they are concerned, when a senior army commander fails and does not fulfill his duties properly, instead of ousting him, the prime minister and defense minister are required to resign along with him
Moav Vardi, in his important article on Kan 11 about observation fathers conducting their own investigation of what happened to their daughters, and their reports on what was happening on the other side, suddenly threw a wet blanket at the three veterans: "The conception!" A bereaved father replied: "It's not a concept, it's a crime!"
This is one of the exercises for evading a real study of the omission, according to the little information that is already flowing in the media. Two magic words of the cover and lie campaign were invented: "responsibility" and "conception." These are magic words in the most primitive sense. Prime Minister Netanyahu is doing well not to accede to the demands of the senior partners in the failure, namely, television opinion leaders and senior military correspondents.
The use of the term "responsibility" today is anything but accountability. Eliezer Livne distinguished in a 1948 article between the "figure of the commander" and the "security worker": "What is required of a commander? Total concentration on the act of war, without side considerations... Relinquishing popularity and 'success,' and a willingness to draw personal conclusions from failure."
The "concept" is a concept from the Yom Kippur War, and it is very specific: it was a simple logical structure, which explained, according to senior Military Intelligence officials, the conditions under which Egypt and Syria go to war, and if the conditions were not met, according to their logic, there was a low probability that they would go to war. These are two or three key points: the two countries will go to war only together, and in coordination. Egypt joins when it has deterrence measures against Israel in the form of planes that can reach Israel and return, or surface-to-surface missiles like Scud.
The same applies to the concept of "knowledge of gold". This is a concept from recent years regarding a specific report received by Unit 848, which explained unequivocally that a certain move meant immediate war. Knowledge of preparations for an attack of a certain type received by intelligence long before the attack is not "golden knowledge." However, today the word "conception" is used, especially by the Sages
The studios were designed to be used against one man: Prime Minister Netanyahu, in order to ensure that the web of fateful failures in the "duck night" that turned into a massacre would cover him as well.
The use of the term "responsibility" today is anything but accountability. I previously quoted Eliezer Livne in an important article written back in 1948, in which Livneh, one of the greatest intellectuals among us, made a distinction between the "figure of the commander" and the figure of the "security worker": "What is required of the commander?... Total concentration on the act of war, without side considerations... capacity for silence, restraint and self-restraint; Relinquishing popularity and 'success', except that which is the result of military success. direct treatment of the soldier, without class, party or sectarian appeals; Personal responsibility for carrying out the task and willingness to draw personal conclusions from failure."
This is how the Egyptians operated in Rafah, Photo: AP
Personal responsibility, personal conclusions. Unfortunately, most of the senior command staff, two of whom are now members of the small cabinet, do not meet the requirements. In a country like Israel, the political debates over legal reform are not of interest to military personnel. This is because of the special situation of the Jewish people. As has been proven, the Holocaust of 1939-1945 did not end, but only opened the door to terrible possibilities that did not occur to the haters before the rise of the Nazis, as Ben-Gurion knew.
So when you read that retired Maj. Gen. Amos Malka boasts that "we accepted responsibility" and "As for the prime minister, he is on a political campaign" – it is clear which side of the commander's equation vis-à-vis the security worker we are on. According to these concepts, when a senior army commander fails, instead of ousting him, the prime minister and defense minister are required to resign along with him. This is another of the same disgusting stew, in which the military echelon in Israel does not see itself as subordinate to the political echelon and is not inclined to accept its authority. "Substantive democracy".
Forward step
Everyone agrees that "the day after" Israel will control security in Gaza, but what is that "security control"? At this point, a dispute may arise between the political and security echelons
Another issue on which there is a disagreement between the political echelon, i.e., Netanyahu and Galant, as opposed to the chief of staff and his colleagues in the military leadership, is the interpretation of Israel's security involvement in Gaza "the day after." The prime minister spoke at one point, in response to the US administration's political plans, about Israel's "security control" in the Gaza Strip. IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy spoke midweek about a security zone and raids – in and out, in order to eliminate nests of terror that will emerge. These are two different things. It can be assumed that the attitude toward the American administration and the difference on this issue between the military and political echelons plays an important role here.
The differences were evident from the very beginning of the campaign. It was possible to identify the gap, not to mention the confrontation between the military and political echelons, when preparations for the ground operation were continuing, continuing, and it seemed that only pressure from below would push the leadership to the necessary ground operation. A considerable time before the operation began, the chief of staff was already heard speaking openly about the action that would come. It was a welcome determination when he appeared before soldiers from the 162nd Division. But later it was seen as a defiance of the political echelon, which is too embarrassed to decide what the military echelon has already decided for it.
The IDF did an excellent intelligence job in the first two weeks of the war. The results of the intelligence work shocked the senior command and commanders of the assaulting units. A series of lessons and instructions for action in built-up areas, and especially for behavior vis-à-vis shafts and tunnels, were learned as a result of the preliminary measures – and all this took place about a week before the beginning of the ground occupation. It turns out that when the senior commanders claimed they were ready to enter the Gaza Strip, they weren't so prepared. The delay was operationally necessary, and it turns out that the judgment in this matter by the leading trio, and especially Netanyahu, helped the success of the campaign.
The leadership of the campaign in the south and north, when the Americans became an obstacle, is more complex and complicated than any war Israel has waged in the past. The Egyptians and Jordanians watch the IDF and its ability in the war with a great deal of sympathy. Israel cannot treat Hamas-ISIS like the Egyptians did a decade ago, when they shaved Egyptian Rafah. It was "the Egyptian equivalent of the 'Nakba' '48," Arab and Western networks said at the time.
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