In the mid-1990s, the American general and commander of the Marine Corps, Charles Clark, invented a new military term, which was also adopted in the IDF: "strategic corporal" - a fighter or junior commander who would make a major tactical mistake in an operational activity, which would become a "strategic event". Only one thing Clark did not consider: what to do with the "strategic general"?
We thought we would deal with the failure of the massacre only at six after the war, but the horses ran away from the stable. Not only the media revelations, but also the unacceptable staffing of the internal commission of inquiry set up by the chief of staff to investigate tactical failures on 7 October.
There is almost no talk of the decision by the top echelons of the defense establishment to exclude the prime minister and defense minister from intelligence information that was important enough to wake up the chief of staff, the head of the Shin Bet, the head of the Southern Command and the head of the operations division in the middle of the night. The heads of the defense establishment raised the possibility of a day of battle with Hamas, and decided not to raise the information or bring it down to the outposts and the police, but to continue the conversation in the morning. The anonymous strategic corporal asks: Isn't the abduction of one soldier a strategic event?
On 23 January 2006, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz discussed the preparations of the security establishment for elections in the Palestinian Authority, focusing on the American demand – to which Prime Minister Olmert agreed – to allow Hamas to participate. About 40 people attended the meeting, including IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, National Assessor Military Intelligence Director Amos Yadlin (who replaced Zeevi Farkas a few weeks earlier, and therefore represents the position of both), National Security Council head Giora Eiland, head of the political-security division Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad and Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin.
In the discussion itself, the entire defense establishment supports the American position. The heads of the defense establishment have three main reasons: 1. Hamas can be domesticated; 2. Hamas will switch to garbage removal and moderate; 3. Fatah will win the elections anyway.
At the end of 2004, Dennis Hadstart, Speaker of the House of Representatives, flew to Qatar and met with Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, the exiled leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Adstart returns mesmerized and in love. Because of September 11, the Americans are angry with the Saudis and the Wahhabi faction that gave birth to al-Qaeda, and decide to embrace Qatar and the political Islam of the "Ikhwan" in the Turkish-Qatari framework. The rest is history.
In March 2005, because of the entanglements in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush administration launches the Freedom Agenda. In retrospect, the American branding for a "new Afghanistan" and a "new Iraq" failed, and the Americans folded their tails and fled. We will not be able to escape.
From the conclusions of the Agranat Committee: It is imperative to establish a body that will expropriate the last word from the defense establishment
Of all the places in the world, the place the Americans chose to implement the plan in practice is Israel, and the means: turning Hamas from a terrorist organization into a political actor. Condoleezza Rice turns to Ariel Sharon, who refuses, but orders ordering orderly staff work. Boogie Ya'alon, the chief of staff, also opposes, but in June 2005 Halutz replaces him and supports. The entire system aligns with Halutz, including the designated member of the investigative committee, the head of Military Intelligence, Farkas. The only one who does not align is the head of the Research Division, Brigadier General Yossi Kuperwasser. But after Farkas toes the line, he makes sure to silence Kuperwasser.
In January 2006, Olmert replaces Sharon, and since the entire defense establishment supports, he accedes to the Americans' request, and so we come to Mofaz's discussion. At the end of the discussion there is time for questions. No one has.
Then the same colonel (res.) gets up and asks Mofaz: "Mr. Minister, what will happen if Hamas wins?" Mofaz (the father of the "mufazit", the pencil case for the cartridge) thinks for a second and says, "Then we will cope." Israel had no plan for such a possibility, and Mofaz's discussion was the first wave of the Hamas butterfly's wings.
After Hamas' victory in the elections, the organization gained recognition as a political entity in Europe. In 2014 it was removed from the list of terrorist organizations, and only after a long legal battle is it reversed around 2021. The Americans behave exactly like the Europeans, only without the declarative part. The Obama administration took Condolee's legacy and turbocharged it.
Since Hamas is a political organization, there is influence on international law, which obliges us to bring aid into Gaza, etc. In a February 2006 Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee hearing on the results of the PA elections, Olmert explained that Hamas was not a strategic threat, and it was doubtful whether the money Israel transferred to the PA would finance terrorism.
And all this is happening long before Netanyahu wins the 2009 elections. This is the concept that the defense establishment has held ever since and refuses to change. This is the concept that was born in Oslo and remains to this day.
Contrary to the recommendation of Rabbi Hama bar Hanina (Bereshit Rabbah, 69:2) that "there is no sharpening knife except in the thigh of her friend, so there is no sharpening Torah scholar except in his friend," the defense establishment in general and the IDF in particular have an almost uniform opinion on every controversial issue. There are quite a few reasons for this. At the time, Colonel (now Maj. Gen. Res.) Amir Abulafia wrote about the subject of work for the National Security Council - "Freedom to Express an Independent Opinion". He wrote in conclusion: "Many IDF officers do not have the courage to disagree with their commanders. This phenomenon has many reasons and one destructive consequence: a less good and less efficient army that will find it difficult to carry out its missions properly."
IDF Chief of Staff: "The war will continue for many more months and we will operate using different methods - so that the achievement will be maintained over time" | IDF Spokesperson
The Agranat Committee found that it is imperative to establish a body that will expropriate the final word on strategic preparedness from the defense establishment, in which professionals from a variety of disciplines will sit and add a civilian eye that supervises the work of the defense establishment. In practice, since its establishment, the committee has become a work arrangement for veterans of the defense establishment, and as is well known, no fish swim near a tangerine tree. In addition, almost all military reporters and commentators are a kind of long arm of the IDF Spokesperson, and so we have no probable whereabouts.
A military investigation into the failure? Undoubtedly. But first, it should be appointed figures whose worldview has not failed, nor friendly peer review. The members of the proposed commission of inquiry not only removed responsibility from all promoters of political rejectionism over the past year. One of them, Farkas, also supported her.
Those whose worldview has failed must admit this before they can examine other failures that depend on it. The honorable people named by the chief of staff have not admitted and are unable to admit their mistake, and therefore examining failures based on their worldview will bear fruit. Ruth Sof.
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