Moshe Ya'alon, Former General, Replaced as Israel Defense Minister by Avigdor Lieberman, Former Bouncer and Non-Veteran. Does Israel Feel More Secure Now?

Please forgive the multi-tiered headline, but I couldn't resist. You probably already know that in order to expand his coalition, Binyamin Netanyahu replaced his Defense Minister, retired General Moshe Ya'alon, of his own Likud Party, with Yisrael Beitenu's Avigdor Lieberman, who indeed was once a bouncer who did not serve in the IDF. Netanyahu had been trying to enlarge his fragile coalition and had been making overtures to Zionist Union (Labor) leader Isaac Herzog. Bringing the Opposition leader into the coalition would have tilted the coalition, now the most right-wing in Israel's history, a bit to the center-right. Bringing in Lieberman instead, moves it even farther right.

But reaction has been harshly critical beginning with Ya'alon himself, who chose not to go gentle into that good night. Instead of attending Lieberman's swearing-in on Sunday, he resigned effective Friday afternoon, and went out with several blasts at Netanyahu for abandoning him and defending hisown behavior. No dove himself, h criticized Israel's rightward drift.

Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak warned that the government was sowing the "seeds of fascism," while former Defense Minister Moshe Arens, once a Likud stalwart, wrote in a column in Ha'aretz, (paywalled) in which he said:

The coalition representation in the Knesset will increase to 67 from 61. But the price Likud’s leaders paid for these six extra votes is a heavy one for both the country and Likud – far heavier than they seem to realize. Their simple-minded explanation that a stable government is good for Israel and therefore replacing Ya’alon with Lieberman must be good for Israel is not likely to be accepted by most Israelis.

The defense minister is not just another of Israel’s many government ministers. He is by far the most important minister, shouldering direct responsibility for Israel’s security, the personal security of Israel’s citizens, and the lives of their children serving in the Israel Defense Forces.

Defenders of the murky deal to oust an xcellent defense minister offer an explanation: that in addition to the defense minister, many others are involved in taking decisions on defense matters – which presumably means that it’s not so important who the defense minister is. This shows an abject ignorance of the workings of the defense establishment.

All Israelis were lucky to have Ya’alon as defense chief these last few years, and this luck now seems to have run out. Choosing between an excellent defense minister serving in a narrow coalition and firing an excellent defense minister and obtaining a few more coalition votes should have been easy. But Benjamin Netanyahu made the wrong choice.

Tensions between the IDF command and the security services on the one hand and Netanyahu on the other hand have been bad for years due to disagreements over Iran and other issues, but the Ya'alon dismissal seems to have exacerbated the problem.

Lt. Gen. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak (1944-2012)

Lt. Gen Amnon Lipkin-Shahak former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, advocate of peace with the Palestinians and Syria, founder of the Center Party and holder of ministerial posts  in Ehud Barak's government in the late 1990s, has died of cancer at the age of 68.

Born in Tel Aviv in 1944, he served as a Paratrooper in the 1967 War, fought in the Battle of Karameh against the PLO and in the 1995 commando raid on Beirut. In 1995 he succeeded Ehud Barak as the 15th IDF Chief of Staff,

Leaving the IDF in 1998, he became a strong critic of then (and  current) Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, helped found the Center Party and, when his new party won six seats, joined Ehud Barak's coalition coalition with Ehud Barak. He served as Minister of Tourism and then Transport in Barak's Cabinet.

In 1999 he was elected to the Knesset as a member of the Centre Party, which won six seats. Shahak was appointed Minister of Tourism and when Yitzhak Mordechai resigned, he took on the additional role of Transport Minister.He left the Knesset after Barak's defeat in 2001. He continued to be active in peace issues, signing the Geneva Initiative in 2003.

Unidentified Object a Weather Balloon?

The balloon-like object an F-16 shot down over the Dimona nuclear reactor yesterday, it's now being reported, may have merely been a weather balloon.

Well, the UFO crowd will have fun with that (I guess "swamp gas" wouldn't be credible in the Negev), but in fact I know from personal experience that, at least in the late 1980s (long enough ago that surely I'm not revealing any vital secrets) Israel had tethered aerostats moored along the Egyptian-Israeli border in the Negev (little mini-blimps on a tether, as low-altitude radar stations to look for smugglers, most likely). If something like that got loose, from their or a neighboring country, I suppose it could have floated.

(Admittedly, I had a surreal conversation with an IDF PR officer back then:

"Do you use the aerostats to look for infiltrators?"
"The what?"
"The balloons."
"What balloons?" (Standing not 100 yards from the nearest, and I'd seen dozens flying along the border).
"That balloon."
"That? Oh, that's just an old weather balloon." I'd recently seen a demonstration in the US of the exact same model by Westinghouse (or maybe GE), and it was quite recent.

On second thought, maybe it was swamp gas.

Israel Shoots Something Down Over Dimona

Israel has announced that an IDF aircraft shot down "a suspicious object, probably a balloon" that flew over the Dimona nuclear reactor. In another version it's called an "apparent engine-powered balloon," brought down by an Israeli F-16,

I hesitate to guess at this point, but submit it for your unidentified no-longer-flying object files.

Good Morning Israel

A quick Israel roundup from this morning's Ha'aretz:

New IDF intel head and other new appointments as the change of command approaches.

A pizza order disrupts West Bank checkpoints, gets reporters detained.

And — no, a caption contest would be wrong, but this photo — no, it's better without comment:


It's on Ha'aretz main web page. Complain to them.

Maj. Gen. Israel Tal, Israel's Armored Theorist and Father of the Merkava Tank, 1924-2010

Major General (Reserves) Israel Tal, nicknamed "Talik," the creator of Israel's Merkava tank, Deputy Chief of Staff of the IDF during the last part of the 1973 war, a key military theorist of armored warfare, a tanker's tanker, and a man who famously refused an order to attack Egyptian troops after the 1973 ceasefire, costing him higher rank though he was ultimately vindicated, died yesterday just a week short of his 86th birthday.

Israel is known for its armored prowess, from the 1956 Suez War onward, and some of the biggest tank battles in the post-World War II era (since Kursk) have been fought in the Sinai and Golan in 1956, 1967, and 1973. Tal was Israel's armored prophet, its analog of J.F.C. Fuller, Basil Liddell Hart, Charles de Gaulle, Heinz Guderian, Erwin Rommel, or George S. Patton. He is remembered as the father of Israel's indigenous main battle tank, the Merkava ("chariot" in Hebrew), and he developed armor doctrine that proved dominating in Sinai in 1967, based on mobility, long-range fire, and rapid penetration. When Arab military academies study Israel's tank tactics (and they do), they are studying Tal.

Some have suggested the triumph of armor in 1967 led to a weakening of the infantry arm and the consequent fallback of Israeli forces from the Suez Canal in 1973; but it was armor which struck back across the Canal and turned the tide in the war.

Here's Ha'aretz' obit, here's the Jerusalem Post's, and here's his Wikipedia bio, The Jerusalem Post obit says that "Tal was named one of the top five armored commanders in history at The Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor in Fort Knox, Kentucky, along with Maj.-Gen. Moshe Peled, General George S. Patton, Creighton Abrams and German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel." Two Israelis in the top five seems a bit much (Patton and his protégé Abrams were probably givens at the Patton Museum), and some Brits and Russians might object, but he was in that class.

Tal deserves to be remembered for another matter: after the ceasefire in the 1973 war, in his role as Officer Commanding, Southern Command, he received an order from Chief of Staff David Elazar and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan ordering him to attack Egyptian troops. Viewing it as an illegal order after the ceasefire, he refused to obey, demanding confirmation from Prime Minister Golda Meir and the Supreme Court.

In the aftermath of the war he was vindicated, but the seeming insubordination probably kept him from ever occupying the Chief of Staff's position.

We may not hear any acknowledgment of it, but I suspect many Arab tankers who fought against him will quietly note his passing as one of the great tankers of the 20th century. If he can be criticized, it is probably for making Israel too armored-mobility dependent in its military theory in the 1960s and 1970s, a tactical leaning which would be of limited use in Lebanon in the 1980s or in the far different conflicts which have followed.

Galant Gets IDF Post Despite Controversy

In the wake of the "Galant Affair," the leak of a forged document (earlier posts here and here) aimed at discrediting Major General Yoav Galant (OC Southern Command) from the running for next Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, it was perhaps inevitable that the whole affair helped secure Galant's appointment, supposedly against the will of current IDF Chief Gabi Ashkenazi. The Cabinet approved Galant on October 5, and Ashkenazi denied reports that he would step down early; his term expires in February and he was not offered a renewal.

In the wake of the appointment, Ehud Barak has been ordered to put a hold on his personal investigation of the "Galant Affair." A mid-level (field rank) officer, Lt. Col. Boaz Harpaz, reportedly carried out the forgery.

More on Galant Forgery

Israeli police have issued an arrest warrant for a mid-ranking IDF officer in the Galant forgery case, and are exonerating Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi of any involvement. That avoids a high-level scandal, but it still leads damage done to the reputation of the IDF.

The Galant Affair

Israel has had a potential scandal simmering for the past couple of weeks that now appears to be in full eruption, raising questions about the Israel Defense Forces' leadership, the relationship between the Armed Forces and the Defense Ministry, and civil-military relations generally. Basic background is here.

Israel's Channel 2 revealed the existence of a document purporting to be a memo from a public relations firm on how o boost the candidacy of Southern Command GOC Gen. Yoav Galant (left) as the next IDF Chief of Staff. The whole thing is linked to bad blood between Defense Minister Ehud Barak and current IDF Chief Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, whose term Barak declined to extend. Galant and the head of the PR firm whose leterhead was used have both said that the document was a forgery. Now Prime Minister Netanyahu has stepped in, amid charges that senior figures in the IDF may have been behind the alleged forgery, and with editorialists comparing it to the forgeries used in the Lavon affair of the 1950s and lamenting the declining reputation of the IDF. Ashkenazi apparently had the document for weeks before informing the police; who is actually suspected of the forgery is not clear.

The IDF has had a rough few years since the 2006 Lebanon War. The glory days of 1967 are clearly long gone, and one of the key unifying institutions of the Israeli state is looking a bit worn. While Barak is so far portraying himself as the victim of the current affair, it also could cast a shadow over his own tenure in the Defense Ministry. Although Galant appears to be the victim of a forgery, the selection of the next IDF Chief will surely come under renewed scrutiny.

IDF Said Ready to Blame Navy for Flotilla Raid Errors

Ha'aretz this morning is reporting that the IDF is going to be extremely critical of the Navy for the Gaza flotilla raid, in part because they were insufficiently prepared for resistance, not to mention the fact that the senior official on the scene at the Military Command Center in Tel Aviv when the operation began was the IDF Chief of Operations, with both the Chief of Staff and rhe Deputy Chief arriving only after things began to go sour. (Yes, Israel initiated a combat operation on the high seas against a vessel carrying a friendly flag, Turkey's, with neither of its key commanders on scene.)

The Navy has long been Israel's least prestigious service and it looks like they may take considerable heat for trhe mess this turned into.

While we await General Eiland's official findings on the botched raid, I think it may be worth repeating the graphic Andrew Exum posted right after the event:

Levi Eshkol in the Six-Day War

Following up on my recent posts on the anniversary of the 1967 Six-Day War, here's a useful piece by an IDF vet in Ha'aretz on rehabilitating the reputation of Levi Eshkol in connection with the preparedness of the IDF for the war.

If you saw any presentations on the anniversary of the war, I'll wager you saw pictures of Moshe Dayan, with his rakish eyepatch, striding in combat gear through St. Stephen's Gate (Lion's Gate) into the Old City. Most likely you saw pictures of Yitzhak Rabin here and there too, but Levi Eshkol?

If you're old enough or have read the more detailed studies of the war from the Israeli side (Michael Oren for the political/military, Tom Segev for the social context), you'll certainly be aware that Eshkol was Prime Minister during the war. But he certainly doesn't play a major role in most people's mental imagery of the narrative of the war. Since by now my regular readers eill be aware that I need to let the latent history professor loose on the blog now and then, this is one of those times.

The writer in Ha'aretz, Eliyahu Sacharov, wants to rectify that, and he's not alone. Many people thought Eshkol received poor treatment from his countrymen at the time, and since. Segev's book 1967 (2005 in Hebrew, 2007 in English) pays attention to Eshkol, and Segev credits long conversations with Miriam Eshkol, the Prime Minister's widow, among his sources.

Eshkol was Israel's third Prime Minister, but like Moshe Sharett before him, he rose to power in the shadow of David Ben-Gurion, and that was a very large shadow indeed. When Ben-Gurion split with Mapai (the core of Labor) and former Rafi in 1965, Eshkol led the new Labor Alignment to victory over Rafi in 1965 elections. Eshkol became Prime Minister; Ben-Gurion his critic from the wings.

As was frequently the case at the time, Eshkol held the Defense portfolio as well as that of Prime Minister. Over several years he presided over the development and professionalization of the IDF, helping to create the instrument that would win the Six-Day War.

As tensions with the Arab world built up in early 1967, Eshkol worked hard to secure Israel's position internationally within the context of the post-Suez settlement, also building a relationship with US President Lyndon Johnson. Although Ben-Gurion criticized Eshkol for weakness and indecisiveness, today his efforts are seen as having strengthened Israel's hand internationally.

Under pressure to create a Government of National Unity, with Rafi and many others calling for the naming of Moshe Dayan as Defense Minister, Eshkol fought to keep the portfolio.) (Dayan, a Rafi ally of Ben-Gurion, had won fame as Chief of Operations in the 1956 Sinai Campaign.) When King Hussein of Jordan flew to Cairo to sign an alliance with Nasser and put Jordanian troops under an Egyptian general, Eshkol ran out of political capital. Eshkol was confronted with a loss of support within his own Cabinet, within the Army, and in public opinion. On the afternoon of June 1, he named Moshe Dayan Defense Minister.

Note: On the afternoon of June 1. Four and a half days later, at a little after 7:00 am on June 5, Israeli aircraft took off for their first wave of strikes against Arab air forces. (Assuming Arab air forces would patrol at dawn expecting an attack, then land to refuel and breakfast, Israel sought to strike in that window.)

Major military operations are not planned in four and a half days; pilots are not trained in four and a half days. Yet in the wake of the victory, Dayan won the accolades and his eleventh-hour appointment was seen as the salvation of the state, though he had been a politician in opposition during the planning stages of the war.

Eshkol had no choice but to name Dayan, and certainly Dayan performed ably, though Chief of Staff Rabin and the IDF Command had their war plan mostly in place already. Dayan took the honors, and Eshkol's role was largely neglected.

Eshkol remained in office, dying of a heart attack in February 1969, less than two years after the war, and thus never wrote a memoir to defend his position, as everyone else did. Eshkol was not forgotten — a national park and the suburb of Ramat Eshkol, the first built over the Green Line, are named for him; he has appeared on both paper notes and coins. But until fairly recently, only his partisans have sought to give him due credit for the war. That does seem to be changing.

The Anat Kam Case Comes Out of the Closet: With a Flood of Detail

Now, this is Israeli democratic values at work, as the press finally breaks the lock of the government censors.

As expected, Israel has wisely lifted the gag order on the case of arrested IDF whistleblower Anat Kam. Accordingly, Ha'aretz, which is itself in the middle of this case but was previously barred from publishing details, is starting to gush with detail: Uri Blau, the Ha'aretz correspondent who published the leaked material and is now sitting in London for fear of prosecution if he he goes home, offers his own story; a Ha'aretz editorial says the Shin Bet broke its word to Ha'aretz and the IDF violated a High Court order; and some of Ha'aretz' star commentators come out swinging and take no prisoners: Akiva Eldar on the cult of secrecy; and Gideon Levy plows into the IDF and Shin Bet.

On the other hand, the Jerusalem Post emphasizes Shin Bet's claims that the leaked material clearly jeopardized Israeli security.

And meanwhile, Netanyahu has decided not to attend the nuclear security summit in Washington, apparently because Egypt and Turkey — both of which have diplomatic relations with Israel, of course — planned to mention the fact that one Middle Eastern country acquired nuclear weapons before anyone else did. (Ahem: Clears throat.)

Draft Arabs and Haredim?

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi is quoted in Ha'aretz as saying he supports a new model of national service in which Israel would draft all Israelis, some of whom would be selected for the IDF. The basic problem is that historically, Israeli Arabs (who in Israel are classed separately from Druze and Bedouin) are not subject to national service, and haredim or the ultra-Orthodox generally, with some exceptions, are also exempt. The basic problem is that these two groups have the highest birth rates, and the IDF is having problems finding recruits from those subject to the current draft. Under a general national service program, the IDF would have first choice, with others going to civil or police duties.

Such a change would doubtless create some controversy, but it's an interesting development as Israel tries to deal with the demographic changes the country is undergoing.

Zahal 2.0: The IDF and Social Networking

An interesting story in today's Ha'aretz: the Israel Defense Forces (Zahal) wants to increase its social networking presence after receiving millions of Facebook hits during the Gaza operation, and wants to combat "enemies" in the social networking world.

So they're going to set up a Web 2.0-savvy group of eight to ten computer whizzes in the IDF Spokesman's office. How do they plan to recruit these clever folks? The old way:

The Israel Defense Forces Spokesman's Office is to begin drafting computer experts with an eye toward establishing an Internet and new media department unit, Army Spokesman Brig. Gen. Avi Benayahu said Monday.

Yep. Draft 'em.

Impending IDF transfers and the Palestinian Authority

From The Jerusalem Post (of all places) an interesting detailed article (there are two pages to the article) on some impending transfers and promotions in the Israel Defense Forces that may have a major impact on some little-reported links between IDF officers in the West Bank and the Palestinian Authority. A useful read.

Shooting the Messenger: A Word About Joe Stork

If you follow the Middle East online, unless you limit yourself to the Arab side of the fence, you've probably run across some of the commentary from pro-Israeli bloggers, Israeli media, neocon bloggers, and conservative bloggers generally denouncing Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch. I don't normally get into personalities here at this blog: not my thing. I did write a couple of posts noting that Chas Freeman, back when he was nominated for the National Intelligence Council, was not the Israel-bashing ogre his opponents portrayed.

Now, like a lot of people who've been around the Middle East community in Washington for a long time, I know Joe Stork. Not well — certainly not as well as I know Chas Freeman, which isn't all that well either — but I've known Joe since the late 60s or early 70s when he was a founding father of MERIP Reports, the ancestor of the current MERIP Middle East Report. Joe has always been somewhere to my left politically, often considerably so. In the earlier days, he and I were both no doubt farther left than we are today. I haven't seen Joe in several years, and aside from random meetings at receptions or on the street haven't had an extended conversation with him in this decade. So I'm not defending Joe's positions today. He's perfectly capable of doing that himself.

What I do want to note is that the attacks on him seem to be a classic case of shooting the messenger. Joe, Deputy Director for Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch, was the author of a much-headlined report HRW issued, claiming that there were instances of Israel Defense Forces shooting white-flag-carrying Palestinians during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.earlier this year. Here's HRW's press release, and here's the 63-page report in HTML and also in PDF. And here's an HRW response to criticisms of the report's contents.

I have not read the full report. I intend to do so, but suspend judgment on its contents until I have read it, and Israel's responses to it. When allegations of war crimes are made, they should be investigated and judged, based on evidence and testimony. If the allegations are unfounded, they should be dismissed. If otherwise, Israel should investigate them, as it often has when similar allegations of violations of the laws of war by the IDF have been raised.

But while there has been some effort on the Israeli side to refute the basic content of the charges or to impeach the witnesses, there has also been a concerted attempt to blame the messenger and attack Joe Stork ad hominem without addressing the content of his report. And most of the attacks focus on things he said or wrote over 30 years ago, and one thing he did not even sign, if he had any connection with it at all.

The Israeli daily Ma'ariv did a report on the HRW report which focused heavily on Joe Stork's background, and made the rather sensational charge that he had personally defended the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of Israeli athletes. The Ma'ariv article is translated in this Commentary piece by Noah Pollak. Others have noted that the "defense" of Munich was in an unsigned MERIP editorial which also said that the morale-boosting element did not justify the violence. But of course, quoting out of context is a common tactic in ideological disputes. But to directly attribute this to Joe Stork seems a bit extreme, but even if he signed off on it (as he well may have) it was 37 years ago. Has anyone asked if he agrees with the point today? The editorialists just seem to say he never "repudiated" his earlier statement, which wasn't signed by him in the first place. Joe has never to my knowledge been a strong defender of Israel (especially its human rights policies), but I've also never heard from him the sort of radical ideas attributed to him in these attacks.

Now, MERIP in their early days were, indeed, old 60s radicals who first called themselves the "MERIP Collective" and were pretty Marxist in their rhetoric. Joe was one of them. But so were Joel Beinin, who has been President of the Middle East Studies Association; Judith Tucker, Editor of the International Journal of Middle East Studies and Director of Academic Studies at Georgetown's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies; and Eric Hooglund, a predecessor of mine as Editor of The Middle East Journal. Bill Clinton didn't inhale, but he figured out a way to finesse his 60s background. I doubt if very many Baby Boomers who graduated in the late 60s or early 70s would like their entire body of expressed opinion in that era to be aired publicly today.

I also remember, however, going to a party MERIP held in (perhaps) the late 70s or early 80s, though I'm not quite sure why I was invited. It may even have been at Joe Stork's house. Much of the conversation was about mortgages. I realized then, that if MERIP was talking about mortgages, the 60s were over.

As I said, Joe can defend himself. But it strikes me as both disingenuous and downright unfair to 1) accuse Joe Stork of holding the same positions he held in the early 1970s; 2) attribute to him a position taken by an anonymous editorial in his magazine and then 3) leave out the qualifiers that denounce the violence.

Or, to put it another way: is this really your best response to the unwelcome message: to attack the messenger? Let's leave Joe Stork out of it and respond to the allegations.

An Aside on Israel's "Chinese" Admiral

I mentioned in passing a couple of days ago the current scandal in Israel over the Navy Commander, Admiral Eli Marom, who is under fire for visiting a strip club and then (the coverup as usual being the real issue) claiming he only visited it once when apparently he is a regular patron. As I indicated there, this seems a rather silly diversion for a country that just fought a war, has no government in place, etc. etc.

But it offers an opportunity to note one unusual thing about Marom: he's Chinese.

Actually only a quarter Chinese; his father was a German Jew who fled to China during WWII; his mother the daughter of a Chinese man and a Russian emigre Jewish woman. The photo on his IDF profile shows that he is visibly Asian, however, and he's apparently known as "Chiney" in the service. (And, given his present problems, probably wishing he wasn't photographed with a wine glass in hand.)

It's also a reminder of the diversity of Israel's population, where in addition to the predictable European and Middle Eastern stocks you also find Ethiopians, Indians and others.

The Navy is very much the junior service in Israel, where the Air Force are the elite and the Army has near-universal service (though Orthodox religious exemptions are growing rapidly). It has very few flag officers and apparently there's some uncertainty who would move up if Marom had to resign.

An interesting note for the linguists out there: the Navy Commander's rank is Aluf, which in the Army is usually translated as "Major General," that is, in US terms, two-star rank. Normally a Naval officer of that rank would be translated as Rear Admiral, but I note the IDF here translates it as "Vice Admiral," which in US usage would be the three-star rank. Normally, the only three-star (Rav-Aluf) active duty officer in Israel is the Chief of Staff. (I say "normally" because there has been one exception when a former Chief of Staff, Haim Bar-Lev I think, was recalled from retirement during the 1973 war as a corps commander, so there were briefly two active-duty three stars.)

I suspect the decision to use "Vice Admiral" rather than "Rear Admiral" is essentially one of making it sound like a higher rank, and the fact that most people would address him as Admiral in English anyway. Aluf comes from the Semitic root for 1,000, and is a Biblical term by origin.

UPDATE: According to this article, he's authorized to call himself Vice Admiral when meeting foreign officers, under a system initiated over a decade ago, and only for the Navy Commander for some reason. I guess it's like the reason the US added the rank of five-star general during World War II: Eisenhower, with four stars, was commanding Field Marshal Montgomery, who as a Field Marshal theoretically outranked him, so they created a new rank, which however hasn't been used since shortly after the end of World War II.