Saddled With the Baggage of October 7, Israel's Generals Are Part of the Problem - Opinion - Haaretz.com
At a security discussion five months ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the possibility of withdrawing from the east-west Netzarim Corridor, which bisects the Gaza Strip. If we leave it, he said, that would mark our defeat in the war; we would have lost. At the time, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi was also against the withdrawal, and so the hostage deal was tossed away just as Hamas softened its terms.
By May, Halevi had changed his view, and so had the defense minister. Under heavy pressure, Netanyahu approved a new proposal that included withdrawing from the corridor. Before doing so, he went around the table to make sure everyone was in favor, so as not to be outflanked from the right.
But in May, Hamas hardened its own positions, so once again there were two trains on parallel tracks, so they never met. Netanyahu hates the outline now, perhaps because Hamas once again displayed flexibility. Netanyahu claims senior defense officials "forced" the proposal on him, and he has reiterated his demand for an Israeli presence on the Netzarim Corridor – a demand he knows will thwart a hostage deal.
This time, Halevi is trying to put forth a different position. He says publicly that the army will know how to cope with the terms of any deal, and that it's necessary to reach a deal. But he no longer carries much weight among the public.
Netanyahu can easily dismiss his statements. And that's just one example of the increasingly clear problems caused by the fact that the army brass hasn't turned in its keys and allowed others, free of the baggage of October 7, to make the decisions.
Another salient example relates to the fighting in the southern Gazan city of Rafah. Netanyahu is painting a picture of a Hamas on the verge of defeat because we entered Rafah despite all the warnings. In his view, we won; we destroyed and defeated them.
The army knows very well that we didn't really go into Rafah, and that Hamas' four battalions in the city have not been dismantled. They were hit hard a blow and retreated, but now are just waiting to spot an Israeli vulnerability so they can shed our blood.
Israeli tanks operate next to destroyed buildings during a ground operation in the southern Gaza Strip, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, July 3, 2024.Credit: Ohad Zwigenberg, Reuters
The problem is that the IDF is cooperating with Netanyahu's misleading narrative. It, too, says it sees signs that Hamas is breaking, and that Hamas' power has been eliminated, that two of the Rafah battalions were destroyed and the rest fled.
That's because the army brass has the same interest Netanyahu does in painting a picture of a great victory. In its view, this serves as a kind of atonement for October 7. And more importantly, it justifies Halevi's view that we have to go for a hostage deal. Look, we won, so we can afford to fold.
The assault on the army by Netanyahu and the far-right is so brutal and ugly that my first instinct is to defend the army at any cost. Between the cynicism of ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir and the decency and professionalism of Halevi and Shin Bet security service director Ronen Bar, it's really not hard to choose a side. Nevertheless, it has recently become hard to defend the IDF.
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visits the Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem's Old City, July.Credit: Minhelet Har-Habait, Temple Mount Administration, Reuters
Why, for instance, did the army specifically start by investigating Hamas' attack on Kibbutz Be'eri and specifically publish the results of that inquiry? Because it wants to clear Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram so that he can take command of the Gaza Division. But that doesn't justify the fact that the first inquiry whose conclusions the IDF released criticized Shaldag, an Israel Air Force special-operations unit and the commander of Sayeret Matkal, the General Staff's elite special operations force, yet didn't address the responsibility of any senior commander or of Military Intelligence, the Operations Brigade and the Gaza Division. It clearly focused instead on the lower levels.
The army's behavior on the issue of drafting Haredim also raises quite a few questions. The head of the IDF Manpower Directorate twice failed to attend meetings of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and when he did come, he provided stammering answers and incomplete data.
And in the background, more and more videos keep emerging of reservists in the field expressing political opinions, setting policy and expressing themselves in ways that "contradict the IDF's values," yet no one in the army appears to be capable to stopping this. It's as if this were a militia, not an army.
Not all of the above problems should be put on Halevi's overburdened shoulders. But the explanations of a chief of staff who didn't carry the baggage of October 7 would carry much more weight.