Israel's Retired Generals Must Break Their Silence on the Iran War
Retired commanders understand the campaign cannot topple the ayatollahs or deliver victory, yet their silence is helping sustain a war that serves as a survival tool for Netanyahu's rule
As the days and nights pass, it is becoming clearer and clearer that Israel is waging another pointless war whose only purpose is the legal and political survival of a prime minister facing a criminal trial.
The (second) war with Iran is a direct continuation of the Gaza war, the longest and most murderous in Israel's history, and an indirect continuation of the coronavirus crisis, which, with its repeated lockdowns, gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the perfect model for neutralizing the power of the public. This war enables him to maintain a constant state of emergency, which is meant to ensure the continuation of his rule for an unlimited time.
We could continue blaming the existential dead end into which former Supreme Court President Esther Hayut and her fellow justices drove us almost six years ago, when they unanimously rejected petitions arguing that Netanyahu shouldn't be allowed to form a government given the indictment against him. This was a miserable, suicidal ruling that reflected criminal judicial negligence.
'Keep it simple and stay sane': Adeena Sussman's cooking tips for a complicated wartime Passover
After all, can you imagine anything more completely contrary to logic than granting approval for the state to be headed by a man whom it has accused of crimes? Or giving the defendant the most effective means of defense imaginable – namely, the powers of government – so that he could turn his legal conflict, the State of Israel vs. Benjamin Netanyahu, into a political one, Benjamin Netanyahu vs. the State of Israel – a conflict from which the state cannot emerge intact in any scenario?
We could also attribute the Netanyahu disaster in its current Iranian incarnation to uncontrollable historical circumstances. The coronavirus crisis, which made clear both the coercive power of the modern state's apparatuses and the extent of its citizens' sheeplike obedience, roused the totalitarian appetites of leaders with tyrannical tendencies.
Consequently, with the same ease, it turned out to be possible to hermetically seal international borders and imprison people in their homes due to a global pandemic, Russian President Vladimir Putin dragged his citizens into an endless war with Ukraine. Similarly, Netanyahu was determined to continue the obscene war in Gaza indefinitely.
Now, together with the "leader of the free world," he has launched a campaign of death and destruction throughout the region that, had it not been for the global energy crisis, could have been expected to continue indefinitely. That would also enable him to entrench a model of emergency government under the cover of the chaos, one that would be adopted by evil, malicious rulers around the world.
But neither accusations nor self-pity is a plan of action. After all, the trap in which Netanyahu has led Israel is first and foremost a military trap. To escape it, we need to focus our efforts on the level of military expertise.
What we need is for courageous, professional retired major generals to rise up, organize and publicly state the naked truth: that without toppling the ayatollahs' regime, which isn't even one of the war's goals, since it isn't achievable given the inadequate preparations, it won't be possible to eradicate neither Iran's ambition of undermining Israel's regional supremacy nor its goal of developing weapons of mass destruction.
Moreover, the painful blows that Israel and the U.S. have dealt Iran, and especially the targeted assassinations of members of its leadership, not only haven't weakened Iran, but on the contrary, have given the conflict redoubled theological force by posing a fateful test for the Islamic Revolution in a battle against the "forces of evil" – Zionism and Western civilization.
We would be better off ending this pointless war now, since now it is mainly encouraging messianic Shi'ite zealotry. Instead, we should organize a broad, effective, international coalition against Iran that would first try to prevent the country's nuclearization through diplomatic means, and then, if that doesn't work, prepare for an integrated economic and military attack that would make toppling the ayatollahs' regime a realistic mission.
Of course, it would have been preferable had this generals' revolt against the war, which is failing to topple the ayatollahs' regime but succeeding quite well in preserving Netanyahu's regime, been led by former senior army officers who were currently involved in politics. But the chances of that happening are near zero.
Benny Gantz has long since become Netanyahu's chief stretcher-bearer. Gadi Eisenkot, who is rightly proud of his exceptional achievements in developing the Israel Defense Forces' weaponry during his term as chief of staff, would rather continue gazing with satisfaction at the IDF's operational performance than recognize that this is a pointless war. And should Yair Golan dare utter any criticism of the war right now, he would immediately be denounced as an irredeemable leftist.
But there are more than enough former senior members of the IDF's high command, including former chiefs of staff, who recognize that the war with Iran was poorly planned, and that continuing it will merely erode Israel's deterrence because it isn't likely to achieve any goal that would constitute any kind of victory.
These generals must raise their voices loudly, clearly and immediately in protest against continuing the war and strengthen the civilian protests that have already started. These protests must end with the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into the war against Iran.