Haaretz reported that over the weekend Bibi Netanyahu and Ehud Barak decided to appoint their third candidate to be IDF chief of staff. He is Benny Gantz, who until now had played also-ran to Yoav Galant, the candidate originally offered the job to replace Gabi Ashkenazi, when his term ends next week. Gantz is the third candidate for the job in the past week. And what a week it’s been. First, Galant’s candidacy was torpedoed when the government’s legal advisor (solicitor general) refused to represent Galant before the Supreme Court in a case brought by Yesh Gvul to disqualify him from assuming his promotion. As payback for Galant’s role in evacuating Gush Katif settlers from Gaza, a Maariv journalist exposed a shady land deal by which the IDF senior officer had annexed state land to his own private property and then lied about it.
After Barak withdrew Galant’s name, they floated the possibility of appointing deputy chief of staff Yair Naveh to the top job. But that option was shot down by those who noted there is no provision for an interim chief of staff and that Naveh’s name would have to be vetted by the Turkel Commission; and then the job would be his. Scratch option number 2.
Which brings us to Benny Gantz. While any senior IDF commander is bound to have dirty hands regarding commission of acts that would likely violated international law, Gantz’s views don’t conform to the typically politically-attuned profile of those angling for the top job. Like, for example, Gabi Ashkenazi who appears to have engineered a hoax memo attempting to knock Galant out of the race.
Gantz was a senior northern commander responsible for preparations that led to the second Lebanon war. As an infantry officer, Gantz advocated immediate mobilization of the reserves and a land campaign to stifle Hezbollah. Dan Halutz along with Ehud Olmert, perhaps deluded into believing the air force could silence Hezbollah rockets on its own, rejected a ground war. I thought the plan to turn the 2006 war into a massive campaign to occupy southern Lebanon with Israeli infantry was disastrous. I thought the entire strategy behind the war was doomed to fail and perhaps it’s not surprising that an infantry commander would itch to get his chance to put his forces into action. I realize it’s unrealistic to expect an army officer to oppose a war, but isn’t there a single officer who can see the disaster?
While it’s clear that many Israeli military commanders are excellent at dissembling and portraying false humility, if Gantz’s words here are sincere, then he’s a breath of fresh air in the midst of the all back-stabbing, feelings of self-entitlement, and careerism of his colleagues. As the jockeying for position began a few months ago as to who would be named chief of staff, Gantz took an unusually serene view of the proceedings:
We’re talking about the security of the State and this trumps all our individual careers. I’m here to serve the State and not for the State to serve me. I did a lot and the satisfaction for me in what I did is great. If these things happen, they’ll happen. If not, then something else will happen [for me].
The Maariv profile also notes that his parents were central European Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Israel on the Exodus.
The pro-settler Maariv reporter who avenged Galant’s “betrayal” of Gush Katif by digging up the dirt that ended in his fall from the top perch apparently should’ve gone after Gantz as well. The latter has had some specially harsh words against the settlers in 2005 who appealed to IDF officers to refuse to forcibly remove them:
The battle of the [Israeli] right against the IDF [in Gush Katif] is more dangerous than Hezbollah rockets. What’s happened in the past few months in terms of the army’s ability to carry out the decisions of the government is more dangerous [to the State] than any rocket. There are some among us who refuse to accept the authority of the State. While the surface to surface missiles of Hezbollah and the Syrians worry me, what worries me much more is our sense of internal national cohesion [which the settlers threaten].
We must be very clear that there can be no other form of authority within the Land of Israel than the government regarding the operations of its army. All other forms of rhetorical acrobatics [the arguments of settlers that soldiers should disobey orders] are totally unacceptable in my eyes. Personal and human considerations must be removed from army operations. At the fundamental level, we must not allow these things to interfere [with military orders].
But Gantz also has the capacity to be spectacularly wrong as well. In the same 2005 article he tragically underestimated Hezbollah’s capacity and will to stir the pot in the north as they did several months later by raiding, kidnapping and killing several IDF soldiers in a bold operation that led to the second Lebanon war:
“They [Hezbollah] will do the minimum along the entire length of the norther border to justify their presence there. They won’t endanger themselves with an escalation. But with the stabilization of the internal situation [the Gaza evacuation] there is a possibility we will see different forms of operations in the north.” In this, Gantz was referring to the disengagement which would lead to a a stabilization of other fronts as well.
Given that the IDF was caught flat-footed with the Hezbollah attack, Gantz’s words displayed the absolute unpreparedness of the Israeli military for what befelled them. This in turn led to the abject failure of the military offensive against Hezbollah. One wonders whether such an officer has what it takes to lead Israel through the thorny thickets Israel will face in the next four years of his term. And given that he is the third candidate vetted for this job in the past week, it speaks volumes about the dysfunctionality of the Israel’s national army and the political leadership that chooses it.
One especially black mark haunts Gantz’s performance as military commander. At the beginning of the first Intifada, a Druze Border Policeman, Madhat Yousef, died of blood loss after he was shot during at a riot at Joseph’s Tomb. His family and others believe he was deliberately abandoned by the IDF in act that would run directly counter to the military doctrine calling for no man to be left behind. Gantz had decided rather than to mount an IDF rescue effort that would endanger even more of his soldiers, that he would wait for a PA security unit to rescue the 12 Border Police who were besieged. It took four hours before it arrived. By then it was too late for Yousef. Gantz was criticized severely at the time, but defended himself by saying his superiors prevented him from acting as he would’ve wished. The dead soldier’s family says that then defense minister Shaul Mofaz told them that the prime minister at the time, Ehud Barak, worried that an IDF rescue operation might endanger the peace process. Who’s to know the truth? Yousef’s family is filing a motion for an injunction against his promotion with the Israeli Supreme Court. So sit tight, there’s a very small chance we may yet have a fourth nominee in the coming week!
At any rate, let us hope that Gantz will bring the clarity of vision of the earlier passage I quoted of his above (and not the cluelessness of the latter) to his new job and stand firm against military adventures advocated by Israel’s political leadership like an attack on Iran. Of course, given the circumstances we musn’t expect this, but we can hope for it.
