4 thoughts on “Israeli Battle Between Political-Military Echelons Plays Out Amid Censorship of IDF Chief – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. The pronouncements coming out of Israel are getting more than a little bizarre, no question about it.

    Take this statement: “The political echelon decides, the military echelon implements. Only I will decide whether to attack Iran.”

    Bibi, baby, the acronym IDF stands for the Israel DEFENSE Forces, not the Israel ATTACK Forces.

    A DEFENSE Force is meant to defend Israel from attacks launched against it, not to be something that you “decide” to sool onto another country like some rabid attack dog that you slip off the leash.

    Honestly, Israel’s leadership has completely lost the plot.

    The post-WW2 world is predicated upon this concept: your armed forces exist to DEFEND your own country, and when you use them to ATTACK another country then you are the “aggressor”, and it is the country that you attack that is the “defender”.

    Bizarre as it sounds, but it appears that Bibi is unaware of that principle.

  2. In a democracy, Generals are not supposed to publicly argue with the government. Of course,
    in closed circles they should feel free to say what they think, but not in public. If they don’t like
    the policy, they should resign. Remember General Douglas MacArthur and his attempt to carry
    out his own personal war in Korea? He was sacked by President Truman.
    The novel and movie “Seven Days in May” dealt with this theme.

    1. But Israel is not a democracy as almost everyone but you & Peter Beinart know. If it was a true democracy then Gantz would’ve been permitted to testify before the Knesset Intelligence committee from which he was actually barred by Barak. If it was a true democracy Gantz would not feel the need to leak his views because he would feel they’d received a full, fair airing in private. Clearly, neither he nor Dagan nor Diskin feel that way, which explains their going public.

  3. bar_kochba132: thanks for qualifying your statement. It is OK for generals to argue with their government in a dictatorship, but not in a democracy.

    However, Israel is neither a dictatorship nor a democracy but a liberal theocracy, with two types of sacred institutions: rabbinates and the security establishment. In a liberal theocracy like Iran and Israel, mundane institutions run daily affairs of the state as they wish UNLESS the sacred institution instruct them to change this or that. Thus it would be a dereliction of duty of the officials of sacred institutions to go silent when the mundane President or Cabinet are about to do something wrong.

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