12 March 2024:
IDF Maj.-Gen. Itzhak Brik: Israel is being led to disaster
By ITZHAK BRIK Published: MARCH 12, 2024 12:06
IDF general: Military, political leaders are leading Israel to disaster – opinion
IDF Maj.-Gen. Itzhak Brik writes: We are witnessing an unprecedented professional, ethical, and leadership failure at the highest level.
To my great sorrow, I was right all along in almost everything related to how this war is being conducted, except for one thing that I am very happy to have been wrong about: The fighting spirit of the IDF soldiers and the volunteering spirit among the Israeli people.
For years, I have been warning that the IDF ground forces should not be cut back, and today everyone understands the magnitude of the mistake in the cutbacks. The ground forces are so small that there is no surplus of troops. In order to reinforce one sector, soldiers need to be withdrawn from another sector. The situation is so bad that the IDF does not have enough soldiers to fight more than one and a half sectors.
In the next regional war, there will be six combat sectors simultaneously on the ground: Against Hezbollah in Lebanon; against pro-Iranian militias in Syria and the Syrian army itself; against tens of thousands of terrorists in the West Bank; against Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza; against thousands of extremist Bedouins and Arabs within the State of Israel; and against the forces the Iranians are amassing on our eastern border with Jordan, who may cross the border and try to attack our settlements. The army today is crying out “help” and asking to increase the ground forces in order to respond to all the sectors simultaneously.
Where were all the chiefs of staff in recent years?
I convened and warned them all about the lack of responsibility in cutting the military, but they waited for a war to understand what disaster they had led the country’s security to.
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I warned them not to shorten the service of the recruits because we would lack soldiers, but they did not listen to my pleas. And now they are crying out that they are missing 7,000 soldiers and asking to bring back three-year mandatory service. This shows a lack of foresight and a lack of strategic understanding in the face of the growing threat around us, and they did not even acknowledge a single mistake, all out of arrogance, ego, lack of vision, and not understanding what war is and how to prepare and build an army for it.
IDF soldiers in the Gaza Strip (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON UNIT)
For years, I warned about the weapon storage facilities that are not prepared for war. Even though the facilities store combat means and equipment worth billions of dollars, the army drastically cut thousands of officers and professional staff, and there are no longer such personnel in the weapon storage facilities. The cut in recruits’ service also led to a significant lack of soldiers managing the facilities.
The situation of professional personnel in the weapon storage facilities has reached a terrible breaking point because there was no one to implement work plans in dealing with combat means. When reservists were called up for war, they found a lack of readiness in many combat means in the storage facilities: non-operational vehicles and equipment shortages. Only the organization of the people and the initiative of the reservists led to the ability to go to war on the Gaza Strip, but in a regional war with six fronts at once, it simply will not work.
The problem is not surprising. When returning the combat equipment and supplies of the reserve units that have been released, there are no professional personnel in the emergency warehouses to receive the tanks, armored personnel carriers, and vehicles in order to maintain and return them to readiness. The emergency warehouses are completely empty of professional personnel and regular soldiers. Apart from the damaged combat vehicles, there is a huge task to rehabilitate at all levels of the land force: standards, professional knowledge, combat equipment, training, and manpower. But there is no one to do it.
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It is clear that any investigation at all levels, based on current standards and knowledge, is lacking any purpose. Mediocrity dominates everything. Commanders of units and brigades with experienced officers who have retired from the IDF for at least two years need to be appointed at the level of the chief of staff to try to restore the knowledge and professionalism that were once widespread, but that have disappeared, and are not present in the regular army.
In the past five years, I have warned all chiefs of staff, defense ministers, and Air Force commanders that the Air Force bases were not prepared for regional warfare, as the bases and flight paths of the aircraft would become a strategic target for the enemy, and hundreds of precision missiles and anti-aircraft missiles would be launched at them every day, which could destroy our aircraft. All my warnings fell on deaf ears of the Air Force commanders and chiefs of staff, even though none of them denied my words and agreed with my findings. With the outbreak of war in the Gaza Strip, their eyes were opened, and they now understand that they have a serious problem for regional warfare if it breaks out.
I warned about the lack of readiness of the military and the neglect of logistical and maintenance units for civilian companies that will not be able to provide the necessary response in regional warfare. I warned about the loss of quality personnel who are fleeing the army due to the [poor institutional changes that were made in] 2016.
I warned that due to the gloomy situation in the army, it is only a matter of time before disaster strikes. And indeed, it has, with Hamas attacking communities in the Gaza border area. Fortunately, we had a miracle this time as Hezbollah did not attack us from the North, as it would have brought a disaster far worse than the one suffered by the Gaza border communities. It is doubtful if we could have recovered from it and continued living in our beloved country.
Kfar Aza after the massacre (credit: Gili Ya’ari, Flash 90)
In the past, I warned, and I continue to warn now, that the army and the military are not prepared for regional warfare. If the IDF goes to war against Hezbollah and launches a significant attack – as recommended by some, including senior officials in the North and even the defense minister, with absolute ignorance of their situation and readiness of the army and the military for regional war – this could bring disaster upon the country. It is a gamble on the continuation of our lives in the State of Israel.
I warned of this when the war broke out in the Gaza Strip and the people cheered for the army, which at the end of the day did not achieve the desired result. If the political and military leadership continue on the path of tactical thinking rather than strategic thinking, we will find ourselves in a much worse situation than before we started attacking the Gaza Strip. In other words, we lost the war in Gaza.
Today we are losing the achievements we have already made, and we are becoming victims to our own forces. If we continue on this path, we will not achieve the two goals: absolute defeat of Hamas and the return of the captives alive. We will continue to pay a very high price in the loss of our soldiers even in areas we have declared as under our control, such as Gaza City. We are returning to fight there again and again, losing many soldiers without any purpose. So far, the international community has not acted to establish an international administration that would replace the civil rule of Hamas, and without changing the regime, there is no chance of a good outcome from the war.
We are very close to “Somalization” in the Gaza Strip, a situation where there is no law and order, where the strong prevail, as has been happening for many years in Somalia. We find ourselves in very difficult gaps that are impossible to bridge, both in the Gaza Strip and in the regional war, for which until now we are not prepared.
Everything I have said is happening now before our eyes, contrary to everything that has been said during the war on television channels. The biased media parrots the IDF spokesperson’s words, and constantly praised the strength of the army before the Hamas attack on the Gaza border region on October 7. According to them, our army is strong and Hamas is weakened, and they continue to throw sand in the public’s eyes even during the war. Personally, I do not completely trust the judgment of the political echelon or the military echelon regarding Hezbollah, because one wrong decision could ignite a full-blown regional war.
Those responsible for the disgrace, disaster, and terrible shame that occurred on October 7, may lead us into the next regional war, a war that will destroy our country because in the last 20 years we have not prepared the home front and the army for that war. Today, both the political and military leadership do not lift a finger to prepare the home front and the army for the next regional war. This war is the most severe threat to the country since its establishment, the security situation continues to deteriorate every day, and no one seems to care.
The current leaders are focused on their survival, and recently we learned how the chief of staff and the General Staff decide to appoint the next generation of senior commanders, in their image and likeness, in order to strengthen their survival. The appointments come out of self preservation, throwing away the values and norms on which generations of commanders have grown, into the garbage dump of history, and they do so shamelessly and without moral integrity. This is a generation that has not learned anything from the terrible disaster of October 7 and does not hesitate to continue in their role. They are characterized by mediocrity and irresponsibility, lacking leadership and personal example, and they act as if they have nothing to lose.
Recently, we witnessed the irrational judgment of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, pressuring the prime minister to launch an attack on the Gaza Strip simultaneously with an attack on Hezbollah, thus causing a regional war to erupt. In my first meeting with the prime minister, I convinced him not to accept the positions of Gallant and Levi. To my relief, in the war cabinet, there was someone who stood his ground and prevented the decision to go to war against Hezbollah and Hamas simultaneously, thus preventing a terrible disaster.
The chief of staff takes advantage of the situation in the country, where there is no law and no judge and might makes right. Instead of resigning and laying the keys on the table, he continues to behave as if nothing happened and absolves himself of responsibility and blame for the terrible disaster that occurred. He continues to promote his multi-year plan formulated before the war which is not entirely suitable for the threats that have emerged around the country, and will lead us to the next disaster. He conducts investigations on himself and his colleagues, with their main goal being to strengthen his power against the government and the army, he sees his continuation as chief of staff as the only solution. All of his actions are failures professionally, ethically, in leadership, and morally of the highest degree.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former defense minister Benny Gantz, and former chief of staff Aviv Kohavi are leading us nowhere! To a path with no way back. Even though there is great tension among them, they are holding each other’s hands in order to protect themselves, they are stuck like nails without a head in the body of the nation and there is no way to remove them from their place, as they weaken the body of the nation in the face of terror.
They are the ones who brought upon us the most severe hell in the history of the people of Israel since the Holocaust, they are the ones who are leading our way to the next hell without strategic thinking and rationality, but mainly out of emotions and gambling with the security of the country. They continue the fighting more and more because in their opinion it works in their favor. Despite the goals they have defined, the minimization of Hamas and the release of the hostages alive, are moving further away from us every day. And we are descending further and further in the security of the country, in the economy, in society, and in international relations. Where else will we fall? God save us.
In the end, only by replacing all the guilty political and military officials with deserving and honest figures, can we fix the situation now and immediately bring Israel to a safe shore. If we value our lives, do we have any other choice?
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Source: https://jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-791320