IDF in Worse Crisis Since Yom Kippur War

The Jerusalem Post is reporting an interview with Israeli Maj.-Gen. Eyal Ben-Reuven:

"The IDF is in a worse crisis today than it was following the Yom Kippur War," Maj.-Gen. Eyal Ben-Reuven said Monday, in response to what he called the General Staff's failure to stand behind Brig.-Gen. Gal Hirsch, the Galilee Division commander who resigned from active service on Sunday.

One of the last IDF generals still in service to have fought during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Ben-Reuven said that while Hirsch got off to a bad start in this summer's war with Hizbullah, his division, in the end, demonstrated impressive results.

During the war in Lebanon, Ben-Reuven served as the deputy to outgoing OC Northern Command Maj.-Gen. Udi Adam, who has also resigned from military service. Hirsch, whose division conducted much of the fighting, handed in his resignation early Sunday morning, just hours before an investigative committee said the kidnapping of two reservists under his command should have been prevented. Following the 1973 war, the government established the Agranat Commission to investigate circumstances leading to the outbreak of the war. While the committee recommended the dismissal of chief of General Staff David Elazar, his fellow officers, Ben-Reuven said, stood behind him.

"Today there is a crisis in the top IDF leadership," Ben-Reuven told The Jerusalem Post. "While the outcome of the Yom Kippur War was grave, at least then the top command stood by one another, and not like today when officers like Hirsch are left hanging out to dry alone."

While refusing to criticize specific officers, including Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz, Ben-Reuven said: "The unsatisfactory results from the war were not due to the conduct of this or that division commander, but because of the top IDF command and the ranks on top of them." Other former officers were not as restrained as Ben-Reuven, and on Monday called for Halutz's immediate resignation.

Halutz is just one of the fruits of the Sharon Gaza Disengagement. Halutz would never have made the short-list for IDF Chief of Staff nominations if Sharon had not railroaded out every military commander above Halutz for being critical or for speaking out against the Gaza Disengagment.