Does the government still control the IDF?

Two successive chiefs of staff reportedly ignored a government order to beef up the southern border, yet legal officials barred the government from appointing its own choice for the job. So how is the government supposed to exercise control?
One of the most troubling reports to emerge following the August 18 terror attacks near Eilat was that the government had ordered the army to significantly bolster its deployment along the southern border over a year ago, but the army simply disregarded the order.Some years ago, the government created an independent National Security Council to break the Israel Defense Forces’ monopoly over security assessments. The NSC’s role was to evaluate all available information and prepare its own assessments, so that the government need not blindly accept the IDF’s conclusions: It could compare IDF assessments and recommendations with those of the NSC and then choose a course of action.

Last year, the NSC recommended significantly boosting the IDF’s deployment along the southern border until construction of a planned new border fence was finished. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak subsequently approved this recommendation. But according to a report in Haaretz last week, then-Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi never implemented this decision: Instead of a significant increase, he authorized only small, temporary increases in response to specific intelligence warnings. In short, if Haaretz‘s report is true, he deliberately disobeyed the elected government’s orders.

One can understand why Ashkenazi might have disliked the government’s order: Back then, the main threat from Sinai was the flow of illegal migrants; a veteran soldier would naturally prioritize the conventional military threat posed by Israel’s northern neighbors. But once the elected government has decided, it’s the army’s job to obey to the best of its ability. That Ashkenazi instead simply ignored the order is shocking.

The excuse offered by the IDF Spokesman Office does nothing to mitigate the offense. As quoted in the Haaretz report, it contended that the NSC gives the army “various recommendations,” all of which are “examined and implemented in light of the situation assessment.” But once the government has approved an NSC proposal, it’s no longer just a “recommendation” to be implemented or not at the army’s discretion; it’s an order that must be obeyed. That the IDF seems not to understand this distinction is, again, shocking.

Nor did the situation change after Benny Gantz replaced Ashkenazi at the IDF’s helm on February 14. Since Gantz was a last-minute replacement hauled out of retirement to take the job after the legal establishment nixed the government’s first choice, he wasn’t granted an orderly transition period; his appointment was approved a mere day before he took office. Nevertheless, he cannot credibly plead ignorance of last year’s order, because he served as deputy chief of staff from October 2009 through November 2010. As such, he presumably knew about both the government’s decision and Ashkenazi’s failure to implement it. Yet he made no move to rectify the omission.

This, if possible, is even more troubling, because it shows not only contempt for the government’s authority, but poor judgment. Gantz took office three days after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned, and Mubarak’s fall produced a rapid deterioration in the security situation in Sinai. Over the last seven months, for instance, five successive attacks on the Egyptian-Israeli natural gas pipeline have kept it shut almost continuously; that compares to zero attacks in the previous three years. No military genius was required to realize that the same security vacuum that produced the pipeline attacks could produce cross-border terror attacks; I wrote as much back in May, and I have no military experience whatsoever. But Gantz, the 44-year veteran, evidently couldn’t see it: He ordered deployment along the southern border beefed up only after the Eilat attacks.

Ironically, the one officer who evidently did take the Sinai threat seriously was the man the government wanted as chief of staff: Yoav Galant. According to the Haaretz report, the last significant boost in the IDF’s deployment along the southern border occurred four years ago, when Galant, as GOC Southern Command, allocated more resources to this border from within his own command.

There’s obviously no guarantee that Galant would have beefed up the border further had his appointment gone through. Nor would an increased troop presence necessarily have prevented the negative outcome of the Eilat attacks: the loss of both Israeli and Egyptian lives and the consequent diplomatic crisis with Egypt. But war with Egypt would clearly be disastrous, and it ought to be equally clear, as I wrote both in May and last week, that enough such border incidents could eventually spark one. Hence trying to prevent such incidents should be top priority.

And as it turns out, the government actually did try: It decided over a year ago to boost deployment along the southern border, and it chose a new chief of staff who took the Sinai problem seriously.

But a coterie of unelected officials thwarted its efforts. Two successive chiefs of staff reportedly ignored its deployment order, while the state comptroller, attorney general and Supreme Court joined forces to nix its preferred choice to succeed Ashkenazi – and did so, incidentally, over alleged offenses far less serious than rank insubordination. That left the government scrambling for a last-minute replacement whom the legal mandarins would deem acceptable. And on this score, Gantz qualified.

The outcome obviously raises serious questions about Israel’s security. But it raises even more serious questions about Israel’s democracy. No country can call itself a democracy if its military is not subordinate to the elected civilian government. But in Israel, it turns out, the elected government has no control over the army: It can neither force a recalcitrant chief of staff to do its bidding nor replace him with a successor of its own choosing.

So is Israel in fact still a democracy? Or is it governed by an unelected junta of legal and military officials hiding behind the façade of democratic government? It’s hard to say precisely where the tipping point lies, but the trend is clear: For far too long, the unelected officials have been expanding their power at the expense of the elected ones. And unless the elected government starts fighting back, Israel can kiss its democracy good-bye.

The writer is a journalist and commentator.