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News :: Israel / Palestine |
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IDF Chief Of Staff Goes Public With Criticism Of Sharon Policies |
Current rating: 0 |
by haaretz via gehrig
(No verified email address) |
30 Oct 2003
Modified: 12:45:13 PM |
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There's been some interesting internal squabbling going on in the Sharon government over the past few days; the IDF's chief of staff, Moshe Ya'alon, publicly called into question the long-term effectiveness of Sharon's lockdown policy, and hell has broken loose. Note also that Sharon's been dogged by a Whitewater-like scandal that doesn't get mentioned over here, but gets cited as a subtext in this article. |
Last update - 19:27 30/10/2003
Shalom, Olmert support Ya'alon's statements against gov't
By Aluf Benn, Amos Harel and Uzi Benziman and the Agencies
A source associated with Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Thursday that Shalom was in agreement with Israel Defense Forces chief Moshe Ya'alon's statements regarding the need to substantially ease restrictions on the Palestinian population in the territories, Army Radio reported.
However, the source added that the way Ya'alon worded his statements may have been problematic.
The radio also quoted Trade and Industry Minister Ehud Olmert as saying that Ya'alon's stand was legitimate and that he should be able to express his opinions in the appropriate manner.
European officials were puzzled that the IDF chief, who is generally expected to present a hawkish viewpoint, expresses views that are more rational, humanistic and moralistic than the government's, Israel Radio reported Thursday.
Senior officials close to Ya'alon suggested earlier that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's aides, in advising him to criticize the IDF Chief of Staff, were trying to divert public attention away from Sharon's police questioning on bribery suspicions due to take place Thursday, Army Radio reported.
The Prime Minister's Office said that Sharon will make do with the meeting held between Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Ya'alon on Wedneday and will take no further action in the matter, Israel Radio reported Thursday.
Sharon spoke Wednesday with Mofaz, and expressed his anger at comments made by Ya'alon, who was quoted in the Wednesday editions of several newspapers as backing criticism of the government's policy toward the Palestinians.
Ya'alon said that Israel's treatment of former Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas was mistaken, and that Israel contributed to the fall of the Palestinian government by not making enough good-will gestures. The Prime Minister's Office was furious at the Chief of Staff's comments, calling the comments "extremely serious."
One source in the PMO said that, given the severity of the comments, Ya'alon's only way out would be to apologize or resign. "Ya'alon never made his opinion known in any of the discussions that we held, and despite the fact that every door remains open to him, he chose to speak to the press. Beyond that, his claims are not correct."
Another source in Jerusalem said that Ya'alon had never advocated more concessions for Palestinians. "Why criticize the political echelons," the source said, "when it merely carried out the army's recommendations? During Abbas' tenure as prime minister, Ya'alon did not back those top officers who advocated relaxing the curfews, but backed the more hard-line approach put forward by the head of the Shin Bet, Avi Dichter."
In a meeting between Ya'alon and Mofaz on Wednesday, Ya'alon said that he did not intend for his comments - made before a forum of senior journalists and commentators on Tuesday night - to be presented as they were. He added that he convened the briefing to explain to reporters the source of the differences of opinion between the military and the government on the issue of easing conditions for the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza. He stressed that he had no intention of criticizing the government.
So far, Mofaz has not taken any action in response to the incident. After the meeting between Mofaz and Ya'alon, IDF spokeswoman Brig. Gen. Ruth Yaron issued a statement in which she stressed that "no uniformed officer has expressed criticism of the government. The articles reflect fundamental deliberations within the army, in light of a complex reality." Yaron added that "the IDF is subordinate to the political echelons, and carries out its orders exactly."
Sources in the Prime Minister's Office and the Defense Ministry were up in arms on Wednesday morning, following the publication of the quotes. The articles were another stage in the ongoing tensions between Mofaz and the IDF's top brass, although Wednesday's publication was seen as a direct attack by the IDF on the government's policy.
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Follow Up: Ha'aretz Editorial |
by haaretz via gehrig
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
31 Oct 2003
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Last update - 02:29 31/10/2003
The message of the chief of staff
The chief of staff, Lieutenant General Moshe Ya'alon, is worried about the absence of political hope among the Palestinians in the territories. His concern is that the Palestinians are in a pressure cooker that is going to explode and affect the security of Israelis - the security for which the Israel Defense Forces is responsible in large measure, with other bodies and subject to the government.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon shares Ya'alon's concerns, according to his public declarations. Sharon instructed the IDF to help better the Palestinians' social and employment situation, so they do not sink into despair and hatred and enlist as suicide bombers. However, when the chief of staff sought to translate this general guideline into concrete moves, he encountered the opposition of Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, whose reasons are in part substantive - such as warnings by the Shin Bet security service about the danger of terrorist attacks - and in part otherwise. The result is that the prime minister's policy is not being implemented, the commanders in the field are reporting increasing ferment, and the IDF is under attack for lethal operation failures (at Ein Yabrud and Netzarim). The chief of staff feels, therefore, that it is his duty to act to change the situation.
This is pretty much the message, with contrition for a sin of the recent past ("miserliness" in regard to the government of Mahmoud Abbas) and a warning about what is liable to happen in the future, that the IDF top brass has been projecting in the past few weeks. It has had echoes in the press, though more in the form of analysis pieces than in striking headlines. This week, as part of the effort to convey Ya'alon's position and his evaluations, the message received an especially broad echo, perhaps broader than he planned.
The publication of Ya'alon's remarks in a conversation with correspondents of three newspapers rekindled an old debate about what is and is not permissible in relations between the military level and the political level. To borrow from another dispute that made headlines this week - Attorney General Rubinstein vs. police Major General Mizrahi - it can be said that Ya'alon "trod close to the boundary line" of violating authority and that Sharon was angry "to the point of" making his continued stay in the post of chief of staff dependent on an expression of contrition.
The well-known habit of chiefs of staff in Israel of apprising the public about the army's situation appraisals was this time portrayed as a serious deviation - akin to the public warning issued in 1977 by the chief of staff, Mordechai Gur, that the intention of Egyptian President Sadat to visit Israel was a deception and a trap. This aspect of the affair, with all its importance, is marginal compared to the worrying content of what Ya'alon had to say.
In his sometimes clumsy way, setting verbal traps for himself and hitting them with a loud explosion, Ya'alon has expressed quite a consistent position in the past three years: the aspiration to create a military wall in the face of terrorism, so that Israeli policy will not change because of the Palestinian attacks, but with an opening to a political horizon when the Palestinians recognize the need to settle the conflict at the bargaining table only.
Ya'alon said this when Shimon Peres, who was then in the government, gave voice to what the chief of staff thought was too much of a concessionary extreme, and he is saying it again now, when Mofaz is giving voice to a hard-line extreme. Deafness to what Ya'alon is saying, or assailing his remarks, both miss the point: to prevent Israel's actions and blunders from adversely affecting the prospects of achieving peace and security. We should pay greater heed to the chief of staff's words of warning than to the procedure of their utterance.
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