- For twelve years I've been shouting and screaming that
Israel's "leadership" utterly controlled by the Council On Foreign
Relations, known broadly as "the neo-cons", would contrive a
war which they would lose. For that my reputation has been slammed with
rumors about my sanity, sobriety and common sense. When that didn't do
the trick, a common car "accident" was supposed to take care
of me. Every effort was made to shut me up. And you know what, I think
that finally "they" did it. Who needs the crap while my nation
dissolves before our eyes?
-
- Here is the Debka Report from July 11. To those who asked,
here is how the New World Order proxy, Israel, started its war with the
cooperation of the NWO enemy Iran. It sure beats Americans and Iranians
dying. So for this, innocents in Israel and Lebanon are doing the suffering
and the dying:
-
- DEBKA:
-
- Maj.-Gen (Ret) Giora Eiland traced the breakdown which
allowed a Hamas-led squad overrun an Israeli army post on the Israeli side
of the southern Gaza border, kill two soldiers and snatch Corporal Gideon
Shalit on June 25, to an "operational" breakdown. He did not
lay it at the door of commanders and their conduct.
-
- "None of them lied or failed to perform their duties,"
said Gen. Eiland, former national security adviser, in the report on the
inquiry the chief of staff entrusted him to carry into the causes of the
incident at the Kerem Shalom post.
-
- Most damningly, Eilat affirmed that the corporal's abduction
could have been aborted. The kidnappers and their hostage were clearly
visible on the unit's electronic screens as they crossed the border into
the Gaza Strip, but the tank commander delayed by first asking his superior
for permission to open fire and abort their flight.
-
- The only action Chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz took
on receipt of the report Monday, July 10, was to announce he had raised
the matter in conversation with a number of commanders. Halutz made no
mention of how he would handle Eiland's comprehensive denigration of an
"operational breakdown - from battalion and brigade level all the
way up to the top of the division and general staff. "
-
- Neither was this finding itemized. Eiland himself did
not recommend dismissals. His restraint was no doubt motivated by the general
disinclination to give the enemy free points at a time when the IDF is
engaged in combat in the Gaza Strip, especially when the commanders targeted
for criticism are at the front line.
-
- According to *DEBKA/file/*'s military sources, the two
generals are counting on the Gaza operation, which the IDF launched on
June 28, three days after the Hamas assault on the army post, stealing
the limelight from the faults found along the entire chain of command.
Our sources say that Eiland directs most of his disapproval at three to
five officers from the ranks of colonel, brigadier general, major general
and lieutenant general.
-
- At the same time, General Eiland omitted to asked the
three searching questions that might have laid bare the root-causes of
the fiasco at Kerem Shalom:
-
- 1. Was this a one-time slip-up or a part of a long-running
string of lapses?
-
- 2. Was it the natural, preordained consequence of the
operational directives coming down from the prime minister, the defense
minister via IDF chiefs?
-
- On June 23, two days before the attack and kidnap, *DEBKA/file/*
exposed the five taboos prime minister Ehud Olmert and defense minister
Amir Peretz laid down for military operations to counter the Qassam missile
blitz against southern Israel.
-
- One banned Israeli forays into the areas of the missile
sites in Gaza and ambushes on Palestinian side of the border fence.
-
- Eiland refrained from asking whether those strict prohibitions
may not have handicapped the command levels of the army to the point of
rendering them incapable of performing their duties. They officers had
due warning of an impending Palestinian cross-border attack through an
undiscovered tunnel. What more logical than to put IDF ambushes squads
behind enemy lines to trap the assailants when they return to their base
in Gaza? Knowing they might be there, the Hamas-led kidnap team would have
realized its escape route with Shalit was blocked and might have been deterred
from the abduction.
-
- 3. The Eiland probe should have examined the strategic
concepts guiding Israel's top commanders before and after the fall of the
Kerem Shalom post.
-
- Given the far-reaching consequences, the Israeli public
is entitled to a lot more enlightenment.
-
- The tailored facts released show a prime minister and
defense minister still in a state of denial over the root-causes of the
present security crisis. Israel's unconsidered disengagement from the Gaza
Strip and its military withdrawal from the Philadelpi border route in September
2005 constitute Israel's most damaging military and political blunder in
a decade. Until this is confronted and objectively analyzed, the top IDF
brass will be constrained from looking squarely at the escalating terror
threat posed by Hamas-in-government and addressing it with all the considerable
professionalism at their command.
-
- Such cool analysis is the target of Olmert's primary
taboo. With the premiership, he inherited from Ariel Sharon the deadly
fallout from this bungle, along with the leadership of the Kadima party,
whose only raison d'etre after rubber-stamping Sharon's disengagement from
Gaza is to continue the process on the West Bank.
-
- The scales have fallen from many Israeli eyes in the
wake of the Gilead Shalit disaster. People have begun asking hard questions,
such as how did Hamas come to take over Palestinian government in the first
place. And why is Hamas being permitted to terrorize southern Israeli with
Qassam missiles after the Gaza Strip was handed over lock, stock and barrel
to full Palestinian control. And the missile menace is beginning to percolate
into the West Bank too.
-
- Even some of Kadima's leading figures appear perplexed.
-
- In his report to the chief of staff, Giora Eiland implied
that the IDF may be in urgent need to revise some of its outdated concepts
and apply a fresh approach to the new realities - even at the cost of standing
up to civilian government. Unless this is broached, Israel's armed forces
are in for more command failures and further misfortunes.
-
- **
- To book me for North American speaking dates or interviews
only, write chamishba@gmail.com
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