Maof

“Haaretz”, September 14, 2006.

Moshe Ya'alon. "I propose that I be the first to be investigated by a state commission of inquiry; I have nothing to hide." (Reli Avrahami)

Moshe Ya'alon is ensconced in a small room on the second floor of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem's Greek Colony neighborhood. His year at a research institute in Washington hasn't changed him. He lets his proud and tough integrity say its piece, as in the past. Because, after all, he is entirely as he was. He is entirely that uncompromising moral roughness of a native of Kiryat Haim. A son of historic Mapai, the forerunner of Labor; the son of poor Ashkenazim, working-class Holocaust survivors, who sent their son to the land-settlement movement, to the security sphere and the building of the country. To self-fulfillment without vested interests, without a sense of humor and without winks and manipulations.

At Doron's Falafel they like Boogey, as Ya'alon is known. When he sits at the Formica table with tehina dripping from his half-pita, he looks different from any other contemporary Israeli public figure. His Spartan modesty is now working in his favor. At the midway point between the house on 29th November Street and Cremieux Street the former chief of staff somehow seems to embody a different moral thrust. Jerusalem Likudniks who have had their fill of Olmert and know every shtick of the Tricky Dicky who grew up in their city are looking to the colorless kibbutznik who, for his part, seems to be trying to obscure his presence and to shrink his stature.

Will he enter politics? Ya'alon continues to deny it, but the denial sounds less cogent and more hesitant than in the past. The person who removed the chief of staff of the Al-Aqsa Intifada prematurely in order to replace him with Halutz and Kaplinsky sowed in this village teacher a seed of ambitious bitterness that every so often lights a burning fire in his eyes. The person who managed the second Lebanon war in the way it was managed let the seed sprout and produce fruit. If he were not labeled as being responsible, to a certain extent, for the blunder of the six years that preceded the war, Ya'alon would already now be leading the postwar protest movement.

If he were not also controversial, Ya'alon would already now become the Moti Ashkenazi of 2006 - the person who sparked the post-Yom Kippur War protest movement. Still, even so, even though he knows that people are lurking in ambush for him, Bogey appears determined to make waves and foment storms. Those who did not want him as chief of staff will get him as a key figure in the new public life of the political era that is about to open.
The IDF failed in the second Lebanon war. As the person who was deputy chief of staff and chief of staff for five of the past six years, don't you bear responsibility for this failure?
Ya'alon: "I support the establishment of a state commission of inquiry. I propose that I be the first person to be questioned by the commission. I have nothing to hide."
You froze the Nautilus project and thereby exposed the North to Katyushas.
"I am not the one who stopped the Nautilus project. But I did have doubts about it. It was extremely expensive and of limited result. It could only have protected a city here and a city there. If Israel invests a fortune to sew a protective suit for each citizen and turn itself into a bunker state, it will not survive economically."
You also neglected the active defense systems for tanks against anti-tank missiles. Because of you the tanks were not protected.
"As chief of staff I assigned priority to creating intelligence capabilities and attack capabilities. In my opinion that was a correct approach, which proved itself. I would not have used the tanks the way they were used in this war."
You shared the conception that gave excess weight to the air force and to precision munitions.
"The air force and the precise munitions proved themselves both in the Palestinian arena and in the Lebanon fighting. I did not count solely on aerial combat. I prepared an option of ground combat and prepared the appropriate forces for that. The problem in the war was not the air force but the unrealistic expectations about what the air force could achieve."
You accepted the stagnation of the reserve units.
"Even before I became chief of staff we made the decision to take a risk in this regard. We made it clear to the political echelon that in a war it would take four days to prepare the reserve units. Even now I think the risk we took was reasonable. In 2002 Israel faced a danger of economic collapse. The IDF has to understand the constraints of the budget and adjust itself accordingly. I continue to battle today against an excessive increase of the defense budget. Israel's economic soundness is a central element in its national security."
You said that we had to let the rockets rust.
"True, and I stand behind that statement today, too. I did not suggest that we sit idly by until the rockets rusted. I proposed that we act politically and in a limited military fashion so that in the end Hezbollah would disarm. I understood there was no military action which could smash or pulverize Hezbollah. I understood that there is no way to uproot Hezbollah from the hearts of the Shi'ites in Lebanon. I also understood that there is no gimmick that will remove the Katyusha threat instantly. Accordingly, I proposed that we take combined political-military action in order to contain Hezbollah, to constrict its maneuvering space and in the end to bring about a situation in which the organization would be perceived as illegitimate in Lebanon itself."
Did you favor negotiations with Syria?
"Yes. In the summer of 2003 I suggested to prime minister Sharon that he accede to the requests of Bashar Assad and enter into negotiations with him. I thought that the very existence of negotiations with Syria on the future of the Golan Heights would crack the northern alignment of Iran-Syria-Hezbollah and perhaps also cause its dismantlement. Sharon rejected my suggestion outright. He preferred the disengagement."
Would you be ready to cede the Golan Heights in return for peace with Syria?
"I never sanctified any piece of ground. If a territorial concession will bring about true peace and full recognition of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, I am not against that. However, even if we did not reach a land-for-peace agreement, the very fact of the renewal of the dialogue channel with Syria would have distanced it from Iran and would have weakened the northern alignment, which I defined as a strategic threat."
Nevertheless, the rockets kept piling up and you did not take action against them.
"You have to understand the limitations of power. Those who do not understand them must not be in command of power. At this moment Syrian missiles are aimed at Israel. Why don't we attack them? Why don't we attack the Iranian Shihab [missiles] already today? One could argue that we should also attack the Egyptian missiles. Egypt has a large army and many missiles, so why shouldn't we attack them now, because who knows what will happen 10 years down the line?
"You have to understand that the use of military force is a last resort. You don't use it offhandedly. And in order to use military force a legitimate strategic context is required. There was no such context regarding Hezbollah. However, beyond all that, it was clear to me that Hezbollah is a rooted phenomenon and will not be eradicated by military action. It was also clear to me that there is no unequivocal military solution against the rocket deployment. I therefore encouraged political activity, which in the end would lead to the disarming of Hezbollah as a result of an internal Lebanese process, and concurrently I drew up a military plan intended to address a scenario of a Hezbollah offensive that would oblige us to deal with the organization militarily."
What were the plan's basic assumptions?
"That the IDF must act in a way that would set in motion a political process that would lead to the disarming of Hezbollah, the removal of the Iranians from Lebanon and perhaps also the imposition of sanctions on Syria and Iran. In a scenario of the abduction of soldiers, exactly as occurred on July 12, the IDF was supposed to respond with an aerial attack and the mobilization of reserve divisions, which would act as a threat to the Syrians and to Hezbollah and would encourage Lebanon and the international community to take action to achieve the desired goal. If the threat itself did not achieve the goal, a ground move would have begun within a few days aimed primarily at seizing dominant terrain as far as the Litani River and the Nabatiya plateau.
"The ground entry was supposed to be carried out speedily, for an allotted time, without the use of tanks and without entering houses or built-up areas. Because of our awareness of the anti-tank missile problem and our awareness of the bunkers and of the fact that the routes are mined, the intention was to activate the IDF in guerrilla modalities. That was the operational idea, that was the plan and that is how the forces were trained."
If so, why was that plan not implemented?
"I don't know. That is one of the questions that the state commission of inquiry will have to investigate. In my opinion, the aerial offensive was correct. The air force delivered the goods. In a few areas it even provided favorable surprises. But the activation of the ground forces was a catastrophe. There was no defined goal. There was no required achievement. They jumped from one idea to the next and introduced new missions all the time without any logic."
So you argue that the IDF was prepared for the war but that its management was a failure.
"Exactly so. In the debriefings that are now under way in the IDF the tendency is to go below. To talk about a crisis at the tactical level. To cast the responsibility on the battalion and brigade commanders. But I maintain that the problem is not there. Our pilots are excellent. The company commanders are excellent. They fought excellently in Operation Defensive Shield [in the West Bank, in spring 2002] and they overcame the Palestinian terrorism and also carried out the disengagement optimally. And they have not changed since. In this war, too, when they were used correctly they operated correctly. There were units that liquidated about 50 terrorists without sustaining one casualty. So the allegation that the army is basically flawed is not right. Nor do I accept the claim that the IDF did not prepare for this campaign but for the last war. That is simply not true. What we had here was a management failure at a very senior level by those who are responsible for activating force in Israel. The failure in this campaign was one of management."
When did you understand that there had been a failure, that something had gone wrong?
"At the end of the first week. Until then things were conducted reasonably well. I was critical of the fact that the reserves were not mobilized, but I understood more or less what the goal was. But then, instead of plucking the political fruits of the aerial offensive, they continued to use force. They over-used force. And instead of coordinating with the Americans for them to stop us when the operation was at its height, and setting in motion a political process to disarm Hezbollah, we asked the Americans for more time. We let the Americans think that we have some sort of gimmick that will vanquish Hezbollah militarily. I knew there was no such gimmick. I knew the whole logic of the operation was that it be limited in time and not be extended.

"And then I lost all logical connection with the events. I understood that there was a deviation from the plan that was based on some sort of false feeling that there is a military means to pulverize Hezbollah and bring about its dismantlement and disappearance. Because the goals of the war were not defined and because no one clarified what the army is capable of doing and what it cannot do, the pursuit began of an impossible achievement. Instead of sticking to the IDF's operative plan, they started to improvise. They improvised, improvised and then improvised again. Instead of grabbing political achievements at the right moment, they went on with the use of force. The excessive use of force in a situation like this is ruinous. It becomes a two-edged sword. When you turn a screw and reach a certain point you have to stop. If you keep going you end up pulling it out: you open instead of closing. That is what happened here."

Did you try to warn people? Did you talk to Olmert and Halutz?

"I tried to phone from Washington. Then I got here and tried to talk here. But I discovered that the political level had the feeling - which was nourished by the chief of staff - that the matter could be wrapped up from the air. And when it turned out that the aerial move was not going to deliver the goods it was never meant to deliver in the first place, frustration set in. A desperate search began for some kind of move that would produce some sort of feeling of victory. The delusory idea of a one-kilometer ground move developed."

Why delusory?

"The goal that was posited was to destroy Hezbollah outposts adjacent to the border. But if Hezbollah is not disarmed, it will build new outposts. If it is disarmed, there is no point destroying the outposts. So the whole idea of sending a force into Maroun A Ras was baseless. I didn't understand it. I didn't understand where it came from. I was not familiar with any such plan."
Did you say so to Halutz?

"I did not succeed in speaking to the chief of staff. I came to Israel because I was climbing up the walls in Washington but I went back the way I came and climbed those walls even higher. By then we were already entangled in Bint Jbail."

So you believe the Bint Jbail move was also mistaken?

"Bint Jbail was imposed by the chief of staff. There was no orderly plan here. There was no dialogue between the General Staff and Northern Command and the field levels. The idea to capture Bint Jbail was born out of the desperate attempt to create a picture of victory, because Bint Jbail is a symbol. Because that's where Nasrallah made his 'spider webs' speech. But it was clear that this was folly. Why are you even messing with a built-up area? Seize the dominating terrain. Use infantry according to the original plan. Don't enter killing areas in which Hezbollah is waiting for you. Listen to the command levels that are telling you that this is a mistake."

You're angry.

"Yes. Because spin is penetrating strategy. There is a discourse here. There is no listening here. There is a misunderstanding that the land army is not a plane to which you assign a mission and it attacks and returns. It is impossible to order Northern Command to capture Bint Jbail by a snap decision. As a result, soldiers are killed. As a result, the IDF goes in and comes out and retreats. The deterrent image is damaged. At Maroun A Ras and at Bint Jbail an unfavorable reversal was created in the battle picture."

Your wife's nephew was seriously wounded in the land skirmishes in the village of Debel.

"The question that arises from Moran and from his buddies is a simple one: Why? I am familiar with the loss of friends in war. And with bereaved families, and with serious wounds. But if it is clear why and for what, it's easier. And here the young soldiers were sent to execute a mission whose logic and purpose were not clear to them. Nor did they understand why they found themselves in a house when it was clear to them that it wasn't smart to enter houses. When Moran was drafted I told his father one thing: no tanks and no houses - I was that aware of the antitank threat. And when he shouted there, 'Don't send us into houses,' nobody listened. Two antitank missiles entered the house, leaving nine killed and 32 wounded.

"So he and his buddies are asking why. Why the mistake in the tactical execution. And why the entering and leaving villages. And I, with them, also ask why. Yes, in war people are killed, wounded. But that is why the political echelon and the military echelon have to make their decisions in the most judicious and precise way. Not to get carried away. Not to act emotionally. Not to kick a wall with a bare foot. Because when you kick a wall with a bare foot the satisfaction of the kick lasts exactly as long as it takes for the foot to make contact with the wall. After that the foot is broken, while the wall continues to stand. And what happens in the meantime is not only that soldiers are killed. What happens is that the most basic element that leadership needs is eroded: trust. And that is what happened here. The trust of the soldiers and the commanders in the political echelon and in the senior command was eroded."

You haven't mentioned the successful operation at Baalbek.

"I am not convinced that what was done at Baalbek was a success. And I am not convinced that what was carried out was justified in terms of risk, cost and benefit. There is a certain type of operation that carries a very high risk level. Therefore you attempt it only when the achievement it is meant to generate is of strategic importance. I am not certain this was the case here. I am not certain that the operation at Baalbek was not an adventure."

And the final ground move that ended the war?

"That was a spin move. It had no substantive security-political goal, only a spin goal. It was meant to supply the missing victory picture. You don't do that. You don't send soldiers to carry out a futile mission after the political outcome has already been set. I consider that corrupt."

You are saying a very serious thing. Thirty-three soldiers were killed in that operation. Were they killed to achieve a spin?

"Yes. And that is why people have to resign. For that you don't even need a commission of inquiry. Whoever made that decision has to assume responsibility and resign."

Does the prime minister have to resign?

"Yes. He can't say he did not know. He cannot say that. Even if he was not an army person in the past and was not prime minister or defense minister, he knows how one goes to war. This is not the way to go to war. And he knows how a war is managed. This is not the way a war is managed. Going to war was scandalous and he is directly responsible for that. The management of the war was a failure and he is responsible for that. The final operation was particularly problematic and he was directly involved in that. He was warned and he did not heed the warnings. Therefore he must resign."

And the chief of staff?

"The chief of staff failed in the management of the war. He gave the political echelon the feeling that he had the capability, which in practice he did not have, to bring about a political achievement by means of an extremely aggressive military operation. He entered the war without defining it as a war and maybe without understanding that it was a war. He did not understand the implications of the measures he himself adopted. He did not mobilize the reserves in time and did not open the emergency depots in time and did not activate the high-command base. He managed the war from his office. He imposed missions such as Bint Jbail without any discussion and without consulting with the command about the consequences and implications. He created lack of clarity that rattled the forces in the field, caused a loss of trust and generated chaos. He did not give the commanders in the north backing. He did not build a structure that would help him overcome his weakness in the land sphere. He managed the campaign arrogantly and shallowly."

Must the chief of staff resign?

"Yes. He should have resigned immediately after the conclusion of the campaign."

And the defense minister?

"The defense minister should be replaced. There is a certain justice to what he says about being new and not having time to learn and not even hearing that there were rockets in Lebanon. But the responsibility is on his shoulders in his very agreement to take the job. Both he and the person who appointed him are responsible for appointing an inexperienced person to a sensitive post without taking into account that within a short time he would have to manage a crisis. There is no doubt the leadership team that was created here was perceived by Hezbollah as weak and inexperienced. Nasrallah may have been taken by surprise at the aggressive reaction by the prime minister, the defense minister and the chief of staff, but in the end he was right in his assessment that this team was not capable of managing a war properly."
 

The price of moral fog

Has there been any improvement since the war? Is a learning process discernible?

"The processes of cover-up and corruption are continuing. The prime minister's examination commissions are an escape. Instead of proving that he is showing responsibility, the prime minister is fleeing from responsibility. In the IDF, too, it's clear there will not be truthful investigations. Everyone is busy with his own personal survival. So without changing horses and without a state commission of inquiry that will expose the truth to everyone, there is no chance of starting the process of rehabilitating the IDF. This is because the IDF is not destroyed. It does not need organizational rehabilitation. What it needs is a rehabilitation of values. Without the replacement of the political leadership and the senior command, that kind of rehabilitation of values is impossible. It won't happen."

You have lost me. What, exactly, do you mean?

"I see a war of cultures here. In recent years the public sector in Israel has undergone a process of corruption. It began in politics but, regrettably, also penetrated the army. A cycle of discussion has been created here in which the core is not the essence but marketing. In the war we paid a price for that. We paid a price for disengaging from the truth. We paid a price for the loss of integrity and the moral fog. We paid a price for accepting a process in which officers are promoted because they have political connections."

Allow me to translate. You are saying, in effect, that Ariel Sharon's 'ranch forum' corrupted the top level of the IDF.

"I have no doubt of that."

You are arguing that the chief of staff and his deputy were appointed to their positions because they are close to the ranch forum.

"That is what the papers said."

And this corruption, which has its origins in the ranch forum, caused many of the ills that were exposed in the war?

"The present chief of staff is a very talented person. He was an excellent commander of the air force. But there is a moral debate here. He carries with him a problematic message. The connection of officers to politics is undesirable. It is a corrupt connection. There is a problem today in the IDF of very senior officers who are too close to political elements."

Can you give some examples?

"In the last Herzliya Conference the chief of staff said that our security situation has never been better. The Iranian threat - not this year. Terrorism is not an existential threat. Wow, terrific. Life is great. We have it good here. That was an untruthful presentation for the inhabitants of Israel. And it came ahead of elections. It was within the framework of an attempt at a 'compensation of hope,' as the prime minister put it."

Are you saying that the chief of staff promoted Kadima?

"It's very possible. After the disengagement it was clear that we were headed for a confrontation with extremist Islam, which viewed the disengagement as a sign of weakness. I knew that and Military Intelligence knew that. What should have been done was to prepare the IDF for a confrontation. But instead, they forged some imaginary hope that turned out to be an illusion. They placed a golden calf before the people of Israel and another golden calf, instead of telling the nation the truth. The top level of the IDF was a partner to this. Adlerism [referring to ad man Reuven Adler] penetrated the army. What we had here was the sin of arrogance and what we had was corruption. In the year that preceded the war there was a worrisome shift for the worse in the IDF."

Did you discern problems in the IDF even before the war?

"Certainly. The senior command distanced itself from details, and when the senior command does that it creates laxness. You get slackness. The muscle tone changes. At the same time, the processes of deep thought were severed. A clear message was conveyed that everyone has to toe the line. That decisions are made before the discussion and not in its course. Too much value was attributed to charisma, to the speed with which decisions are made. Anyone who held a different view was distanced or silenced. An unhealthy spirit emerged of not being meticulous and of not making an effort. Of uniformity of opinion and of complacency. And worst of all: a feeling was created that anyone who preserved rectitude and integrity was liable not to be promoted. A feeling was created that anyone seeking promotion has to cross the lines and join the spinfest and learn how to serve the politicians. That is why the chief of staff cannot now put the IDF through a rehabilitation of values. Because he reflects saliently the flawed culture of values from which release is needed, which has to be cleansed."

The reservists who protested the war say that it revealed the fact that corruption kills. Do you share that view?

"Yes. Corruption is the real threat to Israel. It is more dangerous than the Iranian threat and the Palestinian threat. That is why we have to replace the leadership now. Without the replacement of the leadership there will be no cleansing and no cultural-values rehabilitation and also no preparedness for the next war."

Do we have to prepare for a war?

"Deterrence was harmed in the wake of the war's failed management. Unjustly, Israel is now perceived in the region as a state that is not able to protect the lives of its citizens. The image of Israel and the image of the IDF is bad. As chief of staff I was able to accept the Military Intelligence appraisal that the probability of a Syrian surprise attack was very, very low. Today, as a result of the war, that probability is no longer very, very low. It is not extremely high, but it is more than low."

In this state of emergency, do you see yourself taking over as chief of staff for a pre-set limited period?

"That is not necessary. There are good people in the system who can do the job. There is no need for an emergency appointment. But throughout my life I have said that if I am wanted, I am here. It's the same today."

And if you were offered the post of defense minister?

"I will not enter the present alignment. It needs to be replaced. In other circumstances it would be a hard dilemma."

It's said that you are connected to Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud.

"Nonsense."

So maybe you will establish a new party?

"I am not looking for power. I hate it. But I do not flee responsibility. I also hated the army, but after the Yom Kippur War I joined the career army. In the first years it was hard for me to go back to the army every Sunday morning, but I did it because I thought that I would be able to exert influence from there. Today I don't think politics is my way to exert influence."

But you are not ruling it out altogether. In an analogy to what happened to you after 1973, maybe you will again feel that you are required to take action contrary to your DNA and run for prime minister, despite everything?

"I don't want to get into that. I am disturbed by what is happening in the country. It's burning in my bones. I care. But at the moment all I want to do is share with the public my diagnosis of the situation, to share with the public an understanding of the gravity of the corruption. If we do not act immediately to uproot the corruption from the political establishment and from the military establishment, it will endanger our existence. Arrogance and corruption are today the existential threat to Israel."

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