Sechster Nahostkrieg

[Nightwatch]

Überall die gleiche Seuche

onight, we reported tonight on Channel 14: On October 7, 2023—the day the war broke out—around 70% of the Generals in the IDF General Staff Forum were not graduates of the IDF War College (Command and Staff College, or “PUM”), in direct violation of the army’s own regulations, which mandate that every lieutenant colonel must complete this intensive training.

Among these officers were some of those most responsible for the failures of that day, including outgoing Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, retiring Southern Command Chief Yaron Finkelman, and resigning Head of the Operations Directorate Oded Basiuk. The incoming Chief of Staff, Eyal Zamir, is a graduate of the War College, and for fairness’ sake—it should be noted that former Military Intelligence Chief Aharon Haliva is as well.

Today, I spoke with several rtired senior officers. Some of them believe this is a severe failure that directly impacted the army’s preparedness on October 7. In the War College, they told me, they don’t just deal with theory but with the practical foundations of war management and defensive combat operations—everything that was glaringly absent on the day of the massacre.

Others, however, believe that the army has far more urgent and pressing problems. But in my view, the key takeaway is that this is merely a symptom of a much broader and deeper illness that has spread through the IDF over the past decades: the decline in the status of the profession of war and the growing disregard for it.

This is how we ended up with senior officers who preferred to engage in diplomacy and philosophy rather than sharpening their skills as commanders. This is how we reached a situation where Herzi Halevi was appointed Chief of Staff despite never having commanded a maneuvering division; where his predecessor, Aviv Kochavi, wrote in a book he was about to publish that "wars no longer exist"; and how we got a General Staff where many officers are more familiar with the layout of Harvard University’s cafeteria than with the inside of a tank.

The new Chief of Staff, Eyal Zamir, has urgent operational missions ahead of him. But in the long run, he faces an equally critical task: After conquering Gaza and eliminating Hamas, Zamir will have to heal the army and instill in it a renewed—and above all, healthy—organizational culture.

https://x.com/Tamir114/status/1897362817642324158