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Retirement for Gabi Ashkenazi is a bad move

Military operations and the evaluation of military personnel are not our field of expertise. Still, we cannot help but raise an eyebrow at the replacement of Israel’s Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi.

He has held his position for four years, and now been designated for retirement. Customarily, the chief-of-staff’s four-year term is extended for another year. Ashkenazi’s wasn’t. This is most puzzling, not because we have any reason to doubt his replacement, Major General Yoav Galant, but because of Ashkenazi’s stellar record.

Recall the state of the Israel Defense Forces when Ashkenazi took over in late 2006. The forces were in a shambles. The Second Lebanon War had just concluded with a poor performance by the IDF, and that’s putting it mildly.

The forces were ill led and ill prepared. Troops spoke of the absence of everything from ammunition to blankets. The war itself was an exercise in bad strategy, failure to eliminate Hezbollah and failure to protect the troops — most notably in the ill advised attack just before the war ended, when 24 Israelis met their demise, seemingly for nothing. Most significantly, all the actors around the Middle East — including Israel — spoke of Israel’s diminished, or eliminated, deterrent power. No longer was Israel feared, and Hezbollah and others boasted of coming attacks on Israel. Hamas certainly took the cue and sent thousands of missiles into Israel, wreaking havoc in civilian centers in southern Israel. Deterrent fear is critically important, and Israel had lost it. The new chief-of-staff had his work cut out for him. Read the related news coverage

Gabi Ashkenazi rose to the task, and more than rose to the task. With nose to the grindstone, he reshaped the IDF leadership, rebuilt the morale, reinstituted the efficiency; in a word, he brought back the old IDF we all knew. He did it without fanfare, with a high sense of professionalism. And boy did it all show when Israel had to go to war against Hamas to restore safety, sanity and peace to southern Israel.

In late 2008, Israel had finally had enough of Hamas’ cruel rocket attacks. In “Operation Cast Lead,” Israel went into Gaza and pursued the rocket makers and the rocket launchers mercilessly. The result has not only been quiet on the southern border, but, at least as important, the restoration of Israeli deterrence. Flippant threats from Hezbollah and a host of others are no longer heard. All this surely does not mean that Israel can let her guard down, still less that the threat from Hezbollah is not massive and real. But it does mean that Gabi Ashkenazi performed timely, admirable and superb service for Israel.

Why his term of service is not being renewed is a mystery to us.

Copyright © 2010 by the Intermountain Jewish News




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