Top IDF officials on Wednesday gave an update to two subcommittees of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on the state of the military’s readiness in the midst of the crisis of IDF reservists quitting to protest the government’s judicial reform.
One major message, similar to some public statements and to what has been leaked in other closed forums, is that the air force and military intelligence are the critical units that have been harmed in a way that most immediately impacts state security.
In contrast, the ground forces to date have been better able to adjust to the losses of reservists due to their size and significantly more interchangeability of soldiers from different units.
A public statement from the FADC noted that the hearing was co-chaired by National Unity Party MK and former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot along with Likud MK Shalom Danino.
Further, the statement said that top IDF officials gave a highly specific classified briefing about the IDF’s current and future readiness.
Archival image of IDF Ground Forces troops. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON’S UNIT)Judicial reform dispute threatens to endanger Israeli war readiness
Other public and leaked statements from top IDF officials have made it clear that they are deeply worried about the readiness for war plunging precipitously in the September to November period, the longer the dispute over the judicial overhaul continues.
In addition, the FADC statement said that the IDF brass addressed how they are trying to counter the phenomenon of IDF reservists’ quitting.
Generally speaking, the IDF has tried to use a mix of public statements and private one on one dialogues from direct commanders warning that reservists’ quitting could undermine national security in a way that would leave the debate over the judicial overhaul obsolete, given that major losses in a war could overtake the whole issue.
On July 31, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told the FADC in a special closed session at military headquarters that the IDF was still war-ready at the time, but that continued quitting by reservists en masse protesting government policy could erode that readiness in the medium term – such as in the fall closing in on the defense establishment.
Back at the end of July, no top defense officials wanted to define what that time period would be, and said that war readiness was not a binary concept, with different units being at different states of readiness and distinct kinds of missions requiring more reservists, while others require less.
But even then Gallant warned that if the cohesion of the IDF collapses, the situation could drastically worsen.
“The IDF is ready to accomplish its missions…The harm to readiness so far is defined [somewhat contained], but there is a possibility of harm to readiness over the long term,” he said.
Further, he said, “Many components of the country’s resilience are trending negatively, and the harm to national resilience could result in harm to national security.”
Despite these warnings, the defense minister also cautioned Israel’s enemies saying, “Israel’s enemies are analyzing and learning from our internal events in Israel and believe, mistakenly, that this gives them the opportunity to exploit what they see as the State of Israel’s weakness.” In contrast, he said that they should still fear Israel’s military.
Senior IDF officials have repeatedly warned that Iran and Hezbollah believe they can push the IDF more in the current environment without too much of a reaction, as long as they too keep the provocations below a certain level.
FADC chairman Yuli Edelstein said, “In contrast to all kinds of media items claiming that we do not convene the committee – the committee already heard from the IDF chief… and now we hear the survey of the defense minister…and I am sure that we will continue our oversight.”
Though Edelstein was correct that IDF Chief of Staff (Lt.-Gen.) Herzi Halevi spoke to the committee a few weeks before about the IDF’s readiness and that Gallant was briefing them on July 31, Halevi’s briefing was primarily on other issues, with only a piece dedicated to IDF readiness.
Furthermore, Gallant’s briefing only occurred after the all-important vote repealing the reasonableness standard had already taken place.
In that sense, critics have said that Edelstein avoided too much oversight or negative data from the IDF or Gallant during the time period when the vote was in the balance.
In addition, unlike previous FADC meetings which sometimes demanded certain actions, such as reducing or ending the Shin Bet’s surveillance of infected persons during the coronavirus era by certain benchmark dates, Edelstein announced no demands or benchmarks for which he would press for changes in government policy if IDF readiness dropped below any specific measure.
Wednesday’s meeting also made no demands and set no benchmarks either regarding the IDF or the government’s judicial overhaul.
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