The last time an IDF chief resigned mid-term was Dan Halutz following failures of the military during the 2006 Second Lebanon War.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi’s announcement that he will resign on March 6 after the IDF probes of the October 7 disaster are issued and with the hostage deal with Hamas moving forward was expected, but still a game-changer.
His resignation and that of the IDF Southern Command Chief Yaron Finkleman leaves only Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar in place of the dozen or so major officials who are generally viewed as responsible for October 7.
In some ways, it will help the IDF to close possibly its most painful chapter ever in order to move into the future.
What will that future look like?
First of all, Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Israel Katz – but mainly Netanyahu given that Katz has not shown any independence to date – will choose one of: Eyal Zamir, Amir Baram, or Tamir Yadai – all top current or former major generals of the IDDF high command – as the next chief, possibly as early as next week.
Zamir is the lead candidate and is known for having an aggressive approach to using military force and a readiness to go after Iran, which fits well with the post-October 7 universe in which the military is expected to take more pre-emptive actions to avoid having to spend as much time on the defensive.
But whoever leads the IDF has extraordinarily challenges lying ahead.
Israeli and US officials have regularly recently echoed the drumroll toward threatening Iran with a climactic attack on its nuclear sites or the need to cut a much more restrictive nuclear deal than the one agreed on in 2015.
Planning for this event will not just mean planning an attack but also substantial planning with the US and regional Sunni allies to defend against an expected Iranian counterattack, which could see double the number of ballistic missiles fired on Israel as they were fired in 2024.
The committee of former National Security Council chief Jacob Nagel emphasized the need for Israel to both increase its independence from other countries in weapons production for offensive operations but also the need to boost defensive operations.
Yet, other than a general 70% attack efforts and 30% defense efforts model, the Nagel committee did not prioritize what items should be purchased first and what deferred as Israel tries to realize this vision of greater independence in weapons production in a concrete way.
If there is only a budget this year for more advanced aircraft versus more land to land long-range missiles versus much-needed additional Arrow interceptors to shoot down ballistic missiles versus finding better solutions to stopping drone attacks, what will go first?
Some of these decisions will be made by Netanyahu and Katz, but most of them will be based on recommendations by the new IDF chief.
As the October 7 probes come out and tear into all of the systematic issues which led to the failures which played out that day, the new IDF chief will need to examine how much progress has been made and is still needed to fix these issues.
For example, IDF intelligence has increased the size and influence of a unit designed to second-guess the main conventional wisdom recommendations of the whole intelligence branch.
Is this change working to diversify views about how to handle potential threats?
For much of the war, the IDF had huge volumes of soldiers on every border as part of ongoing invasions.
But with ceasefires on all fronts, will the military and the government have the endurance to maintain much larger standing army border defense units than before the war?
And will this determination continue even if there is no major attack over the next few months or years, or will talk of a “smaller-smarter army” come back into style given humanity’s short attention span and general disregard for history.
Will a much stronger second line of defense be maintained on all fronts in case an enemy does achieve initial surprise so as to mitigate any initial losses and quickly retake any compromised border positions in minutes or hours as opposed to the days it took in late 2023?
Are the right personnel in place given that many of them, such as new IDF intelligence chief (since August 2024) Maj. Gen. Shlomi Binder was appointed by Halevi, and no one was clear about the October 7 disasters.
On one hand, Halevi went on to lead a very militarily successful invasion of both Gaza and Lebanon, as well as bringing Iran to its knees and significantly reducing the existing threats in Syria. Binder was at the forefront of victories over Hezbollah, destroying threatening weapons in Syria and of destroying Iran’s air defenses on October 26.
All of that would suggest that Binder and those more recently appointed by Halevi to top positions are worthy and can lead the military into the future.
On the other hand, as Yediot Ahronot pointed out on Wednesday, Binder was cleared of any major failing related to October 7 in a probe run by Brig. Gen. (res.) Rali Margalit.
Margalit, in the past, served under Maj. Gen. Oded Basiuk, who was also Binder’s most recent direct boss and who helped recommend his promotion to lead IDF intelligence.
Questions have been raised about whether a complex triangle of assisting one another between Margalit, Basiuk, and Binder helped clear the new IDF intelligence chief, where some military official who was less part of the triangle might have seen matters differently.
The Jerusalem Post understands that Binder and Margalit were not friends and did not know each other prior to the current war and that having Margalit, a reservist who was no longer a career officer in the general chain of command, was viewed as being careful to get an outsider perspective.
Further, the Post understands that the IDF would contend that any criticism about Basiuk and Margalit being too close does not reflect negatively in any way on Binder.
Moreover, the Post has learned that the IDF would bristle at suggestions that it should have had someone even further distanced from the IDF to probe Binder.
This is because on January 4, 2024 when it was leaked that the IDF was going to establish parallel internal and external mechanisms to probe itself and national security failures, Netanyahu and his supporters went into overdrive to block the external mechanism.
Accordingly, the IDF would say that if critics are upset there was not even more distance between those probing and being probed in the IDF, it is Netanyahu who is to blame, and not the military.
For his part, though an external mechanism would have received more public faith for its probe, Netanyahu was worried that parts of its investigation might point the finger at him.
Regarding the absence of a state inquiry, there will be national security questions and problems that even the next IDF chief will not be able to fully address if such an inquiry is not established to go beyond errors made by the IDF.
In any event, this debate about Binder is only one example, but it is emblematic of the difficult questions which the next IDF chief will need to sort through in terms of personnel.
These are the longer-term challenges, but the next IDF chief will also need to handle the aftermath of the current Hezbollah and Hamas ceasefires.
Military altercations could break out on either or both borders between now and March 6, and even if this does not happen then, it could happen in the near future.
Any new near-term military altercations will require recalibrating all of the above issues and the more challenging balance of continuing to try to perform long-term planning, while in the midst of a new crisis.
The new IDF chief will likely need to figure out how and when the IDF withdraws from the buffer zone in Syria and what new arrangements are needed to secure that border from potential new Sunni jihadist threats.
Currently, the IDF is 7,000 soldiers short from deaths and wounded soldiers from the current war. There is no sign that the current government is going to help provide any imminent relief by drafting large numbers of haredim in the near future.
Balancing these issues and the political piece in all of it will be like a field of landmines for the next chief.
The IDF just started a new large operation in Jenin, with the West Bank still on fire nearly three years running, dating back to March 2022.
At this point, no one probably expects the IDF to fully extinguish that fire without some new diplomatic developments, but the new IDF chief will still need to confront that ongoing explosive issue, including the complexities of dealing with the Palestinian Authority at a time when Betzalel Smotrich retains certain building and bulldozing authorities in the West Bank.
Finally, the next IDF chief may have little backing from Katz versus Netanyahu when there are professional military interests which do not work with the prime minister’s political interests.
Halevi has felt the brunt of this since Katz took over for Yoav Gallant two months ago.
As of March 6, Halevi’s replacement will learn that sitting in the chair is a lot harder than peering at it from the side.
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