'Harming deterrence': Netanyahu urges IDF to hide internal issues

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told top IDF commanders to hide information about reservists refusing to serve because it is damaging Israel’s combat preparedness.

In a conference call on Friday evening with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy, and IAF Commander Tomer Bar, Netanyahu told Bar to deny reports that he had told reserve pilots that there are serious concerns that the refusal to serve as a form of political protest will mean the army is less prepared.

In a recording aired on Channel 13 News, Netanyahu raised his voice: “It’s not just shutting down our capabilities; it’s what this is doing to our deterrence.”

Netanyahu said he would show them intelligence reports to understand the impact of such information becoming public.

“The army is taking over the country,” he said. “You are harming our deterrence. Why are you releasing such headlines?”

Halevy responded that he “can’t stand aside while our readiness is harmed.”

Netanyahu called a meeting with Gallant, Halevy, and members of the general staff on Sunday to further discuss combat readiness.

The participants in the meeting presented the current situation within the IDF in terms of cohesion and preparedness.

“The prime minister ordered that the IDF’s fitness and preparedness be maintained in times of routine and emergency, for any challenge,” said a statement from Netanyahu’s office.

“All of the participants in the meeting agreed that political controversies need to be left out of the IDF,” it adds.

Netanyahu told the IDF's top echelon that he plans to seek compromises before continuing with the next part of the judicial reform, changing the makeup of the judicial selection committee, according to Channel 12.

However, he reportedly added, “last time you capitulated, we stopped for three months and nothing happened. I see low chances of dialogue this time.”

Netanyahu postpones vacation for meeting

Sunday’s meeting took place after Netanyahu postponed a planned vacation on the Golan Heights. The deferral was announced as residents of the community of Ramot pleaded for the prime minister not to visit, citing the disruptions in Neveh Ativ when the prime minister and his wife stayed there last week.

Yet, the hastily-called security meeting on Sunday opened the prime minister’s aborted holiday to speculation that he stayed in Jerusalem to address urgent concerns over the IDF’s preparedness, in light of calls for reservists not to report for duty to protest judicial reform and other government policies.

At the same time, the Prime Minister’s Office said that the meeting with Gallant, the IDF chief of staff, senior members of the IDF General Staff, and the head of the National Security Council was one “like many others in recent weeks.”

Earlier Sunday, the IDF, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and Mossad denied a Channel 12 report stating that they were considering going public with the harm to their readiness from protests against the government’s judicial overhaul.

The Channel 12 report said that the chiefs of all three services were frustrated with Netanyahu for allegedly preventing the Security Cabinet from receiving updates about the harm to the security services’ readiness, and believed they had the right to go over Netanyahu’s head directly to the public to express how dire the situation had become. Further, the report said that the three chiefs wanted to go public before September, when the harm to the air force’s readiness may hit a more critical stage.

The Security Cabinet has yet to hold a meeting on the topic. Last month, on the day that the Knesset repealed the judiciary’s reasonableness standard oversight powers, members of the cabinet, not only Netanyahu, refused to receive an update from the IDF intelligence and operations chiefs before their vote.

In September, the air force will return to full-scale drills and will have to make judgments about which pilots are no longer fly-ready due to having missed a certain number of flight drills. This was an issue that could be avoided in August when many pilots are on vacation or could be categorized as being on holiday.

Both the IDF and the Shin Bet issued statements almost immediately, rejecting the report completely and saying that they coordinate all moves with the political echelon. The Jerusalem Post reported soon after that the Mossad also rejected the report; an hour later, the intelligence entity, which does not have its own public spokesperson and is represented in that capacity by the Prime Minister’s Office, issued a statement to that effect.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid accused Netanyahu of avoiding responsibility for any harm to the IDF’s capabilities.

Referring to the statement put out by the Prime Minister’s Office, Lapid tweeted that Netanyahu’s “order” to the military that “fitness and cohesion” be maintained was “a shameful and cowardly attempt to escape from responsibility and put the blame on the army and its commanders.

“The harm to IDF fitness is the direct result of one thing: the destructive process that the Netanyahu government is leading.”

Kaplan Force, which organizes the mass protests against the government, said that “a prime minister who shouts at the chief of staff to hide information about the army’s situation is not fit for office.”