Civilian oversight of the IDF is an urgent necessity - opinion

Anyone who spent time in the Knesset in the fall of 2014 probably remembers the constant parade of Air Force officers through the parliament’s halls. 

At the front of the pack was usually Amir Eshel, the commander of the Air Force at the time, hustling between meetings with different members of the Security Cabinet and two in particular – Yuval Steinitz and Naftali Bennett.

At the time, Steinitz was serving as Israel’s intelligence minister but also as chairman of the ministerial committee that approves large military acquisitions. 

On the docket was an IDF request that the committee sign off on the purchase of another batch of F-35 fighter jets but Steinmetz had some questions and recruited Bennett, then the economy minister, as well as Tzipi Livni, at the time the justice minister, to his side.

Beginning to ask questions

The IAF panicked. Rarely in its history had it been challenged by civilian ministers who wanted answers to basic questions like 1) why was Israel buying more F-35s, 2) why was it not investing more in unmanned aircraft, and 3) why was it not waiting to see how the plane performed? At the time, the project was running behind schedule and had encountered some significant technical challenges.

Eshed though, was determined. He walked the halls of the Knesset, meeting with the different ministers and explaining to them the need for the planes. 

He came with classified intelligence and tried to explain the threats that Israel faced along its borders while emphasizing Iran and the need for the IAF to have the capabilities necessary to attack the Islamic Republic’s nuclear installations if it would need to come to that one day in the future.

After months of debates and five sessions of the committee, the request was finally approved but not before it was downgraded. Instead of 25 planes as the IAF had requested, the ministers approved an initial batch of 14. The rest would have to wait.

IT IS worth recalling this story since what has happened over the last few months in Israel is nothing less than a scandal. Once again and despite the obvious failures of October 7, the IDF thinks it can dictate to the government a shopping list and that the ministers are simply a rubber stamp.

There is not that much I can say on which I agree with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. He has called to reoccupy and resettle the Gaza Strip and believes – at a time that Israel finds itself the most isolated ever in its 76-year history – now is the time to announce unprecedented building plans in the West Bank.

Though having said that, Smotrich is 100% right in the way that he is challenging the IDF and the Defense Ministry by refusing to serve as a rubber stamp for every exorbitant purchase they want to make without explaining why. 

After October 7, he is doing what the civilian government in a democracy should be doing – demanding transparency, answers, and a detailed explanation of why the IDF wants to spend billions of shekels on specific weapons platforms.

Like most issues in Israel, something that should have been obvious has also been tainted with politics.

At the heart of the issue is what will happen sometime in July when a slot will open for Israel at the Lockheed Martin plant in Fort Worth, Texas. 

It is there that the US aerospace company has a mile-long assembly line where it builds the F-35, the fifth-generation stealth fighter jet that is the backbone today of the IAF.

A slot is the window for Israeli planes to be manufactured in the assembly line. It is when the workers complete the batch for another client and can then configure the line to build the plane according to the specifications of a new client, in this case, Israel. 

For Israel to get the slot though, something usually very simple needs to happen – the special committee of ministers charged with approving IDF procurement plans needs to convene and approve the deal.

This is usually an easy bureaucratic step in a long process that goes on for years. But today, in a post-October 7 Israel, it has become much more.

The history of Israel’s F-35 procurement dates back to 2012 when Israel and the US finalized the LOA – Letter of Agreement – to sell 75 aircraft to the IAF. An LOA is the basic framework, through which the client – in this case, Israel – makes specific orders based on budgets and timelines.

Until now, Israel has ordered 50 fighter jets, most of which have already arrived and as seen during the last seven months have participated in a wide variety of operations. There is no doubt that the F-35 is today one of the most strategic and important assets in Israel’s arsenal.

The current controversy revolves around the IAF’s decision from last July to purchase another 25 F-35s (bringing the total to the 75 agreed upon in 2012) as well as 25 of the newly upgraded F-15s, in a deal that would eventually reach close to $20 billion.

Like previous Air Force decisions, this one was preceded by months of debates and consultations and was seen as a responsible process. But then, October 7 came and the IDF as well as the Air Force failed in the most flagrant way possible to provide security for the State of Israel. 

As the initial months of the war showed, IDF procurement plans in the years before October 7 were fundamentally flawed with basic equipment for combat – like helmets and ceramic vests – missing in the tens of thousands.

WHEN THE IDF came to the cabinet a couple of months later and asked that it approve its decision from July, Smotrich refused. While his request was described by some journalists used to being spoon-fed by the IDF Spokesperson’s Office as “irresponsible” and “negligent,” actually it was his duty as the finance minister.

Smotrich asked for something simple which the Defense Ministry initially refused, saying that he would sign off on the purchase on the condition that a new committee be established – consisting of representatives of the Defense Ministry, the Finance Ministry, and the Prime Minister’s Office – to review the defense budget and determine its scope and size in the years to come.

The fact that this basic demand became a controversy shows how little Israel has learned from the recent disaster. Smotrich was asking basic questions about why certain billion-dollar decisions were being made. The way the IDF spun this – as if he was blocking a deal during a war – was just a manipulative way for it to get what it wants.

After October 7, we now know that more oversight of the IDF is needed. The military failed to keep Israel safe and basic information about Hamas and its attack plans got stuck in the chain of command and in the ego-driven battles between commanders who refused to accept that maybe their presumptions and “conceptzia” about the terrorist group were wrong.

The Air Force was almost nowhere to be seen on October 7 and instead of simply dispatching a few Apache helicopters to the border to block the flood of terrorists into Israel, it was sending fighter jets to protect gas fields off in the Mediterranean.

After such mistakes, in what reality does it make sense that the security cabinet should just be a rubber stamp for the IDF to get what it wants? 

While Israel should not miss the slot that is reserved for it at the Lockheed plant – more F-35s are needed – a thorough review of the IDF and its budget is integral for the future of this country. 

While people might not like Smotrich and his politics, demanding such a review – that was finally accepted by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday – is the exact responsibility of any minister, especially the one responsible for the state’s coffers.

The army and the government all failed in the run-up to October 7. But it is the government’s job to supervise the military. The IDF should get used to it.

The writer is a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) and a former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post.