JERUSALEM, 16 September 2006 — A general resigns, a colonel is disciplined and the command structure is battered by an unrelenting storm of criticism: the Israeli Army is in disarray as it struggles to cope with the failures of the war in Lebanon. A month after the 34-day campaign against the Shiite militia Hezbollah ended, the barrage of brickbats continues, with the military and political leadership both under fire for their handling of a deadly conflict that failed to achieve its main aims.
Two days after Israel’s northern army commander resigned, it emerged that embattled army Chief of Staff Dan Halutz disciplined the head of an armored brigade for criticizing a superior in front of his subordinates during the war. Col. Amnon Eshel, head of the Seventh Brigade, reportedly complained that his immediate boss, Gen. Gal Hirsh, was “completely cut off from realities on the ground” as his badly prepared men battled to counter Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel.
Halutz “severely reprimanded” Eshel for disrespecting the military hierarchy and suspended him from promotion for two years, an army spokesman told AFP. The latest incident, coming just after Gen. Udi Adam resigned, underscored the level of disarray in the military. But former Chief of Staff Amnon Lipkin Shahak was quick to criticize Eshel’s punishment. “It seems unmerited to me when so far no inquiry has begun to examine the faults made during the war and the army’s lack of preparation,” he told public radio.
The war left 162 Israelis dead and failed to achieve either of its main objectives - retrieving two soldiers captured by Hezbollah in a July 12 raid and halting the barrage of more than 4,000 rocket attacks fired into the north of the country by the guerrillas. Israel has also weathered heavy criticism abroad for the devastating use of its firepower in Lebanon, where more than 1,200 people — mostly civilians — were killed and thousands of homes and infrastructure targets were bombed.
Adam’s departure as the first high-ranking official to step down has done little to quell calls for further heads to roll — chiefly those of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Halutz and Defense Minister Amir Peretz. In an interview, former Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon urged them to step down, charging that the entire conflict was misconceived and mismanaged. “Going to war was scandalous and he is directly responsible for that,” Yaalon was quoted as saying in the Haaretz daily when asked if Olmert had to resign.
Meanwhile, gunmen killed a top intelligence official loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and four of his bodyguards in a shooting yesterday near the Gaza home of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, residents said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the drive-by shooting, which killed Jad Tayeh, a senior official in the General Intelligence service in Gaza, and his guards in their car. Residents said the car was riddled with bullets.
In another development, the European Union expressed willingness yesterday to renew contacts with a future Palestinian national unity government and lift an aid embargo if its political platform is acceptable. The EU froze its aid to the cash-strapped government after Hamas swept to power early this year but the militant group has conditionally accepted to join a future government of national unity with its rivals the Fatah party.
