The Harpaz report

We don’t wish to see the IDF’s charismatic top brass cultivate egos too big for the proportions imposed by democracy.

By JPOST EDITORIAL
Harpaz 311 (photo credit: Channel 10)
Harpaz 311
(photo credit: Channel 10)
Saying sorry doesn’t remotely begin to heal the festering lesion that eats into our topmost defense echelons.
But this is how former chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi strove to respond to State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss’s draft report on what has been popularly dubbed the Harpaz Affair.
That draft, released last Monday, revealed ulcerating politicization in the military establishment, which, while chronic, is becoming increasingly septic and dangerous. It should greatly concern all Israelis and certainly not be casually dismissed as much-ado-about-very-little.
Yet Ashkenazi opted only to vaguely remark that he “may have made mistakes” and again counterattack with charges that he and his family were the targets of inimical insinuations and accusations.
Lindenstrauss’s probe was sparked by a bogus document allegedly forged by Ashkenazi’s associate, Boaz Harpaz, with an eye to thwarting the appointment of Yoav Galant as Ashkenazi’s successor. But that, it soon emerged, was but a facet of the much broader feud between Ashkenazi’s and Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s bureaus.
Lindenstrauss discovered much evidence indicating that Ashkenazi’s staff were involved in collecting and hoarding information on rivals and he concludes that even if Ashkenazi didn’t directly authorize this, he should have nipped it in the bud.
Lindenstrauss further asserts that although Ashkenazi tried to downplay his ties with Harpaz, in fact Harpaz was being fielded by Ashkenazi’s wife, Ronit, and his aide, Col. Erez Weiner. Ashkenazi is rebuked for not showing the counterfeit document to Barak but holding on to it for months.
None of Barak’s impertinence, Lindenstrauss stresses, warranted “active, ongoing and significant” attempts to unearth material to harm the defense minister. Whatever recriminations were traded during Ashkenazi’s spat with Barak, none justified a situation in which the IDF commander’s staff busied themselves with vigorously collecting information on the defense minister.
This is Lindenstrauss’s vital bottom line. There’s no evenhanded apportionment of blame. Lindenstrauss doesn’t shrink back from harshly censuring Ashkenazi, despite Ashkenazi’s popularity. For example, just as Lindenstrauss’s derogatory draft came out, Ashkenazi participated in an Or Yehuda ceremony where a boulevard was named after him. This is an honor virtually never granted public figures during their lifetimes, but Ashkenazi didn’t eschew the unusual tribute. Barak is too controversial and often disagreeable to be thus feted.
Hence it would have been more tempting for Lindenstrauss not to have a go at Ashkenazi. The fact that Lindenstrauss chose the less facile path testifies to his courage. His readiness to confront popular sentiment head-on only bolsters his conclusions. This obviously was no whitewash.
So much for the specific episode examined by the comptroller. The ramifications to our body politic, however, far exceed the scope of Lindenstrauss’s investigation.
Even before the Harpaz forgery burst on our scene, Ashkenazi was widely tipped for a political run. To be sure, he wasn’t the first general with such ambitions. This is a syndrome which has always afflicted the IDF, many of whose shining stars routinely eclipse the civilian elected leadership.
All too frequently our military higher-ups forget that democratically installed civilians are in charge and not the other way round. When members of the military further their own agendas, clashes become inevitable – even without the sort of hanky-panky spawned by Ashkenazi’s team.
We, as a society, should be far less lenient toward politically inclined generals who make career plans while still in uniform. The one way to douse their evident political ardor is to double the current mandatory cooling-off period.
The present three years post-discharge barrier isn’t sufficient. It enables officers to throw side-glances at the political arena while ostensibly still engrossed in military duties.
Any officer who aspires to be a member of the IDF General Staff ought to agree a priori to stay out of politics for a considerable number of years. Without such a disconnect there will always be lingering suspicion, particularly near the end of a general’s term, that his attentions are already partly focused elsewhere.
We don’t wish to see the IDF’s charismatic top brass – much as many Israelis tend to revere them – cultivate egos too big for the proportions imposed by democracy.