How will the IDF operate under its third defense minister in a year?

Since Kochavi began his role in January of last year, he has had to work with two defense ministers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Naftali Bennett.

By ANNA AHRONHEIM
Blue and White leader Benny Gantz and IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi (photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)
Blue and White leader Benny Gantz and IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi
(photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi is about to get his third defense minister in a year, and this time it’s his former superior, former chief of staff Benny Gantz.
Since Kochavi began his role in January of last year, he has had to work with two defense ministers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Naftali Bennett, while implementing military plans and strategies against an enemy – Iran – extending its tentacles across the Middle East in an attempt to strangle Israel.
Gantz, who will hold the position for the coming 18 months as part of the emergency unity deal with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was the country’s top military officer between 2005-2011 when Kochavi served as the Head of the Northern Command and Military Intelligence.
Like Kochavi who was looked at by many as the military’s brightest star, even if he wasn’t Netanyahu’s first choice for the top job, Benny Gantz was considered a military prince.  
Enlisting in 1977 into the paratrooper’s brigade, he rose rapidly through the ranks-becoming a lieutenant colonel and commanding a paratrooper’s battalion at the age of 28.
Gantz went on to hold numerous combat command positions, including as the head of the Air Force’s elite Shaldag commando unit, the last commander of the Lebanon Liaison Unit-closing the gate into Lebanon when IDF troops left the country – and as commander of the Judea and Samaria Division during the Second Intifada as well as GOC Northern Command.
Gantz was appointed as chief of staff by Netanyahu in 2011, taking over from his predecessor turned political partner Gabi Askenazi who in the new unity government will serve as Foreign Minister.
But while he may have left his military career behind, the commanding Gantz is not ready to leave the defense of Israel behind.
It was under Gantz that Israel began its war-between-wars against Iran, a campaign that Kochavi has been intensely involved in since it started. A campaign that has stretched beyond Israel’s borders and targeted thousands of Iranian and Hezbollah targets.
Five years after he left his office on the 14th floor of the IDF’s Kirya Military Headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel’s enemies have changed and their military capabilities have increased tremendously, with massive rocket and missile arsenals aimed at the Jewish state’s home front.
For more than a year, Kochavi has worked with civilian defense ministers. While Bennett was more of a hands-on defense minister, he was not the type to rubber-stamp every paper that crossed his desk. He met with Kochavi and the general staff, discussed and listened to his recommendations before making a decision.
With Gantz, a former paratrooper who he has worked with for years, Kochavi will now have to sweat more in order to get things approved. But with someone who knows the intricacies of the job as well as he does, the two generals are far better positioned to make the right decisions.
Given the immense complexity of today’s Middle East, compounded by the COVID-19 crisis, it’s the right time to have such a uniquely suited and familiar leadership sitting across the hall from one another.


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Aviv Kochavi