At the end of last week, shocking information was released! It turns out that the Central Collection Unit 8200 of the Electronic Surveillance Corps (part of the Military Intelligence Directorate — AMAN) warned about an upcoming Hamas attack, but the head of AMAN simply ignored the warnings!
It turned out that the Sergeant Major of Unit 8200 managed to obtain the Hamas operational plan. She reported it to her direct commanding officer as well as to the commanding officer of Unit 8200. Her direct commanding officer, realizing the seriousness of the information, canceled his leave and redirected the message directly to the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate.
However, the head of AMAN, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, ignored this warning and did not even pass it on to the Chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, and the head of the Shabak General Security Service, Ronen Bar!
This story, unfortunately, is both similar to and different from the events leading up to the Yom Kippur War. In both cases, Israel suffered heavy losses. Only the heroism of our soldiers and officers and the miracles revealed to us by G-d kept the country from collapse.
Back then, on the eve of the Yom Kippur War, which began on October 6, 1973, the head of AMAN at the time, Major General Eli Zeira, also initially rejected the information received by the Mossad about the upcoming attack. However, then, he personally, even just a few hours before the enemy attack, warned the political leaders — Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan, who eventually refused to launch a preemptive strike and to carry out a full mobilization, fearing the disapproval of the U.S. administration.
However, this time the heads of the army did not inform the political leadership of the country at all!
After the Yom Kippur War, the Lubavitcher Rebbe SHLITA King Moshiach, speaking about the failure of the Israeli leadership in the Yom Kippur War, emphasized again and again the responsibility of the political echelon, though the failure of the head of AMAN was quite obvious.
The fact is that at that time the army’s policy was dictated by the political echelon. Therefore, in the Yom Kippur War, even after Mossad head Zvi Zamir had provided reliable information about the exact time of the impending attack the night before the war began, Prime Minister Golda Meir and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan delayed and shortened the mobilization of reservists and prevented the army from launching a pre-emptive air strike against Egyptian and Syrian troops gathered at the border. They did so based on purely political considerations, deciding that it was preferable to sacrifice fighters on the front lines but preserve the support of the U.S. administration.
The military leadership at the time was also responsible for the disastrous consequences of delaying and not launching a preemptive strike, but at least they passed the information on to the political leadership, which made an unforgivable mistake.
This time the situation turned out to be even worse. The military leadership assigned themselves the role of the political leadership and allowed themselves not to inform the head of the government and the Minister of Defense at all!
Certainly, this did not happen in a vacuum. It started three decades ago, with the monstrous deal with the PLO known as the Oslo Accords. Starting from that point, officers who disagreed with the infamous “concept” that PA terrorist groups intended to “start a new life” and end the war of annihilation against Israel and the Jews were simply stopped from being promoted.
Then, twenty years ago, during the “Disengagement” — the deportation of Jewish residents from the Gaza Strip and the withdrawal of our troops — the army expelled officers who refused to accept the insane claim that Gaza would now become a “Middle East Singapore”.
Gradually, a top military leadership was formed in the country that fully shared the failed leftist agenda, including the idea that Hamas did not want war and that we should only please it and make concessions so that we could avoid war.
These generals over the years eroded the officer corps by alienating people who did not share their views. Those who thought otherwise usually ended their careers in the army without rising above the rank of colonel.
Simultaneously, the military prosecutor’s office, working hand in hand with the civilian prosecutor’s office and recruited from among the followers of the same “concept,” imposed more and more restrictions on the army, tightened the rules for opening fire, suppressed the personal initiative of army field commanders, prohibited the army from disrupting provocations by Hamas in close proximity to Jewish kibbutzim, and so on.
As a result, the army leadership essentially aligned itself with the leftist political establishment, which adheres to the failed “concept” that concessions to the enemy lead to peace. And now these generals have actually permitted themselves to make policy decisions instead of the political leadership of the country, without even notifying the politicians.
Democratic legal reform should have initiated the necessary changes, including creating more pluralism and diversity in the approach of the army leadership. Unfortunately, the current government has not had time to implement it.
So while the responsibility lies primarily on the military leadership, it is only a secondary issue.
The main thing that led us to the current terrible situation is the political agenda that dominates the army and, in general, all the country’s institutions, including support for the ideas of “Oslo” and “Disengagement” — the idea that our concessions to the enemy, primarily territorial, lead us to peace, and not to greater war.
Any kind of territorial concession, even discussion of it, is a colossal threat to our lives — the Rebbe SHLITA has warned about this for decades.
The current situation requires urgent change and corrections!
Looking forward to the good news.