Israel Matzav

'The Left won't wake up until it's too late'

This past week, the IDF's outgoing director of military intelligence, Amos Yadlin (pictured) gave a very pessimistic assessment of Israel's strategic situation.

“The next conflict, even if it is limited in scale,” warned the former IAF general, “will be much bigger, much broader, and with many more casualties than we saw in Operation Cast Lead or the Second Lebanon War.”

Such a conflict, predicted the 59-year old Yadlin, will be played out on two or more fronts; moreover, Israel’s enemies “believe that the only way to overcome Israel’s deterrence is through longrange missile fire and improving air defense capabilities.”

Pulling no punches, Yadlin warned that the cutting-edge anti-aircraft system that Syria has purchased from Russia could send the IDF and IAF’s capabilities “back to their status in the 1970s Suez years,” according to a source present at the meeting.

“With the S-300, we are talking about relatively cheap missiles – but no less deadly,” Yadlin cautioned during his foreboding address to the committee. In addition, he said, the Russians are upgrading older Syrian weapons systems to make them far more advanced.

In outlining how the weapons deal benefited Damascus, the MI chief said the Syrians are conducting “intense efforts to acquire extremely advanced weapons – so advanced that everything just off of the production line in Russia ends up in Syria.”

And that's not even counting Iran.

In an interview with Arutz 7, military historian, Dr. Uri Milstein, expressed even more pessimism.

But perhaps even more serious was the forecast by Israel's IDF military history expert Dr. Uri Milstein, a respected researcher and iconoclastic analyst . “I have begun to have my doubts as to whether the IDF is up to the task of defending this country,” Milstein told Arutz 7. “Our enemies have grown stronger, while in some circles, our motivation has fallen. Part of our society is frightened. Even if more people die on their side, they are more willing to sacrifice than we are.”

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Speaking to Arutz 7, Milstein, who has long been critical of the IDF and political establishment's management of Israel's defense, said that little has changed since the Yom Kippur war, which Milstein critiqued in the first of over two dozen books he has written over the years. Describing Yadlin's straightforward presentation of the troubles Israel is facing as “better late than never,” Milstein said that Yadlin, who was military intelligence chief during the Second Lebanon war, had apparently learned a lesson.

In the past, Milstein has written that in that war, as in previous battles, Yadlin and other security chiefs did not realize that advanced weapons alone are not enough for victory. “Now it seems he does understand the situation,” Milstein said. “During the Second Lebanon War we did not achieve our goals of defeating Hizbullah, and instead they grew stronger. During Operation Cast Lead we attempted to strike a death blow to Hamas, but they just got stronger. So, obviously, the situation will be more difficult next time,” he said. Milstein doubts that the IDF will be able to achieve the goals it needs to during the coming war. “Our enemies have gotten much stronger, and they know how to accept losses much better than we can.”

The problem, Milstein says, is the left. “In the leftist bastions of Ramat Aviv and Kfar Shmaryahu, they are still convinced that peace will come if we give up Judea and Samaria and the Golan. They probably won't change their minds even if missiles rain down on Tel Aviv. The only way they will change their mind is if we do surrender these areas, and they find that the Arabs still make war against us.”

Milstein, who was appointed official historian of the paratroopers by the late Rafael Eitan, has written histories of each of Israel's wars, including the War of Independence. In 1995 he published a work critical of Yitzchak Rabin during his tenure as commander of the Palmach pre-state fighting organization, called “The Rabin File: How the Myth Was Inflated.” After Rabin's assassination, Milstein was discharged from Bar-Ilan University on account of his writings about Rabin.

One theme in his books is that Israel has been in thrall to the left, at least since the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War. Nearly all aspects of the IDF are politicized, he says, from the way its history is presented to the way it trains officers. If is this “intellectual prison” that Israel must break free from if it hopes to prevail in the next war. But, he says, “unfortunately for us, the left is still a prisoner of this false vision of peace with the Arabs.”

Let's see anyone beyond Arutz 7 notice Milstein's analysis first. Anyone think one of the big newspapers will pick it up? With the possibly exception of Yisrael HaYom or Caroline Glick's column in the JPost, don't hold your breaths.

Labels: Amos Yadlin, IDF, military intelligence, Uri Milstein, Yitzchak Rabin

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:29 PM