Israel Matzav: IDF budget cutbacks mean no live fire exercises, no protection for 'settlements'

Monday, February 13, 2012

IDF budget cutbacks mean no live fire exercises, no protection for 'settlements'

Israel Radio reports on Monday morning that the IDF has informed the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria that it will no longer be able to finance their kitot konenut (early response teams), which act to defend the Jewish communities in the event of attack until the IDF can reach them. And that's not all that's been cut. The IDF is going to fire 700 career personnel due to the budget cuts. And the reserves are going to have to train to fire missiles without firing missiles. This is from the first link.

A senior officer told Globes, "I will sit down with each one of them, and inform him that he has been fired. By June, they will be out of a job, and they will enter the civilian job market, and I greatly hope that they will find new work. I am afraid of what message this is sending down the ranks, to the young generation of soldiers who will want to serve in the army in the future. A crisis of confidence is liable to emerge there."

The dismissal of hundreds of career officers and NCOs comes at a time of uncertainty in the defense establishment, with the complete halt in expenditures due to the budget shortage and Ministry of Finance's demands for cutbacks to finance the Trajtenberg recommendations. The halt in expenditures is already jeopardizing the Iron Dome anti-rocket system, with the Defense Ministry notifying the manufacturer, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. that it will not procure two more batteries. The ministry has also halted the transfer of tens of millions of dollars to Rafael and Ratheon Company (NYSE: RTN) for the Magic Wand rocket interceptor, and has canceled orders to 200 Israeli companies that manufacture components for the Merkava tank and the new Leopard APC.

A top military source said that the halt in orders for the Merkava going could result in a shortage of spare parts by mid-year.

I wouldn't worry too much about the officers finding jobs. The economy here is close to full employment (unemployment is in the 5% range) and IDF officers are considered very desirable as employees. But if you'll recall, one of the reasons for teh Lebanon disaster in 2006 was the fact that the IDF was so busy training to expel Jews from their homes in Gaza that it didn't have time to train for war. Now, they have time to train, but they have nothing with which to train. And at least one IDF General is blaming last summer's 'social protesters.'

IDF Brig. Gen. Aharon Haliva told hundreds of reserve soldiers that the summer's social protests were at fault for the recent cuts to the defense budget, website Israeldefense.com reported Sunday.

According to the website, in a conversation held several days earlier, the commander accusingly told the reservists that "because of the protests, the defense budget was cut, and now we can't fire missiles during training." The report states that soldiers present at the meeting felt as though Haliva was pointing the finger at them. He also lashed out at Tel Aviv residents who were involved in the protests, according to the report.

Haliva has a history - read the whole thing. But he's the reason that Daphne Leef's picture is at the top of this post.

At least now there's going to be free schooling for the kiddies from the age of 3. And when the rockets hit Kfar Shmaryahu (where they're a lot more likely to hit than Jerusalem or Judea and Samaria), I'm sure Leef and her anarchist friends will celebrate. What could go wrong?

UPDATE 10:32 AM

Yisrael says that a better translation for kitot konenut would be Emergency Intervention Security Squads. And you can add pilots' training to the list of items that may be cut back because of the IDF's budget cuts.

Labels: Hamas rockets, Hezbullah rockets, IDF, Iranian nuclear threat, Palestinian terrorism