(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)
The newest kid on Israel’s political block, and this season’s general de jure, is Gadi Eisenkot, former IDF chief of staff and a relatively brief member of the wartime security cabinet. It has long been a tactic of the Israeli left to seek out a former general to lead its election campaigns in order to bolster its credibility on security matters, given its propensity for policies that weaken Israel’s security. And Eisenkot is what President Trump would call – and likely appoint – “right out of central casting,” tough-looking, son of Moroccan immigrants, career army man, and, most sadly, father of a soldier who fell in battle in Gaza. We all honor his service.
Nevertheless, most mature countries have moved away from the “general as president or prime minister” fantasy. The United States has not elected a general as president in almost 75 years (Dwight Eisenhower, in 1952) and only once since then has a general even competed for the presidency (Wesley Clark, in 2004). No other general has served as US president since the 19th century. No English general has served as prime minister in almost two centuries (the first Duke of Wellington). The general who assumes political power is the hallmark of banana republics.
Yet, many Israelis remain enamored with the general-turned-prime-minister model, and to our misfortune. As it turns out, the three greatest strategic blunders in the history of Israel were made by renowned generals who were elected prime minister.
It was PM Yitzchak Rabin, former IDF Chief of Staff acclaimed (rightly or wrongly) as one of the heroes of Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War, who foisted the Oslo Accords on the people of Israel in 1993. He thought that it was a grand idea to import into the heartland of Israel our sworn enemy, one with genocidal ambitions, and give them a governing authority and weapons. What could possibly go wrong?? What went wrong was a wave of terror that left Israelis dazed and despondent, and thousands of Israelis dead and maimed.
Almost as egregiously, the Oslo Accords essentially announced to the world that the Land of Israel does not belong exclusively to the Jewish people. Since then, we have struggled to prove to the world that we are entitled to any part of the land of Israel. But Rabin was Mr. Security, being a former general, and Israelis bought it.
It was PM Ehud Barak, also a former IDF Chief of Staff, and lionized as “Israel’s most decorated soldier,” who orchestrated the withdrawal of the IDF from Lebanon in 2000 in the dead of night, abandoning our Lebanese allies to their fates and leaving behind enormous stores of IDF weapons. This was in response to the campaign of the “Four Mothers” who mobilized much of society against the IDF remaining in Lebanon and Barak’s strong conviction that the IDF could return to Lebanon at any time to deal with terror.
Well. Instead, the hasty retreat emboldened Hezbollah to conquer southern Lebanon, which it did in due course, and build the elaborate underground terror infrastructure that we are slowly and painfully dismantling. Additionally, Israel has since been forced to fight several wars in Lebanon, extracting a far greater cost in life than the number of soldiers who were killed annually while the IDF still occupied southern Lebanon in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Barak’s tactical retreat was widely perceived by our enemies as a timorous surrender that has engendered even deadlier conflicts.
The failed Ehud Barak – who later served multiple terms as Defense Minister – was succeeded as prime minister by Ariel Sharon, one of Israel’s greatest generals and a genuine hero of the Yom Kippur War who crossed the Suez Canal into Egypt, turned the tide of war, and forced Egypt to its knees. And his legacy as Prime Minister was the forced expulsion of 9500 Jews in 2005 from Gaza and the northern Shomron and the destruction of two dozen thriving settlements.
That folly, twenty-one years ago this week, occasioned the speedy takeover of Gaza by Hamas, the construction of another elaborate terror network through diversion of all the billions of dollars of international aid that flowed into Gaza, constant terror attacks on Israel, multiple rounds of fighting, and all culminating in the catastrophe of October 7.
It is worth noting that all the generals who became prime minister claimed to know better than others what would provide security to Israelis and what would endanger our existence. They also claimed that their withdrawals were all easily reversible and that, if the need arose, the IDF could simply retake the territory surrendered. No harm, no foul.
The opposite, of course, was true; grave harm resulted from multiple fouls, all self-inflicted. And the land that each purported to surrender to our enemies in order to safeguard our security – land originally conquered and held at a high cost in Jewish blood – has mostly been retaken by saner heads (non-generals) responding to reality and not fantasy. That land has been reconquered, and again at a high cost in Jewish blood.
What then qualifies Gadi Eisenkot to serve as prime minister, other than that he has been designated as leader of the ABB (Anyone but Bibi) sect? He could be the exception to the rule but his tenure as Chief of Staff was unremarkable, mainly remembered for Eisenkot’s advocacy of a “small and smart IDF,” an IDF that relied more on technology than on manpower, something that debilitated us on October 7 and thereafter. He threw the book at Elor Azaria, provoking indecision among soldiers that factored into the deadly terrorist attack last Friday. His brief tenure on the wartime cabinet was also undistinguished, noted for his advocacy for the release of the hostages at any price and opposition to initiatives that actually worked. Apparently, he still supports the establishment of a Palestinian state and has suggested that we learn to live with an Iranian nuclear bomb. He also currently favors the immediate entry of 150,000 Gazans to work in Israel, as if that hasn’t been tried before with devastating results.
It is not often realized that generals might be brilliant tacticians on the battlefield but simultaneously awful geopolitical strategists. Those are completely different skill sets. The affairs of state require the ability to navigate multiple and often conflicting interests, and on both the domestic and international stages. Clichés aside, does Eisenkot have an economic or educational policy, an objective more comprehensive than “Israel must win,” a position on the dictatorial excesses of the Supreme Court, or a desire to do anything other than topple Netanyahu?
The failed Israeli generals-turned-prime-ministers also had tenuous commitments to democracy, and especially to the rights of minorities, as evidenced by Rabin and Sharon’s contemptuous dismissal of their opponents and settlers. After all, generals are used to giving orders and are not always amenable to the give-and-take of democratic governance. Harry Truman, who chose not to run against Eisenhower, predicted that his successor would have a hard time getting things done: “He’ll sit right here and he’ll say do this, do that! And nothing will happen. Poor Ike—it won’t be a bit like the Army.”
If only that would be our problem! Our problem has been not military leaders turned prime ministers getting nothing done but in getting the wrong things done. Our problem has been generals spearheading and bulldozing their (and our) way into strategic calamities that cost us dearly in lives, treasure, international standing, and the fulfillment of our destiny.
A mature society knows better than to expect tough-looking generals to be successful politicians. A Jewish society should know to find leaders who can advance our national, spiritual destiny, until we merit true leaders as we had in days of old.
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