• Lebanon
  • August 17, 2006
  • 4 minutes read

IOF officers want Halutz out over defeat in Lebanon

 Voices amongst IOF senior and junior officers demanding the immediate resignation of IOF chief of staff Dan Halutz mounted noticeably in the recent days after the disgraceful defeat of the IOF troops at the hands of Hizbullah fighters in southern Lebanon.


The defeat opened the door wide-open before the profound internal crisis in Israel, particularly in the military institution as many high-ranking IOF officers accused Halutz of grave misconduct when he sold his investments just hours after the abduction of the two IOF servicemen at the hands of Hizbullah fighters last July 12.


They said Halutz will not be able from now on to face his soldiers and mothers of soldiers killed in Lebanon due to his erred military calculations.


“Halutz is indeed confronting a leadership problem”, they affirmed.


Local observers opined that days of Halutz in the office are numbered after “his military leaf fell down with the strong wind of the Lebanese resistance gun muzzles”.


Meanwhile, IOF top brass and political critics as well as political opponents of Israeli premier Ehud Olmert directed their arrows against him, and against Israel’s war minister Amir Peretz blaming both of them for the bitter IOF defeat in Lebanon, and asked for a probe into its causes.


According to the Hebrew Ma’ariv newspaper, a number of high-ranking IOF regular and reservist officers started to form an independent committee to probe lapses made in the war on Lebanon, elaborating that if the committee will be formed by the IOF top brass, then results will be “incredible”.


“If the investigation teams will be under Halutz supervision, then, for sure, the investigation will deviate from its real course, and mistakes will be covered. The examination process must be free of pressures and subjugation”, the paper quoted one of the enraged officers as revealing.


Olmert’s government, according to local observers, was striving to find an exit for itself from the dilemma it put itself in.


Israel must resort to peaceful solutions rather than military ones:
More Israeli voices calling on their occupation government to resort to peaceful settlements rather than using force in solving disputes were registered in the Israeli arena, especially after the IOF military defeat in Lebanon.


Gideon Samet, the permanent writer in the Hebrew Ha’aretz newspaper urged his government, in an article he wrote in the paper, to settle its disputes in a peaceful way after military solutions proved ineffective, adding that Israel should realize that it was passing through a new era as evident by the continuous war on Gaza Strip and the just “unfavorably” ceased Israeli aggression on Lebanon.


He added that the Palestinian resistance is still shelling Israeli settlements around Gaza Strip and cities inside the green line (1948-occupied Palestinian lands) as clear evidence on IOF failure to stop those missiles despite the fact that IOF troops killed 200 Palestinian citizens, and unleashed not less than 10,000 projectiles and kidnapped one-half of the PA elected government.


Israeli leaders, the Israeli writer underlined, must wake up of their military dreams and military illusions “as we Israelis; whether we like it or not, face a new stage that we must confront rationally.”


Moreover, the writer opined that a true negotiation with the Palestinians is the only solution before Israel to settle the decade-long problem, and not through a “lost chief of staff” in allusion to Halutz.


Related Topics:


First Halutz must go
Haaretz Editorial, Haaretz – Occupied Jerusalem