IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi announced dozens of new appointments at the mid-level rank of colonel and lieutenant colonel on Monday, despite criticism from Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who had tried to block them.
Smotrich said that “the current IDF High Command failed in a colossal way on October 7 and cannot design the future generation of the IDF or appoint the commanders who will fix things.”
He added, “We support them absolutely to manage the war and to win. That, but nothing more.”
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, outgoing Labor Party leader Merav Michaeli, and others slammed Smotrich for undue interference in military affairs, with which he is inexperienced.
Some also accused him of attacking Halevi in an attempt to deflect his and the cabinet’s responsibility for October 7.
IDF sources, in discussions with The Jerusalem Post, defended the appointments, saying that all but three were unrelated to key officials in the Southern Command with relation to the Gaza Division or the IDF Intelligence Command, the two commands considered most responsible for the October 7 failures.
Rather, the appointments are to areas where there has been no discernible failure, such as the West Bank Central Command, where Halevi is mostly accepting the recommendation of officers regarding which lieutenant colonel to promote to colonel and where no one would dispute that the best selections tend to come by promoting an officer who was recommended by his commanders and who already knows the area.
As for appointments in the Intelligence Command, IDF sources said they might be made in areas like non-operational artificial intelligence, such that whoever fills the role is working in a purely technical fashion and not in a capacity that could impact invasions.
There were three exceptions in potentially sensitive areas that could relate to October 7.
IDF sources said that the new appointment in IDF Intelligence Operations was not related to actual operations but only to logistics and force build-up.
Another controversial appointment was to the head of the IDF Intelligence Command for analyzing the Palestinian arena. IDF sources acknowledged this was a sensitive appointment but said that the officer in that role needed to step down after a long service and that his replacement was coming from the Northern Command and, therefore, would not be stained by anything related to October 7.
The third controversial appointment was to replace IDF Col. “A” in charge of the Southern Intelligence Command. This became necessary when A was suddenly forced out for carrying on an improper romantic relationship with a junior female officer under his authority. Although an acting officer could have been put in the post temporarily, the post was deemed too important to leave someone there without authority.
The one other exception, which did not occur on Monday but has been an ongoing issue in the Southern Command, was that mid-level officers have had to be replaced when they were killed in battle. But these are emergency appointments to keep the battle running rather than appointments of choice about the IDF’s long-term future.
Neither the round of appointments that Halevi made a couple of weeks ago nor Monday’s round of appointments pertained to any officers at the rank of major general, which makes up the IDF high command and the officers who run whole swaths of the army.
Major generals run the Northern, Southern, and Central Commands; the air force; the navy; and all the logistics, strategy, planning, and human resources commands.
Halevi, who is expected to resign sometime after he and the military issue a June interim report on the October 7 failures, is committed to letting his replacement reshape the level of the major generals.
Sources in the IDF respond to Smotrich
IDF sources responded sarcastically to Smotrich and others who attacked Halevi, asking how they could explain giving him control of humongous life-and-death decisions that led to victory for the IDF in Gaza City and Khan Yunis and supporting him for devising an invasion of Rafah while wanting to prevent him from making appointments completed unrelated to the Gaza front.
The sources also said that without this round of appointments, which, if not for the war, would have happened several months ago, dozens of top IDF officers might have decided to quit, having been insulted by the idea that they were passed over for promotions that were long due.
The sources explained that making appointments is necessary to avoid losing the IDF’s effectiveness in the near term, while avoiding appointments in controversial commands or at higher levels could restrict whoever succeeds Halevi, presuming he resigns sometime after June.
Despite all of these justifications, Smotrich said that many have lost faith in Halevi and the IDF high command but that, basically, there was no choice but to let them run the war lest the counterattack on Hamas be delayed. However, he said, it was wrong for Halevi to presume that he still had a mandate to do anything beyond what was immediately necessary for the war.
The finance minister also said that “the next generation of commanders, who will not be partners in the conceptual framework of the failure, will lead the rehabilitation and fixing” of the military.
Likewise, some commentators have said that after quickly taking responsibility publicly for the October 7 failure, Halevi has gone nearly five months without making it clear when he would step down, and he declined to clarify the point when asked on Sunday point blank.
This lack of clarity is what disturbed some commentators, leading some of them to say that he was violating conflict of interest principles by creating the impression that he could hold onto power in order to reshape the IDF at the same time that he was on the hot seat over the Hamas invasion.
Furthermore, some commentators have bristled at Halevi’s disciplining of top field generals like Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram and Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfus for what are perceived as smaller infractions when the IDF chief himself, in principle, deserves to have been forced to resign months ago.