Former IDF ombudsman, Maj.-Gen. Yitzhak Brik, referred to the IDF's readiness for war against the background of the many threats from reservists not to report for duty, in a conversation with Yinon Magal and Chaim Levinson on 103FM on Monday morning.
"We did not prepare for the difficult war that will be here in a few months or years," Brik stated at the beginning of his remarks, emphasizing that "Our competence has been damaged for years. The IDF is not ready for war, and this is expressed in basic things. Look what is happening to us on the northern border. The IDF is afraid to react to a tent or the removal of a camera on the fence.”
“The political echelon has no monitoring of what happens in the IDF, there are no discussions in the cabinet, and the National Security Council has become the prime minister's personal secretary. The chief of staff just receives a budget and does what is on his mind. Everyone does a U-turn around the other one. Billions of shekels escape while there is no long-term army building."
'The army is disintegrating'
When asked what he thinks about the refusals, Brik replied: "Even if the protest succeeds and a democratic state is established - there will be no army to protect it. Even today the army is disintegrating, after the volunteering is stopped it will be crushed. Our enemies are waiting for the right moment, they will not wait much longer. They are leaving the people of Israel naked and uncovered, that's the story. The army should have been left out of politics. Destroying the army? Even if you build a state later, you won't be able to protect it. This is collective suicide, this is a crazy nation."
Brik added: "We are a nation with haredim and they will be with us, period. You cannot destroy the army because you don't like the haredim. This refusal will deal a terrible blow to the haredim, but also to ourselves. What is not understood here? Don't destroy the thing that can protect your country. What will you tell your children? 'I fought the haredim and destroyed the country'?"