"If the Palestinians think that they will organize a march and cross the [border] fence into our territory, they are wrong," IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot tells Israel Hayom in a special holiday interview. "We will enforce with an iron fist to prevent it. [Hamas leader Ismail] Haniyeh and the ones who send [the Palestinians to march] will be responsible for whatever happens."
The military chief explains that beyond deploying reinforcements to the border area ahead of a planned Hamas-led march toward the fence, the military was also mentally preparing the troops for the expected clashes in southern Israel and in Judea and Samaria. "We are laying down infrastructure that will pose obstacles, but if you look at the bigger picture, you realize that you are in the middle of a very complicated reality where a lot of negative vectors converge. It makes for a very volatile situation over the next two months."
Q: Can you describe what these vectors are?
"The failure of the [Hamas-Fatah] reconciliation efforts; the imminent end of the age of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas; the deep undercurrents in the Palestinian public – particularly in the West Bank – of increasing support for violent resistance; and a realization that the non-violent path led by Abbas is leading nowhere. Add to this the terrible civilian-humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Hamas' failure to govern, the cold shoulder from Egypt, the relocation of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the poor water quality, the power shortages, the cutbacks in health spending and the cuts to UNRWA funding – 200,000 Gaza children attend UNRWA schools, and 65% rely on them for food."
Q: Is this a recipe for inevitable escalation?
"We already said at the beginning of the year that the likelihood that any of our enemies will initiate confrontation is rather low. But the likelihood of escalation, to the point of war, has increased substantially, even though neither side is interested in confrontation. Our goal in Gaza is to maintain the current reality at least until the end of the year, to give us enough time to complete the infrastructure to combat the terror tunnels. But if we're being honest, we have to admit that the possibility of being dragged into violence is much more likely today than in the preceding decade."
Q: So that means we are on the verge of the next war.
"Ever since 2005, the cycles of fighting have been short – every one or two years we had something. In the last four years, the security situation has been better than it has been since 1967. In this time, not a single Israeli civilian has sustained as much as a scratch, and only five soldiers were wounded. The communities [near the Gaza border] are enjoying a period of calm.
"So on the one hand we have a strong power of deterrence – the people in Gaza are terrified of escalation and what it would imply – and on the other hand, life there is hell, so we can't threaten them with 'double hell' because they are already desperate and hopeless."
Q: So what is the answer?
"I think that it is in Israel's best interest that they have hope and want to get up in the morning and go to work. We were very close to a third intifada in 2015, and it was averted mainly because we made a clear distinction between terrorists and the general population. We fought a determined war against terrorism, but refrained from harming the population. In recent years, every morning, some 190,000 Palestinians wake up and go to work in Israel. They make a living and the mechanism works – education, local government. That's the difference between the West Bank and Syria."
Q: And still, they support Hamas.
"Hamas has entered the people's hearts. I would very much like to root it out, but people believe Hamas and identify with the movement. In Gaza, they behave like dictators; it's catastrophic there. They throw their opponents off rooftops, they rule with an iron fist and only take care of their friends and families. And still, there are no protests. The street doesn't erupt because the people believe that everything is determined by Allah and that it's all Israel's fault and that even if things are bad now, tomorrow they will be better."
Q: Do you envision an eruption in the future?
"It is certainly tense. On the one hand, they realize that they are facing a powerful foe they cannot defeat. On the other hand, they hate us very much and want desperately to hurt us. You see the highest motivation for this among those who live among us, in Judea and Samaria, because they come into direct contact with us at eye level.
"We are able to thwart 98% of potential terrorist attacks, but still, they keep trying. Just last year, we apprehended 4,600 potential terrorists, and I have no doubt that there will be another 4,000 the coming year, and another 4,000 in the year after that."
Q: Is this motivation reflected in the intelligence you are able to gather?
"Certainly. There is immense motivation to perpetrate terrorist attacks. The main problems are hatred, willingness, the culture, the religious beliefs and the profoundly painful understanding that they strongly believe terrorism is a way of fulfilling political, social and religious desires. This is something that won't change for many years to come."
Eizenkot says that while the greatest threat currently facing Israel is Iran, the most volatile threat is the Palestinian one, coming both from Gaza and the West Bank. "The hatred toward Israel isn't new; it existed 70 years ago too, and will continue to exist 100 years from now," he says. "When I was asked to speak at an international counterterrorism conference, I researched and found that the first terrorist attack on record in Israel was in 1851. The fundamental hatred and the drive for confrontation are here to stay. What has changed is that we developed a system."
Q: Are there things that you think need to be done?
"Over the last two and a half years we have been combating terrorism rather impressively, and managed to confront a complex, convoluted reality and overcome it every day. But these days, some people, influenced by political agendas, are trying to make the military out to be indecisive, having lost its will to win and too focused on liberal, leftist issues. There are figures within Israeli society that are cultivating this agenda in an effort to convey a message."
Q: Who are these figures?
"I don't know. But when I tell the head of GOC Central Command, 'Go speak. Tell everyone how you commanded over an impressive operation, killed more terrorists than have been killed in 10 years, so that the people understand what you did' and he doesn't want to, I ask myself why that is."
Q: And why is it?
"Because the general spirit is confrontational. It doesn't rely on facts, it is driven only by the desire to promote certain views, and the military is having trouble handling it. I can tell you that as the IDF chief of staff I spend 98% of my time unleashing unprecedented force, overseeing more than 1,000 ground operations and deploying special forces. But all the public cares about are marginal issues that don't even make up an iota of our work."
Q: Is that frustrating?
"I think that the Israeli public enjoys very good security thanks to our intensive, round-the-clock efforts. It is thanks to our policy of using force. It is thanks to our commanders and to our determination. In the last year, we bombed 110 targets, but there are people who claim that we targeted sand hills. These are serious people, elected by the public. It takes hold among some of the people. I don't know how to deal with it."
Q: If we were to ask people in the street, many would say that today, the military is reluctant to use force.
"We use enormous force in the West Bank, and we ensure Israel's security in an insane reality. Without our use of force every night, there would be 100 times more terrorist attacks. In the north, we engage in hundreds of operations every year that the Israeli citizens aren't even aware of, so they don't take these things into consideration when determining our capabilities. But our enemies are well aware. Otherwise, it's hard to explain how we've attacked hundreds of times but they never retaliate."
Q: You mentioned elected officials.
"Everyone's a critic. They criticize the chief of staff, they criticize the commanders. There are even serious people who make claims – a former major general said at the Sderot conference recently that there are no religious commanders in the IDF general staff. Well, actually, there are two. He said there are no women. Well, there are. Fortunately, when you look at the breakdown of public faith in state institutions, the IDF is on top with 90%. That stems from the fact that you can't lie about the IDF because it lives in every part of the State of Israel.
"So the rabbis can go ahead and say that we are corrupting Israel's girls, but if today 2,700 religious girls enlist [per year], compared to 900 girls six years ago, there's your answer. Because if we were an army that engages in debauchery and depravity, they wouldn't be enlisting. But what they actually find is a value-driven military that provides the conditions to maintain a religious lifestyle and commanders who are role models and love their country."
Q: Why do you think you became a target for some rabbis?
"Because I took a number of steps to strengthen the military. I transferred the Jewish Awareness Branch from the [Military] Rabbinate to the Manpower Directorate, I revoked the privatization of the training for civilian institutions, I instituted a mixed-gender service order, I overturned the authorization to grow beards at will."
Q: Why does a chief of staff need to deal with things like beards?
"I arrived at an officers' training course and I saw that 70% of the soldiers were bearded. In the pilots' training course there wasn't a single bearded soldier. The military means order and discipline. People who are religious, or have skin sensitivities, let them grow a beard. But everyone else – shave! Some rabbis criticized me and said the military was like Nazi Germany; that soldiers were being forced to shave off beards and sidelocks. There are people in the public who actually believe that."
Q: You've been criticized for integrating women into combat units.
"When I began my term, there were six mixed-gender battalions. I wanted to restore the military to the way it was when I was a soldier – with half the force engaging in routine security and the other half training to be ready for war. To achieve that it was necessary to establish two more mixed-gender battalions. At this, people got up and said the chief of staff is a feminist and belongs to the New Israel Fund. It's nonsense. The only thing that I care about is the good of the military and how to make it stronger. And today, the IDF is a stronger military."
Q: And you need women fighters in tanks for that?
"Just as there are Hummers in mixed-gender units, there are also tanks. We decided to do an experiment with an all-female tank crew. It was just an experiment. Not on any front lines, only on peaceful frontiers. But already there were rabbis who ran with it and started talking about babies being born in tanks.
"I spoke with the rabbis. One of them stood up and said that I will forever be remembered as being responsible for the feminist revolution in the IDF. I told him it was true – there is a revolution underway, but it's not happening in the military, it's happening in your homes. I told him smart, independent, curious girls are growing up and they don't take orders from you or me. Their heroes are women soldiers and they want it too. What makes the rabbis so mad is that these girls are coming to a military that is driven by values, that allows them to actualize their potential and satisfy their sense of duty while simultaneously maintaining a religious lifestyle."
Q: Will there be women fighters in the Golani Brigade as well?
"So the lesser known aspect of this is that I am subject to criticism by women's organizations too, when I tell them that in the current reality it would be a mistake to open up the most rigorous combat units to women, and as long as I am the chief of staff, it won't happen. And still, we have women fighter pilots and naval officers and almost everything is accessible to women, and I am pleased about that. It makes the military better."
Q: Perhaps the very debate of the issue is harming the military.
"There is an enormous disparity between the conversation among the public and the reality in the military. The rabbis are blasting me, but inside the military there is calm. Everything is orderly and clear and there is understanding and solidarity. I want the IDF to not be made up of 12 different tribes. I want it to be one tribe from the moment you enlist, with everyone focused on helping each other defend the state and win the war."
Q: Is that a realistic aspiration in 2018?
"I believe it is, yes. The problem starts when political, religious or feminist agendas come into play. It's not good for the IDF. We have to keep the military outside that discourse. The military is open to criticism, but it is best to keep the criticism to an absolute minimum and give it the support it needs."
Eizenkot was supportive of the recent declassification of the details surrounding Israel's 2007 attack on a Syrian nuclear reactor since the details had already been reported in the foreign media and because he believes it will reinforce Israel's power of deterrence in the region. "Let everyone know that we had excellent intelligence and that we were determined to attack and destroy. Every player in the area will now think twice about whether they should try to develop that kind of capability."
Q: Were you surprised by the credit wars that followed the declassification?
"I was disappointed. The people are good people, and there isn't one who is more right than another. But it was unnecessary. We just need to remember that Israeli deterrence was not established in a day, and it won't be destroyed in a day. It didn't start with the Deir ez-Zor strike [on the nuclear reactor in Syria] and it won't end over an ego war between generals. Israel is perceived as a powerful state that cannot be defeated, with the kind of intelligence and aerial superiority that only a handful of countries in the world possess. Pick any window of any building in a 2,500 kilometer radius from here and I know how to plant a bomb in it. That is the kind of capability that is ten times more advanced than our enemies.'"
Q: The region has changed. Today there is a Russian presence, for example. Would the Russians have allowed Israel to strike a reactor in Syria?
"They wouldn't have liked it, but they would have allowed it. I was present at the meeting between the prime minister and the Russian president, and I know what was said. They made it clear that we are an ally and that we both have interests. We need to operate to advance our interests and ensure that theirs aren't harmed."
Q: Where do the Russians draw the line?
"They have radars that identify everything. But they understand that we are not fighting against them. We need to make sure not to harm Russian forces, so we built a mechanism to prevent friction."
Q: Is the same true for Iran?
"It's no longer a secret that we are targeting Iranian capabilities. The Israeli public became aware of Iranian capabilities in Syria six months ago. As far as the IDF is concerned, this started years ago, and we are working to prevent it. We are also preventing Hezbollah from gaining advanced capabilities. That fact that Hezbollah can't hit a precise target in Israel from Lebanon is solely thanks to our efforts. The Israeli public is unaware of most of these things."
Q: What is Iran trying to achieve?
"Regional hegemony. Control. In recent years, Iran has given Syria $1 billion, and every year it hands over $600-700 million to Hezbollah, another $100 million to Gaza and hundreds of millions to the Houthis in Yemen. It destabilizes the region. Our goal, which we share with the Sunni countries of the region, is to push them back to Iran and hope that their internal reality there will change.
"The Iranian Revolutionary Guard has in effect built a state within a state, but when you look at long-term processes in Iran, there are large factions that want to live. To a large extent, some of the processes unfolding there, like the clash between the religious and the secular, are reminiscent of processes in Israeli society. There are deep undercurrents there and I believe that there will be change in Iran."
Q: How far are we willing to go to prevent Iran from establishing a foothold in Syria?
"The military's policy is to take every action necessary to push them out of Syria and back to Iran. I think that there is room for more action, including to enlist the help of the U.S. and Europe, where we have seen less success. We need to explain to them that they defeated ISIS, but they allowed an even bigger demon to take hold in the Middle East. A Shiite hegemony in Syria will be very bad for Israel, but it will be even worse for Europe."
Q: Why is that?
"Because the millions of displaced Sunnis will not flee to Israel. They will flee to Turkey and from there, to Europe."
Q: What is the solution in Syria?
"Anyone who thinks that they will see democracies or Western lifestyles in the Middle East in the near future must come from another planet. They are delusional. In my view, the only options for an Arab culture can be a religious elite, a military elite, a monarchy or chaos. There are no other possibilities. Our experience teaches us that wherever the system is overthrown, we get a far worse alternative. It's not that the reality under Gadhafi or Saddam Hussein was delightful, but there was rule of law. There was order. There was someone to talk to. But then you introduce Mecca, you end up with ISIS and a chaotic reality that will take decades to get under control."
Q: Does that mean that you think Syrian President Bashar Assad should remain in power?
"As an Israeli chief of staff, I can't support a leader who is a murderer and who uses chemical weapons on his people and whose actions have resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and more than 2 million wounded. But still, our interest is to have someone we can talk to, and to have functioning government mechanisms. That is true in Syria, it's true in Gaza as well. We can overthrow Hamas in Gaza, but what then?
"The Syria that we knew in the past has collapsed. It won't return. Our objective is to achieve a solution that will be founded on ethnic identities –maybe some sort of confederation of several states: Alawite, Sunni, Druze. I think that would be good for Israel, because it will defuse Syria's contrarianism against us."
Q: And in Gaza?
"The best scenario isn't realistic: To attach Gaza back to Egypt. Barring that, the choice is between equally bad alternatives – an indirect truce with a Hamas government or a reconciliation between Gaza and the West Bank. The worst scenario is that everything will break down there and a chaotic reality will emerge. What we need to aspire to is a moderate government there that will agree demilitarize, but we are not there."
Alongside the risks and dangers, Eizenkot also makes sure to underscore the positives. The Middle East is undergoing change. During a conference of chiefs of staff recently he met a number of military leaders hailing from a number of countries in the region, including those with which Israel does not have official relations. "There were some who approached me with hugs and kisses," he recalls.
Q: What about from Saudi Arabia?
"No. I recognized him and waved, that's it. The Moroccan chief of staff, however, shook my hand. I introduced myself and told him that my parents were born in Morocco. About a month ago, he sent me a newspaper in French from Morocco – he and I were on the front page, our arms around one another."
The last year of a chief of staff's term is always prone for disaster. Not just because of the potential for a security escalation. Politicians view the chief of staff as a political threat, resulting in boundless friction. Recent rumors have suggested that Eizenkot is looking to extend his term for a fifth year. He dismisses these rumors, however, saying, "I was appointed to serve three years plus one. The plus one ends on Jan. 1, 2019. On that day, I will stand here in this lot and welcome my successor."
Q: There is no possible scenario where you stay on?
"I think it is best for a chief of staff to serve four years. Period. No mention of a fifth year. You have to make the best of four and that's it."
Q: And then politics?
"No."
Q: Not a chance?
"No. I have started a process to impose a six-year cooling off period [on military generals seeking political positions]."
Q: So what are you going to do after you are discharged?
"I haven't given too much thought to how my life will look after 41 years in the military, during which I woke up bright eyed every morning, truly."
Q: Does a chief of staff have time to be a husband, a father, a friend?
"There's time. Not a lot, but I try to make time."
Q: How many hours do you sleep a night?
"Four or five."
Q: Someone wakes you every night?
"No, but I wake myself. Usually once or twice a night."
Q: Are your health scares behind you? The cancer?
"That was a sledgehammer to the head. The moment I understood what was happening, I became almost a doctor myself. I studied it. There was an operation, seven days of recovery, and I came back here, good as new."
Q: And you'll be monitored for life?
"No. Three years. That's procedure."
Q: We are coming up on Israel's 70th Independence Day. Are we here to stay? And to win?
"Not because it is the right thing to say, but because I know very well our power and our abilities. To its enemies, Israel is invincible. We have superiority in intelligence, in the air, in the sea, on the ground and enormous deterrence. I don't see any existential threat in the coming years and our duty to future generations is to make every effort to prevent such existential threats in the future. But we must always remember that in order for the IDF to continue fulfilling its purpose and serve as Israel's insurance policy, we must have the public's support. The only potential setback that I can foresee is if the internal unity of the army is compromised or if our mutual responsibility toward each other falters."
