In the coming days, two new generals will be appointed to the Israel Defense Forces. Defense Minister Benny Gantz has yet to issue his approval, but it's unlikely there will be any surprises. Brig. Gen. Eran Niv will be promoted to the rank of general and made head of the IDF's Computer Service Directorate and Brig. Gen. Michel Janko will also be promoted and made the head of the military's Technological and Logistical Directorate, following the appointment this week of Brig. Gen. Avi Gil to the role of military secretary at the Prime Minister's Office and his promotion to the rank of major-general.
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Niv is set to replace Maj. Gen. Lior Carmeli and Janko will replace Maj. Gen. Itzik Turgeman upon their retirement from military service. Their retirements are a colossal waste of excellent officers, organizational knowledge, and money. Both Turgeman and Carmeli would have been happy to stay on had they been given another role, but IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi chose to show them the door.
The reasons behind a chief of staff's appointments are never provided. The military is a hierarchical organization in which the commander calls the shots. End of story. Below the rank of major-general, candidates are evaluated and discussed, resulting in a unified ruling. Generals are appointed in consultations between the chief of staff and defense minister: The chief of staff makes a recommendation, and the minister authorizes the appointment.
These appointments have always sparked controversy and intrigue. Many chiefs of staff have been accused of factionalism and favoritism. It's doubtful, however, there has ever been as much internal criticism in past decades as there is toward Kochavi, his close associates, and the appointments he is making right now.
The appointment that got the most attention was that of IDF Spokesman Hidai Zilberman, who after a year and nine months in the role was appointed military attaché to Washington and promoted to major-general. I won't get into his role as IDF spokesman. The relationship between reporters and spokespeople should not be discussed in a newspaper's pages and are subjective at any rate.
Zilberman's qualifications for the new role are another matter. He has no unique intelligence, diplomatic, or command experience that justifies his new celebrity status. Up until now, division commanders, or their air force counterparts, were always the ones selected for Washington. Many attaches were already major-generals when they crossed the Atlantic Ocean – to bestow upon the position the seniority it deserves but also because this role is seen as a serious bonus for those who have genuinely earned it through many years of arduous service.
Zilberman has been close to Kochavi ever since he was his staff division officer at the Northern Command. He served in both of his last two positions - – a full term as head of the Planning Division's Planning Directorate and one year and eight months as IDF spokesman - at Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv. By contrast, there are quite a few brigadier-generals who have served far longer and demanding terms and are still waiting for a promotion. Officers who longed for the Washington role were rejected outright.
The head of the IDF's Northern Command, Amir Baram, spent most of his military service in the trenches and sought a reprieve from the stress. He asked to be made head of the Intelligence or Operations Division but was refused on both points. In response, Baram declined Kochavi's request he be appointed commander of the Ground Forces, opting to remain in the Northern Command.
The failure to appoint Baram to head of the Operations Division demands clarification. According to the new structure of the IDF, set out by former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot, the head of the Operations Division is third in IDF hierarchy, behind the IDF chief of staff and deputy chief of staff.
The idea has always been that an experienced major-general familiar with the work of the general staff and seen as an authority among the generals should head the Operations Division.
Kochavi promoted Brig. Gen. Oded Basiuk to head of the Operations Division. While Basiuk's command skills are undisputed, a senior official he is not. Prior to his appointment, Basiuk was head of the Planning Division, and before that he served as a division commander. None of the major-generals who tried to find out why Kochavi chose not to appoint an experienced major-general to Operations Divison commander received a satisfactory response.
In closed talks, Kochavi has said he has made his decisions based on purely professional considerations and that he is only doing what is good for the IDF. While he likely believes this with all his heart, it is unclear whether he is aware of the extent of the criticism of him and the chiefs of staff in general. Many major-generals are no longer trying to hide their criticism of their commander: Kochavi, they claim, does not listen to advice and has made mind up on many of these decisions in advance.
A decision on yet another appointment – that of the Defense Ministry's Budget Department head, who will also serve as financial adviser to the IDF chief of staff - is set to be reached in the coming days. While of less interest to the public, this position is of great importance to the defense establishment.
The current financial adviser, Brig. Gen. Ariela Lazarovich, made clear her intentions to retire from the IDF a year ago. At her superiors' request, she agreed to stay on but will officially conclude her role later this summer.
Absolutely nothing about Lazarovich's departure was a surprise. After all, she announced her plans to retire in advance, and there has been ample time to find and train a replacement. Yet the IDF did nothing until the last minute. Instead of there being an organized process to look for a fitting replacement, those tasked with finding a new adviser chose to wait, apparently, until the individual they wanted for the job became available.
If the rumors are true, Kochavi's candidate for the role is Col. Gil Pinchas, who currently heads the IDF's Planning Department. There is some dispute as to whether Pinchas is a good fit for the role. There is no dispute, however, as to whether this is how appointments should be made, in particular in the absence of a state budget. Add to that the IDF's adoption of a multi-year plan that was never authorized or budgeted, new, long-term agreements that must be reached with the Finance Ministry, and major budget cuts that are likely in the works.
Kochavi has a hard time living with criticism. He probably won't even like what is written here. He will likely think this is just a personal attack, though this is simply not the case. After all, on the eve of his appointment as IDF chief of staff, I wrote that if all the candidates' data had been entered into a computer software program, it would have selected Kochavi for the role. That doesn't, however, mean that Kochavi, his decisions, or his appointments should be immune to criticism. The opposite is true.
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