| THE
SHALIT KIDNAPPING by Barry Chamish
For twelve
years I've been shouting and screaming that Israel's
"leadership" utterly controlled by the Council On Foreign
Relations,
known broadly as "the neo-cons", would contrive a war which
they would
lose. For that my reputation has been slammed with rumors about my
sanity, sobriety and common sense. When that didn't do the trick, a
common car "accident" was supposed to take care of me. Every
effort was
made to shut me up. And you know what, I think that finally "they"
did
it. Who needs the crap while my nation dissolves before our eyes?
Here
is the Debka Report from July 11. To those who asked, here is how
the New World Order proxy, Israel, started its war with the cooperation
of the NWO enemy Iran. It sure beats Americans
and Iranians dying. So
for this, innocents in Israel and Lebanon are doing the suffering and
the dying:
DEBKA:
Maj.-Gen
(Ret) Giora Eiland traced the breakdown which allowed a
Hamas-led squad overrun an Israeli army post on the Israeli side of
the
southern Gaza border, kill two soldiers and snatch Corporal Gilad
Shalit on June 25, to an “operational” breakdown. He did
not lay it at
the door of commanders and their conduct.
“None
of them lied or failed to perform their duties,” said Gen. Eiland,
former national security adviser, in the report on the inquiry the chief
of staff entrusted him to carry into the causes of the incident at the
Kerem Shalom post.
Most
damningly, Eilat affirmed that the corporal’s abduction could
have
been aborted. The kidnappers and their hostage were clearly visible
on
the unit’s electronic screens as they crossed the border into
the Gaza
Strip, but the tank commander delayed by first asking his superior for
permission to open fire and abort their flight.
The
only action Chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz took on receipt of
the report Monday, July 10, was to announce he had raised the matter
in
conversation with a number of commanders. Halutz made no mention of
how
he would handle Eiland’s comprehensive denigration of an “operational
breakdown - from battalion and brigade level all the way up to the top
of the division and general staff. “
Neither
was this finding itemized. Eiland himself did not recommend
dismissals. His restraint was no doubt motivated by the general
disinclination to give the enemy free points at a time when the IDF
is
engaged in combat in the Gaza Strip, especially when the commanders
targeted for criticism are at the front line.
According
to *DEBKA/file/*’s military sources, the two generals are
counting on the Gaza operation, which the IDF launched on June 28, three
days after the Hamas assault on the army post, stealing the limelight
from the faults found along the entire chain of command. Our sources
say
that Eiland directs most of his disapproval at three to five officers
from the ranks of colonel, brigadier general, major general and
lieutenant general.
At
the same time, General Eiland omitted to asked the three searching
questions that might have laid bare the root-causes of the fiasco at
Kerem Shalom:
1.
Was this a one-time slip-up or a part of a long-running string of
lapses?
2.
Was it the natural, preordained consequence of the operational
directives coming down from the prime minister, the defense minister
via
IDF chiefs?
On June
23, two days before the attack and kidnap, *DEBKA/file/* exposed
the five taboos prime minister Ehud Olmert and defense minister Amir
Peretz laid down for military operations to counter the Qassam missile
blitz against southern Israel.
One
banned Israeli forays into the areas of the missile sites in Gaza
and ambushes on Palestinian side of the border fence.
Eiland
refrained from asking whether those strict prohibitions may not
have handicapped the command levels of the army to the point of
rendering them incapable of performing their duties. They officers had
due warning of an impending Palestinian cross-border attack through
an
undiscovered tunnel. What more logical than to put IDF ambushes squads
behind enemy lines to trap the assailants when they return to their
base
in Gaza? Knowing they might be there, the Hamas-led kidnap team would
have realized its escape route with Gilad Shalit was blocked and might
have
been deterred from the abduction.
3.
The Eiland probe should have examined the strategic concepts guiding
Israel’s top commanders before and after the fall of the Kerem
Shalom post.
Given
the far-reaching consequences, the Israeli public is entitled to a
lot more enlightenment.
The
tailored facts released show a prime minister and defense minister
still in a state of denial over the root-causes of the present security
crisis. Israel’s unconsidered disengagement from the Gaza Strip
and its
military withdrawal from the Philadelpi border route in September 2005
constitute Israel’s most damaging military and political blunder
in a
decade. Until this is confronted and objectively analyzed, the top IDF
brass will be constrained from looking squarely at the escalating terror
threat posed by Hamas-in-government and addressing it with all the
considerable professionalism at their command.
Such
cool analysis is the target of Ehud Olmert’s primary taboo. With
the
premiership, he inherited from Ariel Sharon the deadly fallout from
this
bungle, along with the leadership of the Kadima party, whose only raison
d’etre after rubber-stamping Sharon’s disengagement from
Gaza is to
continue the process on the West Bank.
The
scales have fallen from many Israeli eyes in the wake of the Gilad
Shalit disaster. People have begun asking hard questions, such as how
did Hamas come to take over Palestinian government in the first place.
And why is Hamas being permitted to terrorize southern Israeli with
Qassam missiles after the Gaza Strip was handed over lock, stock and
barrel to full Palestinian control. And the missile menace is beginning
to percolate into the West Bank too.
Even
some of Kadima’s leading figures appear perplexed.
In
his report to the chief of staff, Giora Eiland implied that the IDF
may be in urgent need to revise some of its outdated concepts and apply
a fresh approach to the new realities - even at the cost of standing
up
to civilian government. Unless this is broached, Israel’s armed
forces
are in for more command failures and further misfortunes.
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