Systemic failure
By Amir Oren
Haaretz, March 5, 2004
Here's a suggestion for an up-to-date costume for the little toddler on the Purim holiday: an army uniform with the rank of colonel, three women around him (with the addition of the father of one of them), a first-aid kit on one shoulder containing drugs disguised as medicines, one arm connected to an instrument from which electrical cords dangle, and on his chest a proud inscription: "Me genius."
It might be funny if it were possible to ensure that Elhanan Tennenbaum, the colonel who disappeared, is an anomaly, survivor of a rare twist of the system. But that is not the case. The Tennenbaum affair reflects the Israeli system, especially its political and security branches. They are doubly forgiving: first in their attitude toward the dubious road to accumulating power, money and connections, and afterward in their attitude toward the possessors of the power, money and connections who are caught when they run afoul of the system.
Most corrupting of all is the army. Thanks - if that's the word - to those among its senior ranks who have transgressed, Israel looks like a country that has been transported from Eastern Europe to South America without a stopover. Moshe Dayan, as chief of staff (for four and a quarter years) and as defense minister (seven years), a thief of antiquities and a seller of interviews, was only the most senior of those who ignore the small difference between the state treasury and their private property.
The natural inclination of the high command at the sight of a colleague in trouble is to gather the ranks of the phalange to defend him.
Those who cover up for their commanding officers, or for their subordinates, as the case may be, need not be corrupt themselves; sometimes they refuse to give people the boot because the flaw in question is alien to them. But the result is identical in moral terms.
Former police commissioner Herzl Shafir, a major general in the reserves, lost the trust of his investigating officers at the beginning of the 1980s when he demanded that they give preferential treatment to another major general in the reserves, Rehavan Ze'evi, in the case of a double murder at the Bar-Bakar meat plant. As in the Tennenbaum case, suspicions of a drug deal arose then, too. In another notorious case, the chief of staff at the time, Dan Shomron, and the commander of the air force, Avihu Bin-Nun, almost succeeded in saving Brigadier General Rami Dotan - who was afterward convicted of bilking the air force of millions of dollars - from the consequences of his actions. True, in that affair three other reserve generals - Israel Tal, David Ivri and Menahem Meron - came out on the side of throwing the book at Dotan, but that was a case of a rift in the sect, one reason being that Dotan threatened the son of veteran and well-connected retired colonel, Meir Pa'il.
It was ludicrous this week to hear Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon tell the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that it is necessary to wait for Tennenbaum to be convicted of a crime of moral turpitude before stripping him of his officer's rank. Ya'alon inherited from his predecessor, Shaul Mofaz, the case of the major general who was convicted of sexual offenses, Yitzhak Mordechai. Mordechai's conviction on one of the charges - not a charge in the civil realm, but relating to an attack on a female officer when he was head of Northern Command - is final and no longer subject to appeal. Mofaz, Ya'alon and the judge advocate-general, Dr. Menahem Finkelstein, adopted a stratagem to leave the major general's ranks on Mordechai's shoulders (he continues to wear a uniform, as he did recently for a joint parachute drop with Ya'alon) for the time being, perhaps until responsibility for the decision will be imposed on someone else.
They are waiting to see whether his appeal against his conviction on another charge will be accepted. Supposedly, if Mordechai is demoted only according to one conviction - to lieutenant colonel, say - it may turn out that he has to be demoted again, to lieutenant or sergeant, so it's best to wait patiently and do it all at once. The practical meaning of this ploy is that the group of major generals includes one who was convicted of a crime of moral turpitude and also knows some of the country's deepest security secrets, yet the Israel Defense Forces has yet to appoint the panel of officers meant to deal with his case.
And there is also the case of Colonel (res.) Jackob Nimrodi, the businessman who was also convicted of offenses of moral turpitude and who appealed the conviction. In the meantime, because no army procedure has been initiated against him, such as suspension, he is invited to gatherings of senior reserve officers in the Intelligence Corps. His son, Captain Ofer Nimrodi, publisher of the daily Ma'ariv, was convicted twice, in two separate cases, on plea bargains, which cannot be appealed - but five years later, he has not been demoted.
Nor does the system end with the way the IDF treats offending officers. The army is often compassionate to ranking commanders who are unemployed, or who are immersed in debt and bankrupt, recruiting them for "reserve duty in career army terms [of employment]." There are at least two brigadier generals who were mobilized in this way for months, at a cumulative cost of hundreds of thousands of shekels, but without any true military need. In one case, the explanation was that the officer, who rarely showed up at headquarters, was busy "writing a doctrinal pamphlet."
In another case, a career officer was appointed commander of an armored division in the standing army, only to discover that his chief of staff, who was supposed to be a reserve colonel, was like him a brigadier general with the status of a reservist in career army terms of employment. The new divisional commander was told that the man is a "fountain of knowledge" who had greatly helped his predecessors. It was only after a battle that the brigadier general was released.
Lieutenant General Ya'alon was silent when his former commander, Mofaz, who became his subordinate during his discharge leave, tried to play hanky-panky with his official discharge date so he could run for the Knesset despite the cooling-off period he had to undergo. Now Chief of Staff Ya'alon needs the support of Defense Minister Mofaz, among other things in regard to the appointment of the next deputy chief of staff and the struggle to become Ya'alon's successor.
Last month Ya'alon went to Mofaz in an effort to persuade him to appoint the commander of the navy, Rear Admiral Yedidya Yaari, deputy chief of staff, rather than the commander of the air force, Major General Dan Halutz. Ya'alon lost no time in reporting his efforts to his preferred successor, the outgoing deputy chief of staff, Major General Gabi Ashkenazi.
All this is made possible by the absence of true civilian supervision of the defense establishment. The transition of discharged officers to the defense minister's bureau and to the key posts in the Defense Ministry continues unabated. And at the top, serving as prime minister, is a person who was a problematic officer and who got entangled then and numerous times since then in episodes that do not allow him to act as a moral authority.
It is not by chance, and not for the first time, that Sycamore Ranch has cropped up as part of the various suspicions against Ariel Sharon. Way back when Sharon was head of Southern Command and the rival of the chief of staff, David Elazar, there were questions about Sharon and the ranch. Elazar even called in a senior officer from Southern Command - not one of Sharon's blind loyalists - to ask him whether it was possible to accuse Sharon of using army assets for his private needs at the ranch, and then to use the information in order to dump Sharon. No, the officer replied honestly, to Elazar's disappointment, not this time.
The fact that Sharon has survived all the various affairs linked to his name and reached his present status reflects his tenacity. But above all, it also reflects the indifference and forgiving attitude of Israeli society. And the fact that of all the grave details in the Tennenbaum case, people got excited this week over a minor issue - Sharon's old acquaintance with a retired father-in-law - shows that the image of Sharon's power has been shattered, that he is now fair game, politically. The prime minister, wearing the costume of the old Arik Sharon, was exposed as a lumbering old man incapable of providing solid explanations for his actions or obtaining support either in Washington, the cabinet, his party or from the public. The end of his government looked closer than ever this week - and with it, as though incidentally, Sharon's talk about disengagement from the Gaza Strip.
Lucrative lectures
Last year, a fellow named Tommy - not Lapid, Franks - did a lot to improve Israel's strategic situation. General Tommy Franks, an ordinary soldier who rose to greatness, from bland artilleryman to bland military leadership, was the commander of the American campaign against Iraq last year, his direct superiors being President George Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
After the victory in Baghdad, Franks declined Rumsfeld's offer to remain in the military as chief of the army. He's almost 59, and unlike the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, who this week celebrated his 62nd birthday (a mere child, Rumsfeld, a decade his senior, teased him), Franks hurried to take advantage of the rest of his life as a civilian.
Next week Franks will be visiting Israel as the guest of Sentry, an Israeli-American commercial initiative in security and technology, one of whose partners is a former Israel Air Force commander, Major General (res.) Eitan Ben Eliahu. At the latter's request, Franks will give a talk in Herzliya. Since leaving the army last August, Franks has not made any exciting statements; he's saving them for his memoirs, which promise to be as dry as he is. He has given only one extensive interview, to the journal "Cigar Aficionado," a monthly devoted to just what its name suggests. Franks told the magazine that he is not politically affiliated, but praised Bush highly as the commander in chief.
Franks' support for the president - who comes from the same Texas town as he does - will carry weight in Florida, where he lives now. He made only one visceral remark in the interview, when he said that he's apprehensive that a terrorist attack on the United States using weapons of mass destruction will induce the American people to forgo their constitutional regime in favor of a military government. The comment was quoted and forgotten. Retired generals aren't all that important in America, and Franks is far from carrying the public weight of Dwight Eisenhower, Colin Powell or even Wesley Clark.
Franks' public appearances are marketed by the Washington Speakers Bureau, an agency that is based in nearby Alexandria, Virginia. It also represents Jimmy Carter, former secretary of state James Baker and various cabinet secretaries, senators, basketball players and business experts. Its big rival is the older Harry Walker Agency, which represents Bill Clinton and many others. The Walker Agency was recently pleased to announce a new acquisition, Shimon Peres, "twice elected Israeli prime minister [and] Nobel Peace Prize winner," In fact, Peres was elected only once at the ballot box, but the agency also counts the ratification of his government by the Knesset following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.
The Washington Speakers Bureau is proud of an equally high-class commodity, Benjamin Netanyahu. He is available for lectures on "Sources of Stability and Instability in the 21st Century," "Ensuring Prosperity in the Information Age and High-Tech Societies," "Securing the Jewish Future" and "Leadership and Values." Regarding the last item, the impresario notes temptingly, Netanyahu will explain "how to beat bureaucracies" and "how to cope with solitude." As a come-on for those interested in lectures by Netanyahu, the agency's Web site includes a video clip showing the "world leader, champion of peace, businessman and diplomat" slicing the air with his hands, sparring with space, furrowing his brow and intertwining his fingers.
Netanyahu's fee, it's hinted, is in the same range as that of Franks, meaning $40,000 or more per talk, though the amount is not officially published. For details, contact the agency - but this week the agency did not respond to a contact. The finance minister's media adviser was surprised to hear that Netanyahu appears not only on the general list of speakers but also among the 10 most requested speakers in the past year. Since he returned to the government a year and a quarter ago, the spokesman said in Netanyahu's name, he has stopped giving talks for a fee.
As compensation of sorts, in Fee Code 3 (between $10,000 and $15,000 a talk) the Washington Speakers Bureau lists, for American suckers, Arnon Perlman, Sharon's former spokesman. Perlman will give "an eye-opening presentation," the agency promises, because he was there behind closed doors with Sharon and will provide "an intimate look" at the prime minister, and "explores what makes his personality and ideology enduringly popular." For 10 grand or 10.5 that's a real bargain, because "amid a whirlwind of difficulties" - put it into Hebrew and it invokes the marching song of the pre-state Palmach commandos - "Perlman made a name for himself as a calming influence on the nation."
