Power struggle intensifies within Israeli occupation

• 

The Israeli internal arena has since Monday afternoon been occupied with the heated phone call that took place on Thursday between Israeli Chief of the General Staff Aviv Kochavi and Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, with Israeli media revealing various details about the phone call and comments about it.

The Israeli Walla! website quoted a senior official familiar with the matter as saying that Kochavi initiated the phone call, expressing his concern to Netanyahu about how the undermining of the Israeli occupation forces and their troops.

"The call was not nice," Israeli Channel 13 military affairs commentator Or Heller said. Kochavi "was nervous", and he asked Netanyahu why he was refraining from voicing his support for the Israeli army, asking him not to take any decision or adopt any legislation related to the Israeli army and its authorities before hearing out the army's professional stance on it.

During the call, Israeli Channel 12 political affairs commentator Yaron Abraham said, "the agreed-upon changes break the chain of command and heavily hurts the sovereignty of the Central Command chief, as well as the Israeli army's responsibility over the West Bank."

Kochavi's red line

Israeli Yedioth Ahronoth military affairs commentator Yossi Yehoshua noted that Kochavi asked the PM-designate for clarifications regarding powers taken from the IOF and handed to Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben-Gvir and Religious Zionist Party leader Bezalel Smotrich, demanding that he makes a public address on the matter.

Kochavi asked outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Security Minister Benny Gantz's permission before calling Netanyahu, Yehoshua added.

The call was not aimed at appeasing Netanyahu just because it came from Kochavi, he stressed, noting that the latter drew a clear red line before Netanyahu, reminding that "Kochavi, who only has three weeks left in office, decided not to remain silent after he saw Ben-Gvir and Smotrich trying, step by step, to take over a part of the army that he is in charge of.

Meanwhile, touching on the decision to appoint Ben-Gvir as occupation Police Minister, former Israeli occupation Chief of Staff and MK Gadi Eisenkot said on his Facebook page, "We were informed this morning that MK Ben-Gvir will be appointed Minister of National Security. It is a sad joke at the expense of the citizens of Israel."

"Kochavi could have left his successor, Herzi Halevi, the task of dealing with the incoming government's attempts at changing the Israeli army's relations at the political level while undermining its powers and taking over strategic positions within it, including subjecting the civil administration to Smotrich and the Israeli Border Police to Ben-Gvir," Yehushua added. "All these steps were taken without anyone taking with the army's administration."

Not everything to be realized

After news came out about the call, the pro-Netanyahu Israeli Hayom said the latter told Kochavi that not everything the coalition accords said would be realized, which Likud MK David Bitan had publicly announced before the call was announced to the public.

Not all agreements will be fulfilled, Bitan said, noting that this included the occupied territories in the West Bank, adding that "Smotrich was incapable of changing the status-quo of building in the settlements."

Meanwhile, incoming Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attacked Kochavi, going to Twitter to say that the Chief of the General Staff was introducing flagrant politicization into the Israeli occupation forces.

"Whoever wants to conserve the army as a unified force for the people outside of the public must enact a law prohibiting Chiefs of Staff from going into politics for at least 10 years after their tenure is over," Smotrich wrote.

Threatening Kochavi dangerous

Gantz responded to Smotrich by saying that the Chief of the General Staff was not a "rookie soldier" and that attempting to threaten him was "worrying" and "dangerous".

Israeli Channel 12 military affairs correspondent Nir Dvori reported that the Israeli occupation forces were highly worried about taking the power of appointing the head of the Military Rabbinate from the hands of the Chief of the General Staff, as this undermines the position of the chief.

"The chief military rabbi will be appointed by a committee headed by the chief Sephardi rabbi and composed of five rabbis, a politician, and an officer: a cabinet representative, a yeshiva director, two other representatives of yeshivot, the commander of the army's manpower division, and the outgoing military rabbi," a bill that came out a few days ago says.

In turn, Haaretz military affairs analyst Amos Harel expressed his view that the proposed amendments to the structure of the Israel occupation forces would "undermine the chain of command in the Israeli army" and that "the concessions that Netanyahu is offering Smotrich and Ben-Gvir would highly affect the Israeli army's performance" in the occupied Palestinian territories.

However, divisions have emerged between the Likud and the Religious Zionism party, as the latter's MKs are calling for party leader Bezalel Smotrich to assume the position of the Israeli occupation's Security Minister so that the party can influence policy related to the occupied West Bank, more than half of which is completely under Israeli military control. At the same time, the Likud Party is trying to keep this high office for themselves.

Last week, Israeli media warned that "Benjamin Netanyahu is weakening the Israeli army by extracting part of its power in favor of settlers," as it referenced Knesset Member Ben-Gvir's plan to "remove the border guard companies from the Central Command and direct them to Al-Naqab."

Additionally, a proposed bill among the powers within the Israeli coalition tasked with forming a cabinet has already sparked a debate within the Israeli occupation forces, which Israeli media said Saturday could cause a "revolution" within the Israeli military establishment.

"The coalition's agreements seek to subject the position of the chief military rabbi of the army to the authority of the Israeli rabbinic rather than the army," Israeli media clarified.

Additionally, based on the coalition's agreements, "the Knesset will enact a law bolstering the position of the chief military rabbi by ratifying his position by law by specifying his appointment and resignation," Israeli media added.

Schism has IOF in chokehold

Israeli media is wondering about where the IOF is heading as it crumbles under the weight of the political divide that has it in a chokehold after an Israeli Channel 13 report entitled "The Israeli Army in a Minefield of Domestic Politics" said: "the Israeli military, a symbol of Israeli unity, is approaching a crossroad."

Meanwhile, Brigadier General (res.) Amir Avivi said there is a certain movement within the Israeli occupation to target the IOF and undermine its so-called "legitimacy", noting that "the military is under attack when it should be outside politics."

Rabbis from the Religious Zionism Party called on their students to refuse to serve in the Armored Corps of the Israeli occupation forces in objection to "Tel Aviv" integrating three female Israeli soldiers into a military training course in which religious soldiers are participating, bringing to the foreground the existing issues and strain between religious and secular soldiers within the IOF, once again raising the issue of dual loyalty among its ranks.

"Rabbis in the military called on their students not to serve in the armored corps in protest against the inclusion of women in the training course," Israeli media said.

Israeli analysts underlined that the dangers of the calls for disobedience do not stem from their contents or context, but rather from the parties making the calls in the first place and the negative repercussions they are causing.