Don't skimp on Iron Dome batteries
If Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon approves a defense budget of 57 billion shekels ($15.5 billion), the defense establishment will actually only have 26 billion shekels ($7 billion) to spend on military training and acquisitions. Basically, the Defense ministry now has the same sum at its disposal as last year, when 52 billion shekels ($14.1 billion) were allotted.
This is despite the fact that Ya'alon agreed to budget cuts over the last two years on the assumption that the ministry would be compensated with a budget increase later.
Based on this assumption, Ya'alon racked up a 3 billion shekel debt ($815 million) to weapons-makers Rafael and Elbit. Now he has no choice but to pay up. Therefore, any budget increase will now go to paying off the debt, and the armored vehicles that the Israel Defense Forces needs will have to be purchased with discretion, and they will be manufactured abroad, and the government will start charging the IDF property taxes as though the army was a privately owned business.
The reason the defense budget looks so enormous is because it includes pension benefits and other such troublesome clauses. No other government ministry provides the kinds of benefits to its retirees that the Defense Ministry does.
In actuality, the funds left over in the defense budget after all the extras are accounted for amount to less than the Education or Health Ministry budgets. So before the demagogues rise up in arms, they had better check the facts.
The report compiled by the Brodet Commission (comprising recommendations on streamlining the defense budget) has been tossed aside. The government has not kept its promise. Now there is a new report being compiled by Harel Locker. So what? It, too, will be ignored.
It is important to keep in mind that the IDF reserves units have not trained in a long time; that just before the latest Gaza campaign, Israel Air Force pilots were grounded due to budget constraints, much to the delight of Israel's enemies; that Israel would have been lost without the protection of its many Iron Dome batteries, which allowed the country's economy to continue without a hitch for the full 50 days of fighting -- how much is that worth to the national budget?
After the defeat of the Second Lebanon War in 2006, the general sense was that a 10-year plan was in order. The reality now is that it is impossible to even plan a year ahead, unless you rely entirely on private fundraising. The budget is nothing more than a feeble recommendation. Its stipulations will quickly be trampled while the combat units of the IDF are forced out of commission. This happened in 2014 and it will happen again in 2015, and this debilitating obstacle from year to year is worse than bad.
What is the alternative? Skimp on Iron Dome batteries? Slow down the development of the David's Sling missile defense system? Even the mantra that we keep hearing -- that the military threat facing Israel is declining -- is unfounded. Who says that a stable regime and organized military in Syria poses more of a threat than the terror organizations trying to gain control over it?
This week I caught a glimpse of what was happening in the Quneitra region. It is quiet and picturesque there, and even the Israeli hospital that treats wounded Syrians is inactive most of the time. But still, anyone who travels to the area and looks out into the valley will certainly not get the feeling that the defense budget should be cut.
It is true that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted that there will be extras added to the budget. We also have the experience of the past to rely on. But still, the IDF and Rafael and the Israeli factories that manufacture tanks and armored vehicles are not Israel's step-children and they should not be treated like beggars.
