Responsibility, beyond the numbers

The most emotionally charged fight in town got underway on Monday: the Israel Defense Forces vs. the Locker Commission and Finance Ministry, Round One, no holds barred.

The public, even among those taking a real interest, will struggle to make sense of the figures with which it will be bombarded. Contradictory numbers over the scope of the army's budget and the number of retirees, differing commentaries about the significance of new plans that take a hard stance on pensions for career officers, and primarily, draconian threats over what will happen if ... : What will happen to the national budget if the Locker plan is not adopted (the Finance Ministry's position)? And what will happen to our security if, heaven forbid, this plan is preferred over the army's own multi-year plan (the IDF's position)-

In this fight there is no single, absolute truth. But it is lacking the most important thing: responsibility. At the end of the day, who is ultimately charged with responsibility, and what tools has he been given to fulfill that responsibility? The State of Israel has charged the IDF chief of staff with responsibility for its security. He is the one being measured 24/7, even when everyone else is exhausted by the summer heat or vacationing in Greece, and he is the one who will pay the price of failure. He cannot be sent into this most real of fights with no ammunition: money, resources, and manpower.

While the IDF is far from being perfect and there is quite a lot that needs fixing, it is approaching this fight with clean hands. The plan it has formulated provides an answer to the challenges (security-related and financial), contends earnestly with the problem (the number of career officers and the retirement age), and even takes risks (under the controversial assumption that in the coming years Israel's qualitative edge will be large enough to enable it to cope with any threat).

The Locker Commission, on the other hand, is serving a half-baked pie. One cannot truly deal with the defense budget without first addressing the national security threats and what they mean. The budget is simply a byproduct of these threats, but focusing only on this aspect is like building a high rise from the third floor. The Locker Commission's mandate, however, did not include political or even lower national considerations, such as the need to separate the IDF's budget from the Defense Ministry's budget, which would remove from the army's back the expensive hump of a ministry rich in manpower and resources.

Without any of this, Locker took the easy target: the career officers. The IDF will say the career officers don't have a commission fighting on their behalf. The Finance Ministry will reply that Locker is the IDF's own flesh and blood, and if he is making this recommendation then he probably knows what he's talking about. The army will answer back the Finance Ministry leaked the report to create a hostile public atmosphere against the IDF. The Finance Ministry will respond that the IDF is opposing an appointed commission and acting undemocratically.

Here, too, there is no absolute truth, but there is responsibility, and in this case, the government's responsibility, mostly belonging to the prime minister. It is his duty to not only step in between the commission he established and the chief of staff he appointed, but mainly to restore order, determine a clear working framework for the IDF and stop the fight before it goes into a second round. He needs to do this to prevent the greatest threat facing us: a war among the Jews.

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