Ahead of Sunday's dramatic cabinet meeting over the planned 4 billion shekel ($1.1 billion) cut to the defense budget, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon released a photo of himself from Saturday's Wheels of Hope race, held in the Lower Galilee region by Etgarim, an Israeli nonprofit organization whose mission is to help integrate special-needs teens in the Israel Defense Forces. Ya'alon peddled a handcycle across 55 kilometers (34 miles), as if to illustrates that the effort to protect the defense establishment's special needs from the looming budget cuts is going to be that much harder. There is no question that the cuts are necessary. If there is anyone who knows how to reduce the defense forces' outrageous pension arrangements or the cost of rehabilitation, then they should come forward and outline their plan, and the sooner the better. The IDF is also willing to do away with certain units, although that would entail spending money rather than saving it for the first year. There is no market for old tanks, and all the military can do is deploy them in the Tze'elim Base training facility. At Ya'alon's request, the government's debate on the defense budget will focus on future projects and not just on money. Which future cyber warfare or intelligence project would the government vote to defer or cancel? And what would it be worth? This debate brings me back to the time I spent on the northern border during the 2006 Second Lebanon War, and the difficult questions that arose in its wake: What happened to the residents of Moshav Zar'it, a stones-throw away from where IDF soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were abducted by Hezbollah, in the incident that sparked the war? Or to Kiryat Shmona, which was under constant fire? What was life like in Maroun al-Ras in the years that followed what was the first serious ground battle of the war and where the IDF suffered heavy casualties? Ya'alon will remember. At the time, he hurried back from a seminar in the United States to give a baffled military some advice, but then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz avoided meeting the former chief of staff, who knew better than most the true cost of defense cuts. Current IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz will also remember. We watched together, in real-time, how an armored division fought and fumbled the crossing of the Saluki River on the last Saturday of the war. Perhaps it was because the IDF did not listen to Ya'alon. Ya'alon will find himself under pressure by his peers on Sunday, as they feel that whatever is taken from him will ease the pressure off of their ministries' budgets, but he must beware of far-reaching compromises and promises. Former IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi was quick to accept the Brodet committee's outline for a 10-year budget plan for the military following the defeat in Lebanon -- the long-term commitment was enticing -- but the plan fizzled into nothing before the ink on its papers was even dry. Ya'alon is once again being offered a perennial budget, but its chances of becoming a reality are slim. Where would such cuts lead Israel? To dispense with a submarine? With stealth aircraft? With Israeli-made missiles? Those who would pull the wool over his eyes are not talking about giving anything up -- they are suggesting a different appropriation of funds. With that kind of appropriation, we would not have had Iron Dome during Operation Pillar of Defense. It's true -- an elderly woman lying in a bed in a hospital corridor or students crammed into a classroom make for a bad photo op, while on the other hand, there is no image that can rattle public opinion when it comes to pulling intelligence countermeasures from an enemy state. The public does not know what is weighing so heavily on Ya'alon and Gantz's minds. But they do, and they should not hesitate to just say no.
