"Amid the Fighting in Gaza, the Bitter War Between Netanyahu and Israel's Generals Is Intensifying" by Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz, June 17, 2024.

 "Netanyahu and the IDF Top Brass Fight Over Gaza Cease-fire While Spiraling Towards Total War With Hezbollah" by Amos Harel, Haaretz, June 16, 2024.

Anshel Pfeffer’s analysis draws on the time-tested framework of civil-military relations. First and foremost, there is the conflict between the prime minister and his generals. Netanyahu is right to insist on the primacy of civilian political control of the army, but he has apparently never learned the value of taking counsel from his generals. Worse, he is resorting to using a stab-in-the-back conspiracy theory about the generals. People familiar with fascist takeovers will get very uncomfortable with this rhetoric.

Besides the conflict between the civilian and military leadership, there is the army itself, the IDF, whose ranks include conscripts and men and women called back because of their obligations in the reserves. There might be people who escape military service in Israel, but its army is more closely linked to civilian society than any in countries that use all-volunteer professional militaries. That places limits on how irresponsibly it can be used.

Then there is the mess of a war itself. Setting aside the humanitarian crisis and how the atrocities will scar the soldiers called to perpetrate them, there is the prime minister’s narrow strategic vision. He and his government know how to order killing, but they have apparently forgotten how asymmetrical warfare works. That, or they think such conflict requires more blood—an attitude that fits very well with the aggrieved mentalities of stab-in-the-back “victims” (read: leaders in need of scapegoats to take the blame off themselves). In any case, Amos Harel’s focus on certain military details—from the fighting in Gaza to the growing threat posed by Hezbollah in the north—reads well with the other article. Taken together, they show a fraught mess largely of Netanyahu’s own making.

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