Defense Minister Yoav Gallant's staff turned to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office to coordinate a meeting regarding "cohesion problems in the IDF" and the tangible fear of harming the IDF’s operational capacity amid the increasing retirement of hundreds of reservists from active service and volunteering.
Four days have passed and no date has been set for the meeting thus far, even though Defense Ministry officials and senior officials in the IDF expect increasing involvement from the Prime Minister on the issue.
If the meeting in question is indeed held, Gallant is expected to present Netanyahu with the army's data and the generals' assessments for the coming period.
“We have reached a dangerous line”
A senior security official said that "despite protests and statements in the media, we are obliged to maintain a high level of credibility when we report data. When we raise a red flag, they will believe us that we have reached a dangerous line. We are already saying clearly - there are cohesion problems in the IDF. The problem is already here, though this does not prevent us from performing routine tasks."
On Sunday, Defense Minister Galant convened Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and senior generals at the IDF General Staff, including the head of the Operations Division General Oded Basiuk, the head of the ACA General Yaniv Asur, Air Force Commander General Tomer Bar, Navy Commander General David Salma and the head of Military Intelligence General Aharon Haliva. Gallant summoned the military leaders in order to hear from them reviews of what is happening in the army units in the shadow of the growing protest against the legal revolution led by the government.
The Chief of Staff and the generals warned that the IDF is a mirror of Israeli society in its nuances, therefore they emphasize that problems of cohesion in the units already exist, the internal discourse on the issues on the agenda may lead to conflict and friction within the army as the process progresses and that they expect more reservists to take part in the protest against the legislative process.
Sources within the army estimate that in the coming week the number of retiring reservists may reach about a thousand. Accordingly, the Chief of Staff informed the Minister of Defense that he intends to make adjustments and changes in the IDF's multi-year plan in order to bridge cohesion problems and deal with the consequences that a protest in Israeli society will cause in the ranks of the army.