Such cynical bravado may fire up the troops in wartime. But as Israel struggles to navigate the postwar interregnum, it also makes Halutz, now the military’s chief of staff, an attractive scapegoat for the Israeli Defense Forces’ apparent failures in Lebanon. As Israeli soldiers stream home, some reservists and politicians, angry over tactical snafus and supply shortages, are calling for Halutz’s resignation. Others complain that the former fighter pilot’s dogged reliance on air power proved virtually useless against Hizbullah’s mobile 122mm Katyushas. In a poll released late last week by Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, more than half those questioned–54 percent–said they thought Halutz should resign. Last week even the general, seldom one to admit his own mistakes, acknowledged the war plan had flaws. “We have to proceed to a meaningful examination of the successes and the errors,” Halutz wrote in a letter to his troops.
Some of the most biting criticisms have come from Halutz’s own men, who complain that the needs of ground troops were ignored in the campaign. “The whole way of resupply was really messed up,” says Alon Gelnik, an infantryman from Israel’s Nahal brigade, which fought Hizbullah guerrillas in Lebanon’s southern villages. “We ran out of water. We forgot to bring food. For a couple of days, we only had a roll of bread. It was the worst experience of my life.”
More troubling: rights groups have sharply criticized Halutz’s campaign for its disproportionate bombing and use of indiscriminate munitions like cluster bombs. Washington has reportedly begun an investigation into whether Israel used U.S. cluster bombs against civilian targets. And last week Amnesty International issued a scathing report accusing Israel of destroying Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure, implying that individual commanders could be charged with war crimes. In the past, Halutz has generally shrugged off warnings that he could be arrested and tried on such charges abroad. “I’m sorry to disappoint the Belgians, but of all the places in the world, I never had the particular intention of going to their country,” he told an interviewer from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in 2002. Asked recently what he thought about calls for a commission of inquiry into the conduct of this war, Halutz replied flatly, “I don’t care.”
Former military and intelligence officers who have worked closely with Halutz insist caricaturing the general for his thick-skinned indifference is too facile. “He doesn’t see everything through the rifle,” says one former Israeli intelligence official, who requested anonymity in order to speak frankly about a colleague. During the intifada, Halutz pushed hard to integrate the operations of his Air Force and Israel’s domestic spy agency, the Shin Bet. In practice, that meant ceding his precious Air Force resources–spy drones, for instance–to Shin Bet control. Still, postwar blame games have a way of dimming past glories. Halutz has already weathered his share of “slight bumps” in this war’s aftermath. It’s anyone’s guess how long before the feeling passes.
