Last update - 00:00 24/11/2006
Needed: a defense minister
By Haaretz Editorial
When the residents of Sderot have 20 seconds' warning before a Qassam rocket lands on their head, and the State of Israel has a limited period before nuclear weapons are in the hands of a country that calls for its destruction, the tenure of a defense minister who is not sufficiently knowledgeable about defense affairs is an unacceptable luxury. The position is admittedly political, and the minister's oversight of the defense establishment is expected to be civilian in nature, but the prior knowledge necessary to begin this task is too extensive for a novice. The pace of decision-making on security matters in Israel does not allow anyone, no matter how sharp, to learn on the job. This feeling accompanied the assignment of the defense portfolio to Amir Peretz, about half a year ago, and unfortunately, it has not proven false, from Lebanon to Gaza.
Peretz chose the post of defense minister for the sake of prestige. It was the second most important post in the coalition after the Finance Ministry, which was kept from him. There has never been a politician who has turned down a senior post that he knows nothing about and asked for a more junior position in an area in which he could excel. There is no other minister in the government who knows as much as Peretz about labor relations. Even the education portfolio, an area in which he could have initiated reforms in the employment of teachers, was not as respectable in his eyes as the defense portfolio.
Many previous defense ministers who had not held senior military ranks in the past - though not all of them - were endowed with understanding and experience in the fields of defense, strategy and foreign policy. Peretz did not specialize in these fields during his tenure as an MK, but nonetheless, until recently, he dismissed the possibility of appointing a deputy minister with defense experience.
The second Lebanon war is still being investigated, but it is clear to all that it was not conducted skillfully. The defense minister is in the middle, above the army's chief of staff and below the prime minister. To a certain extent, he is entitled to feel aggrieved, since the calls for Ehud Olmert and Dan Halutz to step down have not been heeded. But the political and public pressure to vacate his position has become unbearably heavy. Olmert's party colleagues are keeping quiet and are not rising up against him, perhaps because the prime minister has the authority to fire his ministers. But the Labor ministers are not worried about Peretz's response, and they will not resign from a government that will continue to hold a Knesset majority even without them merely in order to salvage his personal prestige.
Israel's war did not end with the Lebanon campaign. Great dangers lie ahead, and there is also a real need to find paths of peace. This task appears to be too great for Olmert and Peretz. The only chance for this government to succeed lies in making personnel changes at the top and putting together a group of ministers that can work harmoniously together. A veteran and responsible party like Labor ought to know how to make changes in its team of ministers in such a way that Peretz could continue to lead the peace camp, as he often says, while someone else would head the Defense Ministry - someone who would work skillfully to rehabilitate the army, to prepare it for critical future trials and to restore public confidence in it.