Maariv: The IDF lost about two divisions during the war and suffers from this serious and difficult problem

The Israeli Maariv newspaper spoke in a report by political writer Ben Caspit, about Israel waging a regional war on seven fronts, for more than a year, in which the Israeli army lost nearly two divisions, while it lacks thousands of soldiers, even before counting the number of dead and wounded.

In the midst of this, the government is passing a law that would perpetuate the evasion of a huge, growing sector (the Haredim) that doesn’t serve at all in the Israeli army.

At the same time, according to Ben Caspit, the Israeli cabinet is expanding regular service, greatly extending the number of days of reserve service per year, raising the age of exemption from the reserves, and eliminating existing exemptions, in measures that cause exhaustion, discontent, and a significant increase in the burden on the few who serve in the reserves, while the regulars groan under the ongoing burden.

While the report drew attention to these military losses, it pointed to the intertwined crises and successive losses that Israel is experiencing on the home front, politically and economically, in conjunction with its engagement in this regional war, the main cause of which is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s continued presence in office.

In the midst of this war, Netanyahu is replacing Defense Minister Yoav Galant, an experienced, reserve general who has been a member of the security establishment for four decades, with Minister Israel Katz, an inexperienced minister who has never held a security ministerial position, the report said, with these changes coming quickly, without a period of familiarization or training for the new minister, and on the eve of a powerful, perhaps unprecedented, Iranian attack on Israel.

All this is happening at a time when the economic situation is rapidly deteriorating, with the credit rating expected to be downgraded for the third time at any moment, while the deficit is skyrocketing, and the Ministry of Finance is recommending the closure of 5 government ministries due to the financial crisis.

Will these measures improve or worsen Israel’s situation?

Are they beneficial or harmful to it?

The writer answers that there is no respectable person in Israel or in the world who doesn’t answer these questions, and that they are simple, “these actions make Israel’s situation worse, meaning that the Israeli government is acting against Israel in a time of war”.

“All of this happened for one simple reason,” he added, “which is to perpetuate and expand Netanyahu’s control over Israel,” noting that “allowing him to continue carrying out actions of this kind, which cause Israel permanent, strategic, and sometimes irreversible damage,” also has a simple and inevitable result, “Netanyahu is a prime minister who does the opposite of the government he heads”.

In this context, he pointed out that the Israeli Channel 13 asked a question in a poll this week, in the following form, about whether Netanyahu “endangers Israel’s security in light of the security scandals,” with 52% answering in the affirmative, and only 7% in the negative.

Accordingly, the article concluded that one doesn’t need security issues to understand that there is a prime minister whose continued presence in office will cause strategic harm to Israel and its future.