Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Time for Peretz to go

One of the greatest disappointments of the present Israeli govt. has been Amir Peretz. In my earlier blogs, I anticipated that Peretz as a civilian and claimed peacenik would provide a fresh approach the IDF. He hasn't. He has effectively been sidelined. The IDF, the govt and the public don't take him seriously. The IDF do what they please regardless of what Peretz thinks.

Peretz is a good man but the job is way above him. Unfortunately, in Israel you need someone with real military experience in the role. Someone, who can outsmart the generals.

Judging from the cabinet decision, Israel is heading towards another "operation defensive shield" but this time in Gaza. Whilst the cabinet did not authorise such an operation as yet, they have signalled an intention to escalate Israel's response with the attacking of Hamas institutions, military or not. Inevitably, this will lead to more futile response and counter-responses before a large scale operation is ordered.

Israel like in the early days of the recent Lebanon war is dismissing as per normal any diplomatic route suggested. Ironically, it will only take an invasion of Gaza, resulting in large scale Pal. casualties, where again the problem of Kassams will not be solved, before a diplomatic option will be considered by Israel, exactly like in Lebanon. Unfortunately, this govt. believes in exhausting every military option before considering a diplomatic option rather then the other way around.

Peretz needs to go and go now. My own suggestion is that Ami Ayaalon, the former Shin Bet Head and Labor MK should be defence minister. He is a decent man, has a military background but thinks outside the conventional IDF General Staff way of thinking. His views in short are far more credible then Peretz.

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