Getting a Handle on Israel’s Defense Budget

A Small Step Towards Civilian Control

Changes take time in democracies and patience is usually necessary.   As a conservative person I guess I can’t complain by the slow pace of change – even when that change is necessary.

The current war is starting to bring one change that ought to have been done years ago and that is civilian control of the IDF.   While the General Staff and the Chief of the General Staff are appointed by the Defense Minister and the Chief is approved by the government as a whole, it is usually a fixed game between 2 or 3 very similar people.   And these people have all been appointed by their predecessors.   The Defense Minister itself has over the past few decades been an army lifer- often a former Chief of the General Staff. 

It was not always that way. Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion took the Defense portfolio for himself which makes sense in a parliamentary democracy structured like Israel’s where each Minister in the government is essentially autonomous.  The power that the PM has over his ministers is to fire them or demote them, but that is easier said than done.   If the minister is of his own party, then it is a bit easier but not if that minister has power within the party or if he or she is a favorite of the media or legal establishment.  

If the said minister is a member of a coalition party the PM will need permission from the head of the party or the party will pull out of the coalition, weakening it.   If the minister is in fact the head of the party, it is nearly impossible to get rid of him.

Ben-Gurion realized this and decided that Defense was too important to leave to party politics.  This “tradition” lasted from 1948 until the leadup to the Six Day War in June, 1967.   Egyptian President Nasser said, in May of 1967 that “The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel.”   Levi Eshkol was the Prime Minister and he was a calm, laid back person which put the Israeli public and media into a panic.   Moshe Dayan the charismatic ex-General and war hero who was not in the government but in the breakaway (from the Labor Party – then called Mapai) RAFI Party, was called in to take over as Defense Minister (I highly recommend Michael Oren’s “Six Days of War” who describes this whole process and is very sympathetic to Eshkol).    Since then , there have been 18 Defense Ministers and, not including temporary appointments (usually the reigning PM until a full time person was brought in) there were just four who were not IDF lifers and who served for more than one year. Of those, only Shimon Peres and Moshe Arens could be said to be consequential.  Both Avigdor Lieberman and Naftali Bennet could have been consequential had they served longer.

Basically, since the Six Day War there has been only a few years when the IDF establishment and the Defense Minister were not one.   Since 1999 there has only been about 4 ½ years where the Defense Minister was not an ex-general.

This has manifested itself not only in military strategy and war planning (which led directly to the October 7 disaster)  but in the budget planning process, too.   Military needs deemed necessary by the General Staff was readily approved by the Defense Minister since he came from the same stock.  The government had little choice but to rubber stamp that since the General Staff had enough “reporters” in their pocket to cause a panic centered on the claim that “the government is abandoning the security of the country”  for political/financial or some other reason.  But this didn’t just have to do with the force structure of the IDF.  For years it seemed, the Chief of Staff would approve off budget pension enhancements to his favorite officers, which over the years cost billions of shekels.  This wholly illegal money grab was ignored for years until the Finance Ministry finally made noise over it.  When Benny Gantz was Defense Minister a few years ago he made it a priority, not to clamp down on this illegal activity (he could hardly do that since he did it while IDF Chief) but in making what was illegal, legal.  As a matter of fact, it was the one thing he threatened to leave the government over.

Sorry for the roundabout way of getting to my point, it is almost here.

In Israeli politics (all democratic politics, really) good things are often done by people with double motives.   In this case we are speaking of the current Finance Minister and resident bad boy, Bezalel Smutrich.   He is the leader of the Religious-Zionist party although most religious-Zionists vote for other parties.  He has been on a rant against the army since the weeks after October 7 and although many of his remarks have been correct, the fact that he makes personal attacks on the IDF Chief of Staff and others during a time of war, makes them unproductive at best, harmful at worst.   His main complaint really is the left wing tilt of the General Staff and their allegedly anti West Bank Jewish settlement views.  There has also been a legitimate claim over the years that there is a glass ceiling for Religious officers in the IDF but Smutrich often uses that, too  as part of personal attacks – meaning it does no good. 

But on the Defense budget issue, Smutrich was able to get together with the Finance Ministry professionals who have been dreaming of reigning in the Defense budget for years and the catalyst was the F-35 and F-16 deal signed with the US in the weeks after the start of the war.   This goes to the heart of the fight between the “small-smart army” crew on the one hand and the “large, ground troop” centric army on the other.  Smutrich wanted to stop budget discussions until a real review was done.   He was justified in this even if his motives were flawed. 

But Smutrich, who is attacked by the media no matter his views, even if they ostensibly agree with him, did not give up – as didn’t the Finance Ministry budget team (one of the most powerful bureaucratic teams in the country).  In exchange for the approval of the F-35 and F-16 deal (remember, the Finance Ministry signs the checks) the Defense Ministry agreed to form a committee (its always a committee) to examine the defense budget and to provide for proper auditing and transparency in the process.  This committee will be made up of two Finance Ministry officials, two from the Defense Ministry and two appointed by the Prime Minister.

This is not a radical reform in any sense of the word but it is a critical one and it will take time before it produces results but it is a start.  So, two cheers for Smutrich.

Next?    A new law forbidding anyone that sat on the General Staff from becoming Defense Minister.   We are a long way from that.