The IDF: We’re broke, send more money

The IDF has overspent its budget by nine million NIS, and has the temerity to demand more money

The IDF announced yesterday (Hebrew) that it faces a deficit of NIS 5.2 billion, which it somehow misplaced. Actually, the deficit is considerably larger – some nine billion (9,000,000,000) NIS, about USD 2.4 billion  – but it owes 5.2 billion to the military industry, and, given it has considerable clout in the Knesset, it figures it’ll get it back somehow.

A significant part of the expenses termed “unexpected” by the IDF were, according to it, expenses for defense of the home front. Among these, it named the Iron Dome and Hetz systems, which it claims cost some NIS 18 billion. This is strange: Iron Dome was supposed to cost much less (we were told in early 2010 it would only cost a billion). Can the Hetz system cost 17 billion? Or can it be that the IDF is fiddling with the numbers, hoping no one notices?

Both are possible. There is an interesting point here. Suddenly, Iron Dome turns into a homeland defense measure – after the IDF explicitly told us (Hebrew) it intends to use the system to defend its own bases, and that the civilians can die off, as far as it cares. Note that the IDF – still calling itself “Israel Defense Forces” after all these years – saying implicitly that the defense of the Israeli population is an unwanted distraction which it ought not to consider as part of its budget.

Two days ago we received yet another demonstration of the IDF’s priorities. Someone fired rockets from Lebanon into Israel. Despite the fact that an early warning system was installed, there was no warning. Why? Because the IDF decided to save some bucks at the public’s expense (Hebrew), that’s why. Which means that as far as the green gravy train is concerned, not much has changed since the Second Lebanon War. Then we learned that the army has privatized (!) the alarm systems, and that factories that did not pay it did not hear the alarm, and had to settle for hearing the rockets instead. As if they did not already fund the IDF by paying their taxes.

Meanwhile, the IDF speedily announced how much it cares about the citizens who fund it and feed by informing us it is freezing the placement of Hetz and Iron Dome batteries, as well as the construction of the Separation Barrier. All these projects have one thing in common – they’re intended to defend civilians, so the IDF parts with them easily enough. Disbanding two armor divisions, whose main function is the fantasy of yet another titanic tank battle in the Golan, like in the good ol’ days when we actually won wars – fugget about it. Dismantling two F-16 squadrons, whose main employment is sonic booms over Gaza – likely the most outrageous waste in the sodden annals of military expenses – is not even to be thought of. But defending the civilians? That’s negligible.

Oh, and that Separation Barrier? The IDF has been building it since 2003, and is building it in the most inefficient manner, trying to grab as much Palestinian land as it can justify to the courts. This has been going for eight years, and the waste is unimaginable, with the price of the barrier rising from to year, just as the date of its completion is postponed time and time again. Hey, what do you want? These are just public funds. Who cares?

The IDF's main enemy for 25 years. Ambulance under gas attack in Bil'in (Photo: Yossi Gurvitz)
The IDF's main enemy for 25 years. Ambulance under gas attack in Bil'in (Photo: Yossi Gurvitz)

So now, after wasting nine billions more than we allowed it to, the IDF comes to us, beret in hand, demanding more. And if we don’t cough up the money, it threatens, it will not have enough funds to call up reserves for yet another operation in Gaza. Truth be told, thank goodness. Given the IDF’s inefficiency, given that its specialty is unbridled fire intended to keep its soldiers from risk (and failing – half of the IDF’s casualties in Cast Lead were the result of friendly fire), and given that its operations brought us little in the way of military achievements but caused plenty of civilian deaths and massive diplomatic damage – it’s a good thing it cannot afford to leave its barracks.

It’s worth noting that the IDF is using the same method as that of the Israeli oligarchs who demand their investors “get a haircut” and forget about getting back their loans: We screwed you good and hard, we basically stole your money, but if you don’t give it up, we’ll mess you up even more. In civilian terms, the IDF is bankrupt, but unwilling to take orders from its creditors. It knows best and it wants to keep controlling its own spending – that is, it wants a blank cheque to keep on wasting.

We should not stand for this. If the IDF wants another shnekel beyond its budget – much of it goes for salaries and pensions, not proper military expenses – someone should put it on a diet. And it should be an outside agency, because the IDF certainly can’t do it itself.

We should be reminded, again, that Israel’s military expenses grow in inverse proportion to the number of threats it faces. Iraq, which was considered a major enemy, was taken out of the game in 2003 and in fact was not likely a threat after 1991 – but it served as a nice scarecrow for the IDF. The Syrian army is also hors de combat, given the uprising in Syria over the last six months. The IDF keeps scaring us with an Islamic coup d’etat in Egypt; even should such an event take place, it would do enormous damage to the Egyptian military, whose officers are devoted to the junta which took over Egypt in 1952. Should Egypt go to war with Israel, it will do so with a very mediocre army – and will immediately lose all the funds it receives from the US. The IDF faces Islamic militias in the north and south, and Iran is out there – but it is irrelevant to the vast majority of IDF operations. Jordan is a steady ally – at least, so long as our yahoos don’t try to make their “Jordan is Palestine” fantasies reality. We are left, then, with the occupation.

The IDF’s budget for 2011 was over NIS 50 billion. It tried, and surprisingly failed, to lie its way to another 620 million (Hebrew). Now it tells us it spent 18% more than we allowed it to. Every single shekel the IDF stole from the public treasury is a shekel that won’t fund a school, won’t fund a hospital, won’t fund a university, won’t fund public housing – and we get a very shabby product in the deal. It’s time this corruption ends and the people responsible be punished, severely and publicly. Or this will go on, time and time again. In a normal country, a defense minister pulling such a stunt would be sent immediately home. We do not live in a normal country, of course, and our ministers are appointed in a semi-feudal system. But if we don’t insist on seeing the heads of the Director General of the Defense Ministry and the officer in charge of IDF budget roll, we are losers who deserve whatever the IDF have in store. It’s time to say the IDF has become too large for Israel, a parasite threatening its social cohesion.