Israel’s security apparatus has requested an additional 11 billion shekels in wake of Operation Protective Edge. In my opinion, Protective Edge proved that the security budget actually undermines our security.
Let me explain.
What was the Hamas’s budget during this war? A fraction of Israel’s. Maybe one percent. So, if everything depended on money, how is it that such a huge monetary gap in our favor did not lead to a resounding Israeli victory – quick, simple, and without fatalities?
The reason we did not win in Gaza has nothing to do with money. We did not win because we are still captive to the concept of the two state solution. Since the Oslo Accords, this concept has spawned an entire “peace industry” – careers in politics, economics, academia, media, and justice, international funds, and a high-cultural life. Only politically-correct and one-dimensional thinking is allowed. In short, what we have is a true dictatorship.
Thinking out of the box built by the Oslo and two-state architects has become a death trap for anyone wishing to advance in Israel’s public service. It is not so pleasant to talk about, but this mental dictatorship has completely conquered Israel’s military leadership. An aspiring officer cannot progress past a certain rank if he does not toe the line. The result is that when it is necessary to scare the cabinet away from victory in Gaza, the Chief of Staff presents a slideshow demonstrating that conquering Gaza would take five years.
Now back to the military budget. In essence Israel’s military has forgotten what the word “victory” means. And yet, its “job” is to provide security. So how does its job? By building fences, anti-missile systems, warning bombs for enemy civilians, anti-tunnel systems, etc. In short, it exchanges ideology for technology.
The increased security budget is not meant to preserve our safety. The budget – beside the widespread corruption that it funds (government-funded pensions and the like) – is meant to preserve… the Oslo mentality.
The problem is that an erroneous idea is like a balloon. You can pour more and more money into it (Oslo has cost us close to one trillion shekels to date), but, ultimately, like the Maginot Line, it will collapse – leaving us without security and without money.
Thus, today’s security budget undermines our security. The more money we pour into it, the more the defense apparatus will be able to evade its responsibility to defend us and not the Oslo mentality. Our defense problem is conceptual – not monetary.
