Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich left Thursday’s cabinet meeting in a huff and later tweeted, “The IDF High Command insists on not drawing lessons from their poor preparedness before October 7. The security establishment insists on continuing to behave arrogantly and recklessly toward anyone who dares to challenge its thinking. I will not be a partner in the construction of the next conceptzia.”
Smotrich noted a confrontation between himself and the IDF brass over budgets and protocol, which I will relay in a minute, but the crux of the clash of the titans between the Israeli Army and Bezalel Smotrich has to do with the Lockheed Martin F-35, the latest-generation stealth multirole combat aircraft designed for air superiority and strike missions, that comes with electronic warfare and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities.
The IDF brass and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant who failed to employ the already existing squadrons of F-35s and so many other US-made flying killing machines to stop a bunch of bloodthirsty pogromists from slaughtering in all the satanic ways that exist under God’s heaven – not a single IAF aircraft showed up for the entire massacre day on October 7 – those failed, shameless IDF brass and defense minister insist the future army must have even more F-35s. And McDonnell Douglas F-15s, too, can’t do without F-15s, an all-weather tactical fighter aircraft, that would also remain on the tarmac come the next pogrom, God forbid, should the same IDF commanders remain at the helm.
An official in the defense industry told Maariv about two weeks ago that “A small minister is blocking the convening of the procurement committee. We are in the last few hours remaining to implement the purchase of two F15 and F35 squadrons. If we don’t implement the procurement in the coming days, the Air Force will suffer.”
Do you see, as do I, that defense official as a little boy, pulling on his daddy’s pants, insisting that he buy him a toy before the vendor changes his mind and walks away?
LESS BILLION-DOLLAR PLANES, MORE MILLION-DOLLAR TANKS
As so many military experts, including, naturally, General (Ret.) Itzhak Brick have pointed out, the IDF does not need right now more billion-dollar planes. It needs to double its number of tanks and do the same with its artillery. It needs to raise the number of career infantry and armored corps soldiers and officers. Instead of pouring so many billions of dollars on even more F-35s, buy more tanks, for heavens’ sake.
This is the message this “little minister” is delivering, and this is why those failed commanders hate him so much. As do Israel’s mainstream media. They depict Smotrich and his political ally Itamar Ben Gvir as apes, boorish, filled with hate, and, of course, racists. The White House shares this opinion. Both are personae non grata in America, because of their insistence that the IDF direct its power in Judea and Samaria against the real murderers, namely our cousins the Ishmaelites who scheme every day and every hour and every minute to murder Jews. Instead, the IDF, most notably under the soon-to-retire-thank-God Central Command Commander General Yehuda Fox, is at best adopting a neutral, UN-like policy of engagement, and at worst takes perverted pleasure in dismantling Jewish homes, even as their owners are serving in Gaza and on the Lebanese border.
But the White House hates Smotrich even more because his refusal to approve the F-35 and F-15 deals would cost the US military-industrial complex multiple billions of dollars, which would be paid by the American taxpayer. In addition, there’s the issue of Israel’s satellite state status that may be harmed should Israel seek alternative means of securing itself.
When a country buys an F-35 squadron, it remains dependent on the US manufacturer and through them on the Departments of State and Defense. Burdening Israel with budget-sucking super warplanes is how America controls its most valued ally in the Middle East.
This is why Israel, under the leadership of Generals Gantz, Eisenkot, and Kochavi, debilitated its ammunition production capacity. Why was the Biden administration able to blackmail Israel with the stopping of heavy bomb shipments? Because Israel limited its production capacity under those three IDF chiefs. The best Elbit can do to help Israel’s draining shell stocks is to produce 3,000 new shells a month. This is sometimes one day’s firepower in fronts like Gaza and Lebanon.
Smotrich is Israel’s last hope to move toward independence in the most crucial part of any warfare: ammunition. Put the billions instead of in more shiny warplanes that must be towed away for fear that Hamas terrorists would blow them up – as was recorded on October 7 – in ammunition factories. And build more modern tanks and armored troop carriers.
GIVE ‘EM HELL BEZALEL !
Now, back to Finance Minister Smotrich’s tweet on why he stormed out of the cabinet meeting on Thursday:
I left the cabinet discussion early. The defense minister and the chief of staff refuse to establish a public committee to examine the defense budget.
The cabinet meeting began, and instead of discussing the destruction of Hamas and the return of the hostages, the return of security to the residents of the north, and collapsing the Palestinian Authority, which is behind the legal and political war against Israel in the UN and The Hague, the defense ministry began raising its financial demands and making claims against the finance ministry.
Since the professional staff of the finance ministry had not been invited to the discussion, and since this was an attempt to cynically bypass the discussion regarding the defense budget review committee, I announced that complaints could be discussed next week with the professional staff, and until that time I’m wasting my time there.
The IDF High Command insists on not drawing lessons from their poor preparedness before October 7. The security establishment insists on continuing to behave arrogantly and recklessly toward anyone who dares to challenge its thinking. I will not be a partner in the construction of the next conceptzia.
Couldn’t put it better myself.
