Has there been a putsch?
By Doron Rosenblum
In the past, people in the media or at symposia and workshops have occasionally played around with the hypothetical question of whether a military coup could take place in Israel. Could there be a putsch, in which the army would wrest control of the political agenda? This discussion has melted away in recent years, but is this because the possibility has become more unlikely, indeed ridiculous, than ever (as was always the conclusion of the aforementioned deliberations), or is it for the opposite reason - because the discussion is no longer quite so theoretical?
All expressions of the atmosphere of military control over our lives, a part of daily life that we take for granted, can be dismissed one after another as a coincidental collection of episodes: the domineering, almost arrogant profile of the chief of staff in the media; statements by senior officers such as Brigadier General Yair Naveh that play up the increasingly independent nature of the army; the growing pile of evidence concerning the trigger-happy, overly-autonomous behavior of military men in the field; the atmosphere of fear and terror surrounding the covert military units that are able to lay their heavy hands on civilians as well (see some of the revelations accompanying the affair of retired Brigadier General Yitzhak Yaakov); the army's incredible plan to publish a "White Paper" on Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat, which was stopped almost at the last minute by the government; the general feeling that some of the military incidents that have taken place during in the current Intifada almost slipped beyond the control of the civilian authorities, sometimes in a near mirror-image of Tanzim activity. So much so that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon found cause to stress again and again, during his television interview on Friday, that "there is a government in Jerusalem! There is a political echelon in Jerusalem!"
The very fact that this bears saying is worrisome, as is the fact that senior officials in that same "government in Jerusalem," not to mention its head, are almost all generals and the children of generals, officers or military-minded individuals (including Deputy Defense Minister, Dalia Rabin-Pelosoff - "daughter of the regiment," as in the Donizetti opera).
It's not new, but it's more blatant than in the past. This is particularly obvious today in One Israel: is it just coincidence that all of the party's "civilian" senior officials - Haim Ramon, Avraham Burg, Yossi Beilin - remained outside the cabinet? (Shimon Peres doesn't count, since like Woody Allen's "Zelig" he has already been absorbed into his new surroundings.
Again, all of these expressions can be dismissed with a giggle and a shrug of the shoulders: coup-shmoo, putsch-smutsch.. come on, really... And has a mustachioed officer announced on television that they have taken control? And is it conceivable that the army would run our lives like the Golem that rebelled against its makers? And besides - "war has been forced upon us," so naturally the army's profile is rising somewhat, and the civilian one is on the decline...
To all this one may respond: alright, so maybe it's not exactly a putsch - not Argentina, not quite a banana republic; but when the only slogan is "let the IDF win" (meaning: "step aside, political echelon"); and when the chief of staff speaks on Independence Day like the general director of the state, while the prime minister sounds dull and blunt, like an honorary member of the board; and when the sole civil authority that is active in the state narrows down to the courageous Shulamit Aloni and the hesitant musings of MK Ophir Pines-Paz - it certainly doesn't look or smell like a bowl of punch.
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