Militares israelitas têm demasiado poder

It’s time to slash Israel's military budget

By Nehemia Shtrasler, Haaretz

All of Barak’s talk about social sensitivity is only deception. He is demanding an addition to his budget, when he knows very well that without a deep cut in defense, it will be impossible to respond to even a small part of the tent protest.
I almost stopped breathing when I heard the words of MK Shaul Mofaz ‏(Kadima‏), chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee: “We have to open the defense budget already today, and to cut back. Don’t let them threaten us, because I won’t panic.”
What courage, what power!
And Mofaz continued: “Channeling budgets to social welfare is a strategic move that is as important as any ambitious and pretentious project of the defense establishment. We have to spread out and streamline the project. We have to transfer the Israel Defense Forces to the outlying areas,” he said, striking out mercilessly at the sacred defense cow.
But the moment I recovered and resumed breathing as usual, I recalled that Mofaz was once chief of staff and then defense minister too. During those not so distant days, he used to speak in the cabinet about “the poverty and the gaps that are destroying society,” but demand additional funds for the IDF in the very same breath. “You’re experts at harming the weak,” he would say to the officials at the Finance Ministry, and immediately thereafter demand another NIS 1.5 billion for the army, arguing that if it were not paid immediately, the IDF would be unable to defend the Jewish people. How frightening!
At the time, Mofaz would invite a large group of senior officers, including the chief of staff, to the cabinet sessions, and they would describe the surrounding threats to the ministers, with the aid of sophisticated PowerPoint presentations showing frightening red arrows directed straight into the heart of the country. The stunned ministers would quake with fear, and the prime minister would ponder the next commission of inquiry − and they would all approve the additional funds.
And it made no difference that Israel’s strategic situation had actually improved at the time, with the eastern front against it having collapsed when Iraq fell, and America a presence in the heart of the Arab world.
This is precisely the tactic of incumbent Defense Minister Ehud Barak. On the one hand, he talks about the importance of the social protest and about the fact that his Atzmaut Party “was formed with the precise purpose of dealing with social injustices.” Interesting; we actually thought it was formed in order to provide jobs for several party hacks. And then, in the very same breath, he goes on to say, “We have to remember that we aren’t living in Switzerland. Look what’s happening around us in Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Bahrain and Iran.” In other words, the scare tactics continue.