Aviv Kochavi
IDF, Shin Bet in TV Brawl: Did Hamas Want a War?
A furious war of words has erupted between IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz and Shin Bet director Yoram Cohen over the question: Did Hamas plan a war or stumble into it?
New Crop of IDF Chiefs Is Flock of Hardline Doves
The Israeli military has sent what amounts to a barely disguised message to the political leadership and the troops in the latest round of senior command promotions.
Israeli Brass Astir Amid Pressure for Iran Strike
“Have the prime minister and defense minister sealed a deal between them, one on one, to attack the nuclear reactors in Iran?” So asks Nahum Barnea, commonly described as Israel’s senior and most respected political journalist, in an article leading the top of the front page of today’s Yediot Ahronot. He writes that growing rumors to that effect have created a quiet but urgent buzz within Israel’s political and military elites. They’re also troubling foreign governments, which “have a hard time understanding what is going on here”: a fateful decision that could “seal the fate of the Jewish state” for good or ill, and yet near-total silence on the topic in the public arena.