The excuses our current minister of defense is using to hold to the job are nothing short of pathetic:
The office of Defense Minister Amir Peretz says that all major complaints should be addressed to Israel’s previous defense ministers, Shaul Mofaz, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and also Ehud Barak, who was prime minister and defense minister when three Israeli soldiers were taken captive by Hezbollah at Har Dov in 2000.
I am astonished that Peretz didn’t go back far enough to blame Ben-Gurion and even, maybe, Zhabotinsky and Herzl. After all, they set the basis for the whole enchilada, and Peretz has to bear the blame now. And Mozes, too, should not escape his share of guilt.
The pathetic behavior and the pathetic excuses Peretz is producing by a dozen every day could hardly be explained: after all, no one says he is guilty – it is just that he knows nothing about the job he was encumbered with and, as it naturally follows, should transfer it to somebody that is a bit better informed and qualified.
This reminds me the story of the three envelopes:
A new executive, who on his first day of work is greeted by three envelopes on his desk with instructions to open one in the event of trouble. The company runs smoothly at first, but trouble soon arises and the executive opens the first envelope. It advises him to blame his predecessor. That succeeds in the short term, but soon new difficulties arise. The executive opens the second envelope. It advises him to restructure the organization. That again succeeds, but soon the executive is faced with more trouble. He opens the third envelope only to find instructions to prepare three envelopes.
But there is one significant difference: the second step, which involves a restructuring, is completely alien to Peretz. He will not recognize a restructuring if it bites him on the backside. So – let’s move to the third envelope, why don’t we?
Cross-posted on SimplyJews
Snoopy,
Forgive me but in a certain sense he is correct. Mofaz fucked up big time as Minister of Defense and so did Yaalon as Chief of staff. They took their eyes off the Northern ball that led to the unpreparedness experienced last summer.
That the current lot were incapable of responding correctly is not disputable but Mofaz from the time as Chief of Staff ( and it was Bibi who basically chose him ) under Barak has messed up and Yaalon who had so much to say about Gaza did not leave the Northern front prepared for any eventuality. The late and faulty tactical response to the initial Hezbollah strike was not due to Halutz so much as to the poor training of Northern Command after the pullout from Lebanon.
Those shitheads let everything slide even budgeting for food and water.
Peretz should stick to union members, strikes and screwing pension funds. For anyone who has a memory to remember Olmert’s lousy stewardship of Jerusalem’s municipality after Teddy Kollek’s admirable reign it should come as no surprise that he was not capable.
Unfortunately Sharon, when he came up with Kadima , could not imagine a situation where he would be sidelined and so chose badly.
This Satlinist lookalike piece of shit named Amir Peretz should have a statue of himself erected in the Kirya HQ of the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv with a sign around his head “Never Again Do We Allow a vain, incompetent, insolent, nonentity hold such a high position.”
I wouldn’t go as far as “Stalinist piece of shit”, but otherwise I share the sentiment, Joel.
You see, Cynic, while you are right in the part that relates to history, this approach opens a wide hole in the wall of personal responsibility that could be reused ad infinitum. Somewhere it must stop.
And better earlier than later.