Fighting Iran with the budget

Aseries of leaks over the last week make it seem like Israel is once again on the verge of launching an aerial assault against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

In coordinated reports on two TV stations, reporters revealed that the IDF is upping its preparations again for a possible strike against Iran – and to do so, is asking the state for a bump in its budget to the tune of up to NIS 25 billion over the next five years.

On the one hand, this makes sense. Iran is plowing ahead with its nuclear program despite efforts by the Biden administration to get the ayatollahs to agree to a new – and ideally “longer and stronger” – deal that would set back their race to a bomb. Iran has new, sophisticated centrifuges that can enrich uranium to higher levels at a faster pace, in addition to the Islamic Republic accumulating larger quantities of enriched uranium.

It also makes sense that Israel’s military readiness for an operation of the scope to attack Iran would need to be updated. The last time Israel was seriously considering military action was back in 2012, a couple of years before the JCPOA nuclear accord was reached between the P5+1 and Iran.

After that deal was reached in 2015, then-IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot privately admitted that one of the benefits of the deal was that it moved an anti-Iran operation off the military’s front burner, allowing him and the General Staff to change the way they were allocating the defense budget.

If until the deal the IDF needed to invest more in long-range aerial capabilities and munitions, now it could invest the money in the ground forces. Eisenkot said this even though the prime minister at the time, Benjamin Netanyahu, was still actively fighting against Barack Obama and his nuclear accord.

Due to this redistribution of funds, the IDF now needs to get itself ready. In addition, the fact that there has not been a state budget for the last three years has also not helped, making current IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi’s job more complicated than it needs to be in his effort to prepare the military for future challenges.

BUT HERE are two reasons why it is worth thinking skeptically about the recent leaks. The first is that the government is now in the middle of budgetary talks. This is a long process that involves all of the different government ministries, which all need to fight for their piece of the pie.

Back when this country used to pass a budget every year or two, the IDF would hold briefings with top generals whose job it was to scare the journalist into scaring the public about the threats looming on the horizon. Were the threats real? Of course – but conveniently they were always made out to be far worse just as the Treasury began budget talks.

For Kohavi, these budget talks are his final chance to leave a lasting mark on the military. Since he became chief of staff in January 2019, the country has been embroiled in a non-stop election cycle, forcing him to put his long-term procurement plans on ice due to lack of a budget. Instead of receiving additional funds, he shut down squadrons, armored battalions and other projects to be able to pay for just some of the new capabilities he dreamed of creating for the IDF.

With a year-and-a-half left in his role, this is Kohavi’s moment to shape and transform the military for the years ahead. As dangerous as Hamas and Hezbollah are, talking about the threats from Gaza and Lebanon will not be enough. There is no better way to create a sense of emergency than by talking about the urgency of the threat from Iran.

And don’t get me wrong: Iran is urgent and needs to be confronted and stopped. But, at the same time, don’t forget about the budget. It is another important piece of

the puzzle.

The second reason why the reports about preparations for a strike should be read skeptically is because this government is no longer led by Netanyahu. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid have decided to try influencing the Biden administration’s return to the JCPOA from inside as opposed to fighting it from the outside.

This is what led Bennett to allow Kohavi and others to discuss the deal with the Americans in their recent visits to Washington, something that Netanyahu barred Israeli officials from doing in the past.

This government is not going to attack Iran at the same time that it is trying to repair relations with the administration and influence the talks on Iran. What it is doing, is preparing for the day after the deal and

what it might need to do if Tehran violates a new deal or when it expires.

All of this doesn’t mean that Israeli talk of an attack is not helpful. In the past, Netanyahu’s bluster contributed to the urgency of reaching the JCPOA in 2015 – and is what can potentially help Biden achieve a longer and stronger deal as he has said he would like to. Fearing Israeli action, the Iranians might feel compelled to concede to a better deal. Likely? No. Possible? Maybe.

So while Israeli fighter jets won’t be taking off from in the near future to bomb Iran, the IDF will need to be ready. If everything goes its way, it might just get a bit more money to make that possible.

*** ON WEDNESDAY, I returned from a two-week road trip my family and I went on

throughout the Western United States that took us to Rocky Mountain National Park, the Tetons and Yellowstone. After 18 months of travel restrictions, America’s national parks are seeing record numbers of visitors and we – a family of six from Jerusalem – made our small contribution.

We hiked beautiful trails, gasped at the sight of amazing vistas and jumped in and (quickly) out of lakes still freezing from melted snow that continues to flow in mid-July from the mountains looming above. Spending so much time in nature provides an opportunity to pause from the rollercoaster of life, to take a deep breath, to look around and to better understand just how small we are, as individuals and as a nation.

It was a brief taste of much-needed beauty and normalcy. We also met some amazing people. On the trails, people greet one another and ask where the other is from. When we responded that we were from Israel, our answer was almost always met with a sparkle from people who either dream of visiting the country or could just not believe that the six of us had made the trip out West.

Do we have our challenges? Of course. The Ben and Jerry’s boycott is serious and needs to be met with force and ingenuity to prevent one ice cream manufacturer’s poor judgement from having a BDS domino effect. What Ben & Jerry’s did was support a movement that calls not for peace but for Israel’s elimination. It is an attempt to undermine our nation’s legitimacy to exist here in this land.

But, at the same time, we Israelis should not let it lead us to believe that we live in a pariah state. If Israel was being boycotted on a global level, its foreign minister would not have traveled recently to the UAE and be weeks away from a visit to Morocco. He wouldn’t have met recently in Brussels with a long list of European foreign ministers – just like the former president of Israel would not have been received with the warmth he was recently greeted with in the Oval Office.

BDS is what it has always been: an attempt to weaken Israel and to force Israelis to turn against themselves because they won’t be able to buy a certain product, in this case the tasty ice cream from Vermont.

Fortunately, it won’t work. Israel has work to do – domestically and with our Palestinian neighbors – but we are stronger than one boycott or even two. It’s worth keeping that in mind.