As the controversy over tuition grants for IDF veterans was raging, with combat soldiers caught in the crossfire between the coalition and opposition, a young MK named Eitan Ginzburg came into Benny Gantz's office with an idea only a Knesset member of his low stature could have come up with. It turned out that the reservations that the Likud members had submitted about the legislation, there was a clause in which they agreed to increase the budget for combat soldiers to 75%.
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Ginzburg informed Gantz, who then announced at the Knesset podium and voiced his support. Most Likud MKs, who weren't fully versed in the bill and barely knew about the reservations one of their member had submitted, voted "yea," and the bill passed.
MK Ofir Katz, who is around 20th on the Likud list, far below prominent voices like Miri Regev, Israel Katz, or Galit Distal Atbaryan, asked the Health Ministry to approve a catheterization center for Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon. After a long battle, it finally happened last March, and now residents of the south who live a two-hour drive away from Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba are three times as likely to survive a stroke.
Now, with elections in the air, names of famous generals like former IDF chief Gadi Eizenkot are once again being thrown around as possible new political players. But we should remind ourselves that famous generals are no better than hardworking, low-level Knesset members.
Experience has taught us that plenty of generals have failed as politicians. One need only look at Ehud Barak, who holds the dubious record of shortest term as prime minister in Israel's history and who during that term beat a hasty retreat from Lebanon, held failed peace talks at Camp David and Taba, and saw the start of the Second Intifada, Border Policeman Madhat Yousef left to bleed to death at Joseph's Tomb, and a weak response to the lynch of IDF reservists in Ramallah rioting.
Barak wasn't the only one. Maj. Gen. (res.) Yair Golan called for the delusional Sadi Ben Sheetrit, a former leader of the anti-Netanyahu protests turned rabid anti-vaxxer, to light a torch at the Independence Day ceremony at Mount Herzl. All that remains of former IDF chief Moshe Ya'alon's grand entrance is his obsession with the submarines affair, and even former chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazy, who was courted by everyone, hasn't really made his mark in politics.
Politics is utterly different from the military. A politician is a professional. Politics is not a battle in which you go head-to-head and everyone follows orders. You need people skills, willingness to compromise, flexibility, cunning, a creative mind, and mainly be willing to wade through stinking mud without being applauded. It's time for bring in more anonymous workhorses and fewer famous generals.
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