"Sunshine is said to be the best of disinfectants," the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once wrote. In that light, public criticism of any organization is important if that organization is to improve.
Shortly before his recent retirement, IDF Ombudsman Maj. Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Brik published a report full of worrisome findings about the IDF's capabilities and level of readiness. With all due respect to Maj. Gen. Brik's record as a brave soldier, the report was a mistake. First of all, it's unclear what tools he, the military ombudsman, had at his disposal in making his assessments. No less important is the question of what authority he had in the first place.
Over the years, entities have been established to critique Israel's defense and security establishment. They are staffed by dozens of army officers and expert civilians. Generally, the critique is conducted professionally, using tools and methodology that have been established over the years, including a mechanism of oversight for rectifying problems. Sometimes reports make headlines, but the fleeting attention isn't what counts – it's how the conclusions in the criticism are applied.
Formalities aside, the contents of the report itself raise speculations. The office of the IDF Ombudsman lacks the requisite personnel to conduct such a critique – Brik himself said his assessment was based on tours of various units and on conversations with enlisted troops and officers. We all served, and we all know that soldiers blow off steam, particularly when addressing the IDF Ombudsman. These soldiers apparently had complaints about their own service. Without discounting them, it's hard to see their complaints as a reliable basis for organizational critique.
When it comes down to it, the claims in the report are unfair. You can't accuse the IDF of wasting manpower on one hand and on the other attack how it addresses the issue. Career soldiers weren't let go or transferred to other positions on a whim. It was the Treasury that pushed the IDF to bid farewell to 5,000 career soldiers and take on 1,000 others in key positions.
Brik's claim that the army is untrained and unreliable is also baseless. Anyone who has been keeping tabs on the IDF's readiness has seen that the army is training more that it has in the past 20 years. The budget for training has been tightened, and the quality of the training has changed unrecognizably: There are new training facilities, and top-of-the-line new equipment and advanced systems have been purchased.
The IDF's level of readiness has improved in terms of the management of its emergency protocols, too. The IDF consistently replenishes its emergency stocks of equipment and weaponry. It invests considerable resources in its warehouses and enlisting capable people to serve in them.
Officers also receive more professional training than in the past. Warfare protocol is being written and cooperation between different commands and military branches is being encouraged.
Obviously, not everything is rosy. There are vacuums, and it is increasingly challenging to keep good commanders in the military. The allure of civilian life, the hard work for low pay, the lack of financial security, and especially the public's attitude toward career soldiers all keep young officers from making the army their career. But there are also plenty of good things.
Maj. Gen. Brik's report misses its target, needlessly offends the IDF and its commanders, and deters young officers from signing on for additional service. It's clear that the report was written out of honest concern for the IDF, but it would have been better if the ombudsman had stuck to publishing his annual report about soldiers' complaints and taken his observations and insights to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the defense minister, or the General Staff rather than to the media. Sunshine might be the best disinfectant, but overexposure can be harmful.
