An Israel Defense Force general who publicly criticized the army for not being sufficiently tough in fighting the intifada has been reprimanded by the IDF chief of staff, Gen. Dan Shomron.
Maj. Gen. Moshe Bar-Kochba, whose sharp remarks were published last week in an interview with the newspaper Hadashot, was summoned by Shomron, who reminded him that his right to criticize the IDF was limited to closed meetings of the army’s high command.
Bar-Kochba, nicknamed “Brill,” criticized the IDF for failing to learn the lessons of the Lebanon war, and said the army was not doing a proper job of suppressing the Palestinian uprising.
Bar-Kochba reportedly asked the chief of staff for permission to state his charges directly to acting Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who is also acting defense minister.
Bar-Kochba, a longtime supporter of Shamir’s Likud bloc, is known to have been piqued when Shomron was promoted to chief of staff two years ago, instead of him.
He claims he could have ended the intifada long ago if the tough measures he calls for had been taken.
They include a massive IDF presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, deploying tanks and other equipment in Arab towns and throughout the countryside.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
