War Veterans Bitterly Critical of Israel’s National Leadership

For the first time in Israel’s history war veterans are becoming political activists, organizing into groups bitterly critical of the present national leadership and demanding far-reaching changes, particularly new faces in the top echelons of government. While many small groups of disaffected ex-soldiers emerged after the Yom Kippur War, they are now beginning to coalesce into what could become a major political force. The groups include infantry, armored corps and paratroop veterans recently demobilized after months of service. In Jerusalem 2000 ex-service men have joined the movement and are busy recruiting more.

Yesterday, some 6000 persons, many of them demobilized soldiers, demonstrated outside the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem while the Cabinet was in session demanding the resignations of Premier Golda Meir and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. Ministers emerging from the building were roundly booed. One placard demanded “Disengagement between backsides and (Cabinet) seats.”

The focus of the demonstration was a young Yom Kippur War veteran, Capt. Mordechai (Motti) Ashkenazi who started a one-man drive for Dayan’s ouster last month and has since rallied thousands to his cause. He and other speakers urged the fledgling protest movements to join in a single organized movement. Leaders of the various groups are due to meet here this week to work out a common program.

At the moment, however, the dissidents appear to be a movement without a leader. They are seeking one of sufficient prestige and authority to rally all disaffected elements. So far, representatives of the ex-servicemen’s movements have been approaching retired high ranking army and navy officers. These include Gen. Israel Tal, former Deputy Chief of Staff; Yochai Bin Nun, a former naval commander; Gen. Meir Zorea, a much decorated veteran who presently heads the Government Land Authority; and Gen. Ezer Weizman, former Air Force commander, a former Minister of Transport and a leader of the Herut faction.

OTHER DISSIDENT MOVEMENTS SURFACING

Weizman flatly refused to head the veterans’ movement but the others have shown interest while making no commitments. Particular attention has been focussed on Tal, a veteran of 32 years of military service that began with the Jewish Palestinian units of the British Army in World War II. Tal resigned from the army only last Thursday. He had briefly commanded Israeli forces on the Egyptian front during the Yom Kippur War and is known to have had sharp differences with his superiors, notably Dayan, over basic strategy.

Tal, who enjoys an international reputation as an armored corps expert, is a champion of a mobile defense system as opposed to the strategy of static defense represented by the former Barlev Line. After the Yom Kippur War, he felt that his counsel was not being sought; he was not invited to meetings of the high command and it was made clear to him by Dayan that he could not expect to succeed to the position of Chief of Staff.

Tal’s differences with the military establishment were taken as a signal that he would enter politics in the manner of another disgruntled was hero, Gen. Ariel (Arik) Sharon. But he has announced no plans and says he is still undecided on his future activities. Sharon, the founding father of Likud and one of its principal leaders, meanwhile, has made political capital of Tal’s resignation. He claimed that it represented the high command’s refusal to accept new ideas and groom new leadership.

In addition to the ex-servicemen, dissident movements are surfacing among university faculty members, practicing lawyers, teachers and psychologists. Though claiming to be non-political, they are talking about running for the Knesset. Their stated purpose is to effect changes in the national leadership, or at least in its decision-making processes. Some observers think it is only a matter of time before the academicians join forces with the veterans’ organizations. (By Yitzhak Shargil.)