Benjamin Netanyahu has served as prime minister for a total of nearly 20 years across three decades. He knows Israel’s diplomatic and security schedule inside out: cabinet meetings take place on Sunday mornings, the IDF chief of staff regularly attends the army’s General Staff Forum on Mondays, and on Thursdays, the prime minister makes time for his weekly situation assessment with the military chief and the defense minister.

That weekly situation assessment includes a regular briefing known as the “intelligence and sorties” discussion. This is essentially a code name for approving military operations for the coming week, some of which require the prime minister’s direct authorization.

Why is it important to outline the weekly schedule of Israel’s political and security leadership? Because it explains the ambush the prime minister laid for the chief of staff this past Monday.

That morning, IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir was preparing for the weekly General Staff meeting in his Tel Aviv office. At 10 a.m., Zamir’s office received sudden word that the prime minister would arrive at noon for a situation assessment at Central Command, the military headquarters in northern Jerusalem responsible for the West Bank. It was a meeting called with zero notice and under no operational urgency whatsoever.

The General Staff meeting was promptly dispersed. Zamir took Operations Directorate head Maj. Gen. Itzik Cohen and Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, and they rushed to Jerusalem. On the way, Judea and Samaria Division commander Brig. Gen. Kobi Heller was also instructed to attend.

The discussion scheduled for noon began at 1 p.m., because Defense Minister Israel Katz had also been caught by surprise, and it took him time to reach the Central Command conference room.

The headline that subsequently leaked from the meeting said: “The chief of staff arrived unprepared.”

According to a source present at the discussion who spoke with The Times of Israel on condition of anonymity, when Netanyahu asked Zamir what would happen in the event of a “reversal of the situation” in the West Bank – the military’s code name for the outbreak of an armed intifada – the chief of staff replied that the IDF had a plan ready, but presenting it required a separate discussion for which the military would need to prepare. According to the source, the prime minister nodded and ordered that such a meeting be scheduled.

But it is important to understand what preceded the prime minister’s question. From the start of a briefing by Bluth, Netanyahu appeared uncomfortable with what he was hearing from the general. He was presented with “the paradox” – the IDF’s internal term for the current situation in the West Bank.

This paradox represents a reality the IDF has never encountered before.........

© The Times of Israel