Arieh Eldad, a Knesset member belonging to National Union-NRP, asserts in a piece posted on Ynet that the Israeli military needs a new attitude:
One after the other we hear the shameful reports of the IDF evacuating new recruits and administrative soldiers from bases at the front lines. In some cases the army is completely deserting bases and leaving the area open for hostile takeover.
The latest reports had to do with the evacuation of administrative soldiers from the liaison office at the Erez Crossing and the decision to evacuate new recruits from the Zikim base. Earlier, we saw the IDF evacuate its based in northern Samaria, even though this was not required by the Disengagement Law. The army also deserted bases in the Jordan Rift Valley, while removing, among others, all new recruit bases from Judea and Samaria.
Each one of these shameful moves came against a specific backdrop, and came with a reason and a pile of excuses. At times it was about “diplomatic reasons” – evacuating territory in favor of the Arabs. On occasion it was about administrative reasons – transferring new recruit bases to more proper sites.
The worst excuses were the ones about “security” – the bases are situated in a hostile environment and transporting troops to them and from them entails a logistical and security burden as well as the need to designate soldiers for guarding the bases instead of performing other security missions.
Recently, we heard the most terrible excuses: New recruits and administrative soldiers are not designated to fight, and therefore they must be removed from any location that presents danger. …
Shame covers our face. We knew, and said so, that those who run away from the terror in Gaza will have terror chase them. Yet even we didn’t know that the IDF won’t stop its retreat and would run away from Erez and Zikim too. Even in our worst nightmares we never imagined a situation whereby the people are staying in Sderot, Nir Oz, and Ashkelon, while the IDF is evacuating its troops to a safer place.
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