The Difficult Incident in Lebanon Proved: The Whitewashing Culture in the IDF Has Become Second Nature | Yitzhak Brik
In an opinion piece in Maariv, Reserve Major General Yitzhak Brik attacks the IDF's whitewashing culture and the erosion of the ground forces, following the incident in southern Lebanon where two soldiers were killed and four were seriously wounded. He claims the command is disconnected, the investigations are whitewashed, and the searches are ineffective. He calls for stopping unproductive searches, building a ground force, and ending the erosion.
In an opinion piece in Maariv, Reserve Major General Yitzhak Brik attacks the IDF's whitewashing culture and the erosion of the ground forces, following the difficult incident in southern Lebanon where two soldiers were killed and four were seriously wounded. Brik claims that the senior command is disconnected from the field, and that instead of enforcing operational discipline, the system deals with bureaucratic questions such as the timing of the explosive device placement relative to the ceasefire. He calls the investigations "whitewashed" and claims that soldiers are paying with their lives due to a lack of basic security procedures. Brik questions the operational benefit of the searches in southern Lebanon, claiming that the forces are sparse and the yellow line is breached, allowing Hezbollah to continue infiltrating and planting explosives. He calls for stopping the ineffective searches unless they are preceded by preliminary checks, and for focusing on force building, increasing the ground forces, and ending the erosion. According to him, the real security of the northern communities stems from firm deterrence and hermetic prevention of infiltrations, not from Sisyphean operations. He calls on the senior command to abandon the whitewashing culture and focus on building a broad and strong ground force.