13 August 12 17:47–Minister of Defense Ehud Barak is Barak, Minister of Finance Yuval Steinitz is Steinitz, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is Netanyahu. Fear is fear and arrogance is arrogance. In other words: there is no chance of a cut in the defense budget.

Barak, the well-known swordsman will attack – the first round will be on Wednesday – and, as the head of the army, for the umpteenth time, he will make a presentation about the threats to Israel.

Steinitz, who is torn between his defense and economic leanings, and despite the heavy budget pressures, will fall silent in the face of a sophisticated colorful animation PowerPoint presentation about the missile deployment by Hizbullah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, the effect of an Iranian nuclear bomb soon to be in the hands of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the clouds of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s chemical and biological weapons. And I have not yet even mentioned the Muslim Brotherhood, now in control in Egypt.

Netanyahu will do what all his predecessors have done, whether from the left, right or center, from Ehud
Olmert through Ariel Sharon, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Yitzhak Shamir, to Menachem Begin. He will wipe the sweat from his brow, say a few prepared dramatic remarks, and will not dare to cut the defense budget.

The Israeli prime minister has not yet been born who does not know from personal experience, that the defense establishment does not manage its money and does not care about the public’s money. It is full of fat, black holes, indifference, waste, and hedonism (do not jump to conclusions: I’m not talking about the combat troops, who are the darlings of Israel), which come at the expense of weapons procurements, not to mention health, education and welfare. The prime minister has not yet been born who has dared to make a real cut in the defense budget (the Rabin government cut it by NIS 1 billion, which was more than rescinded within a year).

The prime minister has not yet been born who can withstand the unrestrained mental and physical torture by the defense chiefs. The moment that a defense cut is broached, starvation breaks out at IDF bases, there is no money for water, jet fuel runs out, the Iron Dome anti-missile program is bankrupt, tanks are deployed in line, pilots are fired, pensioners wail, and flack jackets for the troops cannot keep the enemy’s bullets out (it is possible to think that the Ministry of Defense bought them only when the budget cut was announced)…Read More>>

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