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Israeli army on defensive after spate of scandals

The military plays a central role in Israeli life and suggestions it is becoming dysfunctional has provoked an outcry.

The promotion saga, which has dominated the Israeli media this month, centred on allegations that a senior general had hired a publicist to smear his rivals in his battle to replace Israel’s outgoing chief of staff.

Police said on Thursday the accusations were not true and said that a document at the heart of the affair was a fake.

But the scandal nonetheless revealed deep rifts within the military and news on Friday that the police suspect an army reservist might have been behind the explosive forgery added to concerns of a complete breakdown of discipline.

“A worried nation looks on as its top security echelon falls deeper into a sordid quagmire of lies, betrayals and debilitating suspicion,” the Jerusalem Post wrote on Friday, reflecting public concern after a disastrous week for the army.

First there was widespread condemnation after the discovery of photographs on Facebook of a young Israeli soldier posing besides handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian detainees in an album entitled “Army — the best period of my life”.

Then came news that investigators were looking into allegations that a soldier had stolen computers and other property from pro-Palestinian activists who had been aboard an aid flotilla bound for Gaza earlier this year.

Army commandos boarded the flotilla on May 31 in international waters, killing nine activists in a poorly planned operation that itself drew widespread international criticism.

Israeli newspapers have placed much of the blame for the summer scandals on Defence Minister Ehud Barak and his chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi.

Ashkenazi was appointed in 2007 to rehabilitate the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and restore its reputation after its poor performance against Hezbollah militants in the 2006 Lebanon war.

“The sense, ahead of the end of Ashkenazi’s term, is that a circle is being closed: he received the IDF in a shameful state, and he is passing it on to his successor in a shameful state,” commentator Nahum Barnea said in leading daily Yedioth Ahronoth.

Barak is due to select Ashkenazi’s replacement next month.

Whoever takes over will not only have to restore discipline, but also ensure the army is ready for a possible military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities and face up to the threat from Islamist militant group Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“If we cannot rely on the people’s army and its commanders, then we are left with nothing to rely on but our father in heaven,” former education minister Yossi Sarid wrote in Haaretz newspaper on Friday.