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The fact that so much is at stake at this transitional moment and that Zamir may be displacing Halevi in many informal ways is what is so unusual and worthy of attention.
By YONAH JEREMY BOB FEBRUARY 11, 2025 15:34 Updated: FEBRUARY 11, 2025 15:37
Current IDF chief of staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi with incoming IDF chief of staff Eyal Zamir.
(photo credit: IDF)
It is normal for there to be a period of transition and overlap between the outgoing and incoming IDF chiefs.
In fact, that period of time is usually longer than the mere matter of weeks there will have been between outgoing IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi and incoming IDF chief Eyal Zamir.
What is unusual is for there to be an opening for the incoming chief to override or upstage the current chief on major matters of war and peace.
No one has explicitly said that this is happening, but the fact is that in this week’s meetings between the security cabinet and the top defense establishment officials, Zamir has been and will be present right next to Halevi.
It is also a fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government made one of their primary goals to oust Halevi as quickly as possible and to select Zamir, with the hope that he will be more compliant with the government’s war and peace decisions.
More specifically, Netanyahu wanted an IDF chief changeover by around March 1 – when Phase I of the hostage deal would be over – so that the new chief would not challenge him about going back to war, a move that would risk the hostages lives – something which Halevi did repeatedly during the war.
During the May-August 2024 period, Halevi was emphatic that Netanyahu had an opportunity to save hostages' lives in negotiations with Hamas, and should be ready to end the war and withdraw the IDF from Gaza, including from the Philadelphi Corridor, to get the hostages back.
Netanyahu rejected Halevi’s advice and the identical advice of then-defense minister Yoav Gallant, Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar, and Mossad Director David Barnea but paid a price in the court of Israeli public opinion.
Supporters of Netanyahu say there was no deal to be had then with Hamas, and that the Gazan terror group only came around after Israel had clobbered Hezbollah, Syrian military assets, Iran, and northern Gaza (again.)
But critics said that a deal could have been had, that the January 19 ceasefire deal was almost identical to the earlier one, and that 192 IDF soldiers and dozens of hostages may have died unnecessarily in the interim between May 29, 2024 and January 19.
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Netanyahu would prefer an ally
Netanyahu would much rather have an IDF chief who does not disagree with him on such key issues, or if he does, only says it when the two of them meet in private, and not in front of the cabinet, which is notorious for leaks.
It is unclear exactly where Zamir will stand on such issues.
He is not expected to “sell out” the way that many top senior police officials have said current Police Chief Daniel Levy did to gain Itamar Ben Gvir’s support for his appointment.
Levy would have had no chance to get the top police post in a normal race given that his standing as a police commander was behind many others by any objective criteria.
In contrast, Zamir was the lead candidate to be IDF chief on his own merits, having only narrowly lost to Halevi in the last race in 2022, and has shown some independence, threatening to quit as Defense Ministry Director-General when Defense Minister Israel Katz entered office on November 7.
But if Netanyahu and Katz gave him the role over deputy IDF chief Amir Baram, former major general Tamir Yadai, and current Northern Command Chief Uri Gordon, they must at least have some understanding with him about keeping disagreements more discreet than Halevi did.
There has been relatively clear messaging that Zamir would be more than happy to restart the war and attack Hamas again, given that he believed that the Gazan terror group should have been beaten much worse and more deeply than it has been during the war.
So what if Halevi opposes returning to a full war, hoping to get more hostages back from Hamas by making further Gaza withdrawals and extending the ceasefire for a much longer period of time, while Zamir supports Netanyahu on the view that ousting Hamas from power by returning to some use of military force, even at the price of risking some of the hostages lives, is the right move.
There will no longer be an IDF position, but a military speaking with two voices, which will dilute its weight at a key turning point in history.
Sources have told The Jerusalem Post that Halevi still speaks for the IDF and that Zamir, for now, is only speaking for himself and engaging in getting up to speed.
The sources also added that Zamir had been in the loop of many key decisions during the war by virtue of his position at the defense ministry.
But being the top non-political official at the defense ministry is a far cry from speaking for the IDF.
And regardless of how things should go, it is hard to imagine that top IDF officials and security cabinet officials will not give Zamir’s views more weight than Halevi’s given that he is only 23 days from being the top defense boss in Israel, and Halevi is on his way out the door.
Possibly, this is just the way of the world when new appointments are made, and there is nothing wrong or unnatural about a bit of confusion during this period of transitional weeks.
But when Halevi overlapped with Aviv Kohavi at the end of 2022, there were no decisions about to be made which could set the country’s course for years to come.
The fact that so much is at stake at this moment of transition, and that Zamir may already be displacing Halevi in many informal ways, even as the government’s vetting committee has not ratified Zamir’s appointment, is what is so unusual and worthy of attention.
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