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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Israel chooses new army chief: media reports |
| 2007-01-23 |
| JERUSALEM - A former general with years of experience fighting LebanonÂ’s Hezbollah guerrillas has been chosen as the new chief of IsraelÂ’s armed forces, Israeli media reported on Monday. Gaby Ashkenazy, 52, an infantry commander and currently director of the Defence Ministry, will replace Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz who quit last week over his failure to crush Hezbollah in the July-August war, they said. An aide to Defence Minister Amir Peretz said announcement of the appointment was likely later in the day. In a speech after the reports Ashkenazy had been tapped, Peretz did not mention a candidate but said a new military chief would be chosen quickly. Ashkenazy served extensively in southern Lebanon and headed the armyÂ’s northern command in the final years before Israeli troops, after constant attacks by Hezbollah fighters, withdrew in 2000. Ashkenazy was not in uniform during the fighting in which some 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 157 Israelis, most of them soldiers, were killed. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #4 What the word on this guy Grom? |
| Posted by: Shipman 2007-01-23 16:51 |
| #3 For one side he was at Entebbe but on another side he is 54. What happenned to Tsahal's policy where by 40-45 you were out. This ensured that bright officers weren't kept in subaltern positions while their ageing superiors (thopse who were in power) a) lost their work capacity due to age b) were no longer in contact with realities of battlefield c) clinged to obsolete tactics and strategy (think in the horse cavalry lobby between world wars) The fast carreers of Tsahal has ever been one the keys to its triumphs. Another benefit of fast carrers is that indirectly it leads to picking the general as the best candidate in teh army instead of as merely the best betweeen colonels. That is how you produce a Bonaparte, a Lannes and a Davout (both probabaly better generals as Napoleon himself). |
| Posted by: JFM 2007-01-23 07:17 |
| #2 Tanks & infantry commander. Now we're talkin'. On top of that he looks to be one tough MF'er from his photo. |
| Posted by: SpecOp35 2007-01-23 01:23 |
| #1 Gaby? Sure he wasn't a press secretary? |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2007-01-23 01:00 |