The following is an English translation of a Facebook post by Amit Tzur, a former Givati commander, which was published and brother of Adi Tzur, a Golan fighter from Battalion 51 who was killed on the morning of October 7 defending Kibbutz Kissufim. His original Hebrew post is available here and was republished at his request in the pro-state My Israel group here.
I do hope the statists take the next step and fully wake up. Here is the post:
Who believes the IDF that 7/10 won’t happen again?
I love the IDF.
Not its leadership, not its rotten system.
The fighters. The ones who throw 40 kilos of equipment on their backs and go into battle, because they have no choice.
Those who didn’t wait for orders from the failed command on 7/10 – but stood up alone, took up arms, fought until the last bullet, died with their finger on the trigger.
I love them.
I admire them.
But the truth is that the IDF doesn’t love them back.
Because if it loved them, it would truly care for them.
If it loved them, it wouldn’t send them to die for nothing, time after time, with the same mistakes, with the same negligence, with the same empty words of “we will learn lessons.”
How many of you believe the promise that there won’t be another 7/10?
I don’t believe it.
Since 7/10, I’ve seen the same Commanders, with the same attitudes.
I see the same people who prevented soldiers from firing until 7/10 because “it was not clear whether there was permission,”
still sitting in their positions.
I see the same system that rewards those who lower their heads and survive in it – not those who fight.
I see the same IDF, the same weak command, which preserves culture and does not instill anything, with the same excuses.
And I do not buy this story again.
“We will learn lessons” – words that are poison in the veins.
They told me this when Adi fell.
They told the parents of the soldiers who died yesterday.
They said this after the Tse’elim disaster. After the APC disaster. After every fiasco that led to more blood being shed for nothing.
But these lessons are not really learned – because this entire system is based on self-deception.
• How will you learn lessons if the same people who caused failures are promoted to more senior positions?
• How will it change, if the ones who need to change are exactly those who enjoy the situation as it is?
• How can we believe if even the IDF itself doesn’t really believe in itself?
I write this as someone who paid the heaviest price.
I know how this system works.
I served as a commander in Givati, I commanded dozens of soldiers – without any officer ranks at all.
I went to the 1st Battalion because I wanted to change.
I wanted to be one of the commanders who would fight to make the IDF better.
But there I realized that this system doesn’t want to change.
That it prefers to promote those who know how to play the game, not those who are truly capable of leading.
I left.
Not because I was afraid of the responsibility – but because I knew I had no intention of taking part in this failed experiment.
And then they reprimanded me.
The commander who told me it was irresponsible, that I didn’t understand how things work –
is now the Major General of the Southern Command.
Today he is the man who presided over one of the greatest collapses in Israel’s military history.
And I ask myself – who really should have been reprimanded?
Who really didn’t deserve to command soldiers?
How many more like him are climbing to the top, and not because they are good – but because they know how to survive?
How many more soldiers will die before they realize that the problem is not with the people on the ground, but with those who lead them?
The IDF is not a class. It is not a graduation ceremony. It is not a three-year summer camp.
It is an army. And people die in it.
It is not an exciting training course for parents, it is a place where the lives of soldiers depend on people who are not worthy of leading them.
Every time someone tells you that the IDF will learn lessons, ask yourself:
When was the last time you heard that sentence – and how many soldiers have died since then?
I don’t believe the IDF when it says that 7/10 will not come back.
And you?
I am not against the IDF.
I am against the lie that the IDF tells us, and tells itself.
The problem is not the fighters. Not those who are there in body and soul.
The problem is those who manage them – and the problem is that there is no one to stop them.
What can be changed?
They will tell you “It is impossible to know how a commander will function in the moment of truth”.
I say – that is simply a lie.
Because it is possible to know.
It is possible and necessary to test command under pressure, to test who is worthy of leading and who freezes in the moment of truth.
But this does not happen, because there are those who do not want this to happen.
• There are those who prefer to choose commanders based on obedience and not on ability.
• There are those who want to preserve a system in which those who are good at communications – advance, and those who are really good – burn out along the way.
• There are those who believe that the problem is that we do not have enough soldiers, and not that the soldiers we do have are managed in a way that leads to unnecessary death.
Command must be more mature, stronger, more real.
The command will test him under pressure and will not wait for the moment of truth to reveal that he was not worthy of his position even for a single day.
Because the lives of our soldiers should not be a trial by fire.
Because the phrase “we will learn lessons” is not an excuse when soldiers die.
And these are not magic words that are enough to be said.
The army learns the same lessons too many times and yet it is the organization that most often uses this promiscuous phrase.
I know how it works. I saw it happen. I lost my brother because of it.
I don’t believe the IDF when it says that the 7/10 will not come back.
