An Israeli military-civilian split?

(via Ultima Thule)

Jonathan Ariel, in Israelinsider, reports that relations between the country's political leadership, with its civilian background (the defence minister, for example, is a former peace activist), and the military command are "at the lowest point in the country's history" as as result of difficulties in Lebanon. According to Ariel, senior IDF officers blame Prime Minister Olmert for gutting their detailed operational plan for destroying Hezbollah, presumably because he wished to limit the scope of the war. They believe that this decision brought about unnecessary Israeli military casualties while restricting the effectiveness of the Israeli offensive.

Some senior officers have been mentioning the C-word in private conversations. They have been saying that a coup d'etat might be the only way to prevent an outcome in Lebanon [i.e., Israeli military failure] that could embolden the Arab world to join forces with Syria and Iran in an all out assault on Israel, given the fact that such a development would be spurred entirely by the Arab and Moslem world's perception of Israel's leadership as weak, craven and vacillating, and therefore ripe for intimidation.

See also The U.S. military-civilian split (1) to (3)