Rabin Criticized for Shuffling Military Leaders

JERUSALEM — Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin was heavily criticized Friday after an unusually wide-ranging reshuffle of army commanders, which the newspaper Maariv described as a “circus . . . suitable for a banana republic.”

Maj. Gen. Uri Saguy, 42, was named ground forces commander only five months after being appointed head of Israel’s Southern Command, the military area facing Egypt.

The transfer sparked a chain reaction of appointments resulting in what retired Gen. Yeshayahu Gavish said was a “foul-up” situation.

Criticism came from politicians, retired generals and the press in a country where the public is highly conscious of defense and follows military appointments with keen interest.

Former army staff chief Mordechai Gur, now health minister, said commands where chiefs were moved after only five months would suffer, and Abba Eban, head of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defense committees, asked Rabin for a public explanation.

The newspaper Haaretz said that “mistakes like these are incomprehensible when they occur to someone as experienced as Rabin,” who was chief of staff during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Military affairs specialists said the transfers resulted from a struggle over who would succeed Lt. Gen. Moshe Levy when he retires as chief of staff next April. The two main contenders are Maj. Gens. Dan Shomron and Amir Drori, the specialists said.

Shomron was replaced Thursday by Drori as deputy chief of staff to give Drori equal experience in the post before the Cabinet chooses a successor, the specialists said.

Declines Post

Drori came to the post from the ground forces command and had been due for replacement by Maj. Gen. Ori Orr, a key figure in Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

But Orr declined to take up the post, believing it meant he would no longer be a candidate for the chief of staff post and Saguy was hastily appointed instead.