Controversial ex-officer claims Halevi blocked appointment as PM’s military secretary
Brig. Gen. (res.) Ofer Winter says IDF chief told him PM’s recommendation ‘not appropriate,’ Winter ‘not suited’ for role; PMO: ‘Grave if true’; IDF denies it, says meeting recorded
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
A controversial former senior officer in the Israel Defense Forces claimed on Thursday that Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi blocked his appointment last year as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military secretary.
The military denied the statements attributed to Halevi by Brig. Gen. (res.) Ofer Winter, and said that the meeting was documented.
In an interview with the Kan public broadcaster, Winter claimed that on October 2, 2023 — five days before the Hamas-led attacks — Halevi said to him, “The prime minister wants you for the job of military secretary. I think you’re not suited, I consulted the General Staff; your strategic thinking is not fit for the General Staff. I request that you resign from the military and that is the defense minister’s request. I also think that the prime minister’s request is not appropriate.”
Referring to Halevi, Winter said in the interview, “Who do you think you are, you brat? Who are you? You’re confused! You’re a confused chief of staff, you’re subordinate to the prime minister and the political echelon, who are you anyway?”
Netanyahu’s office released a statement along the same lines, though stated more diplomatically.
“If Brig. Gen. Ofer Winter’s words are indeed true, this is a serious incident,” said the Prime Minister’s Office. “In a democratic country, the chief of staff is subordinate to the political echelon and must keep his political or personal opinions to himself.”
However, the military denied the statements attributed to Halevi by Winter, and says there were transcripts of the meeting. .
“The words attributed to the chief of staff by Brig. Gen. (res.) Ofer Winter were not said. The meeting in question was documented in the chief of staff’s office,” the IDF spokesperson said in a statement.
In response to the IDF’s denial, Winter told the Ynet news site “I’ve heard many claims from people in the military system throughout my 30 years of service, but I’ve never heard the word ‘liar.'”
“I urge the Chief of Staff and his spokesperson unit to release the full, unedited, unprocessed recording. These 46 minutes are very clear. The public will listen and judge,” Winter told Ynet.
Winter, who has been subject of controversy in the military for a decade, was released from the military in May after being passed over for promotion.
Winter first came under criticism during the 2014 Gaza war, when he served as commander of the Givati Brigade, for a letter to his subordinate officers in which he described the operation as a religious war against a “blasphemous” foe.
In media interviews, the officer also described his troops as being protected in battle by “clouds of glory,” raising concerns among religious freedom activists that Winter was theocratizing the military.
The former Givati Brigade commander was also later accused of passing along sensitive information about the war effort to then-economy minister Naftali Bennett, bypassing the usual chain of command.
He commanded the forces in the bloody “Black Friday” battle in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza on August 1, 2014. The fighting there became a central issue in a United Nations report on the war, with accusations that war crimes had been committed. In its own investigation, the Israeli military identified failures in how the battle was waged, but no criminal acts.
Since that war, known in Israel as Operation Protective Edge, Winter’s did not reach the heights previously foreseen where he was tipped for advancement to the upper echelons of the IDF.
Winter was promoted from colonel to brigadier general in 2015 and was made chief of staff for the Central Command. In 2017, he was appointed military secretary to then-defense minister Avigdor Liberman, and only in 2019 was he given command over a division. Winter served as head of the Central Command’s 98th Division until September 2022, and has been without a role since.
In the army’s normal trajectory for promotion, Winter would have been on track to take command of a division in 2018, but he was passed over for promotion by then-IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot.
Winter is often held up as a shining example of the national-religious community. Right-wing activists have repeatedly called for him to be promoted in the military, and expressed outrage when he was not promoted in May.
Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.
