Liberman details his quotidian military service in Facebook post

The appointment of Avigdor Liberman to the Defense Ministry this week was met with a good deal of criticism — both from those who oppose his hawkish, often combative approach to security matters, and from those who say he lacks the experience to take charge of Israel’s military.

Liberman, who concluded his short military service as a corporal, has apparently been fielding many questions on the matter since his appointment was announced, and over the weekend posted a summary of his service on Facebook.

Seeking to put a positive spin on his lack of credentials, Liberman noted that “each soldier who is drafted knows Napoleon’s saying that ‘Every soldier carries a marshal’s baton in his pack.’ Well, now every soldier in the IDF knows that he carries in his pack the baton of the defense minister — and this is definitely a matter of pride for the State of Israel!”

“So yes, you know I was never chief of staff,” he joked, “but here is what you may not know, and for anyone who does want to know — I did regular service between 1982-1983 as part of Stage 2,” referring to the program that facilitates shortened military service for new immigrants who have passed the age of mandatory conscription.

Liberman said his regular service was spent in Hebron’s Regional Defense unit, charged with maintaining the security of civilian communities.

“After the regular service I did a course in the Artillery Corps base in Shivta [in the Negev] and served in reserve in Battalion 942 of self-propelled artillery,” he wrote.

“I served in the reserves until 1996, when I was appointed director general of the Prime Minister’s Office. As a reserve soldier I served 25 days a year on average, including during the Gulf War when I was drafted to carry out general security missions in refugee camps [near Nablus].”

A brash hardliner who heads the nationalist Yisrael Beytenu party, Liberman was sworn in as defense minister on Monday after the cabinet unanimously approved the coalition-expanding agreement that brought his party into the Likud-led coalition. A Knesset vote shortly after approved his appointment.

He met Thursday with his ousted predecessor Moshe Ya’alon to conduct an orderly handover of the ministry. Ya’alon quit his Defense Ministry and Knesset posts last month, accusing the country’s leadership of having lost its way, after weeks of a public spat with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and amid reports that Liberman would soon be given the defense minister’s position as part of a coalition-expanding agreement.

The addition of Yisrael Beytenu gives the governing coalition 66 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, bolstering its previously paper-thin majority of 61:59.

Following Netanyahu’s decision to appoint Liberman, Ya’alon, a respected former IDF chief, announced that he would be resigning from the Knesset and temporarily retiring from politics.

“Extremist and dangerous forces have taken over Israel and the Likud party and are shaking our national home and threatening to harm its residents,” he said at the time.

Politicians and pundits reacted with unease and disdain when the decision to appoint Liberman was first announced nearly two weeks ago, warning that giving the Defense Ministry to the firebrand politician was a dangerous move.

Liberman, who served as foreign minister before moving to the opposition after elections last year, lacks military experience, usually a prerequisite for Israeli defense ministers, but is outspoken on defense matters.

He famously split with Netanyahu, then a partner in a Knesset faction encompassing both Likud and Yisrael Beytenu, on how to manage the 2014 Gaza war and has been outspoken in demanding the death penalty in terrorism cases, to the extent that he made it a prerequisite for his joining the coalition after the elections last March. He later dropped the demand.

In a possible effort to assuage concerns over his past rhetoric, since taking office Liberman has declared that Israeli national unity is more important than territory, has vowed to prevent unnecessary future conflicts and end ongoing “wars of attrition.”

He has also expressed support for the two-state solution with the Palestinians.