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Itongadol.- Tens of thousands of reservists dropped from active duty because they aren’t needed. The army has already begun releasing these reservists.
In addition, over the next year, the IDF will revamp its training schedule so that front-line units receive more training days, at the expense of rear-echelon units.
Finally, the army is considering lowering the age at which reserve duty ends for certain units and positions it considers less vital.
“Under this plan, the IDF will have fewer reservists, but those who serve in more forward units will spend more time training every year than in the past,” a senior officer summed up the plan.
The plan was drafted by a committee headed by Brig. Gen. Roni Numa, commander of the Tze’elim base. Its recommendations were recently submitted to Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and his deputy, Gadi Eizenkot, who was behind the panel’s establishment. The proposals will be integrated into the IDF’s multiyear plan, which already called for shutting down a relatively large number of reserve units, because the army would rather spend the money in what it considers more vital areas.
The IDF has already started shutting down several reserve armored brigades that relied on antiquated Patton tanks. It has also closed down air force, artillery and logistics units. Some of these units’ younger and more motivated reservists will be transferred to other units, including Home Front Command battalions and armored brigades that use newer tanks. But thousands of others will simply be released from service.
Nor are these the only reservists to be released: As Haaretz reported last April, the IDF has concluded that it has too many reservists in general. According to data presented by the IDF’s Planning and Policy Directorate at the time, Israel has some 500,000 registered reservists, but about 150,000 of them are never called up. Even many combat units have half again as many reservists as they actually need.
Consequently, battalion commanders will be told to reduce the number of registered reservists from 150 to 120 percent of the desired number, mainly by dropping older and/or less motivated soldiers. Some veteran combat reservists may be transferred to a special pool whose members won’t train every year like regular reservists do, but could still be called up in an emergency until age 40.
Numa’s committee also recommended setting different readiness and training requirements so that assault units – infantry and armor – would have to meet higher standards of readiness, and would therefore spend more time training each year. Other combat units, like the artillery corps or infantry units tasked mainly with guarding the borders, would train less.
A law passed in 2008 restricts reserve duty (except for certain specialized jobs or in times of crisis) to 54 days every three years. But in any case, due partly to budgetary constraints, the army has decided to almost completely stop calling up reservists for operational duty along the borders or in the West Bank. Instead, regular units will handle these jobs, requiring some to spend exceptionally long stretches of six to nine months on such duty.
Reducing the use of reservists for operational duty will enable them to spend more time training. Thus, for instance, an assault unit could train for 10 days one year and two weeks the next. Some units will still be assigned to operational duty once every three years, and others at less frequent intervals.
The Second Lebanon War of 2006 convinced the army that neglecting training was a dangerous mistake, and it eventually concluded that one problem was the lack of well-defined readiness requirements for the ground forces, similar to those in place for the air force. Thus the IDF now intends to set binding readiness and training requirements for each reserve unit, depending on its mission; determine the annual funding needed to meet these standards; and make them inviolable. Today, it tends to cut training whenever it has a budget shortfall, because doing so is easier than cutting funding for long-term projects or routine expenditures like salaries.
The Numa Committee also advised lowering the discharge age for reservists in less vital roles. Currently, the age is 40 for combat soldiers and 45, or even 49, for officers and certain jobs where the army has a chronic shortage (including doctors, drivers and communications specialists). Now, reservists in some units or specialties – including some intelligence posts and technical specialists – will be demobilized at 35, in addition to the excess reservists that all units will have to cut. This change will require some kind of suitable compensation for those who continue to serve until 40 or longer.
Finally, the committee recommended a significant improvement in how the IDF maintains contact with reservists. Today, this is still done mainly by mail or phone rather than by computer.
Separately, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon is soon expected to convene the Ministerial Committee for the Reserves to discuss granting additional benefits to reservists. Some of these ideas have been around for almost a decade, but have never been implemented.