A special Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Subcommittee, established to examine the quality of IDF officer training, handed in a report of its findings on Tuesday.
The report was presented to IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi by subcommittee chairman MK Effie Eitam (National Union-NRP). MK Eitam, himself a former career combat officer, said that the Comptroller's Report and the Second Lebanon War debriefings clearly indicated that there is a problem with the quality of the training of senior field and general staff officers in the IDF.
The decision to establish the subcommittee was made in the wake of the military shake-up caused by the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006. Subcommittee members included Eitam, Matan Vilnai (Labor), Shlomo Breznitz (Kadima), Yisrael Hasson (Israel Beiteinu), Yossi Beilin (Meretz-Yahad), and Tzvi Hendel (NU-NRP).