Agranat Commission

This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.The Agranat Commission (Hebrew: ועדת אגרנט) was a National Commission of Inquiry set up to investigate failings in the Israel Defense Forces in the prelude to the Yom Kippur War when Israel was found unprepared for the Egyptian attack against the Bar Lev Line and a simultaneous attack by Syria in the Golan—the first phase in a war in which 2,812 Israeli soldiers were killed.

Its other members were Justice Moshe Landau, State Comptroller Yitzchak Nebenzahl, and former Chiefs of Staff Yigael Yadin and Chaim Laskov.

Newly elected Member of Knesset and one of the Likud founders, Reserve General Ariel Sharon gave a newspaper interview in which he was quoted as saying that he would disobey orders that he felt were against the interests of the State or his subordinates.

This caused so much public concern that Sharon was asked to appear before the Commission,[3] which accepted his testimony that the quote was in the context of a specific event that occurred under very exceptional circumstances.

[5] The interim report, released 1 April 1974, called for the dismissal of a number of senior officers in the IDF and caused such controversy that Prime Minister Golda Meir was forced to resign.

[10] In its examination of the senior echelons of the IDF, the commission also concluded that GOC Southern Command Shmuel Gonen should be dismissed.

In Abba Eban's words "The conclusions ... did not seem to accord with the narrative"[12] Yitzhak Rabin walked out of the cabinet with Elazar.

[18][19] Besides the IDF's failures, it looked at the issues around civilian and political control of the army and found a "lack of clear definitions...".

Later critics argued that the Cabinet's authority stemmed from the IDF Order (1948), which authorised the Minister of Defence to set up the army.

For example, a soldier who becomes accustomed in time of peace not to observe the minor rules, such as in matters of personal appearance, without being alerted to this failure by his superior officer, will in the end be negligent in carrying out operational orders.

"[21] As a response to the Commission's criticism of using military intelligence as the sole route for analysis of information, the Foreign Ministry established a Research and Planning Department.