Summary
The Agranat Commission, in Lahav’s account (Chapter 13): the commission of inquiry into the Yom Kippur War debacle, chaired by Simon Agranat with Landau, Nebenzahl, Yadin and Laskov, whose first report (1 April 1974) declined to judge the government’s parliamentary responsibility, found neither Meir nor Dayan personally negligent, and recommended discharging Chief of Staff David Elazar and other officers blinded by “the conception” (Judgment in Jerusalem: Chief Justice Simon Agranat and the Zionist Century, lines 2552-2791).
Details
- Golda Meir’s cabinet, refusing to concede collective responsibility (only Justice Minister Jacob S. Shapiro resigned), appointed the commission after much hesitation; the law left the choice of members to the chief justice, and Agranat, who could have named another chairman, viewed the situation’s gravity as the most compelling reason to serve (Judgment in Jerusalem: Chief Justice Simon Agranat and the Zionist Century, lines 2586-2700).
- Agranat set his heart on unanimity, which Lahav argues necessitated significant compromises and the suppression of his own inner voice; the two generals were rumoured particularly opinionated on military matters (Judgment in Jerusalem: Chief Justice Simon Agranat and the Zionist Century, lines 2620-2700).
- On the government, the commission distinguished parliamentary responsibility (a political question for the Knesset, parties and cabinet, outside its jurisdiction) from personal responsibility, and found neither Meir nor Dayan negligent — Dayan judged by the uniform standard of a “reasonable minister of defense”, his own military expertise disregarded (Judgment in Jerusalem: Chief Justice Simon Agranat and the Zionist Century, lines 2647-2760).
- On the military, it applied what amounted to strict liability to the chief of staff, and criticised structural defects: no law dividing authority between defense minister and commander in chief, no authorised civilian review of classified information (“Golda’s kitchen” had no legal authority), no war-cabinet provision, and centralised intelligence chilling critical evaluation (Judgment in Jerusalem: Chief Justice Simon Agranat and the Zionist Century, lines 2647-2760).
- The final report opened with a section against the press — invective against commission members, sub judice publication, and security-endangering stories — with a footnote, penned by Landau, urging reconsideration of the policy of not prosecuting journalists; Nebenzahl alone dissented, holding that “it is better to decide in favor of freedom” if the balance cannot be maintained (Judgment in Jerusalem: Chief Justice Simon Agranat and the Zionist Century, lines 2736-2791).
Where sources disagree
Critics, as Lahav records them, held the commission missed the “mother of all conceptions” — the post-1967 euphoria and official image of Arabs as weak and incompetent that produced the military conception — ignored Dayan’s contradictory statements and his replacement of Sharon by Gonen on the eve of war, and applied a double standard; Agranat insisted to the last that the commission had not exculpated the civilian level and that the uniform reasonable-minister standard was “the only appropriate one” (Judgment in Jerusalem: Chief Justice Simon Agranat and the Zionist Century, lines 2647-2760).
Related pages
Judgment in Jerusalem: Chief Justice Simon Agranat and the Zionist Century, Simon Agranat, Yom Kippur War, David Elazar, Moshe Dayan, Golda Meir, Process Jurisprudence