WarSclerotic

IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz announced Sunday that Maj.-Gen. Amir Eshel will serve as the next commander of the Israel Air Force. The appointment was approved by Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

Eshel, who currently serves as head of the IDF Planning Directorate will replace Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan when he steps down after four years in the post in April.

The appointment of the next IAF commander has been embroiled in controversy in recent weeks amid reports that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was pressuring Gantz to tap his military adviser Maj.- Gen. Yohanan Locker, a former deputy IAF commander, for the post.

The appointment of a new air force chief traditionally makes headlines, but this time it is particularly intriguing due to the possibility the next commander will be ordered by the government to oversee a strike on Iran’s well-protected and distant atomic infrastructure.

Eshel served as deputy commander of the IAF from 2006 to 2008 and before that was head of the IAF’s Air Wing, commander of the Tel Nof Base and head of the IAF Operations Division.

The father of three and a graduate of Auburn University in Alabama and the Israeli National Defense College, Eshel was drafted into the prestigious Pilot’s Course in 1977 and quickly climbed the ranks.

He flew A-4 Skyhawks during the first Lebanon War and later became the commander of a squadron of F-4 Phantoms. He commanded over the Ramon and Tel Nof Bases and in 2006 was appointed deputy IAF commander under then-IAF chief Maj.-Gen. Elazar Shkedy.

Eshel became renowned for the IAF’s 2003 Auschwitz flyover but within the IDF he has enjoyed the respect of his counterparts for his close to three decades of service during which he spearheaded the revolutionary improvement made following the war to the level of interoperability between the IAF and IDF Ground Forces.

As his plane ducked in low over the Nazi death camp, Eshel, the son of Holocaust survivors, read out the following statement which was broadcast on the ground: “We pilots of the Air Force, flying in the skies above the camp of horrors, arose from the ashes of the millions of victims and shoulder their silent cries, salute their courage and promise to be the shield of the Jewish people and its nation Israel.”