But the conflict raises an important issue: do we really need that much training or weapons? The army has not engaged in meaningful combat since 1973. Anti-guerrilla operations in Lebanon and Gaza and police functions in the West Bank are of a completely different order. They do not require the kind of training now being conducted, or the massive army we now maintain.

Nor do we need new tanks, the purchase of which the Chief of Staff has also vowed to cut down in retaliation against the government’s pet industries for the budget cuts. In the next war, tanks will be a liability, given the great advances in anti-tank weaponry in recent decades.

The details are open to discussion, but counter-intuitively, the budget crunch is a welcome development, one that puts pressure on the army to adapt itself to the new realities of regional battlefields.

Both Italy and South Korea are offering to buy Israeli military hardware in excess of the billion dollars, so the deal is mainly about choosing a future partner. And though our government leans toward the Italians, the Koreans are much more important to us.

First, the South Koreans have access to the best intelligence and information on the North Korean nuclear program. Unlike Italy, South Korea has a dynamic economy and a strong army. We should therefore work much more closely with the Koreans than the Italians.

Likewise, under the guise of deep cooperation between Israeli and US intelligence services, the White House has gained full control over our preparations for attacking Iran.

But the army, unable to fight Iran or Hezbollah, makes settlers into enemies and decent soldiers into spies.

The chief rabbi of the IDF demanded that he be fired.

The army does everything it can to keep religious Jews out of it for fear that they will subvert that leftist, anti-Jewish organization.

That brings the cost of intercepting a $200 Kassam to $250,000.

The issue is very old, and not particularly important compared to the many other religious transgressions occurring in the army. The brass provoked the conflict by punishing a few religious soldiers who quietly left a singing event.

The army has a problem. Most conscripts assigned to combat units come from Judea and Samaria. If they are not ultra-religious themselves, they at least sympathize with the yeshiva draftees. But the army remains institutionally leftist, which deeply offends their values.

Instead of coming to terms with growing religious sentiment, the army seeks to converting conscripts to secularism.

The soldiers’ actions are odd. It is not customary to open live fire on speeding cars, even at checkpoints. And they could have shot at the tires.

Had they killed an Arab, the soldiers would be in jail. Now it’s just an investigation.

While recommending a 5% defense-budget cut, Trajtenberg was politically correct enough to avoid taking on the leftists’ sacred cow: female conscription. Everyone agrees that outside a narrow scope of professions, women are a burden to the army. Indeed, their presence there is a major reason why the burgeoning haredi population refuses to serve. Nevertheless, following in the footsteps of Russian communists, the Israeli establishment insists on drafting them, at tremendous cost.

Now the army has confirmed that Moshe Naftali of the elite Golani brigade was killed in that skirmish by friendly fire. The proverbial fog of war is unavoidable on battlefields, but not in a minor operation against a few terrorists. That Moshe died from friendly fire, and that many other soldiers have also been killed in similar incidents, testifies to the woeful inadequacy of training and bad discipline in the army.