During an interview with Galei Tzahal (Army Radio) on Sunday 4 Kislev, Oded Savorai announced that Brigadier-General Ofir Winter was targeted by prominent Channel 10 News reported Raviv Drucker, with the latter trying to incriminate him to prevent his promotion to brigade commander and the rank of colonel. Drucker could not tolerate seeing winter become the head of the Givati Brigade, which he did receive at the end.

According to Savorai, who is a close associate of Winter, Drucker was sent to interview Winter to interview him about something that never occurred while wired with two hidden microphones, which he hoped would record Winter incriminating himself.

Drucker told Winter he wasn’t sleeping at night after Winter ordered him to fire at an Arab child – hoping the provocative statement would have Winter lose his cool and say something incriminating.

Drucker posted on his Facebook page that a soldier came to him and told him about such an incident, which of course was never confirmed but he ran with it anyway. Drucker is known for being left-wing, and vehemently opposed to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, whom he often targets in reports. The Prime Minister has commented on Drucker on more than one occasion, saying Channel 10 is known for its left-wing non-objective reporting.

Winter has been ‘marked’ since he spoke with his troops during the fighting in Gaza in the summer of 2014. A religious Jew, Winter dared to use the “G” word, mentioning HKBH to his troops and the concept for fighting for HKBH and Eretz HaKodesh, eliciting the ire of the left-wing and non-religious, who objected to an officer coercing his soldiers to hear about religion.

Since the Gaza war incident, Winter, a decorated combat officer, has had to fight for each promotion and despite now being a brigadier-general, it is clear to all the once promising candidate to become the first IDF Chief of Staff with a kippah will not have this option as he dared to speak out and mention HKBH, apparently disqualifying himself from that post in the future. In fact, it is officers like Winter, a graduate of the Bnei David Mechina, who threatens the secular good old boy network, the IDF, with his passion for Eretz Yisrael and life as a G-d observant Jew.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)