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The silent type is better "In the silence that has reigned since the chief of staff put a stop to the public chattering of his top generals, one voice rings out loud and clear: the voice of the chief of staff. He talks too much. He says things he shouldn't say. He brings up issues he is not authorized to speak about. And he does it all so clumsily, in language that is awkward, unsubtle and altogether tactless. In short, he talks politics like a military man and is hardly the politician when it comes to the military." This is a quote from an article published in this newspaper on August 1, 1974 - same headline, same byline - after General Motta Gur appeared before the America-Israel Chamber of Commerce. As was customary in those days, the article was submitted to the military censor. To our great surprise, the censor banned it on the bizarre pretext that the chief of staff came out looking like an idiot. The editor of Ha'aretz in those days, Gershom Schocken, decided to publish it anyway - and ended up paying a big, fat fine. We don't have censorship anymore, but what has remained, passed down from generation to generation, is the babbling chief of staff. When Ezer Weizman was minister of defense, he replaced Gur with Raful because he said he was tired of talkative chiefs of staff. "I want a quiet one," he said. In fact, Raful's speech at his inauguration was only 16 words long. But that was his last short speech. Raful soon become one of our biggest talkers, and even worse than that - one of the most political chiefs of staff we've ever had. It's hardly a month since Moshe Ya'alon was sworn in, but one already has the feeling he is following in the footsteps of his predecessors and may even win the championship. In his first public appearance - at a Chief Rabbinate convention, a weird choice in itself for a debut - and in his first exclusive interview with Ari Shavit (published in Ha'aretz Magazine), Ya'alon was chock full of complaints about politicians, the media and dark forces trying to "undermine" him, all of this causing him terrible frustration. Ya'alon, who looks like a fearless soldier, tough as a rock, turns out to be as fragile as a mimosa plant. In the Shavit interview, he complains about people badmouthing the IDF and attacking him personally. "This is intolerable behavior," he says. "You stand there, trying to brace yourself, and they shoot at you from all directions ... It's driving me stark raving mad." With an army chief so sensitive, it is hard not to think of President Truman's famous advice about staying out of the kitchen if you can't take the heat. In his meetings with the rabbis and Shavit, it emerged that his two main concerns as chief of staff are Palestinian terror, which he likens to cancer, and portrays as a threat to our survival as great as the War of Independence; and Israeli society's lack of stamina, which he says is a weapon in the hands of the Palestinians. Not everyone will agree with him that the Israeli public is as weak as he describes it, but his appeal to the rabbis to strengthen Israeli society was rather odd. What does he expect them to do? Recruit another 100,000 healthy young men to study in yeshivas and die in the tents of Torah? Gur already scolded us about Israel's lack of stamina 28 years ago: "In order to overcome the Arabs, the people of Israel have to change the way they feel inside." Come off it. The people of Israel's feelings are not that baseless. It wasn't so back then, when the army failed to predict or make preparations for the Yom Kippur War, and it isn't so today, with the army miscalculating the extent of terror and having no idea how to eradicate it. The Palestinians have gone and spoiled our military tradition of short wars that move quickly to enemy territory. In principle, Ya'alon is right when he says that withdrawing unilaterally and surrendering to terror is out of the question. On the other hand, it is not clear how he expects to wipe out the terror he describes as cancerous, knowing full well that cancer is a terminal disease. In any case, deciding what to do and how is in the hands of the political echelons. If the chief of staff has any ideas or advice, he should be talking to the government - not to rabbis. It is not his job to preach to the public, the media and the politicians. His mind should be on running the army and patching up the damage it has done with its endless bungles. Let him use his rhetorical skills on the army. From his public appearances until now, it seems pretty clear: Better a silent chief of staff than a big talker. By Yoel Marcus