Environmental Protection Minister Amir Peretz is very concerned about the announcement of Chief of Staff Benny Gantz [June 3] regarding cancellation of operational activities of reserve soldiers until the end of the year as a result of the anticipated cutbacks to the defense budget.

Peretz has much experience in this sphere. When he served as defense minister in former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government (2006-09), he received a reserve force that was neglected and unfit for duty — only about two months before the eruption of the Second Lebanon War. In an interview with Al-Monitor, Peretz warns about a similar blow to the reserves deployment and warns that this could be one mistake too many, in light of a stormy Middle East. Peretz also admits that he is frustrated by the diplomatic "standstill" characterizing the government of which he is a member.

Do you think that the decision to cut back the reserve deployment budget is serious? It sounds like another attempt of the chief of staff to scare the public in order to avert the overall cut to the defense budget.

"The decisions to go back and make the reserve deployment a target for budgetary cutbacks is likely to create a slippery slope that will ultimately increase the risk level faced by the State of Israel. The Middle East is not a place in which we can safely predict when any specific conflict will erupt, therefore the defense establishment has to take into account what happened in the past. I am speaking from experience. One of the things that came to light in the Lebanon War was the difficult condition of the reserves deployment."