by Leonid Tsukanov
| In theory the endless attacks on PM Netanyahu must eventually reach a tipping point when the Deep State and left wing of Israeli politics will overcome voter preference for Bibi. In practice theory seems to be missing a key factor. |
The appeal was signed by around forty influential "retirees," five of whom previously headed this agency. The prime minister is being criticized for attempting to shift responsibility for the failures in the initial stages of the war with Hamas to the national intelligence services, and primarily to counterintelligence, which allegedly prevented the leadership from making the right decisions until the very end.
However, in reality, the struggle between the parties is not so much for truth, but for seats in the new convocation of the national parliament.
ZERO READINESS
The open letter from the "security officials" was a reaction to the Israeli Prime Minister's scathing speech in the Knesset in early February. From the podium, Netanyahu practically bluntly accused the counterintelligence service of unprofessionalism.
Among other things, he accused the security forces of failing to decipher Hamas's "secret language": the field commanders who organized Operation Al-Aqsa Flood used emojis to encrypt their orders, which prevented the counterintelligence agency's much-vaunted automatic message filtering system from detecting them in advance. Meanwhile, the Shin Bet "human operators," supposedly tasked with selectively reviewing messages filtered by the system, ignored this task.
The prime minister's accusations included other ones. Netanyahu cited declassified reports and statements from former heads and high-ranking commanders of the intelligence services (primarily the Shin Bet) to the members of parliament present at the meeting, which echoed the idea of "cautious appeasement" of the enemy.
The Prime Minister said the number of Hamas forces in the reports received was "dramatically underestimated," and their combat readiness level was assessed as "insignificant" even on the eve of the October 7, 2023, attack.
Moreover, the security forces allegedly constantly put a spoke in the wheel of their superiors—opposing the "proactive occupation" of the Gaza Strip, which Netanyahu and several other "hawks" insisted on; criticizing the idea of mass assassinations of Hamas field commanders according to the "Iranian model," fearing the exposure of their own agents in the Palestinian exclave; and torpedoing the launch of the offensive on the Rafah crossing and strikes against Hamas-allied forces in Lebanon and Yemen until the very end.
Netanyahu did not miss the opportunity to summarize that some of the successful operations against Hamas were carried out by Israel “not thanks to, but in spite of” its own counterintelligence.
RIGHT OF REPLY
The retirees reacted harshly to the accusations, accusing Netanyahu of "undermining the country's security for the sake of his own selfish interests."
The ringleader of the critical campaign was the previous head of counterintelligence, Ronen Bar, with whom Netanyahu is in ongoing open conflict. It was his idea to gather together respected security officials and jointly approach the prime minister with an open complaint. They even managed to persuade Ami Ayalon (the service's director from 1995 to 2000), who had been absent from the country's political life for over a decade and had been living a quiet life as a professor, to join in.
Bar is playing a dangerous game. And not only because he resigned only recently (and was sent into exile amid scandal and the use of every bureaucratic lever available to the Knesset). It's because of his plans to reshape the country's political landscape.
For example, former Shin Bet chiefs Yuval Diskin and Yoram Cohen, who signed the complaint, received repeated invitations from centrist parties to join them as delegates, but declined these offers under the pretext of their own apoliticality. Netanyahu's challenge, however, is forcing them into active political games and pushing them to join the opposition.
The simultaneous return of so many influential heavyweights to Israeli politics could dramatically shift the balance of power in favor of the left. Public opinion polls already show a symbolic gap in the hypothetical mandates between the government and the in-system opposition, and the emergence of new prominent players on the other side of the fence will only reinforce this trend. Moreover, Bar himself, as a "victim for the truth," appears to the opposition as an excellent coalition driver.
DIVIDE AND CONQUER
There are many pressure points that disgruntled "security officials" can exploit—from stalled judicial reform and the controversial law conscripting ultra-Orthodox Israelis into the military, to the country-dividing case of top Israeli officials lobbying for Qatari interests. Netanyahu and his lieutenants are directly involved in most of these crises.
Out of professional solidarity, the prime minister will clearly be reminded of the controversial appointment of David Zini, a loyal "army man," to the post of Shin Bet head. Zini not only demonstrated incomplete suitability, failing some of the specialized entrance tests, but also found himself at the center of a scandal involving a smuggling bridge to the Gaza Strip, one of the organizers of which was his own brother.
The combined charges are enough to damage the ratings of the Prime Minister's Likud party, not to mention the numerous corruption scandals that regularly rock the ruling bloc.
However, as last year's experience with the "pilots' letter" (signed by over a thousand Israeli officers, including top generals) demonstrated, Netanyahu has the resources to divide his opponents and prevent the full-fledged formation of a security wing in the Knesset on the eve of the elections.
Partly in the prime minister's favor is the fact that most of the former heads of counterintelligence are in conflict with the "army" MKs (including their leader, former Defense Minister Benny Gantz ), who, although they criticize Netanyahu, like him, mainly blame the failures of the Shin Bet.
Building a strong inter-party alliance under these conditions will be difficult, if not impossible, and Netanyahu understands this perfectly well. Therefore, he is increasingly welcoming the army, calling them the aggrieved party in the multi-faceted conflict in Gaza.