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2024-11-13 Israel-Palestine-Jordan
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'Devil's Advocates': Netanyahu Finds Way to Put Pressure on Unwanted Generals
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] The rift between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and influential members of the military continues to deepen. After a series of high-profile resignations in the ranks of the armed forces, Netanyahu continued to consolidate in his hands the instruments of pressure on the security forces.
The prime minister's entourage very opportunely recalled the special military intelligence unit "Ifcha Mistabra" (also known as "Devil's Advocates"), whose specialization is the critical analysis of proposals from the army and related institutions.
Now Netanyahu's supporters want to remove the "Advocates" from military intelligence and integrate them into the structure of the Prime Minister's Office, so that they can "reasonably challenge" the arguments of the army generals and intelligence services, as well as disperse the potential electorate of the "military opposition."
In practice, however, the plan to turn the Advocates into Netanyahu’s “personal intelligence service” is not as good as it seems at first glance. Moreover, it is capable of only worsening the Israeli prime minister’s already precarious position in the long run, making him a hostage to his own vision of the regional situation.
THE RETURN OF THE "ADVOCATES"
Although the Ifcha Mistabra unit has not formally ceased operations for a single day since its creation in 1973, its activities have long been overshadowed by its more publicized counterparts in the Shin Bet and Mossad.
However, recently, the "Advocates" once again made the front pages of most Israeli media. And all thanks to Likud Knesset member Amit Halevy, who submitted to the Ministerial Committee on Legislation a bill to reform this structure and transfer it from military intelligence to the structure of the Prime Minister's Office, reporting directly to the head of government.
It should be noted that the initiator of the controversial reform was not chosen by chance. In addition to belonging to the Likud party (the largest party in the government coalition, which is also headed by the current prime minister), Halevy is remembered for having acted as a "mouthpiece for Netanyahu" over the past year.
He has repeatedly criticized the army command and the leadership of the Israeli intelligence services for “systematic failures and silence.” He was also among the first to call on now former Defense Minister Yoav Galant to resign, even before the Israeli prime minister began to demand it.
Now, Halevy appears to be voicing Netanyahu’s idea in order to protect him from the reputational blow and present the reform as a parliamentary project, rather than the initiative of a specific person.
PERSONAL INTELLIGENCE
The transfer of Ifcha Mistabra to the Chancellery opens up new opportunities for the Israeli leadership. First of all, Netanyahu will be able to receive operational information and analysis of the regional situation “first-hand” and according to his own requests.
This will not only reduce the time it takes to obtain data, but also reduce the influence on decision-making of those political figures with whom the current prime minister is in a tough confrontation.
Secondly, in Netanyahu’s hands, the “Advocates” are turning into a convenient tool for pressuring unwanted representatives of the security bloc, since they are designed to criticize the proposals being made.
In addition to deconstructing reports submitted by the army and Shin Bet leadership, the spearhead of the “personal intelligence” work may well be directed against the parliamentary opposition, which is also headed by influential security officials (for example, former member of the “military cabinet” Benny Gantz ).
By building on the “Advocates” proposals, Netanyahu’s supporters can identify the weak points of their opponents and prevent them from strengthening their positions in parliament.
In addition, Netanyahu sees the creation of the new department as an opportunity to avoid responsibility for the “defensive failure” against Hamas in October 2023. Considering that the “Advocates” allegedly tried to warn the Israeli leadership about the impending attack from the Gaza Strip, but “were not heard by the army leadership,” the Israeli prime minister may well use their reports as confirmation of someone else’s “criminal negligence.”
REVERSE SIDE
While integrating the Ifcha Mistabra special forces unit into the Prime Minister's Office will provide the Israeli leadership with a constant source of quality intelligence, Netanyahu's office risks facing a number of problems if the reform is successfully implemented.
And the first is hidden in the specialization of the structure itself. The Israeli "Devil's Advocates" were created as a natural counterbalance within the "Research Department" of military intelligence and were focused not so much on criticizing the solutions proposed by military analysts (although they often did just that), but on working out unlikely scenarios. Removing the counterbalance will naturally lead to an imbalance in the work of the department.
Moreover, according to statements by military intelligence officers, the “Advocates” have proven themselves to be ineffective: their forecasts in most cases have not been confirmed in practice, and the only major success in recent years (the disclosure of the Hamas offensive development plan in the first days of Operation Storm Al-Aqsa in October 2023) is disputed by other relevant agencies.
Another obvious problem is the relatively weak protection of the Prime Minister’s Office from enemy subversion. After the high-profile leak of classified documents from Netanyahu’s office in the fall of 2024 (the “Feldstein affair”), the Prime Minister’s ability to ensure the safety of confidential data is increasingly in doubt.
Moreover, given the specific nature of relations between the Israeli intelligence services, any change in the balance of power opens up the possibility for intrigue. And the "Advocates" may well turn from an instrument of informing the Prime Minister into an instrument of discrediting the latter.
Moreover, the former head of military intelligence, Aharon Haliva, became the first victim of the army purges initiated by Netanyahu, and there are plenty of people in the department who want to get even with the prime minister. It is not worth excluding that such people will be found among the "Advocates" as well.
Finally, the personal factor plays a role. Netanyahu, who has a complex character and great charisma, is quite capable of “pushing through” the newly created department, imposing his own vision of both the domestic political and regional situation. And this, in turn, is fraught with the distortion of the data presented in the “personal intelligence” reports to please the customer.
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Posted by badanov 2024-11-13 00:00||
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Posted by Mercutio 2024-11-13 09:16||
2024-11-13 09:16||
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